The Iliad of Homer - Get a Free Blog

wheel, by its own rapidity. Exact disposition,
just thought, correct elocution, polished
numbers, may have been found in a
thousand; but this poetic fire, this "vivida
vis animi," in a very few. Even in works
where all those are imperfect or neglected,
this can overpower criticism, and
make us admire even while we disapprove.
Nay, where this appears, though
attended with absurdities, it brightens all
the rubbish about it, till we see nothing
but its own splendour. This fire is discerned
in Virgil, but discerned as through
a glass, reflected from Homer, more shining
than fierce, but everywhere equal and
constant: in Lucan and Statius it bursts
out in sudden, short, and interrupted
flashes: In Milton it glows like a furnace
kept up to an uncommon ardour by the
force of art: in Shakspeare it strikes before
we are aware, like an accidental fire
from heaven: but in Homer, and in him