OF LITERATURE. 



ix 



(i itions. But how ridiculous to suppose that such 

 an attribute could be the joint property of several 

 contemporary poets ! When it has been proved 

 that the characters of Lear and Othello were 

 made up of patch-work, it may be believed that 

 those of Helen and Achilles were eked out by the 

 contributions of different minds. 



Scarcely does it seem necessary to take further 

 notice of that strange theory, which denies the 

 individuality of the author of the Iliad, and 

 inserts that, in the age of Solon and Pisistratus, 

 the poem was not merely reduced to writing, but 

 was then for the first time compiled out of separ- 

 ate lays into an epic whole. As if a series of 

 national songs could have been brought to cohere 

 with so much smoothness ; or would have evinced 

 such unity of plot and purpose ; or have been 

 confined to so small a segment of the Trojan 

 story ; or have given such prominence to a single 

 Thessalian hero ; or have displayed throughout 

 the characteristics of an identical and inimitable 

 genius! Under all the shapes, with which 

 French ignorance and German erudition, have 

 clothed it, this hypothesis is equally untenable ; 

 and those who, while the genuine impulses of 

 feeling and judgment prompt them to reject it, 

 have not sufficient leisure or learning to examine 

 the matter critically, may rest satisfied that there 

 is no difficulty in the belief of a single author 

 comparable to the difficulties of the opposite 

 opinion. There may be difficulties upon the one 

 side, but there are impossibilities upon the other. 

 Intent, like all poets of the school of nature, not 

 upon himself but his subject, Homer has told us 

 nothing of his personal history. All biography 

 that relates to him is of a fabulous character; 

 but, holding a steady course between credulity 

 and scepticism, we may be assured of a few 

 points of primary importance ; to wit, that his 

 name, whatever its etymology, has been rightly 

 transmitted to us ; that his principal residence 

 was in the delicious climate of Ionia ; and that 

 though he belonged, as a poet, to a class, of which 

 he is the glorious representative, yet that he 

 excelled in a high degree, all his brethren, and 

 was as much the light of his own age, as he has 

 been the wonder of those which have succeeded it. 



A more rational question than that above 

 alluded to, was raised even by some of the ancient 

 critics, as to the other great poem ascribed to 

 Homer. There are certainly some traces in the 

 vocabulary, syntax, mythology, and manners of 

 the Odyssey, which, compared with those of the 

 Iliad, appear to indicate a later period and a 

 different author. On the other hand, it is hard 

 to believe that Greece produced two minds, so 

 kindred in strength and spirit; not only similar 



in kind, but equal in degree ; and perhaps this 

 last consideration should be suffered to outweigh 

 all arguments, however plausible, in favour of a 

 divided authorship. Moreover, the Return of 

 Ulysses, while it was a natural theme for a bard 

 who had sung the Wrath and Glory of the son of 

 Peleus, necessarily led to scenes and subjects 

 which may account for the larger portion of the 

 discrepancies between the poems. At least the 

 interval between them could not have been wide. 

 They are compositions of the same class. In 

 both there is the same general cast of thought, 

 language, and versification ; the same attachment 

 to heroic life in all its adventurous varieties ; the 

 same views of the external world ; the same 

 mellifluous but masculine forms of speech ; the 

 same flexible harmony and rich cadences of 

 metre. 



The beauties of the Homeric poems were so 

 striking in themselves, and so well calculated to 

 rivet the national affections of the Greeks, that 

 we can discover nothing surprising in the great 

 and permanent influence which they exert- 

 ed over all subsequent branches of Grecian 

 literature. The marvel is that this influence 

 should be least perceptible upon the immediate 

 successor of Homer. The tone and temper 

 of HESIOD'S poetry are marked by a greater 

 difference from his, than even many of the 

 prose compositions which afterwards appeared. 

 The juniority of this poet to Homer is proved 

 not more by those verbal and metrical peculiari- 

 ties, which speak so plainly to the ears of a critical 

 scholar, than by something in the turn of thought 

 and choice of subjects that evinces a further re- 

 moval from the fountain-heads of natural feeling. 

 We are forced to suppose the lapse of not less 

 than a century, from the age of the Iliad and 

 Odyssey to that of the Theogony and the Works 

 and Days. What a change from the deeds 

 of soldiers to domestic arrangements and the 

 cultivation of the soil ! from " moving accidents 

 by flood or field " to moral precepts and the de- 

 tails of celestial genealogy ! It seems as if either 

 the era of adventures were gone for ever, or the 

 poet wished it to be so. He would call roving 

 clans and fierce marauders to agriculture, to 

 commerce, to all the beneficent arts of peace ! 

 We see that the didactic strains of the Works 

 and Days were meant to unteach the spirit of 

 the heroic times, and to heal the wounds which 

 they had left behind them. Nor is it less evident 

 that the Theogony, a poem whose authenticity 

 has been rather unreasonably questioned, must 

 have been posterior to the Homeric pictures of 



B. G. 800. 



