218 Remarks on the Site of Troy 
Iliad remaining still applied to the same 
objects as in the days of Homer? | Shall we, 
like Mr. Bryant, infer that Troy was merely 
the creature of his imagination, or, that if 
it ever had existence, it must be sought for 
in Egypt ?—Or that a war between the Greeks 
and Trojans never took place, and that Ho- 
mer invented all the action of his poems, 
adapting it to the scenery of this plain, and 
connecting it with the rivers, tumuli, springs, 
and other features natural and artificial, which 
struck his eye on contemplating the land- 
scape ?—Shall we so believe, and that a cre- 
dulous world has for centuries been mistaken, 
and attached'credit to the pleasing fictions 
of a poet, due only to the relations of a scru- 
pulous historian?—Or shall we not rather 
turn to the opposite conclusion :—that Troy 
did exist where Homer places it, where an- 
cient histcrians believed it to have stood; and 
that the coincidences between the present 
scenery of the Troad and that of his poems, 
and the actual existence of monuments des- 
cribed, or alluded totherein, tend to confirm 
the truth of the facts which he relates, and 
consequently to strengthen the foundation of 
early Grecian history. 
