In the combat between Achilles and Hector, the point where Homer reserves the whole fire of his genius, the characters of the respective heroes blaze out in all their effulgence; but the effulgence is peculiarly distinct and appropriate. Hector found this the trying hour of his fortitude. His army is defeated, safe within the walls of the city, and himself only without, his implacable enemy approaching, whose prowess he has proved, and knows it supeviour to his own. His aged parents are on the ramparts, who, by every tender expostulation and intreaty, implore him to save Troy and themselves from certain destruction by declining the combat. In defiance of all these, he calmly meets his fate, and is denied his dying request, that his corpse might be restored to his parents, and find a tomb in his native country.

Often has it excited my surprise, that historick painters have not made this combat the subject of their pencils. One might rep resent a sketch of the walls of the city, the Trojan hero before them, his parents on the ramparts in the attitude of intreaty, the terrifick Achilles approaching, and the con. tention between filial tenderness and fortitude in the countenance of Hector. Another might represent the two champions preparing to engage, and by a delicate delineation ascertain the scowling brow of Achilles, and his sanguinary eye, opposed to the calm and unruffled countenance of his antagonist. The next might show us the corpse of Hector despoiled of arms, and Achilles gazing on it with an inexorable countenance and a ferocious delight. Let any master of the pencil replenish his mind with Homer's ideas, and he will find in himself an original as

accurate to the eye, as if the bodies were presented for the transcription of light and shade.

This patriotick martyr was undoubtedly the original,from whence Virgil drew his portrait. Will it be thought poetical blasphemy to declare, that the shadow does not preserve in every feature the splendour and the inviolable interest of the original? Virgil, whose genius savoured more of the pathetick than the sublime, delighted to indulge in subjects most auspicious to his Muse. Whenever therefore Æneas mourns for the loss of his parent or his consort, or is agitated for the welfare of his surviving boy, the bard is perfectly at home. Such tender scenes are so plainly the favourites of his pencil, that he suffers no opportunity of that kind to pass unimproved. Witness the filial expostulation of Eneas with his father, to dissuade him from his determination not to survive the downfall of Troy; his anxiety, when he found his wife no longer the living companion of his bosom; the amiable contest between the two friends, Nisus and Euryalus, while the former endeavours to dissuade the latter from the meditated expedition, that he acknowledged might prove ruinous to himself, but at the same time might involve his friend in the same calamity; the affecting scene, where the aged mother of Euryalus deplores the the death of her son; all these, and a multitude of others, proclaim that Virgil's muse was alive to the touch of the pathetick.

Homer, familiar to the sublime and the grand, now and then condescended to indulge his mighty fancy in the pathetick. Virgil's muse is occasionally lifted from the pathetick to the grand. This distinction rationally accounts for

the manifest diversity of character, which the original and the copy represent. Homer sinks to the pathetick, and the descent is easy; Virgil rises to the sublime, and it costs him an effort, and a struggle. Hector, amidst all his calamities, sheds not a single tear; Eneas scarcely fights a battle without one. A confusion of character is created by this, and the mind refuses to yield a ready assent to the fact, that a man, who weeps with so much facility, can fight with so much bravery. The Roman bard is anxious to impress his readers with the belief, that Eneas was more distinguished by his piety, than his valour. For this we have the authority of his own words.

Quicquid apud dure cepatum est mania Troje; Hectoris Aniæque manu victoria Grai

such important services to poor mortals. The objection has not the true stamp of antiquity, and, like many ancient coins, bears top much the mark of modern time to be genuine. The success of battle then depended on muscular strength, and the dexterity of personal prowess: it has since be come a science, and the ancient target, with all its subtlety of evasion, would not ward off a modern bullet. This gave rise to the thundering philippick of Don Quixotte against gunpowder, ber cause it threatened the overthrow of chivalry. Let the strength of a hero be what it might, provided it did not excel one of the earthborn giants of antiquity, it is altogether incredible, that he could atchieve such wonders, as he frequently did, if he relied on the competency of his own nerves to accomplish them. Amidst such a storm of darts, hissing around his ears, a mind, not at all disposed to scepticism, would pause to inquire, how is it possible, that every one should fail of its own accord in accomplishing the object of its errand? Poets, aware of this dif ficulty, have summoned the superstition of the age, in which they lived, to their assistance, and have given their heroes sometimes a

nodus

Inciderit,.........

they have not treated with become ing respect those celestial dignities, who condescended now and then to spare the blood of their favourites in the hour of danger by shedding their own. It is hoped, it will not be thought presumption, nor subject a man to the imputation of Paganism, to advocate the cause of Deities long since dead, who during their lives, if poets may be credited, rendered

guard of Deities to defend them. The formidable objection of impossibility now vanishes at once; the darts are turned aside, or if they wound, the favoured hero goes through the ceremony of bleeding a little, and returns fresh for the combat. Achilles himself, who loved fighting better than musick, has the honesty to confess, that

To mow down troops, and make whis 'Tis not in him, tho' favour'd of the sky, armies fly?

