The six latter books of Virgil's poem are the four and twenty
Iliads contracted; a quarrel occasioned by a lady, a single combat,
battles fought, and a town besieged. I say not this in derogation to
Virgil, neither do I contradict anything which I have formerly said
in his just praise: for his Episodes are almost wholly of his own
invention; and the form which he has given to the telling, makes the
tale his own, even though the original story had been the same. But
this proves, however, that Homer taught Virgil to design; and if
invention be the first virtue of an Epic poet, then the Latin poem can
only be allowed the second place. Mr. Hobbes, in the preface to his
own bald translation of the _Ilias_ (studying poetry as he did
mathematics, when it was too late), Mr. Hobbes, I say, begins the
praise of Homer where he should have ended it. He tells us that the
first beauty of an Epic poem consists in diction, that is, in the
choice of words, and harmony of numbers; now the words are the colouring
of the work, which in the order of nature is the last to be considered.
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