The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell/Life of Zoilus
THE LIFE OF ZOILUS.
AND HIS REMARKS ON HOMER'S BATTLE
OF THE FROGS AND MICE.
Vide quam iniqui sunt divinorum munerum æstimatores.
etiam quidam professi sapientiam.—Seneca.
PREFACE.
Having some time ago heard, that the translation of Homer's Iliad would be attempted, I resolved to confer with the gentleman who undertook it. I found him of a tall presence and thoughtful countenance, with his hands folded, his eyes fixed, and his beard un trimmed. This I took to be a good omen, because he thus resembled the Constantinopolitan statue of Homer, which Cedrenus describes; and surely nothing could have been liker, had he but arrived at the character of age and blindness. As my business was to be my introduction, I told him how much I was acquainted with the secret history of Homer; that no one better knows his own horse, than I do the camel of Bactria, in which his soul resided at the time of the Trojan wars; that my acquaintance continued with him, as he appeared in the person of the Grecian poet; that I knew him in his next transmigration into a peacock; was pleased with his return to manhood, under the name of Ennius at Rome; and more pleased to hear he would soon revive under another name, with all his full lustre, in England. This particular knowledge, added I, which sprung from the love I bear him, has made me fond of a conversation with you, in order to the success of your translation.
The civil manner in which he received my proposal encouraging me to proceed, I told him, there were arts of success, as well as merits to obtain it; and that he, who now dealt in Greek, should not only satisfy himself with being a good Grecian, but also contrive to hasten into the repute of it. He might therefore write in the title-page, translated from the original Greek, and select a motto for his purpose out of the same language. He might obtain a copy of verses written in it to prefix to the work; and not call the titles of each book, the first and second, but Iliad Alpha, and Beta. He might retain some names which the world is least acquainted with, as his old translator Chapman uses Ephaistus instead of Vulcan, Baratrum for Hell; and if the notes were filled with Greek verses, it would more increase the wonder of many readers. Thus I went on; when he told me smiling, I had shown him indeed a set of arts very different from merit, for which reason, he thought, he ought not to depend upon them. A success, says he, founded on the ignorance of others, may bring a temporary advantage, but neither a conscious satisfaction, nor future fame to the author. Men of sense despise the affectation which they easily see through, and even they who were dazzled with it at first, are no sooner informed of its being an affectation, but they imagine it also a veil to cover imperfection.
The next point I ventured to speak on, was the sort of poetry he intended to use; how some may fancy, a poet of the greatest fire would be imitated better in the freedom of blank verse, and the description of war sounds more pompous out of rhyme. But, will the translation, said he, be thus removed enough from prose, without greater inconveniences? What transpositions is Milton forced to, as an equivalent for want of rhyme, in the poetry of a language which depends upon a natural order of words? And even this would not have done his business, had he not given the fullest scope to his genius, by choosing a subject upon which there could be no hyperboles. We see (however he be deservedly successful) that the ridicule of his manner succeeds better than the imitation of it; because transpositions, which are unnatural to a language, are to be fairly derided, if they ruin it by being frequently introduced; and because hyperboles, which outrage every lesser subject where they are seriously used, are often beautiful in ridicule. Let the French, whose language is not copious, translate in prose; but ours, which exceeds it in copiousness of words, may have a more frequent likeness of sounds, to make the unison or rhyme easier; a grace of music, that atones for the harshness our consonants and monosyllables occasion.
After this, I demanded what air he would appear with? whether antiquated, like Chapman's version, or modern, like La Motte's contraction. To which he answered, by desiring me to observe what a painter does who would always have his pieces in fashion. He neither chooses to draw a beauty in a ruff, or a French head; but with its neck uncovered, and in its natural ornament of hair curled up, or spread becomingly: so may a writer choose a natural manner of expressing himself, which will always be in fashion, without affecting to borrow an odd solemnity and unintelligible pomp from the past times, or humouring the present by falling into its affectations, and those phrases which are born to die with it.
I asked him, lastly, whether he would be strictly literal, or expatiate with further licenses? I would not be literal, replies he, or tied up to line for line in such a manner wherein it is impossible to express in one language what has been delivered in another. Neither would I so expatiate, as to alter my author's sentiments, or add others of my own. These errors are to be avoided on either hand, by adhering not only to the word, but the spirit and genius of an author; by considering what he means, with what beautiful manner he has expressed his meaning in his own tongue, and how he would have expressed himself, had it been in ours. Thus we ought to seek for Homer in a version of Homer. Other attempts are but transformations of him; such as Ovid tells us, where the name is retained, and the thing altered. This will be really what you mentioned in the compliment you began with, a transmigration of the poet from one country to another.
Here ended the serious part of our conference. All I remember further was, that having asked him, what he designed with all those editions and comments I observed in his room? he made answer, that if any one, who had a mind to find fault with his performance, would but stay until it was entirely finished, he should have a very cheap bargain of them.
Since this discourse, I have often resolved to try what it was to translate in the spirit of a writer, and at last chose the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, which is ascribed to Homer; and bears a nearer resemblance to his Iliad, than the Culex does to the Æneid of Virgil. Statius and others think it a work of youth, written as a prelude to his greater poems. Chapman thinks it the work of his age, after he found men ungrateful; to show he could give strength, lineage, and fame, as he pleased, and praise a mouse as well as a man. Thus, says he, the poet professedly flung up the world, and applied himself at last to hymns. Now, though this reason of his may be nothing more than a scheme formed out of the order in which Homer's works are printed, yet does the conjecture, that this poem was written after the Iliad, appear probable, because of its frequent allusions to that poem; and particularly that there is not a frog or a mouse killed, which has not its parallel instance there, in the death of some warrior or other.
The poem itself is of the epic kind; the time of its action the duration of two days; the subject (however in its nature frivolous, or ridiculous) raised, by having the most shining words and deeds of gods and heroes accommodated to it: and while other poems often compare the illustrious exploits of great men to those of brutes, this always heightens the subject by comparisons drawn from things above it. We have a great character given it with respect to the fable in Gaddius de Script, non Eccles. It appears, says he, nearer perfection than the Iliad, or Odysses, and excels both in judgment, wit, and exquisite texture, since it is a poem perfect in its own kind. Nor does Crusius speak less to its honour, with respect to the moral, when he cries out in an apostrophe to the reader; "Whoever you are, mind not the names of these little animals, but look into the things they mean; call them men, call them kings, or counsellors, or human polity itself, you have here doctrines of every sort." And indeed, when I hear the frog talk concerning the mouse's family, I learn, equality should be observed in making friendships; when I hear the mouse answer the frog, I remember, that a similitude of manners should be regarded in them; when I see their councils assembling, I think of the bustles of human prudence; and when I see the battle grow warm and glorious, our struggles for honour and empire appear before me.
This piece had many imitations of it in antiquity, as the fight of the cats, the cranes, the starlings, the spiders, &c. That of the cats is in the Bodleian Library, but I was not so lucky as to find it. I have taken the liberty to divide my translation into books (though it be otherwise in the original) according as the fable allowed proper resting places, by varying its scene, or nature of action: this I did, after the example of Aristarchus and Zenodotus in the Iliad. I then thought of carrying the grammarians' example further, and placing arguments at the head of each, which I framed as follows, in imitation of the short ancient Greek inscriptions to the Iliad.
BOOK I.
Of the quarrel is found.
BOOK II.
The council see.
BOOK III.
The work of the fates.
