SECT. V. _Homer and some of his successors in Epic Poetry; particularly Virgil and Tasso._ Milton’s place among Epic poets 500 Difficulty of comparing him with Homer 501 The same as to Dante 501 Æneid and Iliad; their resemblances and contrasts 502 Contrast between form and spirit in the Æneid 503 Catalogue in the Iliad and in the Æneid 504 Character of Æneas in the Æneid 505 Character of Æneas in the Iliad 507 The fine character of Turnus 508 The false position of Virgil before Augustus 509 Difficulty of learning the poet from the poem 510 His false position as to religion, liberty, and nationality 511 Untruthfulness hence resulting 512 Homer is misapprehended through Virgil 513 In minor matters, e. g. Simois and Scamander 513 Νεκυΐα of Homer and of Virgil 515 Ethnological and genealogical dislocations 516 Action of the Twelfth Æneid 520 Unfaithful imitations of details 521 Maltreatment of the Homeric characters 522 And of the Homeric Mythology and Ethics 523 Æneas and Dido in the Shades beneath 525 The woman characters of Homer and Virgil 527 Virgil’s insufficient care of minor proprieties 528 And of the order of natural phenomena 529 Use of exaggeration in Homer and in Virgil 530 Contrast of principal aims respectively 531 Character of the Bard; not found in Virgil 532 Post-Homeric change in the idea of the Poet’s office 533 Virgil’s poetical disadvantages 534 Comparison of the Trojan War with the Crusades 535 Rinaldo and Achilles 535 Exaggerations of bulk in Homer and in Tasso 536 Mr. Hallam’s judgment on the Jerusalem 537 Tasso’s poetical disadvantages 538 The man Achilles in relation to the Iliad 539 Liberation of the Sepulchre in relation to the _Gerusalemme_ 540 Intrusion of incongruous elements 542 Relative prominence of Tancredi and Rinaldo 543