The very heroes shew their authors: Achilles is hot, impatient, revengeful, _Impiger, iracundus, inexorabidis, acer_[7] &c.; AEneas patient, considerate, careful of his people, and merciful to his enemies; ever submissive to the will of Heaven--_Quo fata trahunt retrahuntque seqitamur_.[8] I could please myself with enlarging on this subject, but am forc'd to defer it to a fitter time.

From all I have said I will only draw this inference, that the action of Homer being more full of vigor than that of Virgil, according to the temper of the writer, is of consequence more pleasing to the reader.

One warms you by degrees: the other sets you on fire all at once, and never intermits his heat.

'Tis the same difference which Longinus makes betwixt the effects of eloquence in Demosthenes and Tully.

One persuades; the other commands.