But as I am averse from all information which lessens our surprise, I only mention these for a handle to quarrel with the custom of long arguments before a poem. It may be necessary in books of controversy or abstruse learning, to write an epitome before each part; but it is not kind to forestall us in the work of fancy, and make our attention remiss, by a previous account of the end of it.
The next thing which employed my thoughts was the heroes' names. It might perhaps take off somewhat from the majesty of the poem, had I cast away such noble sounds as, Physignathus, Lychopinax, and Crambophagus, to substitute Bluff-cheek, Lick-dish, and Cabbage-eater, in their places. It is for this reason I have retained them untranslated: however, I place them in English before the poem, and sometimes give a short character extracted out of their names; as in Polyphonus, Pternophagus, &c, that the reader may not want some light of their humour in the original.
But what gave me a greater difficulty was, to know how I should follow the poet, when he inserted pieces of lines from his Iliad, and struck out a sprightliness by their new application. To supply this in my translation, I have added one or two of Homer's particularities; and used two or three allusions to some of our English poets who most resemble him, to keep up some image of this spirit of the original with an equivalent beauty. To use more, might make my performance seem a cento rather than a translation, to those who know not the necessity I lay under.
I am not ignorant, after all my care, how the world receives the best compositions of this nature. A man need only go to a painter's, and apply what he hears said of a picture to a translation, to find how he shall be used upon his own, or his author's account. There one spectator tells you, a piece is extremely fine, but he sets no value on what is not like the face it was drawn for; while a second informs you, such another is extremely like, but he cares not for a piece of deformity, though its likeness be never so exact.
Yet notwithstanding all which happens to the best, when I translate, I have a desire to be reckoned amongst them; and I shall obtain this, if the world will be so good natured as to believe writers that give their own characters: upon which presumption, I answer to all objections beforehand, as follows:
When I am literal, I regard my author's words; when I am not, I translate in his spirit. If I am low, I choose the narrative style; if high, the subject required it. When I am enervate, I give an instance of ancient simplicity; when affected, I show a point of modern delicacy. As for beauties, there never can be one found in me which was not really intended; and for any faults, they proceeded from too unbounded fancy, or too nice judgment, but by no means from any defect in either of those faculties.
THE LIFE OF ZOILUS.
Pendentem volo Zoilum videre.—Martial.
They who have discoursed concerning the nature and extent of criticism, take notice, that editions of authors, the interpretations of them, and the judgment which is passed upon each, are the three branches into which the art divides itself. But the last of these, that directs in the choice of books, and takes care to prepare us for reading them, is by the learned Bacon called the chair of the critics. In this chair (to carry on the figure) have sate Aristotle, Demetrius Phalereus, Dionysius Halicarnassensis, Cicero, Horace, Quintilian, and Longinus; all great names of antiquity, the censors of those ages which went before, and the directors of those that come after them, with respect to the natural and perspicuous manners of thought and expression, by which a correct and judicious genius may be able to write for the pleasure and profit of mankind.
But whatever has been advanced by men really great in themselves, has been also attempted by others of capacities either unequal to the undertaking, or which have been corrupted by their passions, and drawn away into partial violences: so that we have sometimes seen the province of criticism usurped, by such who judge with an obscure diligence, and a certain dryness of understanding, incapable of comprehending a figurative style, or being moved by the beauties of imagination; and at other times by such, whose natural moroseness in general, or particular designs of envy, has rendered them indefatigable against the reputation of others.
In this last manner is Zoilus represented to us by antiquity, and with a character so abandoned, that his name has been since made use of to brand all succeeding critics of his complexion. He has a load of infamy thrown upon him, great, in proportion to the fame of Homer, against whom he opposed himself: if the one was esteemed as the very residence of wit, the other is described as a profligate, who would destroy the temple of Apollo and the Muses, in order to have his memory preserved by the envious action. I imagine it may be no ungrateful undertaking to write some account of this celebrated person, from whom so many derive their character; and I think the life of a critic is not unseasonably put before the works of his poet, especially when his censures accompany him. If what he advances be just, he stands here as a censor; if otherwise, he appears as an addition to the poet's fame, and is placed before him with the justice of antiquity in its sacrifices, when, because such a beast had offended such a deity, he was brought annually to his altar to be slain upon it.
Zoilus was born at Amphipolis, a city of Thrace, during the time in which the Macedonian empire flourished. Who his parents were, is not certainly known; but if the appellation of Thracian Slave, which the world applied to him, be not merely an expression of contempt, it proves him of mean extraction. He was a disciple of one Polycrates a sophist, who had distinguished himself by writing against the great names of the ages before him; and who, when he is mentioned as his master, is said to be particularly famous for a bitter accusation or invective against the memory of Socrates. In this manner is Zoilus set out to posterity, like a plant naturally baneful, and having its poison rendered more acute and subtle by a preparation.
In his person he was tall and meagre, his complexion was pale, and all the motions of his face were sharp. He is represented by Ælian, with a beard nourished to a prodigious length, and his head kept close shaved, to give him a magisterial appearance: his coat hung over his knees, in a slovenly fashion; his manners were formed upon an aversion to the customs of the world. He was fond of speaking ill, diligent to sow dissension, and from the constant bent of his thought, had obtained that sort of readiness for slander or reproach, which is esteemed wit by the light opinion of some, who take the remarks of ill-nature, for an understanding of mankind, and the abrupt lashes of rudeness for the spirit of expression. This, at last, grew to such a heighth in him, that he became careless of concealing it; he threw off all reserves and managements in respect of others, and the passion so far took the turn of a frenzy, that being one day asked, why he spoke ill of every one? "It is," says he, "because I am not able to do them ill, though I have so great a mind to it." Such extravagant declarations of his general enmity made men deal with him as with the creature he affected to be; they no more spoke of him as belonging to the species he hated; and from henceforth his learned speeches or fine remarks could obtain no other title for him, but that of The Rhetorical Dog.
While he was in Macedon he employed his time in writing, and reciting what he had written in the schools of sophists. His oratory (says Dionysius Halicarnassensis) was always of the demonstrative kind, which concerns itself about praise or dispraise. His subjects were the most approved authors, whom he chose to abuse upon the account of their reputation; and to whom, without going round the matter in faint praises or artificial insinuations, he used to deny their own characteristics. With this gallantry of opposition did he censure Xenophon for affectation, Plato for vulgar notions, and Isocrates for incorrectness. Demosthenes, in his opinion, wanted fire, Aristotle subtlety, and Aristophanes humour. But, as to have reputation was with him a sufficient cause of enmity, so to have that reputation universal, was what wrought his frenzy to its wildest degree; for which reason it was Homer with whom he was most implacably angry. And certainly, if envy choose its object for the power to give torment, it should here, (if ever) have the glory of fully answering its intentions; for the poet was so worshipped by the whole age, that his critic had not the common alleviation of the opinion of one other man, to concur in his condemnation.
Zoilus, however, went on with indefatigable industry in a voluminous work, which he entitled, the Ψόγος, or Censure of Homer: until having at last finished it, he prepares to send it into the world with a pompous title at the head, invented for himself by way of excellency, and thus inserted after the manner of the ancients.
Zoilus, the scourge of Homer, writ this against that lover of fables.
Thus did he value himself upon a work, which the world has not thought worth transmitting to us, and but just left a specimen in five or six quotations, which happen to be preserved by the commentators of that poet against whom he writ it. If any one be fond to form a judgment upon him from these instances, they are as follow:
Il. I. He says, Homer is very ridiculous (a word he was noted to apply to him) when he makes such a god as Apollo employ himself in killing dogs and mules.
