[259] “And here we part with Achilles at the
moment best calculated to exalt and purify our impression
of his character. We had accompanied him through
the effervescence, undulations, and final subsidence
of his stormy passions. We now leave him in repose
and under the full influence of the more amiable affections,
while our admiration of his great qualities is chastened
by the reflection that, within a few short days the
mighty being in whom they were united was himself to
be suddenly cut off in the full vigour of their exercise.
The frequent and touching allusions, interspersed
throughout the Iliad, to the speedy termination of
its hero’s course, and the moral on the vanity
of human life which they indicate, are among the finest
evidences of the spirit of ethic unity by which the
whole framework of the poem is united.”—Mure,
vol. i. p 201.
[260] Cowper says,—“I cannot take
my leave of this noble poem without expressing how
much I am struck with the plain conclusion of it.
It is like the exit of a great man out of company,
whom he has entertained magnificently; neither pompous
nor familiar; not contemptuous, yet without much ceremony.”
Coleridge, p. 227, considers the termination of “Paradise
Lost” somewhat similar.}
