many of the Grecian captains engaged in it were fons of Argonauts, happened in the next enfuing generation, has been alfo antedated about the fame number of years.

(mm) Page 36.

Having nearly fixed the date of the Argonautic expedition, we cannot be much at a lofs with refpect to that of the taking of Troy. Sir Ifaac Newton places it in the 904th year before Chrift, for the following additional reasons. From the return of the Heraclide to the 6th year of Xerxes in 479, seventeen kings of both races had reigned at Sparta. Thefe reigns he computes at 20 years a-piece, to which adding two years for the duration of the war and reign of Ariftodemus, the fum will be 342; and Thucydides afferts, that the Trojan war did not precede that return more than 75 or 80 years. As I think it right to allow 22 years to each reign, to which I am fufficiently authorised by the retrofpection of the average reigns of the last seventeen kings in the above-mentioned ftates of Europe, I am inclined to. fuppofe that Troy was taken in about the 935th year. before Chrift. There will ftill be a difference of about 250 years between this and the Grecian chronology. That nearly fuch a difference exists between the real and commonly fuppofed dates of events in antient Greece, and in feveral much more, Sir Ifaac Newton has adduced fuch various and corroborating proofs, from every part of its hiftory, as makes it a matter of aftonishment that fucceeding chronologers should still conti nue in the old beaten track.

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Hefiod informs us, that he wrote in the age next after the wars of Thebes and Troy, and that that age would finish when men grew grey and dropped into the grave; and therefore we cannot place much more than the length of one whole generation between the laft war and the time wherein he writes, which will bring us to the year 900. Homer, though younger, was his contemporary. Herodotus, born in 480, afferts that He

fiod and Homer did not precede him more than 400 years, and therefore we may place Homer in about 890 before Chrift.

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The idea of the banquet of the great gods during 12 days in Ethiopia, which Homer mentions, feems borrowed from the custom we are told the antient Egyptians had of fending their idols thither during that time, in memory, no doubt, of their being originally defcended from that country. That of the nine mufes is taken from the nine women musicians who accompanied Quiris, a pomp renewed by Sefac, or the Grecian Bacchus, in his Afiatic expedition. The Styx, Charon, the infernal regions and the ely fian fields represent the ceremonies of embarking dead bodies in a boat to cross a lake, on the oppofite fide of which judgment was pronounced on the life of the deceased-a moft antient cuftom in Egypt.

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The picture which this poet draws of Greece in his time has incontestable right to our confidence. His topographical defcriptions were esteemed fo exact, that a verfe of Homer's more than once decided the difputes of its feveral states with respect to their limits. It was thus that the town of Calydon was adjudged to the Etolians against the Æolians, and that of Seftos to the Abydonians. A verfe of this poet gave the Milefians poffeffion of Mycole, and another determined the right of the Athenians to Salamis. His poems are the depofitory of all Grecian knowledge in his days. The Argonautic and Trojan expeditions, by making them failors, had much extended its sphere. Diodorus Siculus affures us that Homer himself had tra: velled into Egypt, and had from thence imported its fables and its sciences,

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Plutarch makes the Grecian army 120,000 men, because he fuppofes each of the 1200 fhips carried an equal number. But, as Thucydides remarks in his first book, Homer indicates the number of men ferving

equally

equally as mariners and foldiers, which the least and the largest cf those fhips contained. Thofe of Bocotia had crews of 120, but thofe of Philorectes, and Achilles were compofed of no more than 50 men. By taking the medium number, as Mr. Pope juftly obferves, the most probable amount of the whole army will be 102,000.

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This admirable hield is defcribed to be covered by five diftinct plates of metal, in which are blended brafs, gold, filver, and tin. It appears by it, that the art of intimately mixing and uniting metals in such manner as to give various shades to the picture was already known in Homer's time ; and it should seem that even the means of diverfifying by fire the natural colour of each metal were found out. It is not easy to decide whether Homer supposes the art of emboffing, of engraving, or of fome kind of enameling to have been employed: poffibly all three might be in ufe, and, in their then state, neceffary to complete fuch landscapes. A reprefentation of the earth formed the centre or bofs of the fhield. In the next circular plate were feen the filver Moon, the Pleiades, the Hyades, the conftellations of Orion and of the Bear. In the third, the Sun running round the twelve figns of the zodiac, or the starry heaven. The next and largest plate was divided into 12 compartments answering to the months of the year, forming 12 diftinct pictures of human life. Thofe of the three first months represented the peaceful walks of civil life. In the firft, the celebration and festivity of a marriage; in the second, a caufe pleaded before the affembled people; in the third, the fame caufe finally judged by the fenate of elders. The three following pictures give the complete image of war-a town befieged; an ambuscade; and subfequent battle. In those antient times a campaign could feldom laft above three months. The foldiers on both fides, citizens and husbandmen, were equally obliged to abandon hoftile projects to provide for the fubfiftence of their families, and the neceffary cultivation of their country. The three following pictures represent tillage, harveft, and the vintage. The produce of the year gathered in, the fields are given up to grazing, and in confequence the firft of the last three pictures is a fcene of herdfinen and their herds,