Il. 5. Homer is very ridiculous in describing Diomede's helmet and armour, as sparkling, and in a blaze of fire about him; for then why was he not burned by it?
Il. 5. When Idæus quitted his fine chariot, which was entangled in the fight, and for which he might have been slain, the poet was a fool for making him leave his chariot, he had better have run away in it.
Il. 24. When Achilles makes Priam lie out of his tent, lest the Greeks should hear of his being there, the poet had no breeding to turn a king out in that manner.
Od. 9. The poet says, Ulysses lost an equal number out of each ship. The critic says, that's impossible.
Od. 10. He derides the men who were turned into swine, and calls them Homer's poor little blubbering pigs. The first five of these remarks are found in Didymus, the last in Longinus. Such as these are the cold jests and trifling quarrels, which have been registered from a composition, that (according to the representation handed down to us) was born in envy, lived a short life in contempt, and lies for ever buried with infamy.
But, as his design was judged by himself wonderfully well accomplished, Macedon began to be esteemed a stage too narrow for his glory; and Egypt, which had then taken learning into its patronage, the proper place where it ought to diffuse its beams, to the surprise of all whom he would persuade to reckon themselves hitherto in the dark, and under the prejudices of a false admiration. However, as he had prepared himself for the journey, he was suddenly diverted for a while by the rumour of the Olympic games, which were at that time to be celebrated. Thither he steered his course, full of the memory of Herodotus, and others who had successfully recited in that large assembly; and pleased to imagine he should alter all Greece in their notions of wit before he left it.
Upon his arrival, he found the field in its preparation for diversion. The chariots stood for the race, carved and gilded, the horses were led in costly trappings, some practised to wrestle, some to dart the spear, (or whatever they designed to engage at) in a kind of flourish beforehand: others were looking on, to amuse themselves; and all gaily dressed, according to the custom of those places. Through these did Zoilus move forward, bald-headed, bearded to the middle, in a long sad-coloured vestment, and inflexibly stretching forth his hands filled with volumes rolled up to a vast thickness: a figure most venerably slovenly! able to demand attention upon account of its oddness. And indeed, he had no sooner fixed himself upon an eminence, but a crowd flocked about him to know what he intended. Then the critic casting his eyes on the ring, opened his volume slowly, as considering with what part he might most properly entertain his audience. It happened, that the games at Patroclus's obsequies came first into his thought; whether it was that he judged it suitable to the place, or knew that he had fallen as well upon the games themselves, as upon Homer for celebrating them, and could not resist his natural disposition to give mankind offence. Every one was now intently fastened upon him, while he undertook to prove, that those games signified nothing to the taking of Troy, and therefore only furnished an impertinent episode: that the fall of the lesser Ajax in cow-dung, the squabble of the chariot race, and other accidents which attend such sports, are mean or trifling; and a world of other remarks, for which he still affirmed Homer to be a fool, and which they that heard him took for studied invectives against those exercises they were then employed in. Men who frequent sports, as they are of a cheerful disposition, so are they lovers of poetry: this, together with the opinion they were affronted, wrought them up to impatience and further licenses; there was particularly a young Athenian gentleman, who was to run three chariots in those games, who being an admirer of Homer, could no longer contain himself, but cried out, "What in the name of Castor have we here, Zoilus from Thrace?" and as he said it, struck him with a chariot whip. Immediately then a hundred whips were seen curling round his head; so that his face, naturally deformed, and heightened by pain to its utmost caricatura, appeared in the midst of them, as we may fancy the visage of envy, if at any time her snakes rise in rebellion to lash their mistress. Nor was this all the punishment they decreed him, when once they imagined he was Zoilus. The Scyronian rocks were near them, and thither they hurried him with a general cry, to that speedy justice which is practised at places of diversion.
It is here, that, according to Suidas, the critic expired. But we, following the more numerous testimonies of other authors, conclude he escaped either by the lowness of those rocks whence he was thrust, or by bushes which might break his fall; and soon after following the courses of his first intention, he set sail for Egypt.
Egypt was at this time governed by Ptolemy Philadelphus, a prince passionately fond of learning, and learned men; particularly an admirer of Homer to adoration. He had built the finest library in the world, and made the choicest, as well as most numerous collection of books. No encouragements were wanting from him to allure men of the brightest genius to his court, and no time thought too much which he spent in their company. From hence it is that we hear of Eratosthenes and Aristophanes, those universal scholars, and candid judges of other men's performances; Callimachus, a poet of the most easy, courteous delicacy, famous for a poem on the cutting of Berenice's hair, and whom Ovid so much admired as to say, "It was reason enough for him to love a woman, if she would but tell him he exceeded Callimachus;" Theocritus, the most famous in the pastoral way of writing; and among the young men, Aristarchus and Apollonius Rhodius, the one of whom proved a most judicious critic, the other a poet of no mean character.
These and many more filled the court of that munificent prince, whose liberal dispensations of wealth and favour became encouragements to every one to exert their parts to the utmost; like streams which flow through different sorts of soils, and improve each in that for which it was adapted by nature.
Such was the court when Zoilus arrived; but before he entered Alexandria, he spent a night in the temple of Isis, to enquire of the success of his undertaking; not that he doubted the worth of his works, but his late misfortune had instructed him, that others might be ignorant of it. Having therefore performed the accustomed sacrifice, and composed himself to rest upon the hide, he had a vision which foretold of his future fame.
He found himself sitting under the shade of a dark yew, which was covered with hellebore and hemlock, and near the mouth of a cave, where sat a monster, pale, wasted, surrounded with snakes, fostering a cockatrice in her bosom; and cursing the sun for making the work of the deities appear in its beauty. The sight of this bred fear in him; when she suddenly turning her sunk eyes, put on a hideous kind of a loving grins, in which she discovered a resemblance to some of his own features. Then turning up her snakes, and interlacing them in the form of a turban, to give him less disgust, thus she addressed herself: "Go on, my son, in whom I am renewed, and prosper in thy brave undertakings on mankind: assert their wit to be dulness; prove their sense to be folly; know truth only when it is on thy own side; and acknowledge learning at no other time to be useful. Spare not an author of any rank or size; let not thy tongue or pen know pity; make the living feel thy accusations; make the ghosts of the dead groan in their tombs for their violated fame. But why do I spend time in needless advice, which may be better used in encouragement? Let thy eyes delight themselves with the future recompense which I have reserved for thy merit." Thus spoke the monster, and shrieked the name of Zoilus. The shades, who were to bear the same name after him, became obedient, and the mouth of the cave was filled with strange supercilious countenances, which all crowded to make their appearance. These began to march before him with an imitation of his mien and manners: some crowned with wild sorrel, others having leaves of dead bays mingled amongst it; whilst the monster still described them as he passed, and touched each with a livid track of malignant light, that shot from her eye, to point where she meant the description. "They (says she) in the chaplets of wild sorrel, are my writers of prose, who erect scandal into criticism: they who wear the withered bay with it, are such who write poems, which are professedly to answer all rules, and be left for patterns to men of genius. These that follow shall attack others, because they are excelled by them. The next rank shall make an author's being read a sufficient ground of opposition. Here march my grammarians, skilled to torture words; there my sons of sophistry, ever ready to wrest a meaning. Observe how faint the foremost of the procession appear; and how they are now lost in yonder mists, which roll about the cave of oblivion! This shows, it is not for themselves that they are to be known; the world will consider them only as managing a part of thy endowments, and so know them by thy name while they live, that their own shall be lost for ever. But see how my cave still swarms! how every age produces men, upon whom the preservation of thy memory devolves. My darling, the fates have decreed it! Thou art Zoilus, and Zoilus shall be eternal. Come, my serpents, applaud him with your hisses, that is all which now can be done; in modern times, my sons shall invent louder instruments, and artificial imitations; noises which drowning the voice of merit, shall furnish a concert to delight them." Here she arose to clasp him in her arms, a strange noise was heard, the critic started at it, and his vision forsook him.
