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PICTURESQUE SCENE FROM HOMER,

ILIAD XXIV.

With a Representation of PRIA M, requesting A CHILLES to restore the dead Body of HECTOR.

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T the conclufion of the funeral A games, the celeftial powers are reprefented, in the twenty-fourth and last book of the Iliad, as deliberating about the redemption of Hector's body. Jupiter fends Thetis to Achilles, to influence him to rettore it; and he likewife fends Iris to Priam, to induce him to go in perfon, and folicit the refloration of it. The aged monarch, notwithstanding the remonftrances of his queen, prepares for the journey, to which he is encouraged by an omen from Jupiter. He fets out in his chariot, with a waggon loaded with prefents, under the charge of Idæus the herald. Mercury defcends in the form of a young man, and conducting him to the pavilion of Achilles, enters into a converfation with him by the way. Priam, when he arrives at the tent, finds Achilles at his table, throws himself at his feet, and, in a moft affecting speech, entreats him to restore the dead body of his fon. Achilles, moved with compaffion, grants his request, detains him one night in the tent, and, the next morning, fends him home with the body.

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eyes;

And, hearing, ftill may hope a better day
May fend him thee, to chace that foe
The whole poem No comfort to my griefs, no hopes, re-

concludes with the lamentations of Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen, and with the fad folemnities of the funeral.

The interview between Priam and Achilles, is the fubject of the annexed plate; and the fpeech of Priam to that hero is thus tranflated by Pope:

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The circumftance of Priam kiffing the hands of Achilles is inimitably fine. He kiffed, fays Homer, the hands of Achilles; thofe terrible murderous hands, that had robbed him of 'fo many fons: by these two words the poet recalls to our mind all the noble actions performed by Achilles in the whole Iliad; and, at the fame time, he ftrikes us with compaffion for this unhappy king, who is reduced fo low, as to be obliged to kifs thofe hands that had flain his fubjects, and ruined his kingdom and family.

There is one more paffage in this book, which I cannot but recommend to the attention of the reader, on account of the excellent morality it conveys. It is where Priam urges his celeftial guide (a fuppofed mortal) to accept from him a prefent:

Bleft is the man who pays the gods above

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"The conftant tribute of refpect and love; Thofe who inhabit the Olympian bower My fon forgot not, in exalted power; And heaven, that every virtue bears in mind,

Ev'n to the afhes of the juft, is kind. But thou, oh generous youth! this goblet take,

A pledge of gratitude, for Hector's fake; And, while the favouring gods our feps furvey,

Safe to Pelides' tent conduct my way.

To whom the latent god: O king, forbear

To tempt my youth, for apt is youth to

err:

But can I, abfent from my prince's fight, Take gifts in fecret, that muft fhun the light?

What from our master's interest thus we draw,

Is but a licens'd theft that 'fcapes the law, Refpecting him, my foul abjures th' of fence;

And, as the crime, I dread the confe quence.

Thee, far as Argos, pleas'd I could convey;

Guard of thy life, and partner of thy way: On thee attend, thy fafety to maintain, O'er pathlefs forefts, or the roaring main.

In the fpeech of Priam, Homer begins, after a long and beautiful fable, to give the moral of it, and difplays his poetical juftice in rewards and punifhments. Thus, Hector fought in a bad cause, and therefore fuffers in the defence of it; but because he was a good man, and obedient to the gods in other refpects, his very remains become the care of Heaven.

Nothing, indeed, can be more admirable than the conduct of Homer throughout his whole poem, in refpect to morality.-When Priam offers Mercury (whom he looks upon as a foldier of Achilles) a prefent, he refufes it, because his prince is ignorant of it. He even calls this prefent a direct theft or robbery; which may evince how ftrict the notions of juftice were in the days of Homer, when, if the fervant of a prince re

ceived any prefent, without the knowledge of his matter, he was efteemed a thief and a robber.-In a word, if the reader does not obferve the morality of the Iliad, he lofes half, and the nobler part of its beauty: he reads it as a common romance, and mitakes the chief aim of it, which is to inftruct. And fuch is the character which Horace gives it:

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Obfervations on the Influence of the WINDS and of the OCEAN upon HEAT.

[From Experiments upon Heat,' by Major General Sir Benjamin Thompson, in the Philofophical Tranfactions, Part I, for 1792.]

TH

HOUGH the particles of air individually, or each for itfelf, are capable of receiving and transporting heat, yet air in a quiefcent ftate, or as a fluid whofe parts are at reft Iwith refpect to each other, is not capable of conducting it, or giving it a paffage; in fhort, heat is incapable of paffing through a mass of air, penetrating from one particle of it to another, and it is to this circumftance that its non-conducting power is principally owing.

It is alfo to this circumftance, in a great measure, that it is owing that its non-conducting power, or its apparent warmth when employed as a covering for confining heat, is fo remarkably increased upon being mixed with a fmall quantity of any very fine, light, folid fubftance, fuch as the raw filk, fur, Eider down, &c. in the foregoing experiments: for though thefe fubftances, in the very fmall quantities in which they were made ufe of, could hardly have prevented, confiderable degree, the air from conducting, or giving a paffage to the heat, had it been capable of paffing through it, yet they might very much impede it in the operation of transporting it.

