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The Tatler

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I then was passing to my former state, Insensible, and forthwith to dissolve._[125] But now I can't forgive this odious thing, this Dryden, who, in his "State of Innocence," has given my great-grand-mother Eve the same apprehension of annihilation, on a very different occasion, as Adam pronounces it of himself, when he was seized with a pleasing kind of stupor and deadness, Eve fancies herself falling away, and dissolving in the hurry of a rapture. However, the verses are very good, and I don't know but it may be natural what she says. I'll read them: _When your kind eyes looked languishing on mine, And wreathing arms did soft embraces join, A doubtful trembling seized me first all o'er, Then wishes, and a warmth unknown before; What followed was all extasy and trance, Immortal pleasures round my swimming eyes did dance, And speechless joys, in whose sweet tumults tost, I thought my breath and my new being lost._[126] She went on, and said a thousand good things at random, but so strangely mixed that you would be apt to say all her wit is mere good luck, and not the effect of reason and judgment. When I made my escape hither I found a gentleman playing the critic on two other great poets, even Virgil and Homer.[127] He was observing, that Virgil is more judicious than the other in the epithets he gives his hero. "Homer's usual epithet," said he, "is {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} [Pdas chs], or {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} [Podrchs], and his indiscretion has been often rallied by the critics, for mentioning the nimbleness of foot in Achilles, though he describes him standing, sitting, lying down, fighting, eating, drinking, or in any other circumstance, however foreign or repugnant to speed and activity. Virgil's common epithet to neas, is 'Pius' or 'Pater.' I have therefore considered," said he, "what passage there is in any of his hero's actions, where either of these appellations would have been most improper, to see if I could catch him at the same fault with Homer: and this, I think, is his meeting with Dido in the cave, where Pius neas would have been absurd, and Pater neas a burlesque: the poet has therefore wisely dropped them both for Dux Trojanus, "_Speluncam Dido dux et Trojanus eandem Devenient;_[128] which he has repeated twice in Juno's speech, and his own narration: for he very well knew a loose action might be consistent enough with the usual manners of a soldier, though it became neither the chastity of a pious man, nor the gravity of the father of a people." Grecian Coffee-house, April 22. While other parts of the town are amused with the present actions, we generally spend the evening at this table in inquiries into antiquity, and think anything news which gives us new knowledge. Thus we are making a very pleasant entertainment to ourselves, in putting the actions of Homer's "Iliad" into an exact journal. This poem is introduced by Chryses, King of Chryseis, and priest of Apollo, who comes to re-demand his daughter, who was carried off at the taking of that city, and given to Agamemnon for his part of the booty. The refusal he received enrages Apollo, who for nine days showered down darts upon them, which occasioned the pestilence. The tenth day Achilles assembles the council, and encourages Chalcas to speak for the surrender of Chryseis to appease Apollo. Agamemnon and Achilles storm at one another, notwithstanding which Agamemnon will not release his prisoner, unless he has Briseis in her stead. After long contestations, wherein Agamemnon gives a glorious character of Achilles' valour, he determines to restore Briseis to her father, and sends two heralds to fetch away Chryseis from Achilles, who abandons himself to sorrow and despair. His mother Thetis came to comfort him under his affliction, and promises to represent his sorrowful lamentations to Jupiter; but he could not attend it; for the evening before, he had appointed to divert himself for two days beyond the seas with the harmless thiopians. It was the twenty-first day after Chryseis' arrival to the camp, that Thetis went very early to demand an audience of Jupiter. The means he uses to satisfy her were, to persuade the Greeks to attack the Trojans; that so they might perceive the consequence of condemning Achilles and the miseries they suffer if he does not head them. The next night he orders Agamemnon, in a dream, to attack them; who was deceived with the hopes of obtaining a victory, and also taking the city, without sharing the honour with Achilles. On the 22nd, in the morning, he assembles the council, and having made a feint of raising the siege and retiring, he declares to them his dream; and, together with Nestor and Ulysses, resolves on an engagement. This was the twenty-third day, which is full of incidents, and which continues from almost the beginning of the second canto to the eighth. The armies being then drawn up in view of one another, Hector brings it about that Menelaus and Paris, the two persons concerned in the quarrel, should decide it by a single combat; which tending to the advantage of Menelaus, was interrupted by a cowardice infused by Minerva: then both armies engage, where the Trojans have the disadvantage; but being afterwards animated by Apollo, they repulse the enemy, yet they are once again forced to give ground; but their affairs were retrieved by Hector, who has a single combat with Ajax. The gods threw themselves into the battle, Juno and Minerva took the Grecians' part, and Apollo and Mars the Trojans': but Mars and Venus are both wounded by Diomedes. The truce for burying the slain ended the twenty-third day; after which the Greeks threw up a great entrenchment to secure their navy from danger. Councils are held on both sides. On the morning of the

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