1807,} 
mentator Didymus. If the queftion was 
hivolved in fo much obfcurity, as to in- 
duce the Emperor Adrian to apply to the 
gods, themfelves for an explanation, it 
was not to be expeéted that all the etforts 
of the critics fhould be able to elucidate 
it, To direét usin this inquiry, we have 
ho certain guide in the Poems them- 
felves. The city of Smyrna, and the 
Iiland of Chios, appear to prefent the 
Jealt objectionable claims to the honour 
for which they contended. Of the nume- 
rous candidates, thefe are the only two, 
whofe pretentions can be ferioufly ex- 
amined. Each had its authors to re-~ 
eord its title. . The inhabitants of Chios 
relied on the teftimony of Simonides, and 
Theocritus. They had their Homeride, 
whom they confidered as the defcendants 
of Homer, and a temple erected to his 
Memory in the environs of Boliflus. 
They could boatt the indireét authority 
of Thucydides, who afcribes to him the 
Hymn to Apollo, in which he reprefents 
himfelf as the blind man inhabiting Chios, 
Leo Allatius, who wrote exprefsly on this 
{ubjeét, after weighing the pretenfions of 
2ll the candidates, decides for Chios. 
But the claim of Smyrna was ttill better 
founded, All the profeffed lives of Homer 
by Herodotus, Plutarch, and Proctlus, 
concur in reprefenting him as a native of 
that city. This is confirmed by the ge- 
neral belief afterwards entertained, and 
expreffed in the different writings of 
Cicero, Strabo, and A. Gellius. Indeed 
fo violent were the Smyrnzans in main- 
taining this high honour, that it was ne- 
ceflary for all, who wifhed to efcape the 
fate of Zoilus, to give it implicit credit. 
But the claim of Smyrna admits, we 
think, a {till clearer proof trom the 
Poems themfelves, which abound in me- 
taphorical defcriptions, congenial to a 
native of Afia. The earth refounding 
with the mareh of the army, like the 
thunders of Jove on the mountain which 
covered the giant Typhceus; the de- 
fersption of a wind, blacker than night, 
thooting along the air with tempetts in 
its train ;—of infatiate Difcord beitriding 
the earth, and lifting its head into the 
ikies ;—thefe,and many other fuch images, 
which are to be found in the Iliad, attett 
their Afiatic origin, and do not accord 
with what we may prefume to have beer 
the chafter ftyle and feverer manners of 
the Greeks of that age, 
It hasbeen muchagitated by modera ari- 
tics, whether the art of writing was known 
in Homer’s time, andifnot, by whatmeans 
a Poem of fuch length was originally pre- 
age and Country of Lomer. 
4% 
ferved, and has fince been fo miraculoufly 
handed to pofterity, in its’ prefent ftate, 
That {uch a Poem could have been ever 
retained in the memory of man, and 
thus, by oral tradition alone, be tran{mit« 
ted from one generation to another, it is 
impoilfible to alfert. Itis equally difficule 
to contend, that the Works of Homer 
were collected together at differeut times, 
and in detached portions, and that they 
were not finally coinpleted till at a very 
late period, and with very confiderable 
difficulty. There is a connection through- 
out the Ihad at leatt, a clear deduction 
of events, a lucidus ordo in the arrange- 
ment and diftribution of all its parts, that 
effectually deitroy fuch a fuppotition, and 
make it no pref{umption to fay, that the 
Poem is nearly fuch as it came from the 
pen, or dictation of its.author. If we 
adopt the common notion, that Homer 
was- accuttomed to fing or recite ‘his 
poems in the aflemblies of the Greeks, 
and that the frequency of fuch reeitals, 
Imprinted them on the memory of his 
auditors ; we are not at liberty to reject 
other paffages of his .fuppofed Life, 
equally improbable and uncertain. That 
fuch a cuttom was familiar in the earlier 
ages of Orpheus, Linus, and Mufeus, is 
pofible, and is confirmed by the fact, 
that, of thefe poets, the works of the two 
latt are entirely loft, and of the firft we 
have only fome trifling fragments. But 
in. placing Homer at a later period, a 
period of greater civilization, and when 
the art of writing was known and culti- 
vated, it is no longer neceflary to refort 
to fuch tales, to account for the prefers 
vation of his poems. And if it be urged, 
that of the twenty-four letters of the 
Tonic alphabet, only twenty were known 
in Homer’s time, it may be contended 
that the four letters afterwards added 
by Simonides, were not effential to pro- 
nunciation; two of them being the vowels 
H and Q, to: diltinguifh thefe long founds 
from the fame vowels E and QO; the other 
two were Zand ¥, the founds of which 
could juit as well have been exprefled by 
zy and I] Z, as the S$ is even ftill in Hive 
glith, French, aid Italian, often pro=. 
nounced like Z, though all thefe langua- 
ges have the character Z to denote its 
particular found. The want therefore 
of thefe four letters was no impediment 
to Homer’s knowing the Greek | alphas 
bet, as well as we do. And when it is 
recollected, that he was fuppofed to be a 
native of lonia, a province on the cone 
fines of Perfia, and other eaftern nations, 
where the arts and {ciences were earlier 
cultivated 
