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For us Months oa sine. 
_ THE LYCEUM (NCIENT 
LITERATURE. Bs, II. 
OF THE LIFE, AGE, AND COUNTRY OF 
HOMER. 
NVERY hiftorical account of Honter 
muft be thort, as it can only be an 
_ ufelefs repetition of uncertain fasts, and 
unfounded conjeétures. There is no writ- 
er who has fo much engaged the attention 
of potterity, and of whofe ‘real hiftory 
we are lefS informed. An admirer of this 
great. poet would fay, that. he refembles 
the Deity, who is known to us only by 
his works. We know not where he was 
born, nor (with any degree of precifion) 
at what time he lived. If we confider 
hjm in the light in which he is tranfinitted 
to us by ancient, writers, we muft be con- 
tented to pals from one ablurdity to an- 
other; and, in the multiplied and con- 
tradictory accounts, fubititute fabulous 
affertion for rational narration. ‘It may 
fatisfy the feeptical reader to be informed 
hy Suidas, that no lefs than -nincty cities 
claimed the honour of having given him 
birth. In Euftathius, we read that he 
was born in Egypt, and that he was 
nurfed by a prieftefs of Ifis, from whom 
he imbibed honey inftead of milk. In 
Heliodorus, that he was the fon of Mer- 
cury. Others afcribe to him a direét and 
lineal defcent from Apollo. But thefe 
were the extravagant theories of men, 
wlio, unable to exprefs how much they 
admired the. poet, have exceeded all 
bounds of probability in their accounts of 
him.. The mind, apparently dazzled by 
fuch excellence, lofes the common idea 
of the man in the imaginary fplendour of 
perfection ; and unwilling that he thould 
ever be mentioned i ina langnace beneath 
its conception, gives us fable for hiftory. 
The poetical genealogy, which may be 
feen in Suidas, proves that the advocates 
for Greece even furpafied the others ‘in 
exavgerated fiction, in proportion as the 
refinement of the Greeks was fuperior to 
that of the Egyptians. Gods, goddefies, 
piufes, kings, and heroes, are linked? in 
this wonderful defcent. Every writer who 
has pretended to give us an account of 
Homer, however “he may di ffer froin 
others in his narrative, is equally ftudious 
im aicribing to him a celeftial origin, and 
the. moft marvellous adventures. Eas 
ftathius, Heliodorus, Heimias, Diodorus 
Siculus, Suidas, “Plutarch, and /Elian, 
offered to the mind only confufed; and 
contradictory compilations of. the. moft 
abfurd allegories.’ His life feems to have 
been invented, rather than ‘w n; and 
Eycaum of Ancient Literate, 
“bracted ‘by its profperous trade. 
every biogtapher; in the abfence of ras 
gular hitory; has not failed to exhibit an 
fypothdR of ‘lis own. In the’ poems: 
which are indifputably Hoiner’s, he has’ 
no where fpoken direcily of himfelf; hor 
was there in his tinie ahy hiftorian. (at 
leaft, we know of none,) to record his 
name and the events of his life. Hero-= 
dotus alone (who, by his own account, 
lived about 400 years after Homer) has 
tranfinitted to us fomethine like a pro- 
bable narrative: But probable only in 
this, that, divefted of ‘thofe fabulous ae 
{criptions ‘and incidents which abound in. 
other writer, it is a firmple narrative of 
circumflances, which misht have ¢om- 
pofed the Hfe of any other man. as well 
as of Homer. It refts upon as meagre @ 
foundat! tion, and is as litdle fe pported ‘by 
authority, asany of the refi. It is mi 
ute atid: trifling, defiitute of colouring, 
imagination, and invention 3 confit 
only of details which might have ae 
the life of any obicure granmmarian,’ it no 
Where betrays the importance of die fub- 
ject, nor the admiration dae to fuch a 
poet; and offers nothing correfpanditg 
with ‘the idea we entertain of ifomer, If 
therefore, in common with fo inany others, 
we tae from Herodotus ail that we mean 
to fay hiftorically of Homer, it is not 
that we believe his account ta ‘be entitled 
to much greater credit than that ‘of any 
other ancient, bet becaite it has been 
more generally followed, and is in truth 
the ox ily one deferving ‘OF Feroug: obfer- 
Vation. 
Homer, ‘accordifig ¢0° hits, was born 
at smyrna, about 406 vears ‘alter. ‘thé 
freve of Troy, atid 622: beforethe ex c= 
dition of Kerxés into Greece, Wivfarhet 
is not mentioned ; but His mother Oris 
theis proviirg with child in ‘conlequéeice 
of an illicit < connection, the Was feat to 
Sinyrna, a Col6hy from Cuma. Some- 
time after her remo: i, accuinpiytyiag a 
‘procetiion if women te 2 ‘feltival wele 
brated neéar'the river Meles, the Was ‘un- 
expeCtedly delivered of Hoist; to whorn 
the gare the name of Melefiseiies, frém 
the place ‘of his~ birth. 
Phemius, who ‘had married histimother, 
the advanced with tuch rapidity i in alte 
arts dud improvements of his ake, and 
betrayed fuch’ extraordinary intelliven Ace, 
‘as to become the coiumon wonder, nor 
culy of his countrymen, but Of all the 
fitansets who reforted to Smyrna, ‘at- 
Homer 
appears to have polfefied a great defire of 
informing himfelf of the manners and’ 
cuitomg 
ie procets of . 
time, under the tuition and infpection of 
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