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sublime, his images and descriptions more full and animated, his
expression more raised and daring, and his numbers more rapid and various.
I hope, in what has been said of Virgil, with regard to any of these
heads, I have no way derogated from his character. Nothing is more absurd
or endless, than the common method of comparing eminent writers by an
opposition of particular passages in them, and forming a judgment from
thence of their merit upon the whole. We ought to have a certain knowledge
of the principal character and distinguishing excellence of each: it is in
that we are to consider him, and in proportion to his degree in that we
are to admire him. No author or man ever excelled all the world in more
than one faculty; and as Homer has done this in invention, Virgil has in
judgment. Not that we are to think that Homer wanted judgment, because
Virgil had it in a more eminent degree; or that Virgil wanted invention,
because Homer possessed a larger share of it; each of these great authors
had more of both than perhaps any man besides, and are only said to have
less in comparison with one another. Homer was the greater genius, Virgil
the better artist. In one we most admire the man, in the other the work.
Homer hurries and transports us with a commanding impetuosity; Virgil
leads us with an attractive majesty; Homer scatters with a generous
profusion; Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence; Homer, like the
Nile, pours out his riches with a boundless overflow; Virgil, like a river
in its banks, with a gentle and constant stream. When we behold their
battles, methinks the two poets resemble the heroes they celebrate. Homer,
boundless and resistless as Achilles, bears all before him, and shines
more and more as the tumult increases; Virgil, calmly daring, like Æneas,
appears undisturbed in the midst of the action; disposes all about him,
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