SECT. VII. _The declension of the great Homeric Characters in the later Tradition._ Physical conditions of the Greek Theatre 590 Absolute dependence on the popular taste 592 General obliteration of the finer distinctions 593 Mutilation of the Helen of Homer 593 The Helen of Euripides 595 Of Isocrates and of Virgil 597 Characters of Achilles and Ulysses in Homer 598 Mutilation of the Ulysses of Homer 601 Of the Achilles of Homer 602 The Achilles of Statius 604 Homeric characters in Seneca 605 New relative position of Trojans and Greeks 606 Trojanism in England 608 Imitations of Homeric characters by Tasso 609 The Troilus and Cressida 610 Shirley’s Ajax and Ulysses 612 Racine’s Iphigénie 613 Racine’s Andromaque 614 CONCLUSION 615 I. AGORÈ. THE POLITIES OF THE HOMERIC AGE. It is complained, and perhaps not without foundation, that the study of the ancient historians does not supply the youth of England with good political models: that, if we adjust our sympathies and antipathies according to the division of parties and classes offered to our view in Rome, Athens, or Sparta, they will not be cast in an English mould, but will come out in the cruder forms of oligarchic or democratic prejudice. Now I do not wait to inquire how far these defects may be supplied by the political philosophers, and in particular by the admirable treatise of Aristotle. And it certainly is true, that in general they present to us a state of political ideas and morals greatly deranged: the choice lies between evil on this side in one form, and on that side in another form: the characters, who can be recommended as examples, are commonly in a minority or in exile. Nor do I ask how far we ought to be content, having an admirable range, so to speak, of anatomical models in our hands, to lay aside the idea of attaching our sympathies to what we see. I would rather incite the objector to examine and judge whether we may not find an admirable school of polity, and see its fundamental ideas exhibited under the truest and largest forms, in a quarter where perhaps it would be the least expected, namely, in the writings of Homer.