Mar. 6. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



221 



sephine's birth, and was employed as lier honne 

 until the departure of the family for Martinique. 

 Dedc was an intelligent old dame, tiien about 

 eighty years of age, and was greatly respected by 

 every one. 



I am aware that all this Is at variance with the 

 biographical records of our time, which assign 

 Martinique as the place of Josephine's birth. But 

 this inaccuracy may be accounted for on the fol- 

 lowing grounds. 1st. St. Lucia is within a short 

 distance of Martinique, and at the period of Jo- 

 sephine's birth was a dependency, a portion, as it 

 were, of that colony. 2nd. The family had long 

 been settled In Martinique before they came to 

 St. Lucia, and all their predilections were for the 

 former Island. 3rd. Their sojourn in St. Lucia 

 was not of long duration, and in a few years the 

 circumstance of their having been there at all was 

 probably forgotten by the public. 4th. There was 

 no priest In St. Lucia in 1764, by whom the child 

 might have been christened, and the place of her 

 birth established beyond dispute. 5 th. When at 

 a subsequent period she was baptized In Marti- 

 nique, It happened naturally enough that there 

 was no one present who had any knowledge of her 

 having been born in St. Lucia, or who felt any 

 concern in the matter. 6th. M. De Tascher had 

 now become a personage of some distinction, and 

 he was probably not unwilling to effiice the recol- 

 lection of his having been, at one time, a needy 

 planter In the wilds of St. Lucia. 7th. Facts 

 which have since acquired an obvious Importance, 

 were of none at all in 1771. The suppression of 

 such a circumstance, whether intentional or acci- 

 dental, would have attracted no notice at that 

 period of the history of the Taschers. It was not 

 then anticipated that a member of the family would, 

 at no very remote period, become associated with 

 the greatest actor In the most extraordinary re- 

 volution in the world's history, and prove herself 

 not unworthy of so exalted a destiny. 



AH that relates to the Empress Josephine re- 

 CMves an added degree of interest from recent 

 occurrences. It would be strange if the wife who 

 was discarded by Napoleon because she could not 

 give him an heir for the imperial throne, should 

 give him, if not an heir, his first successor, in the 

 person of her grandson, Prince Louis Napoleon. 

 As _ regards St. Lucia, too, there is a coincidence 

 which may be worth mentioning. When Na- 

 poleon fell into our hands after the battle of Wa- 

 terloo, St. Lucia was the place first selected for 

 his exile ; but in consequence of the dangers likely 

 to arise from its proximity to Martinique, the 

 scheme was relinquished, and the preference given 

 to St. Helena. Henry H. Bkeen. 



St. Lucia. 



NOTES ON HOMEK, NO. III. 



{Continued from Vol. v., p. 172.) 

 Lachmann and Grote. New Views, 



Agreeably to my promise at the conclusion of 

 my former article, I continue and conclude my re- 

 marks on the Homeric question. 



NItzsch, one of Wolf's most Indefatigable and 

 learned opponents, examined his theory with the 

 closest critical nicety, and, by proving Its falla- 

 ciousness, he shook the stability of it very much 

 — not wholly, however, because disproof does not 

 always engender disbelief; scholars were beginning 

 to lose faith therein, when, ten years ago, the late 

 Carl Lachmann revived it, with certain modifica- 

 tions. In his Fernere Betrachtungen iiber die Ilias 

 (Abhandl. Berlin. Acad. 1841), where he has pro- 

 posed the following views : — 



That the Homeric poems were not composed bv 

 one man, but by several, working together ; and 

 that, after the collection of these lays by Peisistra- 

 tos, the history of them is precisely as given us by 

 classical writers. 



This proposition, to use the words of Grote *, 

 " explains the gaps and contradictions In the nar- 

 rative, but it explains nothing else ;" and is further 

 refuted by the actual facts of the poems them- 

 selves I, where, as we find, no contradictions bear- 

 ing on this point occur, and the whole sixteen 

 poets (for such is Lachmann's number) concur in 

 killing and sending off the stage, so to speak, these 

 considerable chieftains (and all in the first battle 

 after the secession of Achilles), Elephenor, chief 

 of the Eubceans |, Tlepolemos, of the Hhodians § ; 

 Pandaros, of the Lycians || ; Odios, of the Hali- 

 zonians ^ ; Pirous and Acamas, of the Thracians ** ; 

 besides many of Inferior note. None of these re- 

 appear in the whole course of the work ; and It ' 

 seems strange, as Mure continues, that " any num- 

 ber of ' independant poets ' should have so har- 

 moniously dispensed with the services of all six in 

 the sequel." And he then cites the solitary dis- 

 crepancy, Pylaemenes, as the oidy exception ff, 

 whose death Is related in the fifth, and who weeps 

 at his son's funeral In the thirteenth book. This, 

 however. Mure explains as an oversight on the 

 part of the poet (which is, however, impossible'), or . 

 to the more probable cause of an interpolation of 

 verses 658 and 659 by an early rhapsodist, " better 

 versed in the ' Battle of the Ships,' as his hiibitual 

 part In the recital, than in the 'Prowess of Diomed.'" 



Grote also objects to the modifications of Lach- 

 mann, and In the following words : 



" The advocates of the Wolfian theory appear to feel , 

 the difficulties which beset it: for their lanj'ua'ie is 



* Grote, vol. ii. p. 231. 



f Mure, Appendix C, vol. i. p. 507. 



\ 1\. iv. 469. § I\. V. 6,59. 



11 I\. V. 290. ^ V. 39. ** iv. 527., vi. 7. 



tt V. 576., xiii. 658. 