It was with some confusion that he lay musing awhile upon what he had seen; but reflecting, that the goddess had given him no answer concerning his success in Egypt, he strengthened his heart in his ancient self-love and enmity to others, and took all for an idle dream born of the fumes of indigestion, or produced by the dizzy motion of his voyage. In this opinion, he told it at his departure to the priest, who admiring the extraordinary relation, registered it in hieroglyphics at Canopus.
The day when he came to Alexandria was one on which the king had appointed games to Apollo and the Muses, and honours and rewards for such writers as should appear in them. This he took for a happy omen at his entrance, and, not to lose an opportunity of showing himself, repaired immediately to the public theatre; where, as if every thing was to favour him, the very first accident gave his spleen a diversion, which we find at large in the proem of the seventh book of Vitruvius. It happened that when the poets had recited, six of the judges decreed the prizes with a full approbation of all the audience. From this, Aristophanes alone dissented, and demanded the first prize for a person whose bashful and interrupted manner of speaking made him appear the most disgustful: for he, says the judge, is alone a poet, and all the rest reciters; and they who are judges should not approve thefts, but writings. To maintain his assertion, those volumes were produced from whence they had been stolen: upon which, the king ordered them to be formally tried for theft, and dismissed with infamy; but placed Aristophanes over his library, as one, who had given a proof of his knowledge in books. This passage Zoilus often afterwards repeated with pleasure, for the number of disgraces which happened in it to the pretenders in poetry; though his envy made him still careful not to name Aristophanes, but a judge in general.
However, criticism had only a short triumph over poetry, when he made the next turn his own, by stepping forward into the place of reciting. Here he immediately raised the curiosity, and drew the attention of both king and people: but, as it happened, neither the one nor the other lasted; for the first sentence where he had registered his own name, satisfied their curiosity; and the next, where he offered to prove to a court so devoted to Homer, that he was ridiculous in every thing, went near to finish his audience. He was nevertheless heard quietly for some time, till the king, seeing no end of his abusing the prince of philological learning (as Vitruvius words it), departed in disdain. The judges followed, deriding his attempt as an extravagance which could not demand their gravity; and the people taking a license from the precedent, hooted him away with obloquy and indignation. Thus Zoilus failed at his first appearance, and was forced to retire, stung with a most impatient sense of public contempt.
Yet notwithstanding all this, he did not omit his attendance at court on the day following, with a petition that he might be put upon the establishment of learning, and allowed a pension. This the king read, but returned no answer: so great was the scorn he conceived against him. But Zoilus still undauntedly renewed his petitions, till Ptolemy, being weary of his persecution, gave him a flat denial. Homer, says the prince, who has been dead these thousand years, has maintained thousands of people; and Zoilus, who boasts he has more wit than he, ought not only to maintain himself, but many others also.
His petitions being thrown carelessly about, were fallen into the hands of men of wit, whom, according to his custom, he had provoked, and whom it is unsafe to provoke if you would live unexposed. I can compare them to nothing more properly, than to the bee, a creature winged and lively, fond to rove through the choicest flowers of nature, and blest at home among the sweets of its own composition: not ill-natured, yet quick to revenge an injury; not wearing its sting out of the sheath, yet able to wound more sorely than its appearance would threaten. Now these being made personal enemies by his malicious expressions, the court rung with petitions of Zoilus transversed; new petitions drawn up for him; catalogues of his merits, supposed to be collected by himself; his Complaints of Man's Injustice set to a Harp out of Tune, and a hundred other sports of fancy, with which their epigrams played upon him. These were the ways of writing which Zoilus hated, because they were not only read, but retained easily, by reason of their spirit, humour, and brevity; and because they not only make the man a jest upon whom they are written, but a further jest, if he attempt to answer them gravely. However, he did what he could in revenge, he endeavoured to set those whom he envied at variance among themselves, and invented lies to promote his design. He told Eratosthenes, that Callimachus said, his extent of learning consisted but in a superficial knowledge of the sciences; and whispered Callimachus, that Eratosthenes only allowed him to have an artful habitual knack of versifying. He would have made Aristophanes believe, that Theocritus rallied his knowledge in editions, as a curious kind of trifling; and Theocritus, that Aristophanes derided the rustical simplicity of his shepherds. Though of all his stories, that which he most valued himself for, was his constant report, that every one whom he hated was a friend to Antiochus king of Syria, the enemy of Ptolemy.
But malice is unsuccessful when the character of its agent is known: they grew more friends to one another, by imagining, that even what had been said, as well as what had not, was all of Zoilus's invention; and as he grew more and more the common jest, their derision of him became a kind of life and cement to their conversation.
Contempt, poverty, and other misfortunes had now so assaulted him, that even they who abhorred his temper, contributed something to his: support, in common humanity. Yet still his envy. like a vitiated stomach, converted every kindness to the nourishment of his disease; and it was the whole business of his life to revile Homer, and those by whom he himself subsisted. In this humour he had days, which were so given up to impatient ill-nature, that he could neither write any thing, nor converse with any one. These he sometimes employed in throwing stones at children; which was once so unhappily returned upon him, that he was taken up for dead: and this occasioned the report in some authors, of his being stoned to death in Egypt. Or, sometimes he conveyed himself into the library, where he blotted the name of Homer wherever he could meet it, and tore the best editions of several volumes; for which the librarians debarred him the privilege of that place. These and other mischiefs made him universally shunned; nay, to such an extravagance was his character of envy carried, that the more superstitious Egyptians imagined they were fascinated by him, if the day were darker, or themselves a little heavier than ordinary; some wore sprigs of rue, by way of prevention; and others, rings made of the hoof of a wild ass for amulets, lest they should suffer, by his fixing an eye upon them.
It was now near the time when that splendid temple which Ptolemy built in honour of Homer was to be opened with a solemn magnificence: for this the men of genius were employed in finding a proper pageant. At last, they agreed by one consent, to have Zoilus, the utter enemy of Homer, hanged in effigy; and the day being come, it was on this manner they formed the procession. Twelve beautiful boys, lightly habited in white, with purple wings, representing the Hours, went on the foremost: after these came a chariot, exceeding high and stately, where sat one representing Apollo, with another at his feet, who in this pomp sustained the person of Homer: Apollo's laurel had little gilded points, like the appearance of rays between its leaves; Homer's was bound with a blue fillet, like that which is worn by the priests of the deity: Apollo was distinguished by the golden harp he bore; Homer, by a volume, richly beautified with horns of inlaid ivory, and tassels of silver depending from them. Behind these came three chariots, in which rode nine damsels, each of them with that instrument which is proper to each of the Muses; among whom, Calliope, to give her the honour of the day, sate in the middle of the second chariot, known by her richer vestments. After these marched a solemn train aptly habited, like those sciences which acknowledge their rise or improvement from this poet. Then the men of learning who attended the court, with wreaths, and rods or sceptres of laurel, as taking upon themselves the representation of Rhapsodists, to do honour, for the time, to Homer. In the rear of all was slowly drawn along an odd carriage, rather than a chariot, which had its sides artfully turned, and carved so as to bear a resemblance to the heads of snarling mastiffs. In this was borne, as led in triumph, a tall image of deformity, whose head was bald, and wound about with nettles for a chaplet. The tongue lay lolling out, to show a contempt of mankind, and was forked at the end, to confess its love to detraction. The hands were manacled behind, and the fingers armed with long nails, to cut deep through the margins of authors. Its vesture was of the paper of Nilus, bearing inscribed upon its breast in capital letters, ZOILUS THE HOMERO-MASTIX; and all the rest of it was scrawled with various monsters of that river, as emblems of those productions with which that critic used to fill his papers. When they had reached the temple, where the king and his court were already placed to behold them from its galleries, the image of Zoilus was hung upon a gibbet, there erected for it, with such loud acclamations as witnessed the people's satisfaction. This being finished, the Hours knocked at the gates, which flew open, and discovered the statue of Homer magnificently seated, with the pictures of those cities which contended for his birth, ranged in order around him. Then they who represented the deities in the procession, laying aside their ensigns of divinity, ushered in the men of learning with a sound of voices, and their various instruments, to assist at a sacrifice in honour of Apollo and his favourite Homer.
