1791* "^^^ REALIRY OF THE TROJAN WAR. 47 



That Homer was fo much later than the Trojan 

 var, as fome have imagined, is not fufficiently 

 inftrufted : Plutarch and others have held Homer 

 and Hefiod as co-temporaries ; it is even faid, thej were 

 competitors for a prize in finging; and Hefiod tells he 

 lived in the age after the wars of Thebes and Troy. It 

 is far lefs dtdncible from that part of Jlomer's works, 

 which mentions the degeneracy of men betwixt thefe 

 different periods. We have been told of Highland fol- 

 diers, in the late rtb-llions, who would, at one ftroke 

 of a broad fword, cut through a horfe's neck, or a muf- 

 ket-barrel, and have feen an inft^nce of a perfon twitt- 

 ing afunder a horfe's flioe : Comparing thefe to the ge- 

 nerality of men in the prefent generation, might look 

 like degeneracy in the latter, in place of the difference 

 among mankind. 



Nobody can be at any lofs to comprehend the ftory 

 of Leda's fwan ; the ladies in high life frequently fa- 

 thered their backflidings on their deities; when thefe 

 ftories gained any credit, they were foon followed by 

 others. For this we have the authority of both Milton 

 and Fontenelle. That the names of Caftor and Pollux, 

 from their fuppofed affinity to the inhabitants of Olym- 

 pus, or poffibly from thejr /kill in aftronomy, were 

 given to two of the heavenly bodies, does not make 

 Helen an allegorical perfcn. The account of their 

 deaths, in the Greek way of underflanding them, does 

 not hurt the above account. Their afhes might be ia 

 Sparta, their lli ad es below, and they alternately above ; 

 like Hercules, who was buried in mount ^ta, his 

 (hade in Pluto's dominions, and he, at the lame time, 

 in Olympus, married to the beautiful Hebe. 



Homer appears to have travelled through all Greece, 

 part of Afia, and poffibly into Egypt, to find the mod 

 perfeft accounts ; even fo minutely as to have viewed 

 all the places he mentions in each. Is the account of 

 an Egyptian priert given to Herodotus, who lived 400 

 years at Icaft aftei- Homer, to be credited, aoore than 