This is more important to the principle now advocated, as the hero was encompassed with immortal armour, impenetrable to mortal darts, and did not feel secure, even though he was fav oured of the sky.' I hope, in this day, it will not be deemed necessary to vindicate the character of Achilles from that vulgar slander, that his body was by his mother dipped in the river Styx, and rendered as impenetrable as his armour. Achilles is wounded in the hand in the river Scamander, which is of itself a full refutation of that calumny. Recurring to the question, respecting the unnecessary interposition of the ancient Deities for the preservation of their heroes in the hour of danger, it is amusing to observe the dexterity of the poets. The doubt naturally suggests itself, that every man must die; and if he has a Deity to protect himself from death in one case, why not in another? According to this argument the hero would be immortal. Poets, especially those who can command supernatural assistance, are difficult men to entrap, and to obviate this objection they have created a power, whom they have denominated Fate, against which it is out of the power even of the immortals to defend their heroes. So that until the very crisis of their destiny arrives, they, by celestial assistance, perform prodigies of valour; but when the time comes, in which only such assistance could be wanted, it is denied, and they are left to be the victims of

Fate. The bards, availing themselves of this poetick licence, crowd the narrow span of their heroes' lives with as many dangers, as fancy can depict, and after all, surrender them to mortality at last, by the conclusive declaration, "sic fata jubebant."

The Pagans allowed to their Deities an unlimited agency in human affairs; they partook of the vices and virtues of the world, over which they presided, and even the father of Olympus was not exempt from them. Mortals, after their deaths, (Hercules for instance) were created Divinities, and some during their lives (Alexander for instance) were thus made Gods by anticipation. The objection above mentioned seems more particularly pointed against the gross notions of theology, than against the subordinate employment of the Deities. What wonder then that the Gods should assume an interest in human life, when, even before they had quitted it, they were allowed the exercise of their functions? their heroism they had obtained, for the most part, their celestial pre-eminence: superstition had invested them above with the same propensities they harboured below; and, allowing this to be the case, it would be a violation of nature to represent them, as not peculiarly interested in the protection of those, who were their rivals on earth, and would soon be their equals in heaven.

By

R.

luck would have it, his temerity came off unpunished. The members of the infernal junto were all out on some midnight business or other, and he saw nothing but a kind of kettle or caldron, depending from the roof, over the fire, simmering some heads of unchristened children, limbs of executed malefactors, &c. for the business of the night. It was in for a penny, in for a pound,' with the honest ploughman: so without ceremony he unhooked the caldron from off the fire, and pouring out the damnable ingredients, inverted it on his head, and carried it fairly home, where it remained long in the family a living evidence of the truth of the story.

· Another story, which I can prove to be equally authentick,was as follows.

On a market day in the town of Ayr, a farmer from Carrick, and consequently whose way lay by the very gate of Aloway kirk-yard, in order to cross the river Doon at the old bridge, which is about two or three hundred yards further on than the said gate, had been detained by his business, till, by the time he reached Aloway, it was the wizard hour, between night and morning. Though he was terrified with a blaze streaming from the kirk,yet, as it is a well known fact, that to turn back on these occasions is running by far the greatest risk of mischief, he prudently advanced on his road. When he had reached the gate of the kirk-yard, he was surprised and entertained, through the ribs and arches of an old gothick win. dow, which still faces the highway, to see a dance of witches merrily boting it round their old sooty blackguard master, who was keeping them all alive with the powers of his bag-pipe. The farmer,

stopping his horse to observe them a little, could plainly descry the faces of many old women of his acquaintance and neighbourhood. How the gentleman was dressed, tradition does not say; but the la dies were all in their smocks : and one of them happening unluckily to have a smock, which was considerably too short to answer all the purpose of that piece of dress, our farmer was so tickled that he involuntarily burst out, with a loud laugh, "Weel luppen* Maggy, wi' the short sark" and recollecting himself, instantly spurred his horse to the top of his speed. I need not mention the universally known fact, that no diabolical power can pursue you beyond the middle of a running stream.— Lucky it was for the poor farmer that the river Doon was so near, for notwithstanding the speed of his horse, which was a good one, against he reached the middle of the arch of the bridge, and consequently the middle of the stream, the pursuing, vengeful hags, were so close at his heels, that one of them actually sprung to seize him; but it was too late, nothing was on her side of the stream but the horse's tail, which immediately gave way at her infernal grip, as if blasted by a stroke of lightning; but the farmer was beyond her reach. However, the unsightly, tail-less condition of the vigorous steed was, to the last hour of the noble creature's life, an awful warning to the Carrick farmers, not to stay too late in Ayr markets.

The last relation I shall give, though equally true, is not so well identified as the two former, with regard to the scene: but as the

Luppen, the Scots participle pasa give of the verb to leap.