As to Homer, I was never weary of travelling over the scenes through which he led me.

Classical literature affected me by its own beauty.

But the truths of Scripture having been entrusted to the dead languages, and these fountains having been recently laid open at the Reformation, an importance and a sanctity were at that period attached to classical literature that extended, as is obvious in Milton's _Lycidas_, for example, both to its spirit and form in a degree that can never be revived.

No doubt the hackneyed and lifeless use into which mythology fell towards the close of the 17th century, and which continued through the 18th, disgusted the general reader with all allusion to it in modern verse.

And though, in deference to this disgust, and also in a measure participating in it, I abstained in my earlier writings from all introduction of pagan fable,--surely, even in its humble form, it may ally itself with real sentiment--as I can truly affirm it did in the present case.
444.