It may be easily believed, that Zoilus concluded his affairs were at the utmost point of desperation in Egypt; wherefore, filled with pride, scorn, anger, vexation, envy, (and whatever could torment him, except the knowledge of his unworthiness) he flung himself aboard the first ship which left that country. As it happened, the vessel he sailed in was bound for Asia Minor, and this landing him at a port the nearest to Smyrna, he was a little pleased amidst his misery, to think of decrying Homer in another place where he was adored, and which chiefly pretended to his birth. So incorrigible was his disposition, that no experience taught him any thing which might contribute to his ease and safety.
And as his experience wrought nothing on him, so neither did the accidents, which the opinion of those times took for ominous warnings; for, he is reported to have seen, the night he came to Smyrna, a venerable person, such as Homer is described by antiquity, threatening him in a dream; and in the morning he found a part of his works gnawed by mice, which, says Ælian, are of all beasts the most prophetic; insomuch that they know when to leave a house, even before its fall is suspected. Envy, which has no relaxation, still hurried him forward; for it is certainly true that a man has not firmer resolution from reason, to stand by a good principle, than obstinacy from perverted nature, to adhere to a bad one.
In the morning as he walked the street, he observed in some places inscriptions concerning Homer, which informed him where he lived, where he had taught school, and several other particularities which the Smyrneans glory to have recorded of him; all which awakened and irritated the passions of Zoilus. But his temper was quite overthrown by the venerable appearance which he saw, upon entering the Homereum; which is a building composed of a library, porch, and temple, erected to Homer. Here a frenzy seized him which knew no bounds; he raved violently against the poet and all his admirers; he trampled on his works, he spurned about his commentators, he tore down his busts from the niches, threw the medals that were cast of him out of the windows, and passing from one place to another, beat the aged priests, and broke down the altar. The cries which were occasioned by this means brought in many upon him; who observed with horror how the most sacred honours of their city were profaned by the frantic impiety of a stranger; and immediately dragged him to punishment before their magistrates, who were then sitting. He was no sooner there, but known for Zoilus by some in court, a name a long time most hateful to Smyrna; which, as it valued itself upon the birth of Homer, so bore more impatiently than other places, the abuses offered him. This made them eager to propitiate his shade, and claim to themselves a second merit by the death of Zoilus; wherefore they sentenced him to suffer by fire, as the due reward of his desecrations; and ordered, that their city should be purified by a lustration, for having entertained so impious a guest. In pursuance to this sentence, he was led away with his compositions borne before him by the public executioner. Then was he fastened to the stake, prophesying all the while how many should arise to revenge his quarrel; particularly, that when Greek should be no more a language, there shall be a nation which will both translate Homer into prose, and contract him in verse. At last, his compositions were lighted to set the pile on fire, and he expired sighing for the loss of them, more than for the pain he suffered: and perhaps too, because he might foresee in his prophetic rapture, that there should arise a poet in another nation, able to do Homer justice, and make him known amongst his people to future ages.
Thus died this noted critic, of whom we may observe from the course of the history, that as several cities contended for the honour of the birth of Homer, so several have contended for the honour of the death of Zoilus. With him likewise perished his great work on the Iliad, and the Odyssey; concerning which we observe also, that as the known worth of Homer's poetry makes him survive himself with glory, so the bare memory of Zoilus's criticism makes him survive himself with infamy. These are deservedly the consequences of that ill-nature which made him fond of detraction; that envy, which made him choose so excellent a character for its object; and those partial methods of injustice with which he treated the object he had chosen.
Yet how many commence critics after him, upon the same unhappy principles? How many labour to destroy the monuments of the dead, and summon up the great from their graves to answer for trifles before them? How many, by misrepresentations, both hinder the world from favouring men of genius, and discourage them in themselves; like boughs of a baneful and barren nature, that shoot across a fruit tree; at once to screen the sun from it, and hinder it by their droppings from producing anything of value? But if these who thus follow Zoilus, meet not the same severities of fate, because they come short of his indefatigable ness, or their object is not so universally the concern of mankind, they shall nevertheless meet a proportion of it in the inward trouble they give themselves, and the outward contempt others fling upon them: a punishment which every one has hitherto felt, who has really deserved to be called a Zoilus; and which will always be the natural reward of such men's actions, as long as Zoilus is the proper name of envy.
REMARKS.
Ingenium magni livor detractat amici,
Quisquis et ex illo, Zoile, nomen habes.
I must do my reader the justice, before I enter upon these notes of Zoilus, to inform him, that I have not in any author met this work ascribed to him by its title, which has made me not mention it in the life- But thus much in general appears, that he wrote several things besides his censure on the Iliad, which, as it gives ground for this opinion, encourages me to offer an account of the treatise.
Being acquainted with a grave gentleman who searches after editions, purchases manuscripts, and collects copies, I applied to him for some editions of this poem, which he readily obliged me with. But, added he, taking down a paper, I doubt I shall discourage you from your translation, when I show this work, which is written upon the original, by Zoilus, the famous adversary of Homer. Zoilus! said I with surprise; I thought his works had long since perished. They have so, answered he, all except this little piece, which has a preface annexed to it accounting for its preservation. It seems, when he parted from Macedon, he left this behind him where he lodged, and where no one entered for a long time, in detestation of the odiousness of his character, until Mævius arriving there in his travels, and being desirous to lie in the same room, luckily found it, and brought it away with him. This the author of the preface imagines the reason of Horace's wishing Mævius, in the tenth epode, such a shipwreck as Homer describes; as it were with an eye to his having done something disadvantageous to that poet. From Mævius, the piece came into the hand of Carbilius Pictor (who, when he wrote against Virgil, called his book, with a respectful imitation of Zoilus, the Æneidomastix) and from him into the hands of others who are unknown, because the world applied to them no other name than that of Zoilus, in order to sink their own in oblivion. Thus it ever found some learned philologist or critic to keep it secret from the rage of Homer's admirers; yet not so secret, but that it has still been communicated among the literati. I am of opinion, that our great Scaliger borrowed it, to work him up when he writ so sharply against Cardan; and perhaps Le Clerc too, when he proved Q. Curtius ignorant of every particular branch of learning.
This formal account made me give attention to what the book contained; and I must acknowledge, that whether it be his, or the work of some grammarian, it appears to be writ in his spirit. The open profession of enmity to great geniuses, and the fear of nothing so much as that he may not be able to find faults enough, are such resemblances of his strongest features, that any one might take it for his own production. To give the world a notion of this, I have made a collection of some remarks, which most struck me, during that short time in which I was allowed to peruse the manuscript.
