You never cool while you read Homer, even not in the second book (a graceful flattery to his countrymen); but he hastens from the ships, and concludes not that book till he has made you an amends by the violent playing of a new machine.

From thence he hurries on his action with variety of events, and ends it in less compass than two months.
This vehemence of his, I confess, is more suitable to my temper; and therefore I have translated his first book with greater pleasure than any part of Virgil; but it was not a pleasure without pains.

The continual agitations of the spirits must needs be a weakening of any constitution, especially in age; and many pauses are required for refreshment betwixt the heats; the _Iliad_ of itself being a third part longer than all Virgil's works together.
This is what I thought needful in this place to say of Homer.

I proceed to Ovid and Chaucer, considering the former only in relation to the latter.

With Ovid ended the golden age of the Roman tongue; from Chaucer the purity of the English tongue began.