318 Homer Colour-blind. [June, 
of all nationalities the average number of colour-blind is 
4 per cent, an average in excess of that of all other classes. 
A man may have a good eye for form and outline, and jet 
be partially or wholly colour-blind, do seleCt an instance 
from among many is difficult, but one impresses me moie 
than the rest,— that of Wyatt the sculptor, who at the out- 
set of his career was known as a remarkably good diaughts- 
man. He naturally took to painting, but, as his piCtuies 
were observed to present curious incongruities of coloui, 
that involved him in grievous difficulties, he with much 
reluctance was obliged to abandon the brush for the chisel. 
He was altogether unable to comprehend the nature of his 
defeCt, — indeed refused to believe that he was colour-blind. 
So of men who have attained to eminence in the woild of 
letters, and whose writings unmistakably betray evidences 
of a meagre colour vocabulary. A striking example of this 
occurred in the person of my friend the late-lamented Angus 
B. Reach, whose life, alas ! was prematurely shortened by 
over-work — brain-disease. He was unable to recognise a 
difference in colour between the leaf, the flowei, and the 
fruit of plants and trees. His want of perception of colour 
was wholly unknown to, and unrecognised by, himself, 
until we sat together at the table of a Paris restaurant. 
He, wishing to finish his letter to the “ Chronicle news- 
paper, requested the waiter to bring him some ink. As it 
often happens, under similar circumstances, the ink was 
brought in a wine-glass. Reach became absorbed in his 
subjeCt, while I, seated opposite to him, observed him alter- 
nately dipping his pen into his claret-glass and into the ink- 
glass. I frequently checked him, but presently to my surprise 
he took up the ink-glass and was about to drink, when I 
remonstrated, and he then said he could see no difference 
between the colour of the ink and the wine. On subsequently 
testing him I discovered that he was completely colour- 
blind. 
From an examination of the Homeric colour sense, as 
indicated by Homeric colour epithets, and as resting on a 
scientific basis, and also from a statistical point of view, I 
venture to suggest that Homer was colour-blind. Indeed an 
analysis of the Homeric colour vocabulary strongly points 
to this conclusion. Homer certainly laboured under a phy- 
sical defeCt of vision, and this fully explains the limited use 
of the terms he employed to express his sense of colour, and 
to which Mr. Gladstone has drawn attention. 