THE REMARKS OF ZOILUS UPON HOMER'S
BATTLE OF THE FROGS AND MICE.
P. 47. v. 1. To fill my rising song.]As Protagoras the sophist found fault with the beginning of the Iliad, for its speaking to the Muse rather with an abrupt command, than a solemn invocation; so I, says Zoilus, do on the other hand find fault with him for using any invocation at all before this poem, or any such trifles as he is the author of. If he must use one, Protagoras is in the right; if not, I am: this I hold for true criticism, notwithstanding the opinion of Aristotle against us. Nor let any one lay a stress on Aristotle in this point; he, alas! knows nothing of poetry but what he has read in Homer; his rules are all extracted from him, or founded in him. In short, Homer's Works are the examples of Aristotle's precepts; and Aristotle's precepts the methods Homer wrought by. From hence it is to be concluded as the opinion of this critic, that whoever would entirely destroy the reputation of Homer, must renounce the authority of Aristotle before-hand. The rules of building may be of service to us, if we design to judge of an edifice, and discover what may be amiss in it for the advantage of future artificers; but they are of no use to those who only intend to overthrow it utterly.
After the word (song,) in the first line the original adds, (what I have written in my tablets.) These words, which are dropped in the translation as of no consequence, the great Zoilus has thought fit to expunge; asserting for a reason, without backing it with farther proof, that tablets were not of so early invention. Now, it must be granted, this manner of proving by affirmation is of an extraordinary nature; but however it has its end with a set of readers for whom it is adapted. One part of the world knows not with what assurance another part can express itself. They imagine a reasonable creature will not have the face to say any thing which has not some shadow of reason to support it; and run implicitly into the snare which is laid for good-nature, by these daring authors of definitive sentences upon bare assertion.
P. 47. v. 15. Whom cats pursued.]The Greek word here expressly signifies a cat: Zoilus, whom Perizonius follows, affirms, they were weasels which the mouse fled from; and then objects against its probability. But it is common with one sort of critics, to show an author means differently from what he really did; and then to prove, that the meaning which they find out for him is good for nothing.
P. 40. v. 5. If worthy friendship.]In this proposal begins the moral of the whole piece, which is, that hasty, ill-founded, or unnatural friendships and leagues, will naturally end in war and discord. But Zoilus, who is here mightily concerned to take off from Homer all the honour of having designed a moral, asserts on the other hand, That the poet's whole intent was to make a fable; that a fable he has made, and one very idle and trifling; that many things are ascribed to Homer, which poor Homer never dreamed of; and he who finds them out, rather shows his own parts than discovers his author's beauties. In this opinion has he been followed by several of those critics, who only dip into authors when they have occasion to write against them: and yet even these shall speak differently concerning the writers, if the question be of their own performances; for to their own works they write prefaces, to display the grandness of the moral, regularity of the scheme, number and brightness of the figures, and a thousand other excellencies, which if they did not tell, no one would ever imagine. For others, they write remarks, which tend to contract their excellencies within the narrow compass of their partial apprehension. It were well if they could allow such to be as wise as themselves, whom the world allows to be much wiser: but their being naturally friends to themselves, and professedly adversaries to some greater genius, easily accounts for these different manners of speaking. I will not leave this note, without giving you an instance of its practice in the great Julius Scaliger: he has been free enough with Homer in the remarks he makes upon him; but when he speaks of himself, I desire my reader would take notice of his modesty; I give his own words, Lib. 3. Poet. Cap. 112. In Deum Patrem Hymnum cum scriberemus, tanquam rerum omnium conditorem, ab orbis ipsius creatione ad nos nostraque usque duximus.—In quo abduximus animum nostrum a corporis carcere ad liberos campos contemplationis, quae me in illum transformaret. Tum autem sanctissimi Spiritus ineffabilis vigor ille tanto ardore celebratus est, ut cum lenissimis numeris esset inchoatus Hymnus, repentino divini ignis impetu conflagravit.
P. 49. v. 4. The circled loaves.]Zoilus here finds fault with the mention of loaves, tripes, bacon, and cheese, as words below the dignity of the epic, as much (says he) as it would be to have opprobrious names given in it. By which expression we easily see, he hints at the first book of the Iliad. Now, we must consider in answer, that it is a mouse which is spoken of, that eating is the most apparent characteristic of that creature, that these foods are such as please it most; and to have described particular pleasures for it in any other way, would have been as incongruous as to have described a haughty loud anger without those names which it throws out in its fierceness, and which raise it to its pitch of frenzy. In the one instance you still see a mouse before, you, however, the poet raises it to a man; in the other, you shall see a man before you; however, the poet raises him to a demi-god. But some call that low, which others call natural. Every thing has two handles, and the critic who sets himself to censure all he meets, is under an obligation still to lay hold on the worst of them.
P. 49. v. 26. But me, nor stalks.]In this place Zoilus laughs at the ridiculousness of the poet, who (according to his representation) makes a prince refuse an invitation in heroicks, because he did not like the meat he was invited to. And, that the ridicule may appear in as strong a light to others as to himself, he puts as much of the speech as concerns it into burlesque airs and expressions. This is indeed a common trick with remarkers, which they either practise by precedent from their master Zoilus, or are beholden for it to the same turn of temper. We acknowledge it a fine piece of satire, when there is folly in a passage, to lay it open in the way by which it naturally requires to be exposed: do this handsomely, and the author is deservedly a jest. If, on the contrary, you dress a passage which was not originally foolish, in the highest humour of ridicule, you only frame something which the author himself might laugh at, without being more nearly concerned than another reader.
P. 50. v. 25. So pass'd Europa.]This simile makes Zoilus, who sets up for a professed enemy of fables, to exclaim violently. We had, says he, a frog and a mouse hitherto, and now we get a bull and a princess to illustrate their actions: when will there be an end of this fabling -folly and poetry, which I value myself for being unacquainted with? great Polycrates, how happily hast thou observed in thy accusation against Socrates, that whatever he was before, he deserved his poison when he began to make verses! Now, if the question be concerning Homer's good or bad poetry, this is an unqualifying speech, which affords his friends just grounds of exception against the critic. Wherefore, be it known to all present and future censors, who have, or shall presume to glory in an ignorance of poetry, and at the same time take upon them to judge of poets, that they are in all their degrees for ever excluded the post they would usurp. In the first place, they who know neither the use, nor practice of the art; in the second, they who know it but by halves, who have hearts insensible of the beauties of poetry, and are, however, able to find fault by rules; and thirdly, they who, when they are capable of perceiving beauties and pointing out defects, are still so ignorant in the nature of their business as to imagine the province of criticism extends itself only on the side of dispraise and reprehension. How could any one at this rate be seen with his proper balance of perfection and error? Or what were the best performances in this indulgence of ill-nature, but as apartments hung with the deformities of humanity, done by some great hand, which are the more to be abhorred, because the praise and honour they receive results from the degree of uneasiness to which they put every temper of common goodness?
