might have troubled him with fewer Words upon this Subject, but such Readers I presume not to instruct: What I have said may not perhaps be altogether unuseful to Those who are less conversant in these Matters: To acquaint them with which, nothing can contribute more, than clear Ideas annexed to the Words, _Action_, _Fable_, _Incident_, and _Episode_: All which (especially the last) are ill understood by many, who yet use them with the greatest Freedom and Familiarity. Now if my Opinion be not received, I hope my avowed Ignorance will at least be excused; while I confess, that tho' I very clearly apprehend the Settling of the _Trojan_ Colony in _Italy_ to be the Action of the _Æneis_; and the Return of _Ulysses_ to be the Action of the _Odyssée_: yet I do not so well understand how the Anger of _Achilles_ comes to be called the Action of the _Iliad_. For besides that Anger is a Passion, not an Action: And if you mean the immediate Effect of that Anger, not the Anger it self; Standing still, and doing nothing (which was the Consequence of that Heroe's Resentment) can as little be called an Action as the Other; I say, not to insist upon This, tho' it is by no means so trivial a Nicety as some may suppose; the Anger of _Achilles_ is not the _main Subject_ of the Poem, nor the chief Hinge upon which it turns. The Action of it seems to be the Conquest of _Troy_; the Fable, the _Trojan_ War; and the Anger of _Achilles_, an important Incident, serving to aggrandize the Heroe, and consequently the Action, and to render them more illustrious; as also at the same time to convey that useful Moral, concerning the fatal Effects of Discord and Contention. It will be said, that what I have mentioned is not the Action of the Poem, because _Homer_ has not proposed it as such: But may it not be as well replied, that _it is_ the Action of the Poem; and therefore he _should have_ proposed it as such? For what is the Action, appears from the Stress and Turn of the Work, not from the Title or Exordium; from the End, not from the Beginning: And of This the Readers are to judge, as well as of any thing else. Did not _Homer_ then know the Action of his own Poem? Yes questionless; but he did not mention it in his Proposition; which may possibly be chargeable upon him as an Errour: He mentions the most important Incident, but omits the Action. Had the Exordium set forth the Defeat of the _Trojans_, and the Destruction of _Troy_, with such a Clause as this, "Tho' that great Event was suspended by the fatal Anger of _Achilles_, Ἠ μύρι' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, and so on, as it now stands; it would, in my humble Opinion, have been more unexceptionable than it is at present. But I beg Pardon for even seeming to pretend to correct _Homer_; and speak This with all possible Submission. It is true, the Conquest of _Troy_ is not compleated in the _Iliad_; no more is the Settlement of the _Trojans_ by the Building of