74

THE TEMPLE OF FAME

Aronnd tlie flirine itfelf of Fame they fland, 180Hold the chief honours, and the fane command.High on the firft, the mighty Homer flione;Eternal adamant compos’d his throne;

Father of verfe! in holy fillets dreft,

Kis filver beard wav’d gently o’er his breaft; 18STho’ blind, a boldnefs in his looks appears;

In years he feem’d, but not impair’d by years.The wars of Troy were round the Pillar feen:Here fierce Tydides wounds the Cyprian Queen;

NOTES.

I own T have fome particular reafons for thinking that our authorwas not very converfant in this fort of compoGtion, having no incli*nation to the drama. In a note on the third book of his Homer *where Helen point* out to Priam the names and characters of theGiccian leaders from the wall* of Troy, he obferves, that feverrd greatpoets have been engaged by the beauty of this paffage to an imitationofit But who are the poets he enumerates on this occaGon ? OnlyStatius and Taffo ; ihe former of whom, in his feveoth book, andthe latter in hi* third, (hews the foices and the commanders thatin vetted the cities of Thebes aad Jerufalcm. Not a fyliable is mentionedof mat capital feeue in the Phceuiffse of Euripides , from the hundredand twentieth to the two hundredth line, where the old man (landingwith Antigone on the walls of Thebes , marks out to her the variousfigures, habits, armour, and qualLGcatious of each different warrior,in the mrft lively and pidurcfque manner, as they appear in thecamp beneath them.

Ver. 188. The wars of Troj ] The poems of Homer afford amarvellous variety of fubjeffs proper for hiftory-paituing. A veryingenious French nobleman, the Count de Caylu*, has lately printeda valuable treatife, entitled,Tableaux tire* de I'lliade, et derOdyffee d'Homere j" in which lie has exhibitedthe whole feries of

IMITATIONS.

Ver. 182.]

“ Full wouder hye on a pillere11 Of iron, he the great O mer,

“ And with him Dares aud Titus,” etc.

P.