P. 51. v. 26. Ye mice, ye mice.]The ancients believed that heroes were turned into demi-gods at their death; and in general, that departing souls have something of a sight into futurity. It is either this notion, or a care which the gods may take to abate the pride of insulting adversaries, which a poet goes upon, when he makes his leaders die foretelling the end of those by whom they are slain. Zoilus, however, is against this passage. He says, that every character ought to be strictly kept: that a general ought not to invade the character of a prophet, nor a prophet of a general. He is positive, that nothing should be done by any one, without having been hinted at in some previous account of him. And this, he asserts, without any allowance made either for a change of states, or the design of the gods. To confirm this observation, he strengthens it with a quotation out of his larger work on the Iliad, where he has these words upon the death of Hector: How foolish is it in Homer to make Hector (who through the whole course of the Iliad had made use of Helenus, to learn the will of the gods) become a prophet just at his death? Let every one be what he ought, without falling into those parts which others are to sustain in a poem. This he has said, not distinguishing rightly between our natural dispositions and accidental offices. And this he has said again, not minding, that though it be taken from another book, it is still from the same author. However, vanity loves to gratify itself by the repetition of what it esteems to be written with spirit, and even when we repeat it ourselves, provided another hears us. Hence has he been followed by a magisterial set of men, who quote themselves, and swell their new performances with what they admire in their former treatises. This is a most extraordinary knack of arguing, whereby a man can never want a proof, if he be allowed to become an authority for his own opinion.
P. 52. v. 15. And no kind billow.]How impertinent is this case of pity, says Zoilus, to bemoan, that the prince was not tossed towards land: it is enough he lost his life, and there is an end of his suffering where there is an end of his feeling. To carry the matter farther is just the same foolish management as Homer has shown in his Iliads, which he spins out into forty trifles beyond the death of Hector. But the critic must allow me to put the readers in mind, that death was not the last distress the ancients believed was to be met upon earth. The last was the remaining unburied, which had this misery annexed, that while the body was without its funeral rites in this world, the soul was supposed to be without rest in the next, which was the case of the mouse before us. And accordingly the Ajax of Sophocles continues after the death of its hero more than an act, upon the contest concerning his burial. All this Zoilus knew very well: but Zoilus is not the only one who disputes for victory rather than truth. These foolish critics write even things they themselves can answer, to show how much they can write against an author. They act unfairly, that they may be sure to be sharp enough; and trifle with the reader, in order to be voluminous. It is needless to wish them the return they deserve: their disregard to candour is no sooner discovered, but they are for ever banished from the eyes of men of sense, and condemned to wander from stall to stall, for a temporary refuge from that oblivion which they cannot escape.
P. 53. v. 9. Our eldest perish'd.]Zoilus has here taken the recapitulation of those misfortunes which happened to the royal family, as an impertinence that expatiates from the subject; though indeed there seems nothing more proper to raise that sort of compassion, which was to inflame his audience to war. But what appears extremely pleasant is, that at the same time he condemns the passage, he should make use of it as an opportunity to fall into an ample digression on the various kinds of mouse-traps, and display that minute learning which every critic of his sort is fond to show himself master of. This they imagine is tracing of knowledge through its hidden veins, and bringing discoveries to day-light, which time had covered over. Indefatigable and useless mortals! who value themselves for knowledge of no consequence, and think of gaining applause by what the reader is careful to pass over unread. What did the disquisition signify formerly, whether Ulysses's son, or his dog, was the elder? or how can the account of a vesture, or a player's masque, deserve that any should write the bulk of a treatise, or others read it when it is written? A vanity thus poorly supported, which neither affords pleasure nor profit, is the unsubstantial amusement of a dream to ourselves, and a provoking occasion of our derision to others.
P. 54. v. 3, 4. Quills aptly bound—Fac'd with the plunder of a cat they flay'd.]This passage is something difficult in the original, which gave Zoilus the opportunity of inventing an expression, which his followers conceitedly use when any thing appears dark to them. This, say they, let Phœbus explain; as if what exceeds their capacity, must of necessity demand oracular interpretations, and an interposal of the god of wit and learning. The basis of such arrogance is the opinion they have of that knowledge they ascribe to themselves. They take criticism to be beyond every other part of learning, because it gives judgment upon books written in every other part. They think, in consequence, that every critic must be a greater genius than any author whom he censures; and therefore if they esteem themselves critics, they set enthroned in fancy at the head of literature. Criticism indeed deserves a noble elogy, when it is enlarged by such a comprehensive learning as Aristotle and Cicero were masters of; when it adorns its precepts with the consummate exactness of Quintilian, or is exalted into the sublime sentiments of Longinus. But let not such men tell us they participate in the glory of these great men, and place themselves next to Phœbus, who, like Zoilus, entangle an author in the wrangles of grammarians, or try him with a positive air and barren imagination, by the set of rules they have collected out of others.
P. 54. v. 17. Ye frogs, the mice.]At this speech of the herald's, which recites the cause of the war, Zoilus is angry with the author, for not finding out a cause entirely just; for, says he, it appears not from his own fable, that Physignathus invited the prince with any malicious intention to make him away. To this we answer, 1st, That it is not necessary in relating facts to make every war have a just beginning. 2nd, This doubtful cause agrees better with the moral, by showing, that ill-founded leagues have accidents to destroy them, even without the intention of parties. 3d, There was all appearance imaginable against the frogs; and if we may be allowed to retort on our adversary the practice of his posterity, there is more humanity in an hostility proclaimed upon the appearance of injustice done us, than in their custom of attacking the works of others as soon as they come out, purely because they are esteemed to be good. Their performances, which could derive no merit from their own names, are then sold upon the merit of their antagonist: and if they are so sensible of fame, or even of envy, they have the mortification to remember, how much by this means they become indebted to those they injure.
P. 55. v. 10. Where high the banks.]This project is not put in practice during the following battle, by reason of the fury of the combatants: yet the mention of it is not impertinent in this place, forasmuch as the probable face of success which it carries with it tended to animate the frogs. Zoilus however cannot be so satisfied; It were better, says he, to cut it entirely out; nor would Homer be the worse if half of him were served in the same manner; so, continues he, they will find it, whoever in any country shall hereafter undertake so odd a task, as that of translating him. Thus envy finds words to put in the mouth of ignorance; and the time will come, when ignorance shall repeat what envy has pronounced so rashly.
P. 56. v. 1. And tapering sea-reeds.]If we here take the reed for that of our own growth, it is no spear to match the long sort of needles with which the mice had armed themselves; but the cane, which is rather intended, has its splinters stiff and sharp, to answer all the uses of a spear in battle. Nor is it here to be lightly passed over, since Zoilus moves a question upon it, that the poet could not choose a more proper weapon for the frogs, than that which they choose for themselves in a defensive war they maintain with the serpents of Nile. They have this stratagem, says Ælian, to protect themselves; they swim with pieces of cane across their mouths, of too great a length for the breadth of the serpents' throats; by which means they are preserved from being swallowed by them. This is a quotation so much to the point, that I ought to have ushered in my author with more pomp to dazzle the reader. Zoilus and his followers, who seldom praise any man, are however careful to do it for their own sakes, if at any time they get an author of their opinion: though indeed it must be allowed, they still have a drawback in their manner of praise, and rather choose to drop the name of their man, or darkly hint him in a periphrasis, than to have it appear that they have directly assisted the perpetuating of any one's memory. Thus, if a Dutch critic were to introduce, for example, Martial, he would, instead of naming him, say Ingeniosus ille Epigrammaticus Bilbilicus. Or, if one of our own were to quote from among ourselves, he would tell us how it has been remarked in the works of a learned writer, to whom the world is obliged for many excellent productions, &c. All which proceeding is like boasting of our great friends, when it is to do ourselves an honour, or the shift of dressing up one who might otherwise be disregarded, to make him pass upon the world for a responsible voucher to our own assertions.
