The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light;
So many fires before proud Ilion blaze,
And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays.
--Iliad, B. VIII. POPE'S Trans.

Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, is said to have declared of the
two great epics of Homer:

Read Homer once, and you can read no more,
For all books else appear so mean, so poor;
Verse will seem prose; but still persist to read,
And Homer will be all the books you need.

The following characterization, from the pen of HENRY NELSON
COLERIDGE, is both true and pleasing:

"There are many hearts and minds to which one of these matchless
poems will be more delightful than the other; there are many to
which both will give equal pleasure, though of different kinds;
but there can hardly be a person, not utterly averse to the Muses,
who will be quite insensible to the manifold charms of one or the
other. The dramatic action of the Iliad may command attention
where the diffused narrative of the Odyssey would fail to do so;
but how can anyone, who loves poetry under any shape, help
yielding up his soul to the virtuous siren-singing of Genius and
Truth, which is forever resounding from the pages of either of
These marvelous and truly immortal poems? In the Iliad will be
found the sterner lessons of public justice or public expedience,
and the examples are for statesmen and generals; in the Odyssey