All this and the preceding is well felt and vigorously, though harshly, expressed, respecting sublime poetry 'in genere'; but in reading Homer I look about me, and ask how does all this apply here. For surely never was there plainer writing; there are a thousand charms of sun and moonbeam, ripple, and wave, and stormy billow, but all on the surface. Had Chapman read Proclus and Porphyry?--and did he really believe them,--or even that they believed themselves? They felt the immense power of a Bible, a Shaster, a Koran. There was none in Greece or Rome, and they tried therefore by subtle allegorical accommodations to conjure the poem of Homer into the [Greek (transliterated): biblon theoparadoton] of Greek faith. [4] Chapman's identification of his fate with Homer's, and his complete forgetfulness of the distinction between Christianity and idolatry, under the general feeling of some religion, is very interesting. It is amusing to observe, how familiar Chapman's fancy has become with Homer, his life and its circumstances, though the very existence of any such individual, at l east with regard to the 'Iliad' and the 'Hymns', is more than problematic. N. B. The rude engraving in the page was designed by no vulgar hand. It is full of spirit and passion. [5] I am so dull, that neither in the original nor in any translation could I ever find any wit or wise purpose in this poem. The whole humour seems to lie in the names. The frogs and mice are not frogs or mice, but men, and yet they do nothing that conveys any satire. In the Greek there is much beauty of language, but the joke is very flat. This is always the case in rude ages;--their serious vein is inimitable,--their comic low and low indeed. The psychological cause is easily stated, and copiously exemplifiable. [Footnote 1: Communicated through Mr. Wordsworth. Ed.] [Footnote 2: Dedication to Prince Henry.] [Footnote 3: 'Epistle Dedicatorie to the Odyssey'.] [Footnote 4: 'Epistle Dedicatorie to the Batrachomyomachia'.] [Footnote 5: End of the 'Batrachomyomachia'.] NOTE IN BAXTER'S 'LIFE OF HIMSELF'. 1820. Among the grounds for recommending the perusal of our elder writers--Hooker--Taylor--Baxter--in short almost any of the folios composed from Edward VI. to Charles II. I note: 1. The overcoming the habit of deriving your whole pleasure passively from the book itself, which can only be effected by excitement of curiosity or of some passion. Force yourself to reflect on what you read paragraph by paragraph, and in a short time you will derive your pleasure, an ample portion of it, at least, from the activity of your own mind. All else is picture sunshine.