The very heroes show their authors; Achilles is hot, impatient,
revengeful, _Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer,_ &c. Aeneas
patient, considerate, careful of his people, and merciful to his
enemies; ever submissive to the will of heaven, _quo fata trahunt,
retrahuntque, sequamur_. I could please myself with enlarging on this
subject, but am forced to defer it to a fitter time. From all I have
said I will only draw this inference, that the action of Homer being
more full of vigour than that of Virgil, according to the temper of
the writer, is of consequence more pleasing to the reader. One warms
you by degrees; the other sets you on fire all at once, and never
intermits his heat. 'T is the same difference which Longinus makes
betwixt the effects of eloquence in Demosthenes and Tully. One
persuades, the other commands. You never cool while you read Homer,
even not in the second book (a graceful flattery to his countrymen);
but he hastens from the ships, and concludes not that book till he has
made you an amends by the violent playing of a new machine.
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