Feb. 21. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



171 



KATIONAL DEFENCES. 



Collet, in his Relics of Literature, has furnished 

 some curious notices of a work on national de- 

 fences, which perhaps ought to be consulted at the 

 present time, now that this matter is again exciting 

 such general interest among all classes. It was 

 compiled when the gigantic power of France, 

 iinder Buonaparte, had enabled him to overrun 

 and humble every continental state, and even to 

 threaten Great Britain ; and when the spirit of 

 this country was roused to exertion by a sense of 

 the danger, and by the fervour of patriotism. 

 The government of that day neglected no means to 

 keep this spirit alive in the nation ; and George III. 

 ■conceiving the situation of his donunions to re- 

 semble, in many respects, that which terminated 

 -so fortunately for England in the days of Queen 

 Jllizabetli, directed proper researches to be made 

 for ascertaining the principles and preparations 

 adopted at that eventful period. The records of 

 the Tower were accordingly consulted ; and a 

 selection of papers, apparently of the greatest con- 

 sequence, was formed and printed, but not pub- 

 lished. This work, which contained 420 pages in 

 octavo, was entitled, A Report of the Arrangements 

 which rvere made for the Internal Defence of these 

 Kingdoms, when Spain, by its Armada, projected 

 the Invasion and Conquest of England; and Appli- 

 cation of the Wise Proceedings of our Ancestors to 

 the Present Crisis of Public Safety. The papers 

 in this work are classed in the order of external 

 alliance, internal defence, military arrangements, 

 and naval equipments. They are preceded by a 

 statement of facts, in the history of Europe, at the 

 period of the Spanish Armada ; and a sketch of 

 events, showing the effects of the Queen's mea- 

 sures at home and abroad. As a collection of 

 historical documents, narrating an important event 

 in British history, this work is invaluable ; and, as 

 showing the relative strength of this country in 

 population and other resources in the sixteenth 

 century, it is curious and interesting. J. Y. 



KOTES ON HOMEK, NO. H. 



(Continued from Vol. v., p. 100.) 

 The Wolfian Theory. 

 The most important consideration concerning 

 Homer is the hypothesis of Wolf, which has been 

 contested so hotly ; but before entering on the 

 consideration of this revolution, as it may be 

 called, I shall lay before your readers the follow- 

 ing quotation from the introduction of Fauriel to 

 the old Provencal poem, " Histoire de la Croisade 

 contre les Albigeois," in the Collection des Docu- 

 mens Inedits sur V Histoire de France. He ob- 

 serves : — 



"The romances collectively designated by the title 

 of Carlovingian, are, it would seem, the most ancient 



of all in the Proven9al literature. They were not, 

 originally, more than very short and simple poems, 

 popular songs destined to be recited with more or less 

 musical intonation, and susceptible, consequently on 

 their shortness, of preservation without the aid of 

 writing, and simply by oral tradition among the jon- 

 gleurs, whose profession it was to sing them. Almost 

 insensibly these songs developed themselves, and as- 

 sumed a complex character ; they attained a Axed 

 length, and their re-composition required more in- 

 vention and more design. In another point of vievr, 

 they had increased in number in the same ratio as they 

 had acquired greater extent and complexity ; and things 

 naturally attained such a position, that it became im- 

 possible to chant them from beginning to end by the 

 aid of memory alone, nor could they be preserved any 

 longer without the assistance of a written medium. 

 Tliey might be still occasionally sung in detached 

 portions ; but there exists scarcely a doubt, that from 

 that period they began to be read ; and it was only 

 necessary to read them, in order to seize and appreciate 

 their contents."* 



These remarks, though applied to another litera- 

 ture, contain the essentials of the theory developed 

 by Wolf in regard to Homer. Before the time of 

 Wolf, the popularly accepted opinion on this sub- 

 ject was as follows : That Homer, a poet of ancient 

 date, wrote the Iliad and Odyssea in their present 

 form; and that the rhapsodlsts having corrupted and 

 interpolated the poems, Peislstratos, and Hippar- 

 chos, his son, corrected, revised, and restored these 

 poems to their original condition. 



Such was the general opinion, when at the end 

 of the seventeenth century doubts began to be 

 thrown upon it, and the question began to be 

 placed In a new light. The critics of the time 

 were Casaubon, Perlzon, Bentley, Hedelin, and 

 Perrault, who, more or less, rejected the established 

 opinion. Giambattista Vico made the first attempt 

 to embody their speculations into one methodical 

 work. His Principi di Scienza nuova contain the 

 germ of the theory reproduced by Wolf with so 

 much scholarship. Wolf, founding his theory on 

 the investigations of Vico and Wood, extended or 

 modified their views, and assumed that the poems 

 were never written down at all until the time of 

 Peislstratos, their arranger. In 1778, the famous 

 Venetian Scholia were discovered by Villoison, 

 throwing open to the world the investigations of 

 the Alexandrian critics ; and by showing what the 

 ideas of the Chorizontes were (on whom it were 

 madness to write after Mure), strengthening the 

 views of Wolf. In 1795, then, were published his 

 famous Prolegomena, containing the theory — 



" That the Iliad and Odyssey were not two complete 

 poems, but small, separate, independent epic songs, 

 celebrating single exploits of the heroes ; and that 



* P. XXX., quoted in Thirlwall's History of Greece 

 (Appendix I.), vol. i. p. 506., where it is given in 

 French. 



