45Q THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the way for the application of a similar system to all literature, 

 whether called sacred or profane. 



Up to that period there had really been no adequate criticism 

 of ancient literature. Whatever name had been attached to any 

 ancient writings was usually accepted as the name of the author ; 

 whatever text was imputed to an author was settled generally on 

 authority. But with Bentley began a new epoch. His acute in- 

 tellect and exquisite touch revealed clearly to English scholars 

 the new science of criticism and familiarized the minds of think- 

 ing men generally with the idea that the texts of ancient litera- 

 ture must be submitted to this science. Henceforward a new 

 spirit reigned among the best classical scholars, prophetic of more 

 and more light in the greater field of sacred literature. Scholars, 

 of whom Porson was chief, followed out this method, and though 

 at times, as in Porson's own case, they were warned off, with 

 much loss and damage, from the application of it to the sacred 

 text, they kept alive the better tradition. 



A hundred years after Bentley's main efforts appeared in Ger- 

 many another epoch-making book Wolf's Introduction to Homer. 

 In this was broached the theory that the Iliad and Odyssey are 

 not the works of a single great poet, but are made up of ballad 

 literature wrought into unity by more or less skillful editing. In 

 spite of various changes and phases of opinion on this subject 

 since Wolf's day, he dealt a killing blow at the idea that classical 

 works are necessarily to be taken at what may be termed their 

 face value. 



More and more clearly it was seen that the ideas of early copy- 

 ists and even of early possessors of masterpieces in ancient litera- 

 ture were entirely different from those to which the modern world 

 is accustomed. It was seen that manipulations and interpolations 

 in the text by copyists and possessors had long been considered 

 not merely venial sins, but matters of right, and that even the 

 issuing of whole books under assumed names had been practiced 

 freely. 



In 1811 a light akin to that thrown by Bentley and Wolf upon 

 ancient literature was thrown by Niebuhr upon ancient history. 

 In his History of Rome the application of scientific principles to 

 the examination of historical sources was for the first time ex- 

 hibited largely and brilliantly. Up to that period the time-hon- 

 ored utterances of ancient authorities had been, as a rule, accepted 

 as final : no breaking away, even from the most absurd of them, 

 was looked upon with favor, and any one presuming to go behind 

 them was regarded as troublesome and even as dangerous. 



Through this sacred conventionalism Niebuhr broke fearlessly, 

 and, though at times overcritical, he struck from the early his- 

 tory of Rome a vast mass of accretions, and gave to the world a 



