THE TEMPLE OF FAME.

75

Here He£lor glorious from Patroclus ’ fall, 190Here dragg’d in triumph round the Trojan wall;M ut:on and life did ev’ry part infpire,

Bold was the work, and prov’d the mailer’s fire ;A ftrong expreffion mod he feem’d t’ affeft,

And here and there difclos’d a brave negleft. lg5

NOTES.

event* contained in thefe poems, arranged in their proper order;hasdeligocd each piece, and difpofed each figure, with much tafteand judgement. He feems jufily to wonder, that artifts have fofclaom bad iccourfc to this great ftore-houfe of beautiful and nobleimages, fo proper for the employment of the pencils, and deliveredwith fo much force and diflin&nefs, that the painter has nothing todo but to fubfliiute his colours for the words of Homer . He com*plains that a Raphael, and a Julio Romano , Giould copy the,crudeand unuatural conceptions of Ovid ’s Metamorphofes and Apulcius’sAfs ; and that fome of their facred fubje&s were ill-ckofen. Amongthe few who borrowrd their fubjc&s from Homer , he mentionsBouchardoo with the honour he deferves, and relates the followinganecdote : This great artift having lately read Homer in an old

asd detcflable French tranfUtion, came one day to me, his eyesfparkl’nii with fije, and faid, 1 Since I have read this book, men feemto be fifteen feet high, and alt nature is enlarged in my fight.’*

Pope has fele&ed from Homer only three fubjc&s as the tnoftinuieftit'g: Oiomed wounding Venus, He&or flaying Patroclus ,and the fame He&or dragged along at the wh iels of Achilles ’s chariot.Are thefc ihe raoft affecting and finking incidents of the Iliad ? Butit is highly worth remarking, that this very incident of dragging thebody of He&or thrice round the walls of Troy is abfolulely notid emioued by Homer , Bavle has remarked this ; and Hcyne acknow-ledges the truth of the remark, and thinks that Virgil, for he firftmentioned it.

Ter circura Iliacos raplavcrat He&ora muros.

B. i. v. 483.'

adopted the circumtUnee from fome Greek tragedy on the fubjed.A following line in Virgil, which is indeed taken from Homer , fur-niihts a noble fubj-d* for fculptu-c :

leiide’-. u mqui* man us I’namum confpexit inermes.

Vm iyj. A Jtrcng rjjion mojl he Jeem'd t'ajfeft*

A-id hers an tnere difdas'd a have ntgUS.]

To the lublimc. as in great affluence of fortune, fome minute andunimportant articles will unavoidably efcape obfervation. But it is