Page:Life and Writings of Homer.pdf/347

Rh Their conjunct Powers afford the wish'd-for Solution; and a proper Answer to the Question, "By what Fate or Disposition of things it has happen'd, that no Poet has equalled him for upwards of two thousand Years, nor any, that we know, ever surpassed him before?, My Lord, if a Production which requires the Concourse of so many dissimiiar , so many wide and uncommon , to make it excel; (the Absence or Alteration of any one of which would spoil it) That such a Production should appear but once in three or four thousand Years; and that the Imitations which resemble it most, with due regard to the Manners of the Times, should be next in Esteem and Value. INDEX.