To this remark, founded on truth, we could have wished Mr. C. had added the reason why Homer contrived to be minute without being tedious,--to appear finished without growing languid,--to accumulate details without losing the whole; defects which have invariably attended the descriptions of his finished followers, from Virgil and Apollonius, down to Ariosto, and from him to the poets of our days, Milton alone excepted. It is, because he never suffered the descriptions that branched out of his subject to become too heavy for the trunk that supported them; because he never admitted any image calculated to reflect more honour on his knowledge than on his judgment; because he did not seek, but find, not serve, but rule detail, absorbed by his great end; and chiefly, because he, and he alone, contrived to create the image he described, limb by limb, part by part, before our eyes, connecting it with his plot, and making it the offspring of action and time, the two great mediums of poetry. The chariot of Juno is to be described:[19] it is not brought forth as from a repository, tamely to wait before the celestial portico, and subjected to finical examination, the action all the while dormant: on the spur of the moment, Hebe is ordered to put its various parts together before our eyes; the goddess arranges her coursers, mounts, shakes the golden reins, and flies off with Minerva, and our anticipating expectation, to the battle. Agamemnon is to appear in panoply:[20] we are not introduced to enumerate greaves, helmet, sword, belt, corslet, spear; they become important by the action only that applies them to the hero's limbs. We are admitted to the toilet of Juno:[21] no idle _étalage_ of ornaments ready laid out, of boxes, capsules, and cosmetics; the ringlets rise under her fingers, the pendants wave in her ears, the zone embraces her breast, perfumes rise in clouds round her body, her vest is animated with charms. Achilles is to be the great object of our attention: his shield a wonder:[22] heaven, earth, sea, gods, and men, are to occupy its orb; yet, even here he deviates not from his great rule, we see its august texture rise beneath the hammer of Vulcan, and the action proceeds with the strokes of the celestial artist. Where description must have stagnated or suspended action, it is confined to a word, 'the sable ship,' 'the hollow ship;' or despatched with a compound, 'the red-prowed ship,' 'the shadow-stretching spear.' If the instrument be too important to be passed over lightly, he, with a dexterity next to miraculous, makes it contribute to raise the character of the owner. The bow of Pandarus is traced[23] to the enormous horns of the mountain ram, and its acquisition proves the sly intrepidity of the archer, who bends it now.