description even of a low action. There are numerous
instances of this both in Homer and Virgil, and perhaps
those natural passages are not the least pleasing of their
works. It is often the same in history, where the
representations of common or even domestic things in
clear, plain, and natural words, are frequently found to
make the liveliest impression on the reader.
Indeed the true reason that so few poets have imitated
Homer in these lower parts has been the extreme
difficulty of preserving that mixture of ease and dignity
essential to them. For it is as hard for an epic poem to
stoop to the narrative with success as for a prince to
descend to be familiar without diminution to his
greatness.
Homer, in his lowest narrations or speeches, is ever
easy, flowing, copious, clear, and harmonious. He shows
not less invention in assembling the humbler than the
greater thoughts and images; nor less judgement in
proportioning the style and the versification to these
than to the other. Let it be remembered that the same
genius that soared the highest, and from whom the
greatest models of the sublime are derived, was also he
who stooped the lowest and gave to the simple narrative
its utmost perfection. Which of these was the harder
task to Homer himself I cannot pretend to determine;
but to his translator I can affirm (however unequal all
his imitations must be) that of the latter has been much
the more difficult.
First published 1726
from the PREFACE TO THE WORKS OF SHAKESPEAREIf ever any author deserved the name of an original, it was
Shakespeare. Homer himself drew not his art so
immediately from the fountains of Nature; it proceeded
through Egyptian strainers and channels and came to him
not without some tincture of the learning or some cast of
the models of those before him. The poetry of Shakespeare
[278–9]