Space does not allow us to give a detailed criticism of the _Odyssey_
as a poem, and determine its relation to the _Iliad_. We must content
ourselves with quoting the words of the most eloquent of ancient
critics, which sum up the subject with admirable brevity and insight:
"Homer in his _Odyssey_ may be compared to the setting sun: he is
still as great as ever, but he has lost his fervent heat. The strain
is now pitched in a lower key than in the 'Tale of Troy divine': we
begin to miss that high and equable sublimity which never flags or
sinks, that continuous current of moving incidents, those rapid
transitions, that force of eloquence, that opulence of imagery which
is ever true to nature. Like the sea when it retires upon itself and
leaves its shores waste and bare, henceforth the tide of sublimity
begins to ebb, and draws us away into the dim region of myth and
legend."[1]
[Footnote 1: Longinus: "On the Sublime." Translated by H.L. Havell,
B.A. p. 20. Macmillan & Co.]