Page:The Iliad in a Nutshell, or Homer's Battle of the Frogs and Mice - Wesley (1726).djvu/65

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To blameless^[1] Æthiopians must they go
To feast with Jove for twelve succeeding Nights,
745 Therefore abrupt thus End they—Let suffice
The Gods August Assembly to relate,
Heroick Frogs and Demigods of Mice,
Troxartes' Vengeance, and Pelides' Fate.
Hosts routed, Lakes of Gore, and Hills of slain,
750 An Iliad^[2], Work Divine!^[3] rais'd from a Day's Campaign.

FINIS.

1. v. 743. To blameless.] The Gods are represented as Feasting in Æthiopia before the Scenes of War are open'd in the Iliad, and return thither at the Close. The Æthiopians are said to be the Inventors of Pomps, Sacrifices, and other Honours paid to the Gods. Macrobius tells us, Jupiter means the Sun, and the number Twelve denotes the twelve Signs.
2. v. 750. An Iliad.] Homer's Iliad does not take up fifty Days, so that it was but a strange Complement to a great General,to say he had furnish'd Matter for an Iliad in one Campaign or half Year.
3. Ibid. Work Divine!] Madam Dacier seems to have almost as much regard for Homer as the Bible, as tho' she were willing they should stand or fall together; and with Wit equal to her Piety, she proves the Poet blameless by Texts of Scripture. Nothing could go beyond this, except the Fancy of our Countryman, who held Homer and Solomon to be the same Person.
   I think it proper at my taking Leave of my Reader, to acquaint him, there is a general Moral runs through this whole Work; which I will not suppose him so ignorant as not to discern. 'Tis of a quite different Nature from the above-mention'd Allegories; to which sort of Beauties may be applied, with the Alteration of new into old, that celebrated Couplet,
   This new Way of Wit does so surprize,
   Men lose their Wits in wond'ring where it lies.