HOMER. 



i: HOMER, (the Grecian poet) Without leaning to 

 the faith of those who have denied the existence of Ho- 

 mer, we cannot avoid noticing the remarkable circum- 

 stance of his existence having been called in question. 

 Both learning and ingenuity have been employed in 

 attempting to prove, that neither the Iliad nor the O- 

 dyssey were the production of a single genius, but com- 

 posed' by the rhapsodiots, who recited those poems in 

 detached parts; and that the name of Homer, which, 

 in the Eolian dialect of Greek, signifies " blind," was 

 either applied to tome personage wholly fanciful, or, 

 by way of eminence, to some strolling declaimer of 

 the Iliad, who may haw executed part* of the poem, 

 but cannot be supposed to be the author of the whole. 

 It mar seem a paradoxical way of annihilating an indi- 

 vidual to multiply his existence ; but yet, by proving 



j could be proved, 

 tr of the Iliad would be 

 i of a sacred name would fall 

 with iu loss of unity. Annius of Viterba pretend* to 



E-he authority of Archilochu , an author to whom 

 ascribes the moat remote antiquity , for the existence 

 of tight different authors of the Iliad, among whom 

 are gravely registered ApeUe* the painter, and Phidias 

 the statuary. But for the comfort of those who may 

 fed alarmed at the threatened dismemberment of the 

 Homeric exiotence. it must be mentioned, that this An- 

 nius of Viterba, who was a Dominican friar, and mas- 

 ter of the sacred palace wider Pope Alexander VI., was 



VNMI to muupiy as* exMMna 

 diversity of Homer*, if such 

 oar hnmag> to the angle autbc 



shaken, ami the rrputalion of a 



an inapnalnr who had not even skill to palm upon the 

 rid the MS. page of thia asx*** Arehilochu*, which 

 he pretended to fed, and stands upon record a* one of 

 the MM tmpadont and clearly convicted of literary 

 mrgers. The book, which he called the Genuine Re- 

 mama of Sanconiathan Jlamt*^ fcr. brought k't the 



.aiur .|H-<:.. ,.t r.-pn-., ..,.:, tl. ,t .,, . r mi '. II..- MB] O'r 



Ireland from h* Sthaknpeare MSS , or t. 

 I'n.krrtun Iron, h:. . IMHMl j.!.: '....I,, t.. I! mljki ,,t,- 

 By far the most formidable opponent of the unity of 

 the author of the Iliad u the teamed German Profc*. 

 sor Wolff, who suppose* Homer to be either an imagi. 

 nary being, or. at most, one of the earliest of the rbap- 

 sodUa. la the work* which he prefixed to the work* 

 Homer and the Huoeride.. there are 



forward with 



n expected from a writer who 

 hi* work to be above all 

 and who predicted that no Grecian scholar should a*. 



tack >t v. 



every candid mind will agree that the settled and pr*> 

 vailing belief of antiquity M not to be made light of in 



auch a question. It is true that Homer 1 * birth-place. 

 a* well as his age, are disputed, but auch controversy, 

 are not apt U> he started about imaginary beinn. hi* 



j f *>M m JT mv MIMirHMaV rMHmMT, 



>f be had been the acknowledged author of the Iliad, 

 Mast have been known to hi* own omtemporarir. 

 ly a few scattered ainrdme* of Shakeopeare himself have 

 readied the pmmt day. In an age, such as the probable 

 p of Homer, had a man of genius a bettor chance of 

 finding contemporary biographer. > When Xtaasmger 

 was buried, all that could be told of him, in the Tn- 

 scripbon upon hi* tomb, was, " Here IMS Philip Mao- 

 singer, a stranger." To adduce all the proofs that 

 could be M iv-o of great poet* being neglected by their 

 ""a.unric*. would ui.ha,,, the histo- 



ry of the greater part of them. In forming our opinion 

 tot. n. r*r i. 



of narratives that exceed the accustomed phenomena of 

 nature, we cannot be sufficiently caution? of making 

 the creed of a past age the standard of our own belief. 

 But tradition that is fiee from the marvellous, is fairly 

 entitled to confidence, and the tradition which assigns 

 a single author to the Iliad, a tradition which I.yi-ur- 

 gus and Aristotle believed, has surely nothing in it MI 

 incredible as that a work, so remarkable for simplicity 

 of design, should have been the work of fortuitous and 

 successive composer*. Great works of science may, 

 indeed, be thus built up by accumulation, but great 

 poems and pictures are not usually constructed by a 

 multiplicity of artists. Nor, if the Iliad had bet- n the 

 work of successive rhapsodists, is it easy to conceive by 

 what poetical effort of modesty those authors suppres- 

 sed their respective rights upon the gratitude and ad- 

 miration of posterity. 



U> must distinguish, however, between the credit 

 that is due to the general tradition of Homer having 

 been a wandering reciter of his own poetry, and the 

 more specific facts that are pretended to be given as the 

 history of bis life. The most ancient work of this kind 

 is the 'life of Homer attributed to Herodotus. Whether 

 this be the genuine production of Herodotus, we are 

 far from pretending to decide. The opinion of Pro- 

 fessor Heyne, which was apt to be deliberately form- 

 ed, is unfavourable to its authenticity, as he pronoun- 

 cos h impossible to ascertain either the age or country 

 of Homer. The learned Voasiu* also rejected its au- 

 thority on the ground, that no writer makes mention of 

 the work previous to Stephen of Byzantium, and Sui- 

 This argument, though it come* from a great 

 , is certainly not quite conclusive. By far the 

 moot important objection to it i* the different cal- 

 culations of chronology exhibited in Herodotus the 

 historian of Greece, and the Herodotus to whom this 

 life of Homer is assigned. The former, in hi- 

 terpe, speak* of himself a* posterior to Homer by only 

 400 yean ; while the Utter compute* a period of 682 

 years, and the expedition of Xerxes across the I Irlle- 

 spont, a difference of nearly 200 yean. On thi* ac- 

 count, F.ustathius wishes to assign the life of Homer to 

 another Herodotus, surnamed Olophytcius. instead of 

 the historian of Halicarnaasu*. Admitting the above 

 objection* in their full force, it cannot be affirmed that 

 they ammmt to a demonstration of the biography itself 

 being either aparton*, or fraught with internal mark* 

 of fsUrhoori On the contrary, the birth- pUce, which 

 it gives to the author of the Iliad, corresponds with an 

 micrence moat plausibly drawn by an enlightened tra- 

 veUer from the poet's descriptions of external nature, 

 that he paints them with the very circumstance* that 

 would occur to a native of Chios or Smyrna. If Ho- 

 mer was born at the Utter place, the vicinity of Hero- 

 dotus's birth-place, would naturally make him anxious 

 to collect every tradition respecting him ; and in the 

 wandering life and disastrous voyages which those tra- 

 ditions describe, there it every thing which the state 

 of society in surh an age renders probable. It cannot 

 well be doubted that the author of the Iliad and the ( )- 

 dyssey was a traveller, as they are both the evident off- 

 spring of a mind which had contemplated nature and 

 H"T" life in a full variety of aspect and manner*, mid 

 of one who had felt much from the opposite di- posi- 

 tion of good and bad in his own species ; who, ac- 

 cording to the circumstanres then existing in society, 

 had 



Home 



Wstksd i* rnrj Mtk of I 

 Felt all iu BaMltai, sa4 ' 



* 



i life. 



