The greatest modern critics have laid it down as a rule that an
heroic poem should be founded upon some important precept of
morality adapted to the constitution of the country in which the
poet writes. Homer and Virgil have formed their plans in this view.
As Greece was a collection of many governments, who suffered very
much among themselves, and gave the Persian emperor, who was their
common enemy, many advantages over them by their mutual jealousies
and animosities, Homer, in order to establish among them an union
which was so necessary for their safety, grounds his poem upon the
discords of the several Grecian princes who were engaged in a
confederacy against an Asiatic prince, and the several advantages
which the enemy gained by such discords. At the time the poem we
are now treating of was written, the dissensions of the barons, who
were then so many petty princes, ran very high, whether they
quarrelled among themselves or with their neighbours, and produced
unspeakable calamities to the country. The poet, to deter men from
such unnatural contentions, describes a bloody battle and dreadful
scene of death, occasioned by the mutual feuds which reigned in the
families of an English and Scotch nobleman. That he designed this
for the instruction of his poem we may learn from his four last
lines, in which, after the example of the modern tragedians, he
draws from it a precept for the benefit of his readers:
God save the king, and bless the land
In plenty, joy, and peace;
And grant henceforth that foul debate
'Twixt noblemen may cease.
Pages:
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122