172 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 121. 



these lays were, for the first time, written down and 

 united as the Iliad and Odyssey by Peisistratus, tyrant 

 of Athens."* 



The former critics (Hedelin and Perrault) had 

 been overruled, derided, and quashed by the force 

 of public opinion ; but Wolf brought so many 

 arguments to support his views, — collected so 

 formidable a mass of authorities, both traditional, 

 internal, and written, tliat the classical world was 

 obliged to meet him with fresh arguments, as ridi- 

 cule would not again succeed. Thus arose the 

 formidable Wolfian controversy, which "scotched," 

 though not " killed," the belief of the critical 

 ■world in Homer. The principal arguments he 

 adduces are from the poems themselves, in his 

 attempt to establish the non-being of writing at the 

 time of their composition. 



Thus, in the Odysseaj[, a master of a vessel has 

 to remember his cargo, not having a list of his 

 goods; in the Iliad\^ Bellerophon carries a folded 

 tablet containing writing or signs to Praetos in Lycia. 

 This Wolf interprets to signify conventional marks, 

 like the picture writing of the otherwise civilised 

 Mexicans. § Again, in the Iliad (vii. 175.), the 

 chiefs are represented as throwing lots in a helmet, 

 and the herald afterwards handing the lots round 

 for recognition, as each of the lots bore a mark 

 known only to the person who made it. From 

 this Wolf argues that writing was unknown at 

 the time, or the herald would have immediately 

 read the names aloud. But do we not even now 

 make use of such marks without confounding them 

 with writing ? This is nothing at all ; and it must 

 be remembered, firstly, that this does not apply to 

 the Homeric time, but to the period of Troy ; 

 secondly, that if it had applied to that time, it 

 would be absurd to expect from illiterate warrior 

 chiefs, education superior to the mediaBval cru- 

 saders, their counterparts at a later period of the 

 world's progress. These are the principal argu- 

 ments that Wolf adduces to prove the non-exist- 

 ence of writing at the Homeric period ; whereas, 

 far from proving anything, they are self-contra- 

 dictory and incorrect. 



To prove that the Peisistratidse first wrote down 

 the poems of Homer, he cites Josephus (Orat. 

 contr. Apion, i. 2.), who observes that — 



" No writing, the authenticity of which is acknow- 

 ledged, is found among the Greeks earlier than the 

 poetry of Homer; and, il is said, that even he did not 

 commit his works to writing, but that, having been 

 preserved in the memory of men, the songs were after- 

 wards connected." 



Josephus had merely heard this reported, as Is 

 evident from his use of the words " it is said." 



♦ Smith, ii. p. 501, f Lib. viii. 16.S. $ Lib.vi. 168. 



§ See Mure, vol. iii., Appendix L., p. 507. foil.; and 

 Appendix M. vol, iii. p. 512. foil. ; and see chap. vii. 

 book III, vol. iii. p. 397. passim. 



Pausanias, in the Tour in Greece (vii, 26. 6.), has 

 the following observation : — 



" A village called Donussa, between 2Eg\ra. and 

 Pellene, belonging to the Sicyonians, was destroyed by 

 that people. Homer, say tliey, remembered this town 

 in his epic, in the enumeration of the people of Aga- 

 memnon, ' Hyperesia then, and Donoessa, rocky town ' 

 (lA. /8. 573.) ; but when Peisistratos collected the torn 

 and widely scattered songs of Homer, either he himself^ 

 or one of his friends, altered the name through igno- 

 rance. " 



Wolf also makes use of this report, liable to the 

 same objections as the above, as one of his proofs. 

 It is even doubtful whether Peisistratos did edit 

 Homer at all ; but, under any circumstances, it 

 was not the first edition * ; for is not Solon repre- 

 sented as the reviser of the Homeric poems ? 



Cicero {de Oratore, iii. 34.) says : 



" Who is traditionally reported to have had more 

 learning at that time, or whose eloquence received 

 greater ornaments from polite literature than that o? 

 Peisistratos? who is said to have been the first that ar- 

 ranged the books of Homer, from tlieir confused state, 

 into that order in which we at present enjoy them." 



This also is produced as a proof by W'olf, though^ 

 for the same reason, it is doubtful. But see Wolf's 

 principal inaccuracies ably enumerated and ex- 

 posed by Clinton (F. H., i, p. 370.). 



Such is the far-famed theory of Wolf, which, as- 

 most modern scholars agree, is only calculated 

 "to conduct us to most preposterous conclusions,"*!" 

 And this last dictum of Othello's, Mr, Editor, re- 

 minds me, that here it would not be preposterous 

 to come to a conclusion for the present, and to close 

 my observations in another paper, where I shall a 

 theory "unfold," which, after the most patient con- 

 sideration and reconsideration, I am inclined to 

 think the most approximative to the truth. 



Kenneth R. H, Mackenzie. 



Feb. 16. 1852. 



FOLK LORE. 



Fernseed. — I find in Dr. Jackson's works allu- 

 sions to a superstition which may interest some of 

 your readers : 



*' It was my hap," he writes, " since I undertook 

 the ministery, to question an ignorant soul (whom by 

 undoubted report I had known to have been seduced 

 by a teacher of unhallowed arts, to make a dangerous 

 experiment) what he saw or heard, when he watcht the 

 falling of the Fernseed at an unseasonable and sus- 

 picions hour. Why (quoth he), fearing (as his brief 

 reply occasioned me to conjecture) lest I should press, 

 him to tell before company, what he had voluntarily 

 confessed unto a friend in secret some fourteen years, 

 before) do you think that the devil hath aught to do 



* Granville Penn, On the primary Arrangement of tlie^ 

 Iliad; at\d Appendix B to Mure, vol. i. 

 t Othelb, Act I. Sc, 3. 