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But there is another circumftance which it is neceffary to take into the account, and that is the attraction which fubfifts between air and the bodies above mentioned, and other like fubftances, conftituting natural and artificial clothing. For, though the incapacity of air to give a patiage to heat in the manner folid bodies and non-elatic fluids permit it to pafs through them, may enable us to account for its warmth under certain circumftances, yet the bare admiffion of this principle does not seem to be fufficient to account for the very ex

traordinary degrees of warmth which we find in furs and in feathers, and in various other kinds of natural and artificial clothing; nor even that which we find in fnow; for if we suppose the particles of air to be at liberty to carry off the heat which these bodies are meant to confine, without any other obftruction or hinderance than that arifing from their vis inertiæ, or the force neceffary to put them in motion, it feems probable that the fucceffion of fresh particles of cold air, and the confequent lofs of heat, would be much more rapid than we find it to be in fact.

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That an attraction, and a very ftrong one, actually fubfifts between the particles of air, and the fine hair or furs of beafts, the feathers of birds, wool, &c. appears by the obftinacy with which these substances retain the air which adheres to them, even when immerfed in water, and put under the receiver of an air pump; and that' this attraction is effential to the warmth of these bodies, I think is very easy to be demonftrated.

In furs, for instance, the attraction between the particles of air, and the fine hairs in which it is concealed, be ing greater than the increased clafticity, or repulfion of thofe particles with regard to each other, arifing from the heat communicated to them by the animal body, the air in the fur, though heated, is not easily displaced; and this coat of confined air is the real barrier which defends the animal body from the external cold. This air cannot carry off the heat of the animal, because it is itfelf confined, by its attraction to the hair or fur; and it tranfmits it with great difficulty, if it tranfmits it at all.

Hence it appears why thofe furs which are the fineft, longeft, and 3 G 2 thickeft,

thickeft, are likewife the warmeft; and how the furs of the beaver, of the otter, and of, other like quadrupeds which live much in water, and the feathers of water fowls, are able to confine the heat of thofe animals in winter, notwithstanding the extreme coldness and great conducting power of the water in which they fwim. The attraction between thefe fubftances, and the air which occupies their interftices, is fo great, that this air is not diflodged even by the contact of water, but remaining in its place, it defends the body of the animal at the fame time from being wet, and from being robbed of its heat by the furrounding cold fluid; and it is poffible that the preffure of this fluid upon the covering of air confined in the interstices of the fur, or feathers, may at the fame time increase its warmth, or non-conducting power, in fuch a manner that the animal may not, in fact, lofe more heat when in water, than when in air: for we have feen by the foregoing experiments, that, under certain circumftances, the warmth of a covering is increased, by bringing its component parts nearer together, or by increafing its denfity even at the expence of its thicknefs. But this point will be further invetti gated hereafter.

Bears, wolves, foxes, hares, and other like quadrupeds, inhabitants of cold countries, which do not often take the water, have their fur much thicker upon their backs than upon their bellies. The heated air occupying the interstices of the hairs of the animal tending naturally to rife upward, in confequence of its increafed elafticity, would efcape with much greater eafe from the backs of quadrupeds than from their bellies, had not Providence wifely guarded against this evil by increafing the obftructions in thofe parts, which entangle it and confine it to the body of the animal. And this, I think, amounts almost to a proof of the principles affumed re

lative to the manner in which heat is carried off by air, and the causes of the non-conducting power of air, or its apparent warmth, when, being combined with other bodies, it ac as a covering for confining heat.

The fnows which cover the furface of the earth in winter, in high latitudes, are doubtless designed by an all-provident Creator as a garment to defend it against the piercing winds from the polar regions, which prevail during the cold season.

Thefe winds, notwithstanding the vaft tracts of continent over which they blow, retain their fharpness as long as the ground they pass over is covered with fnow; and it is not till, meeting with the ocean, they acquire, from a contact with its waters, the heat which the fnows prevent their acquiring from the earth, that the edge of their coldness is taken off, and they gradually die away and are loft.

The winds are always found to be much colder when the ground is covered with fnow than when it is bare, and this extraordinary coldness is vulgarly fuppofed to be communicated to the air by the fnow; but this is an erroneous opinion; for these winds are in general much colder than the fnow itself.

They retain their coldness, becaufe the fnow prevents them from being warmed at the expence of the earth; and this is a ftriking proof of the ufe of the fnows in preferving the heat of the earth during the winter, in cold latitudes.

It is remarkable that thefe winds feldom blow from the poles directly toward the equator, but from the land toward the fea. Upon the eaftern coaft of North America the cold winds come from the north-weft; but upon the western coaft of Europe, they blow from the north-eaft.

That they should blow toward thofe parts where they can moft eafily acquire the heat they are in fearch of, is

*For thefe Experiments, which are very curious, we must refer the scientific reader to the paper, as quoted above, in the Philofophical Tranfactions.

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