P. 56. v. 5. But now where Jove's.]At this fine episode, in which the gods are introduced, Zoilus has no patience left him to remark, but runs some lines with a long string of such expressions, as trifler, fabler, liar, foolish, impious, all which he lavishly heaps upon the poet. From this knack of calling names, joined with the several arts of finding fault, it is to be suspected, that our Zoiluses might make very able libellers, and dangerous men to the government, if they did not rather turn themselves to be ridiculous censors: for which reason I cannot but reckon the state obliged to men of wit: and under a kind of debt in gratitude, when they take off so much spleen, turbulency, and ill-nature, as might otherwise spend itself to the detriment of the public.
P. 56. v. 21. If my daughter's mind.]This speech, which Jupiter speaks to Pallas with a pleasant kind of air, Zoilus takes gravely to pieces, and affirms, It is below Jupiter's wisdom, and only agreeable with Homer's folly, that he should borrow a reason for her assisting the mice from their attendance in the temple, when they waited to prey upon those things which were sacred to her. But the air of the speech rendering a grave answer unnecessary, I shall only offer Zoilus an observation in return for his. There are upon the stone which is carved for the apotheosis of Homer, figures of mice by his foot-stool, which, according to Cuperus, its interpreter, some have taken to signify this poem; and others those critics, who tear or vilify the works of great men. Now if such can be compared to mice, let the words of Zoilus be brought home to himself and his followers for their mortification: That no one ought to think of meriting in the state of learning only by debasing the best performances, and as it were preying upon those things which should be sacred in it.
P. 57. v. 2. In vain my father.]The speech of Pallas is disliked by Zoilus, because it makes the goddess carry a resentment against such inconsiderable creatures; though he ought to esteem them otherwise when they represent the persons and actions of men, and teach us how the gods disregard those in their adversities who provoke them in their prosperity. But, if we consider Pallas as the patroness of learning, we may by an allegorical application of the mice and frogs, find in this speech two sorts of enemies to learning; they who are maliciously mischievous, as the mice; and they who are turbulent through ostentation, as the frogs. The first are enemies to excellency upon principle; the second accidentally by the error of self-love, which does not quarrel with the excellence itself, but only with those people who get more praise than themselves by it. Thus, though they have not the same perverseness with the others, they are however drawn into the same practices, while they ruin reputations, lest they should not seem to be learned; as some women turn prostitutes, lest they should not be thought handsome enough to have admirers.
P. 59. v. 5. Their dreadful trumpets.]Upon the reading of this, Zoilus becomes full of discoveries. He recollects, that Homer makes his Greeks come to battle with silence, and his Trojans with shouts; from whence he discovers, that he knew nothing of trumpets. Again, he sees, that the hornet is made a trumpeter to the battle; and hence he discovers, that the line must not be Homer's. Now had he drawn his consequences fairly, he could only have found by the one, that trumpets were not in use at the taking of Troy; and by the other, that the battle of frogs and mice was laid by the Poet for a later scene of action than that of the Iliad. But the boast of discoveries accompanies the affectation of knowledge; and the affectation of knowledge is taken up with a design to gain a command over the opinions of others. It is too heavy a task for some critics to sway our rational judgments by rational inferences; a pompous pretence must occasion admiration, the eyes of mankind must be obscured by a glare of pedantry, that they may consent to be led blindfold, and permit that an opinion should be dictated to them without demanding that they may be reasoned into it.
P. 60. v. 4. Big Seutlæus tumbling.]Zoilus has happened to brush the dust off some old manuscript, in which the line that kills Seutlæus is wanting. And for this cause he fixes a general conclusion, that there is no dependance upon any thing which is handed down for Homer's, so as to allow it praise; since the different copies vary amongst themselves. But is it fair in Zoilus, or any of his followers, to oppose one copy to a thousand? and are they impartial who would pass this upon us for an honest balance of evidence? When there is such an inequality on each side, is it not more than probable that the number carry the author's sense in them, and the single one its transcriber's errors? It is folly or madness of passion to be thus given over to partiality and prejudices. Men may flourish as much as they please concerning the value of a new found edition, in order to bias the world to particular parts of it; but in a matter easily decided by common sense, it will still continue of its own opinion.
P. 61 . v. 21 . With Borbocætes fights.]Through the grammatical part of Zoilus's work he frequently rails at Homer for his dialects. These, says he in one place, the poet made use of because he could not write pure Greek; and in another, they strangely contributed to his fame, by making several cities who observed something of their own in his mixed language, contend for his being one of their natives. Now since I have here practised a license in imitation of his, by shortening the word Borbocætes a whole syllable, it seems a good opportunity to speak for him where I defend myself. Remember then, that any great genius who introduces poetry into a language, has a power to polish it, and of all the manners of speaking then in use, to settle that for poetical which he judges most adapted to the art. Take notice too, that Homer has not only done this for necessity, but for ornament, since he uses various dialects to humour his sense with sounds which are expressive of it. Thus much in behalf of my author to answer Zoilus: as for myself, who deal with his followers, I must argue from necessity, that the word was stubborn, and would not ply to the quantities of an English verse, and therefore I altered it by the dialect we call poetical, which makes my line so much smoother, that I am ready to cry with their brother Lipsius, when he turned an O into an I, Vel ego me amo, vel me amavit Phoebus quando hoc correxi. To this let me add a recrimination upon some of them. As first, such as choose words written after the manner of those who preceded the purest age of a language, without the necessity I have pleaded, as regundi for regendi, perduit for perdidit, which restoration of obsolete words deserves to be called a critical license or dialect. 2ndly, Those who pretending to verse without an ear, use the poetical dialect of abbreviation, so that the lines shall run the rougher for it. And 3dly, Those who presume by their critical licenses to alter Ithe spellings of words; an affectation which destroys the etymology of a language, and being carried on by private hands for fancy or fashion, would be a thing we should never have an end of.
P. 64. v. 21.Nor Pallas, Jove.]I cannot, says Zoilus, reflect upon this speech of Mars, where a mouse is opposed to the god of war, the goddess of valour, the thunder of Jupiter, and all the gods at once, but I rejoice to think that Pythagoras saw Homer's soul in Hell, hanging on a tree, and surrounded with serpents, for what he said of the gods. Thus he who hates fables answers one with another, and can rejoice in them when they flatter his envy. He appears at the head of his squadron of critics, in the full spirit of one utterly devoted to a party; with whom truth is a lie, or as bad as a lie, when it makes against him; and false quotations, pass for truth, or as good as truth, when they are necessary to a cause.
P. 66. v. 20.And a whole war.] Here, says Zoilus, is an end of a very foolish poem, of which by this time I have effectually convinced the world, and silenced all such for the future, who, like Homer, write fables to which others find morals, characters whose justness is questioned, unnecessary digressions, and impious episodes. But what assurance can such as Zoilus have, that the world will ever be convinced against an established reputation, by such people whose faults in writing are so very notorious; who judge against rules, affirm without reasons, and censure without manners: who quote themselves for a support of their opinions, found their pride upon a learning in trifles, and their superiority upon the claims they magisterially make; who write of beauties in a harsh style, judge of excellency with a lowness of spirit, and pursue their desire to decry it with every artifice of envy. There is no disgrace in being censured, where there is no credit to be favoured. But, on the contrary, envy gives a testimony of some perfection in another; and one who is attacked by many, is like a hero whom his enemies acknowledge for such, when they point all the spears of a battle against him. In short, an author who writes for every age, may even erect himself a monument of those stones which envy throws at him: while the critic who writes against him can have no fame because he had no success; or if he fancies he may succeed, he should remember, that by the nature of his undertaking he would but undermine his own foundation; for he is to sink of course, when the book which he writes against, and for which alone he is read, is lost in disrepute or oblivion.
THE END.
LONDON:
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