common, but for men of the first rank of fame to be delinquent also, is, I own, surprizing.
The reflecting reader need scarcely be informed, that this contested excellence can be decided in favour of neither. They have both copied from different originals, described the manners of different ages, have exhibited nature as they found her, and both are excellent in separate imitations. Homer describes his Gods as his countrymen believed them. Virgil, in a more enlightened age, describes his with a greater degree of respect; and Milton still rises infinitely above either. The machinery of Homer is best adapted to an unenlightened idolator; that of the Roman poet, to a more refined heathen; and that of Milton, to a reader illuminated by re-velation.
