The massive rampart of the Greeks; they tore
The galleries from the towers, and levelled down
The breastworks, heaved with levers from their place
The jutting buttresses which Argive hands

Had firmly planted to support the towers,

And brought them to the ground; and thus they hoped
To force a passage to the Grecian camp.

-Iliad, 12: Idem.

Even in Homer's references to natural scenery, we find every thing in constant motion. Notice these traits in his description of the fire kindled by Vulcan in order to save the Greeks from the flood.

The ground was dried; the glimmering flood was staid.
As when the autumnal north-wind, breathing o'er

A newly watered garden, quickly dries

The clammy mould, and makes the tiller glad,
So did the spacious plain grow dry on which
The dead were turned to ashes. Then the god
Seized on the river with his glittering fires.
The elms, the willows, and the tamarisks
Fell, scorched to cinders, and the lotus-herbs,
Rushes, and reeds, that richly fringed the banks
Of that fair-flowing current, were consumed.
The eels and fishes, that were wont to glide
Hither and thither through the pleasant depths
And eddies, languished in the fiery breath
Of Vulcan, mighty artisan. The strength
Of the greatest river withered.

-Iliad, 21: Idem.

So a snow-storm seems interesting to him mainly be cause it is doing something, and can be used as an illus tration of something else that is doing something; e. g.,

As when the flakes

Of snow fall thick upon a winter-day,

When Jove the Sovereign pours them down on men,

Like arrows, from above;-he bids the wind

Breathe not continually he pours them down,

And covers every mountain-top and peak,
And flowery mead, and field of fertile tilth,
And sheds them on the havens and the shores
Of the gray deep; but there the waters bound
The covering of snows,-all else is white
Beneath that fast-descending shower of Jove ;-
So thick the shower of stones from either side
Flew toward the other.

-Iliad, 12: Idem.

Notice also the account of the action of the water in this, how he portrays the struggle of Achilles with it, in such a way as to make the whole living and graphic. Here, too, the mental quality appears again. The water itself seems interesting to the narrator, mainly because of its connection with the actions of a man with whom he sympathizes.

And then Achilles, mighty with the spear,

From the steep bank leaped into the mid-stream,
While, foul with ooze, the angry River raised
His waves, and pushed along the heaps of dead,
Slain by Achilles. These, with mighty roar
As of a bellowing ox, Scamander cast
Aground; the living with his whirling gulfs
He hid, and saved them in his friendly streams.
In tumult terribly the surges rose

Around Achilles, beating on his shield,

And made his feet to stagger, till he grasped

A tall, fair-growing elm upon the bank.

Down came the tree, and in its loosened roots

Brought the earth with it; the fair stream was checked

By the thick branches, and the prostrate trunk

Bridged it from side to side. Achilles sprang
From the deep pool, and fled with rapid feet
Across the plain in terror. Nor did then
The mighty river-god refrain, but rose
Against him with a darker crest.

Askance

He fled; the waters with a mighty roar

Followed him close. As when a husbandman

Leads forth, from some dark spring of earth, a rill
Among his planted garden-beds, and clears

Its channel, spade in hand, the pebbles there
Move with the current, which runs murmuring down
The sloping surface and outstrips its guide,—
So rushed the waves where'er Achilles ran,
Swift as he was; for mightier are the gods
Than men. As often as the noble son
Of Peleus made a stand, in hope to know
Whether the deathless gods of the great heaven
Conspired to make him flee, so often came

A mighty billow of the Jove-born stream

And drenched his shoulders. Then again he sprang
Away; the rapid torrent made his knees

To tremble, while it swept, where'er he trod,
The earth from underneath his feet.

He looked

To the broad heaven above him and complained.

-Iliad, 21: Bryant's Trs.

Look now at the way in which Homer describes the scenes by which some of his heroes pass in flight. How few comparatively are the objects that are noticed, yet how specifically do they indicate the typical features, which in such circumstances one would see and remember, and from which, in the rapid glance that he would have of every thing, he would derive all his impressions.

They passed the Mount of View,

And the wind-beaten fig-tree, and they ran
Along the public way by which the wall

Was skirted, till they came where from the ground
The two fair springs of eddying Xanthus rise,—
One pouring a warm stream from which ascends

And spreads a vapor like a smoke from fire;
The other even in summer, sending forth

A current cold as hail, or snow, or ice.

And there were broad stone basins, fairly wrought,

At which in time of peace before the Greeks
Had landed on the plain, the Trojan dames

And their fair daughters washed their sumptuous robes.
Past these they swept; one fled and one pursued,—
A brave man filed, a braver followed close,
And swiftly both.

Meantime the Trojans fled across the plain

-Iliad, 22: Idem.

Toward the wild fig-tree growing near the tomb

Of ancient Ilus, son of Dardanus,—

Eager to reach the town; and still the son

Of Atreus followed, shouting, and with hands

Blood-stained and dust-begrimmed. And when they reached
The Scean portals and the beechen tree,

They halted, waiting for the rear, like beeves

Chased panting by a lion who has come

At midnight on them, and has put the herd
To flight, and one of them to certain death.

*

Thus did Atrides Agamemnon chase

The Trojans; still he slew the hindmost; still
They fled before him. Many by his hand
Fell from their chariots prone, for terrible
Beyond all others with the spear was he.
But when he now was near the city wall,

The Father of immortals and of men

Came down from the high heaven, and took his seat

On many-fountained Ida.

-Iliad, 11: Idem.

Now contrast with these the following description. It is not a poor one of its kind; but all must perceive that a poem characterized by many passages like it, could not be in the highest degree interesting. Such descriptions, on account of their lack of the qualities noticed in those of Homer, tend to interrupt the plot and the interest felt in its characters. Besides this, of the many items mentioned here, few are described with sufficient specificness to make us feel that they were really perceived, and not merely fancied.

It was broad moonlight, and obscure or lost

The garden beauties lay;

But the great boundary rose distinctly marked.
These were no little hills,

No sloping uplands lifting to the sun

Their vineyards with fresh verdure, and the shade

Of ancient woods, courting the loiterer

To win the easy ascent; stone mountains these, Desolate rock on rock,

The burdens of the earth,

Whose snowy summits met the morning beam When night was in the vale, whose feet were fixed In the world's foundations. Thalaba beheld