Page:Life and Writings of Homer.pdf/15

Rh lieve it wou’d be difficult to peruade your Lordhip, That there was a Miracle in the Cae. That, indeed, wou’d quickly put an end to the Quetion: For were we really of the ame Opinion, as the Ancients, that Homer was inpired from Heaven; that he ung, and wrote as the Prophet and Interpreter of the Gods, we hould hardly be apt to wonder: Nor wou’d it urprize us much, to find a Book of an heavenly Origin without an Equal among human Compoitions: to find the Subject of it equally ueful and great, the Stile jut, and yet ublime, the Order both imple and exquiite, to find the Sentiments natural without lownes, the Manners real, and withal o extenive, as to include even the Varieties of the chief Characters of Mankind; we hou'd expect no les, conidering whence it came: And That I take to have been the Reaon, why none of the Ancients have attempted to account for this Prodigy. They acquieced, it is probable, in the Pretenions, which the Poet contantly makes to celetial Intruction, and eem to have been of Tacitus’s Opinion, “That it is more pious and repectful to believe, than to enquire into the Works of the Gods ”.

, My Lord, the happy Change that has been ince wrought upon the face of religious Affairs, gives us liberty to be of the contrary Rh