348 | 
fluence hisjudgment. But the many low 
deferyptions in the Odyfley, the indecent 
broils in which the hero is engaged, fo un- 
worthy of his character, the long and tedi- 
ous details in many of the latter books, be- 
tray the old age‘and declining vigour of the 
poet. The circumftance, to mention only 
one inftance out of many that could be ci- 
ted,of Uly ties and his companions thrufting 
a tree in the eve of the ileeping Cyciops, 
who repoies atter having fwallowed two 
men alive, is not the moit puerile and ri- 
diculous idea in the poem. In meeting 
with thefe marks of faded genius, it is 
dificult to avoid thinking that Homer 
after having, by the force and majefty of 
the Iliad, fuggelted fo many lefions for 
the conduét of men, condefcended in the 
decline of life to compofe a poem, which 
afliited by appolite images, and 'cloathed 
in his beautiful language, he imtended 
fer the inftguction and amufement of 
children. 
The march of the Odyffey is befides 
feeble and languid. The laft 12 books, 
aiter Ulyfies is landed in Ithaca, are te- 
dious and uninterefiing. The poem pro- 
ceeds from one adventure to another, 
without a fingle incident that either ar- 
refts out attention, or excites our ‘in- 
tereft. After the arrival of the hero, 
there is nothing which anfwers the expec- 
tations of the reader. He affumes 
an ignoble difguife, and is either occu- 
pied in the meaneft offices, or difgraced 
by inglorious difputes. Homer feems 
here to have violated all the laws of con- 
traft, and co have entirely loft fight of 
the dignity of the Epopoza. Admitting 
it was necefiary that Ulyffes fhould ex- 
perience {cenes of diftrefs, that he might 
extricate himfelf with.yreater glory to 
' confound his enemies, he thould. have 
been preferved from theabjeét degradation 
in which ke is often funk, and by means 
more worthy of his charaéter. The de- 
firuétion of Penelope’s lovers is more 
poetical, but the ntereft of the combat 
is weakened by the too fudden interfe- 
rence of Minerva with her egis, by 
which the danger of Ulyffes is.too vifibly 
diminifhed and his viétory rendered too 
certain. The difcovery which he makes 
of himfelf to Euryclea, his nurfe, is tender 
and affecting, but. we think that in the 
anagnorifis, or the interview between 
Ulyffes and Penelope, the poet has failed. 
This meeting, fo long and fo anxioufly 
expected, is cold and formal, and pro- 
duces none of thofe emotions which fuch 
a fcene was calculated to infpire. Pe- 
nelope is too cautious and diftruftful, and 
the difcovery is at length effeGted, not, as 
2 
Lyceum of Ancient Literature.—No. V. 
{May 1, 
we might have fuppofed, in confequence 
of the valour of her hufband or the in- 
tervention of fome favouring deity, but 
by a firatagem very unworthy of the Epic, 
the defcription of the nuptial bed, the 
ftructure of which is known only to them- 
felves. eRe 
Though the confideration of the fmall- 
er poems attributed to Homer, do not 
properly come under the head of Epopeea, 
we fhall fay a few words reipeéting them 
here; as they are too triflmg and of too 
uncertain origin, to make it neceffary for 
us to recur to them in any other place. 
The Batrachomyomachia, or Battle of the 
Frogs and Mice, though difputed by ma~ 
ny, has been moft generally affigned to 
Homer. According to Statius, he com- 
poted it, as Virgil did his Culex, as a tri- 
al of his ftrength before he began his 
more important poems. It is a beautiful 
piece of raillery, fuch in which indeed a 
great writer might delight to unbend him- 
felf. But it muft be confeffed that the 
reafons which induced the ancients to 
give it te Homer, are not very fatisfactory; 
and they appear to have afcribed it to 
him, becaufe they knew no other to whom 
to affign it. The Hymns alfo are fufpeét- 
ed not to be his, and have been by the 
{choliafis attributed to Cynethus, though 
Thucydides, Lucian; and Paufanias have 
cited them as the productions of the bard 
of Smyrna. It is obfervable that — 
has taken from the hymn to Venus fe-. 
veral lines which he has inferted in the 
firf{ A‘neid, m the interview between 
/Eneas and his mother. But whether 
Homer's or not, they are fuppofed to be 
of great antiquity, and are probably coe- 
val with the Iliad itfelf.* ‘The Epigrams 
are extracted from the Life faid to be writ- 
ten by Herodotus, but have been more 
decidedly rejeéted, as having no better 
foundation than the authority of a beok, 
which we have already remarked is itfelf 
fo doubtful, Ariftotle + mentions a poem 
called Margites, which he afferts to have 
been written by Homer in iambic verfe. 
It appears to have been a fatire upon the 
female fex, and took its name from Mar- 
gites who was the fubjeét of it. From 
the accoant preferved in Euftathius, it 
feems to have been founded on rather an 
indecent ftory. ‘The Cercopes, the de- 
ftruction of Gichalia, the Cypriacks, and 
* An hymn to Ceres, attributed to Homer, 
was difcovered by a German at Mofcow, and 
publifhed by Rhunkenius in Holland. The 
di€tion of this hymn is beautiful, but more 
polifhed and elaborate than that of the Iliad 
and Odyffey, 
+ Arif. Poet. cap. 4 
~ ‘the 
