The distinguishing features of Homer’s style are clearness, a vigor which makes us feel we are in the presence of a master, and a childlike simplicity that well accords with his sublime themes. His fidelity to nature is matched only by Shakespeare’s; and imagery, profuse as it is rich, life-like, and appropriate, lights up every page. Simile is Homer’s own figure; and transporting pictures flash ever and anon across the scene, called up by his magic wand. For example:— “As when, high-fed with grain, a stall-bound steed Snaps his strong cord, and flies, from bondage freed, Strikes with resounding hoof the earth, and flies Where the wide champaign spread before him lies, Seeks the remembered haunts, on fire to lave His glowing limbs, and dash amid the wave, High rears his crest, and tossing with disdain Wide o’er his shoulders spreads his stream of mane, And fierce in beauty, graceful in his speed, Snuffs his known fellows in the distant mead: Thus Hector—” “As a young olive, in some sylvan scene, Crowned by fresh fountains with eternal green, Lifts its gay head in snowy flowerets fair, And plays and dances to the gentle air; When lo! by blasts uprooted, whirled around, Low lies the plant, extended on the ground: Thus in his beauty young Euphorbus lay.” Homer astonishes us with his universal knowledge. He names every part of a vessel technically with all the accuracy of a veteran seaman; he is as conversant with the details of a sacrifice as the officiating priest; he describes a conflict between two warriors with the precision of a master of fence; he sketches the forms and usages of palaces as if born and bred in kings’ courts, and is equally familiar with the manners of the meanest hind. Everywhere he is at home. Other poets[22] may be stars in the firmament, but Homer, as Longi’nus says, is the sun in the zenith. His poetry is all nature, life, action, fire. It breathes an atmosphere of pure morality, and furnishes ideal characters long held up as models to the Grecian youth, who learned his verses by heart and in some cases could even repeat his entire poems. Human genius has left on earth at intervals of centuries a few imperishable monuments; none nobler among these than the marvellous Greek epics.