I have always thought the following speech in which Helen laments Hector, and hints at her own invidious and unprotected situation in Troy, as almost the sweetest passage in the poem.

It is another striking instance of that refinement of feeling and softness of tone which so generally distinguish the last book of the Iliad from the rest."-- Classic Poets, p.

198, seq.
299 "And here we part with Achilles at the moment best calculated to exalt and purify our impression of his character.

We had accompanied him through the effervescence, undulations, and final subsidence of his stormy passions.

We now leave him in repose and under the full influence of the more amiable affections, while our admiration of his great qualities is chastened by the reflection that, within a few short days the mighty being in whom they were united was himself to be suddenly cut off in the full vigour of their exercise.
The frequent and touching allusions, interspersed throughout the Iliad, to the speedy termination of its hero's course, and the moral on the vanity of human life which they indicate, are among the finest evidences of the spirit of ethic unity by which the whole framework of the poem is united."-- Mure, vol.i.p 201.
300 Cowper says,--"I cannot take my leave of this noble poem without expressing how much I am struck with the plain conclusion of it.