U

4

herds, which Homer has animated by reprefenting the fudden inroad of lions, who, having watched the morning egrefs from the fold, had already feized a bull, and, undifmayed by the clamours of the herdsmen and their · dogs, tear it to pieces. The second is a calm and cheerful landscape, where we fee in perspective a pleafing valley interfperfed with cots and covered with fheep. The last compartment, the labours and duties of the year completed, gives a view of the rural amufements and games of labourers, fhepherds, and citizens. Women and men dreffed in their best attire. form together the dance of Gnoffus, or of Ariadne, which, by its quick. and mazy movemonts in complicated circles, reprefents the labyrinth of Crete. In the midst are tumblers, who by their tricks of agility add to the amusement of the fpectators. It is thus that in the circle of this fourth. plate each compartment forms a complete and diftinct picture, in which the fubject is one, but the reunion of all, connected and contrafted in the moft pleasing variety, forms one great defign-representative of the whole: tiffue of human life. The ocean, in the fifth plate, raifed in filver waves, rolls round the whole, and forms the outmoft border. In this admirable piece: of work, as reprefented by this prince of poets, we cannot fufficiently admire the whole and every part of the defign. Compofition, difpofition, and expreffion, all are worthy of the greatest artift. From one picture to another the mind is agreeably relieved by variety, and by a fucceffion of, emotions. In each feparate piece the unities of time, of action and of, fcene, are strictly obferved; very unlike the difcordant works of many fubfequent, but yet fufficiently esteemed painters. In each grouped with. out confusion, the attitudes of every figure are finely varied, and strongly. expreffive. The art of leffening objects in perspective was either known in his time, or the premature genius of the poet had conceived it... In the fixth tablet the prominent figure of Destiny stalking through the field of carnage, already feifed of the dead and of the wounded, and impelling, the yet unhurt into the thick of danger, is a fublime idea, worthy, as Mr. Were a Pope justly obferves, of the allegorical genius of a Rubens. great painter, fufficiently eminent in every part of the art which the whole:

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would

would require, to undertake it; by clofely following Homer, from whose fhort but animated defcription his genius might be roused to the highest exertions, he might furely form the most interesting gallery of pictures ever yet exhibited. It is to be hoped fome daring genius will one day attempt it. The fubject is not fome antiquated and frequently little known ftory, it is the animated and ever interesting history of every age and country. Let us notice, that in the fecond picture the fubject is a pleading before the people, in which the difpute is between two men, one of whom pretends to have paid the compenfation for murder, and the other denies the receipt. This teaches us the custom then exifting of fining for murder: perhaps too Homer meant to infinuate, that the man who is capable of affaffinating is little to be trufted in any thing. In the third picture he informs us, that the herald placed a sceptre in the hands of each of the judges when about to deliver his fentence, and that a public recompenfe was allotted to the fenator who was efteemed to give the best judgment. The cause appears to be the fame, removed to the fenate of elders on appeal from or on the indecifion of the popular affembly. In the fourth and fubfequent pictures this great poet, ever moral, and ever the most faithful painter of thofe paffions which mislead mankind, reprefents the befiegers difputing amongst themselves on the difpofition of the booty already grasped in imagination, whilst the befieged profit of their contentions to lay an ambuscade and thus deceive their ill-founded and mistaken hopes. In the feventh and eighth tablets, kings are reprefented encouraging the ploughmen and the reapers. In thofe yet fimple ages, fovereigns watched themfelves over rural labours, fole fources of their power and riches.

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The antient inland of Pharos, which in the time of the Greeks and Romans covered the road of Alexandria, is at prefent joined to the continent by a neck of land, formed by the accumulation of fands. By the negligence of the Turks the harbour itself is daily filling up. In the days of Homer, that former ifland was at a confiderable diftance from the main land,