100
Proofs of the Enquiry into
Sect. XII.
Among the other Reasons which Horace gives why Homer is so much read and admired, this is one, That he goes not too far back for a tedious Introduction to his Subject j but is still hastening to a Conclusion : A 306. («) 3 ' 7- (b>
To sing thesafe Return of Tydeus' Son, Hesets not out with Meleager'j Death ; Nor from the Egg, whence the twin BrotherJ sprung, Deduces hefarfetch'd the War of Troy.
—
'
Whereas the Little Iliad, a Poem so called (made up of all the traditional Stories that could be scraped together concerning the Tro jan War, not related in the Iliad and Odyjfey) being composed of so many detached Pieces, without a Plan, or fngle Action to connect them, afforded Subjects for eight or ten dif ferent Poems of the dramatic kind. ' Such
- as The judgment of the Arms, Philoc* TETES,
NEOPTOLEMUS, ElJRYPYLUS, ' the Beggars, the Lacedemonian Ladies,
- the Destruction of Troy, the Departure of
- the Ships, Sinon, and the Trojan-Cap* TIVIS.'
Aristotle.
Nothing