To begin then with Grandsire Homer, this may be added to the particular
Remarks that have been already made. I think none will deny but the
Disposition of his Iliads, is so truly admirable, so regular, and exact,
that one would be apt to think he wrote his Poem by Aristotle's Rules, and
not Aristotle his Rules by his Poem. I confess, I once thought that he had
been oblig'd to his Commentators for most of the Beauties they celebrated
in him; but I am now, on a nearer view, so well satisfied to the contrary,
that I can ne'er think his Poem writ by piece-meal, without any Connexion
or Dependance: wherein Dionysius the Halicarnassian very justly praises
the Order and Management of the Design, as well as the Grandeur and
Magnificence of the Expression, and the sweet and passionate Movements.
Nor is it without Reason that Horace, Longinus, and all Antiquity have
given him, as the Model of just and noble Sentiments and Expressions.
I must confess there's something in his Numbers that strikes me more than
even Virgil's, his Thoughts and Expressions appear stronger than his, tho'
it cannot be denied but that Virgil's Design is much more regular. Rapin
says a great deal of that Prince of the Latin Poets, tho' indeed he can
never say enough, "He had an admirable Taste, says he, of what's natural,
an excellent Judgment for the Order, and an incomparable Delicacy for the
Number and Harmony of his Versification." And adds, "That the Design of
the Poem is, if we consider it in all its Circumstances, the most
judicious and best-laid that ever was or ever will be." There is indeed a
prodigious Variety in Virgil, and yet the same Soul visible in every Line.
His own great Spirit informs his Poetical World, and like that he speaks
of,

---- totos infusa per Artus
Mens agitat Molem, & magno se corpora miscet.

He's soft with the height of Majesty, his Marcellus, his Dido, and, I