A P P E N D I X, No. 1. 79 



quite natural ; for fuch accuracy could in no rej[pedl have had 

 an advantageous efFe(5l. The combat of Achilles and Hector 

 is filled with the wonderful. The race of both heroes is traced 

 by means of points, which the fancy of the reader may extend 

 as far as it can ; the walls, the wild fig tree, the watch-tower, 

 the fources of the Scamander. But it may be premifed, that to 

 a perfon who knew the topography of the country in the days 

 of Homer, nothing would be reprefented, which he would have 

 recognifed and declared to be falle and erroneous, elfe the effecSl 

 of the poem would have been loft. 



When we fpeak of the Troad, it may be viewed in various 

 lights. What is the prefent appearance of that country ? What 

 was it formerly, at different times, particularly in the days of 

 Homer? and how can its prefent appearance be reconciled with 

 the defcriptions of that poet? Or, again; in Homer there is a 

 certain appearance of the country defcribed. How far does this 

 actually accord with nature ? Each of thefe views and queftions 

 it is rather the province of the geographer and hiilorical critic 

 to anfwer. There is flill another view of the fubjed:. As the 

 poet cannot be read with pieafure, without a fenfible reprefenta- 

 tion, what is the reprefentation he gives of the face of the coun- 

 try ? To what extent does he give it ? and how much of this 

 kind of knowledge muft accompany or precede the reading of 

 the Iliad ? 



The explainer of Homer is properly bound to difcharge on- 

 ly the laft tafk. With this view I had entirely new modelled 

 the abov-e mentioned Memoir, according to Homer, and had 

 taken no farther afTiftance from Strabo than coincided with 

 and illuftrated Homer's account. So nauch the more lively 

 was my pieafure, when I perceived, in the paper of M. Cheva- 

 LitR, a greater coincidence with my ideas than I had found in 

 Wood, or in any other work. This induced me to annex to 



this 



