Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/289

Rh wherefore they sentenced him to suffer by fire, as the due reward of his desecrations; and ordered, that their city should be purified by a lustration, for having entertained so impious a guest. In pursuance to this sentence, he was led away with his compositions borne before him by the public executioner. Then was he fastened to the stake, prophesying all the while how many should arise to revenge his quarrel; particularly, that when Greek should be no more a language, there shall be a nation which will both translate Homer into prose, and contract him in verse. At last, his compositions were lighted to set the pile on fire, and he expired sighing for the loss of them, more than for the pain he suffered: and perhaps too, because he might foresee in his prophetic rapture, that there should arise a poet in another nation, able to do Homer justice, and make him known amongst his people to future ages.

Thus died this noted critic, of whom we may observe from the course of the history, that as several cities contended for the honour of the birth of Homer, so several have contended for the honour of the death of Zoilus. With him likewise perished his great work on the Iliad, and the Odyssey; concerning which we observe also, that as the known worth of Homer's poetry makes him survive himself with glory, so the bare memory of Zoilus's criticism makes him survive himself with infamy. These are deservedly the consequences of that ill-nature which made him Rh