who were chang'd into Brutes by Circe: And a great many other points of Morality necessary for all sorts of People.
This Poem is more useful to the Vulgar, than the Iliad is, where the Subjects suffer rather by the ill Conduct of their Princes, than through their own fault. But in the Odysseïs, 'tis not the Fault of Ulysses that is the ruin of his Subjects. This wise Prince did all he could to make them sharers in the Benefit of his Return. Thus the Poet in the Iliad says, He sings the Anger of Achilles, which "had caus'd the Death of so many Grecians;" and on the contrary, in the [1]Odysseïs he tells his Readers, "That the Subjects perish'd through their own fault."
Notwithstanding it is to be confess'd, that these great Names of Kings, Hero's, Achilles, Agamemnon, and Ulysses, do no less denote the meanest Burghers, than they do the Cæsars, the Pompeys, and the Alexanders of the Age. The Commonalty are as subject as the Grandees, to lose their Estates, and ruin their Families by Anger and Divisions, by negligence and want of taking care of their business. They stand in as much need of Homer's Lessons, as Kings; they are as capable of profiting thereby; and 'tis as well for the Small as the Great, that the Morality of the Schools, that of the Fable, and that of the Chair deliver those Truths we have been just speaking of.
CHAP. XI.
Of the Fable of the Æneid.
In the Fable of the Æneid we are not to expect that simplicity, which Aristotle esteem'd so Divine in Homer. But tho' the Fortune of the Roman Empire envied the Poet this Glory, yet the vast extent of the Matter it furnishes him with, starts up such difficulties as require more Spirit and Conduct, and has put us upon saying that there is something in the Æneid more Noble than in the Iliad These very difficulties we are to solve, and they call upon us for our utmost care and attention.
There was a great deal of difference between the Greeks and the Romans. These last were under no obligation, as were the former, either of living in separated and independent States; or of frequent confederating together against the common Enemy. If in this respect, we would compare our two Poets together, Virgil had but one Poem to make, and this ought to be more like the Odysseïs than the Iliad, since the Roman State was govern'd by only one Prince.
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