514 Homer : "" QNov. 



the fame of Greece, and the delight of posterity, go forth to see the 

 world. 



In Ithaca he was taken ill, and suffered much from an affection of his 

 eyes. In Ithaca he found himself surrounded with traditions of Ulysses ; 

 and an Ithacan, of the name of Mentor, gave him the narrative of those 

 adventures on which he afterwards constructed the Odyssey. This 

 weakness of his eyes at last rendered him totally blind ; but there is an 

 utter improbability in the story that he was born blind. His descrip- 

 tions of nature, sunshine, the heavenly bodies, storms, the human fea- 

 tures and actions, are not the perceptions of a man born blind. They have- 

 in them the most distinct evidence of actual vision. The well-known 

 saying of the Roman is perfectly founded — " Si quis eum caecum geni- 

 tum putat, omnibus sensibus csecus est." — (Patercul. 1. 1. 5.) On this 

 residence at Ithaca, a conjecture, similar to that of the Greek professor, 

 had been hazarded by Jacob Bryant, a man of learning, but scarcely 

 less extravagant than any German of them all, that Homer, in describ- 

 ing Ulysses and Penelope, was describing himself and his wife, and that 

 Ithaca was his birth-place. But Ave must recollect that Jacob Bryant 

 doubted, or rather denied, the existence of Troy and the Trojan war 

 altogether; and had his mind regularly made up for historical scepti- 

 cism by the widest licence of hypothesis. 



Homer, in conformity to a custom nearly coeval with mankind, seems 

 to have made his livelihood on this journey by reciting his compositions 

 at the banquets of the great. At Phocasa, he encountered the common 

 adventure of a literary robbery. Thestorides, a teacher of youth, 

 engaged to give him a lodging and maintenance on condition of being 

 allowed to transcribe his poems. Thestorides then ran away, carrying 

 the JNISS. with him to Chios, where he declared himself their author, and 

 commenced reciting them as a rhapsodist. Homer was at this time 

 advanced in life, and blind. But the spirit of the poet v.fas alive to this 

 injury of his property and fame. He ordered himself to be landed at 

 Chios, and set out in pursuit of the dplinquent pedagogue. On reaching 

 the shore from Erythrae, he was bewildered, was near being torn to 

 pieces by the dogs of Glaucus, a shepherd, but saved by their master 

 coming up, and was led to Bolissus, where he lived for some time, teach- 

 ing children, and enjoying his triumph over his plagiary, who had fled 

 immediately on his arrival. Chios, finally, was his residence ; there he 

 grew affluent, married, and had two daugliters, one of whom died early, 

 and the other was married to the father of one of his pupils. His career 

 now drew near its end. Sailing to Athens, he fell sick at lo, died, and 

 was buried in a plain, not far from that " ever-resounding main," which 

 he had so often and so sublimely commemorated. 



The native country of this mighty genius was certainly Asiatic. All 

 his descriptions are tinged with the colours of an Asiatic Greek, and are 

 suitable only to Ionia, or some Greek colony to the east of Greece. 

 This has been strikingly illustrated in his allusions to winds, sunset, rains, 

 sea, &c. by Wood, in his " Essay on the Genius of Homer." Smyrna 

 seems to have felt itself entitled to claim the honour, if we are to judge 

 from its extraordinai-y homage to his memory. It burned Zoilus in 

 effigy, as a revenge for his criticism ; it struck medals in honour of the 

 poet, some of which exist, and represent him not blind but reading ; and it 

 even erected him into a demigod, and built his temple. The claims of 

 Chios, founded on his residence there, have been argued by many of the 



