6.  One of the religious ceremonies previous to any important
   enterprise.  Then followed the order for silence and reverent
   attention; then the libation, &c.—­FELTON.

7.  Achilles having retired from action in displeasure to Agamemnon,
   quieted himself by singing to his lyre the achievements of
   demi-gods and heroes.  Nothing was better suited to the martial
   disposition of this hero, than these heroic songs.  Celebrating the
   actions of the valiant prepared him for his own great exploits. 
   Such was the music of the ancients, and to such purposes was it
   applied.  When the lyre of Paris was offered to Alexander, he
   replied that he had little value for it, but much desired that of
   Achilles, on which he sung the actions of heroes in former
   times.—­PLUTARCH.

8.  The manners of the Iliad are the manners of the patriarchal and
   early ages of the East.  The chief differences arise from a
   different religion and a more maritime situation.  Very far removed
   from the savage state on the one hand, and equally distant from the
   artificial state of an extended commerce and a manufacturing
   population on the other, the spirit and habitudes of the two modes
   of society are almost identical.  The hero and the Patriarch are
   substantially coeval; but the first wanders in twilight, the last
   stands in the eye of Heaven.  When three men appeared to Abraham in
   the plains of Mamre, he ran to meet them from the tent door,
   brought them in, directed Sarah to make bread, fetched from the
   herd himself a calf tender and good, dressed it, and set it before
   them.  When Ajax, Ulysses, and Phoenix stand before Achilles, he
   rushes forth to greet them, brings them into the tent, directs
   Patroclus to mix the wine, cuts up the meat, dresses it, and sets
   it before the ambassadors. * * * *

Instances of this sort might be multiplied to any extent, but the student will find it a pleasing and useful task to discover them for himself; and these will amply suffice to demonstrate the existence of that correspondence of spirit and manners between the Homeric and the early ages of the Bible history, to which I have adverted.  It is real and important; it affords a standard of the feelings with which we ought to read the Iliad, if we mean to read it as it deserves; and it explains and sets in the true point of view numberless passages, which the ignorance or frivolity of after-times has charged with obscurity, meanness or error.  The Old Testament and the Iliad reflect light mutually on each other; and both in respect of poetry and morals (for the whole of Homer’s poetry is a praise of virtue, and every thing in him tends to this point, except that which is merely superfluous and for ornament) it may with great truth be said, that he who has the longest studied, and the most deeply imbibed, the spirit of the Hebrew