Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/287

Rh It may be easily believed, that Zoilus concluded his affairs were at the utmost point of desperation in Egypt; wherefore, filled with pride, scorn, anger, vexation, envy, (and whatever could torment him, except the knowledge of his unworthiness) he flung himself aboard the first ship which left that country. As it happened, the vessel he sailed in was bound for Asia Minor, and this landing him at a port the nearest to Smyrna, he was a little pleased amidst his misery, to think of decrying Homer in another place where he was adored, and which chiefly pretended to his birth. So incorrigible was his disposition, that no experience taught him any thing which might contribute to his ease and safety.

And as his experience wrought nothing on him, so neither did the accidents, which the opinion of those times took for ominous warnings; for, he is reported to have seen, the night he came to Smyrna, a venerable person, such as Homer is described by antiquity, threatening him in a dream; and in the morning he found a part of his works gnawed by mice, which, says Ælian, are of all beasts the most prophetic; insomuch that they know when to leave a house, even before its fall is suspected. Envy, which has no relaxation, still hurried him forward; for it is certainly true that a man has not firmer resolution from reason, to stand by a good principle, than obstinacy from perverted nature, to adhere to a bad one.