44 REV. PROFESSOR D. S. MARGOLIODTH, D.LJTT., ON 



first is composed. The cryptograms are in miniature what the 

 Poems are on a great scale. Since in them the rows of vertical 

 groups constitute a set of verses no less continuous than the 

 wholly different set constituted by the horizontal groups, very 

 clearly the composition did not proceed straightforward ; every- 

 thing is dovetailed with the greatest ingenuity into an excogitated 

 scheme, and it is impossible to say which line was composed first 

 or last. He who reads either the Iliad or the Odyssey with 

 Aristotle's guidance will find that the same skill exhibits itself 

 only on a vastly greater scale. The genius of Homer is evidently 

 that sort which can take infinite pains. 



In the second place Aristotle observed that the names of the 

 characters were chosen after their functions had been assigned 

 them and were indicative of those functions. It is decided that 

 for the purpose of the story, Ilios is to have one defender, whose 

 death involves the fall of the city ; to him then the name Hector 

 " holder " is given. Often, if not invariably, the interpretation 

 of the name is given somewhere by the Poet himself ; but the 

 names are not casual, though at times without such guidance we 

 might not easily tell their appropriateness. 



If we endeavour to estimate the services rendered by Homer 

 to his countrymen, we shall naturally group them under some 

 four heads. 



As we have seen, the later verse literature is wholly 

 dependent upon him ; but what surprises us in the crypto- 

 grams is that he by no means claims to commence Hellenic 

 poetry. On the contrary he uses language which reminds us of 

 far later periods in the history of the Hellenes ; who both 

 before and after the Eoman conquest refused to acknowledge 

 that there was any literature but theirs ; who supposed them- 

 selves to be intellectually as superior to other races as mankind 

 generally are to the brutes. In this spirit Homer tells Ilios 

 that if she wishes to be crowned with poetic fame she must 

 abandon the East and come near to Hellas, to which country 

 the goddesses of beauty and wisdom belong. It would appear 

 then that Homer does not represent the infancy but the 

 adolescence of Hellenic poetry ; and indeed we cannot imagine 

 the first book in a language armed with elaborate cryptograms 

 and a chronogram. Only literature like the human being 

 " when it become th a man putteth away childish things." 

 When the production of a truly classical work has raised the 

 standard perceptibly, the immature works which have preceded 

 it are liable to fall into oblivion, especially where writing 

 material is cumbrous, and, as is the case with the wax tablet, 



