The ARGUMENT. The Acts of Diomed.. DIOMED, affifted by Pallas, performs wonders in this day's battle. Pandarus wounds him with an arrow, but the Goddefs cures him, enables him to difcern Gods from mortals, and prohibits him from contending with any of the former, excepting Venus. Æneas joins Pandarus to oppofe him; Pandarus is killed, and Æneas in great danger but for the affiftance of Venus; who, as she is removing her Jon from the fight, is wounded on the hand by Diomed. Apollo feconds her in his rescue, and at length carries off Æneas to Troy, where he is healed in the temple of Pergamus. Mars rallies the Trojans, and affifts Hector to make a ftand. In the mean time Æneas is restored to the field, and they overthrow Jeveral of the Greeks; among the rest Tlepolemus is fain by Sarpedon. Juno and Minerva defcend to refift Mars; the latter incites Diomed to go against that God; he wounds him, and fends him groaning to heaven. The firft battle continues through this book. The scene is the fame as in the former. THE BUT Pallas now Tydides foul inspires, Fills with her force, and warms with all her fires, Above the Greeks his deathlefs fame to raise, And crown her Hero with distinguish'd praise. High V. . But Pallas now, &c.] As in every juft hiftory. picture there is one principal figure, to which all the reft refer and are fubfervient; fo in each battle of the Iliad there is one principal perfon that may properly be called the Hero of that day or action. This conduct preferves the unity of the piece, and keeps the imagination from being distracted and confused with a wild number of independent figures, which have no fubordination to each other. To make this probable, Homer. fuppofes these extraordinary meafures of courage to be the immediate gift of the Gods; who bestow them fometimes upon one, fometimes upon another, as they think fit to make them the inftruments of their defigns; an opinion conformable to true theology. Whoever reflects upon this, will not blame our Author for reprefeating the fame heroes brave at one time, and dif A 3 pirited High on his helm celeftial lightnings play, 5 Th pirited at another; juft as the Gods affift, or abandon'them, on different occafions. V. 1. Tydides] That we may enter into the fpirit and beauty of this book, it will be proper to fettle the true character of Diomed, who is the hero of it. Achilles is no fooner retired, but Homer railes his other Greeks to fupply his abfence; like ftars that shine each in his due revolution, till the principal hero rifes again, and eclipfes all others. As Diomed is the firft in this office, he feems to have more of the character of Achilles than any befides. He has naturally an excefs of boldness, and too much fury in his temper, forward and intrepid like the other, and running after Gods or men promifcuoufly as they offer themfelves. But what differences his character is, that he is foon reclaimed by advice, hears thofe that are more experienced, and in a word, obeys Minerva in all things. He is affifted by the patronefs of wifdom and arms, as he is eminent both for prudence and valour. That which characterizes his prucence, is a quick fagacity and prefence of mind in all emergencies, and an undisturbed readinefs in the very article of danger. And what is particular in his valour, is agreeable to thefe qualities, his actions being always performed with remarkable dexterity, activity, and difpatch. As the gentle and manageable turn of his mind feems drawn with an oppofition to the boifterous temper of Achilles, fo his bodily excellencies feen defigued as in contraft to thofe of Ajax, who appears with great ftrength, but heavy and unwieldy. As he is forward to act in the field, fo is he ready to fpeak in the council: but 'us obfervable that, his councils ftill incline to war, and are byafo'd rather on the fide of bravery than caution. Thus he advifes to reject the propofals of the Trojans in the feventh book, and not to accept of Helen herfelf, though Paris fhould offer her. In the ninth he oppofes Agamemnon's propofition to return to Greece, in fo ftrong a manner, as to declare he will ftay and continue the fiege himfelf, if the General fhould depart. And thus he hears without concern Achilles's refufal of a reconciliation, and doubts not to be able to carry on the war without Th' unweary'd blaze inceffant ftreams fupplies, When him. As for his private character he appears a gallant lover of hofpitality in his behaviour to Glaucus in the fixth book; a lover of wifdom in his affiftance of Neftor in the eighth, and his choice of Ulyffes to accompany him in the tenth; upon the whole, an open fincere friend, and a generous enemy. The wonderful actions he performs in this battle, feem to be the effect of a noble refentment at the reproach he had received from Agamemnon in the foregoing book, to which thefe deeds are the answer. He becomes immediately the fecond hero of Greece,and dreaded equally with Achilles by the Trojans. At the first fight of him his enemies make a question whether he is a man or a God? Eneas and Pandarus go against him, whofe approach terrifies Sthenelus, and the apprehenfion of fo great a warrior marvellously exalts the intrepidity of Diomed. Aneas himfelf is not faved but by the interpofing of a Deity: He purfues and wounds that Deity, and Eneas again escapes only by the help of a fronger power, Apollo. He attempts Apollo too, retreats not till the God threatens him in. his own voice, and even then retreats but a few fteps. When he fees Hector and Mars himself in open arms against him, he had not retired though he was wounded, but in obedience to Minerva, and then retires with his face toward them. But as foon as he permits him to engage with that God, he conquers and fends him groaning to heaven. What invention and what conduct appears in this whole epifode? What boldness in raifing a character to fuch a pitch, and what judgment in railing it by fuch degrees? While the moft daring flights of poetry are employed to move our admiration, and at the fame time the jufteft and clofeft allegory, to reconcile thofe flights to moral truth and probability? It may be farther remarked, that the high degree to which Homer elevates this character, enters into the principal: defign of his whole poem; which is to fhew, that the greatest perfonal qualities and forces are of no effect, when union is wanting among the chief rulers, and that: nothing can avail till they are reconciled fo as to act in Concert. A 4 V. 5. High When fresh he rears his radiant orb to fight, V. 5. High on his helm celeftial lightnings play.] This beautiful paffage gave occafion to Zoilus for an infipid piece of raillery, who afked how it happened that the hero efcaped burning by the fe fires that continually broke from his armour? Euftathius answers, that there are feveral examples in hiftory, of fires being feen to break forth from human bodies, as prefages of greatnefs and glory. Among the reft, Plutarch, in the life of Alexander, defcribes his helmet much in this manner. This is enough to warrant the fiction ; and were there no fuch example, the fame author fays very well, that the imagination of a poet is not to be confined to frict phyfical truths. But all objections may easily be removed, if we confider it as done by Minerva, who had determined this day to rdife Diomed above all the he roes, and caufed his apparition to render him formidable. The power of a God makes it not only allowable, but highly noble, and greatly imagined by Homer; as well as correfpondent to a miracle in holy fcripture, where Mofes is defcribed with a glory fhining on his face at his defcent from mount Sinai; a parallel which Spondanus has taken notice of. Virgil was too fenfible of the beauty of this paffage not to imitate it, and it must be owned he has furpaffed his original. Ardet apex capiti, criftifque ac vertice flamma En. x. v. 270. In Homer's comparifon there is no other circumftance alluded to but that of a remarkable brightness: Whereas Virgil's comparifon, befides this, feems to foretel the immenfe flaughter his hero was to make, by comparing him firth to a comet, which is vulgarly imagined a prognoftic, if not the real caufe, of fuch mifery to mankind; and again to the dog-far, which appearing with the greatest brightnefs in the latter end of fummer, is fup pofed |