As far as this goes, Eratosthenes, you are right enough; not so, however, when you not only deny that Homer was possessed of these vast acquirements, but represent poetry in general as a tissue of old wives’ fables, where, to use your own expression, every thing thought likely to amuse is cooked up. I ask, is it of no value to the auditors[83] of the poets to be made acquainted with [the history of] different countries, with strategy, agriculture, and rhetoric, and such-like things, which the lecture generally contains. 4. One thing is certain, that the poet has bestowed all these gifts upon Ulysses, whom beyond any of his other [heroes] he loves to adorn with every virtue. He says of him, that he “Discover’d various cities, and the mind And manners learn’d of men in lands remote.”[84] That he was “Of a piercing wit and deeply wise.”[85] He is continually described as “the destroyer of cities,” and as having vanquished Troy, by his counsels, his advice, and his deceptive art. Diomede says of him, “Let him attend me, and through fire itself We shall return; for none is wise as he.”[86] He prides himself on his skill in husbandry, for at the harvest [he says], “I with my well-bent sickle in my hand, Thou arm’d with one as keen.”[87] And also in tillage, “Then shouldst thou see How straight my furrow should be cut and true.”[88] And Homer was not singular in his opinion regarding these matters, for all educated people appeal to him in favour of the idea that such practical knowledge is one of the chief means of acquiring understanding. 5. That eloquence is regarded as the wisdom of speech, Ulysses manifests throughout the whole poem, both in the Trial,[89] the Petitions,[90] and the Embassy.[91] Of him it is said by Antenor, “But when he spake, forth from his breast did flow A torrent swift as winter’s feather’d snow.”[92] Who can suppose that a poet capable of effectively introducing into his scenes rhetoricians, generals, and various other characters, each displaying some peculiar excellence, was nothing more than a droll or juggler, capable only of cheating or flattering his hearer, and not of instructing him. Are we not all agreed that the chief merit of a poet consists in his accurate representation of the affairs of life? Can this be done by a mere driveller, unacquainted with the world? The excellence of a poet is not to be measured by the same standard as that of a mechanic or a blacksmith, where honour and virtue have nothing to do with our estimate. But the poet and the individual are connected, and he only can become a good poet, who is in the first instance a worthy man.