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the materials of his judgment constantly floating about his mind, so that they often come in unbidden-some of them presenting and re-presenting themselves at different times, so as to lessen the clenching power of the reasoning, and to occasion considerable and irregular repetition. Indeed, much of the Homeric portion of these volumes seems to have been written at different times, and thrown together subsequently, with the natural additions and amplifications of lengthening study of the subject. The author does not seem to gather up his mind as to an argument once for all, to state then all that he has to state, and to dismiss the topic; but it seems to beset him, so that in any connection which reminds him of some specific ground in favour of his own old-fashioned view, or against the more novel and ingenious hypothesis of his opponents, he does not check the natural flow of his associations, but lets the argument peep out again, often in only a slightly modified, and sometimes in precisely the same form, as that in which it had been adduced before. But perhaps this is only a feature in the diffuseness of style which may be said to characterise the work.

We have strong sympathy, however, with the view of Homeric reality and unity which Colonel Mure adopts, without at all undervaluing the critical value, on purely critical grounds, of the objections urged, from the style, language, and allusions of the Poems themselves, to the soundness of this conclusion. But we attach no such certainty to these grounds, as it seems to be the fashion of the present time to assign them. We think a latter-day critic's idea of what is probable in, what is consistent with, and what must necessarily be characteristic of, all the productions of one mind, in a former age, by no means to be trusted to, as representing what really existed, and what Nature and the human mind chose to be and were. It appears to us that two thousand years hence, were external evidence absent or lost, an ingenious critic on Milton might, with quite as much show of justice, and as we know with quite as little reality of truth, represent the Paradise Lost and the Paradise Regained; L'Allegro and Samson Agonistes, as impossible to have originated from the same author. He might, in like manner, show by quite as ingenious a collection of illustrations, and with a

result quite as far from truth, that Shakespeare could not have been the originator of the characters both of Hamlet and of Falstaff. There is no end to the havoc which would be made, on these principles, with the authenticities of literature. The more we see of the application of these principles, the more uncertain and untrustworthy, and therefore valueless, except as increasing the knowledge of the matter commented upon, do we begin to regard this species of criticism. The events of the past, though occurring in ages so distant and so different from our own, are less dangerous ground for this species of criticism to exercise itself upon, because there is a certain reality in history, and unity in the course of providence, which may afford us often some fair grounds of analogy, on which to rest a judgment. But thought is a much more delicate thing to deal with than fact. To say that a man shall not have thought or written thus, is a more dangerous assertion than to say such an act was never really performed. Ask us to disbelieve the deeds of Homer's heroes from the principles of human nature, and Divine Providence, and the voice of history, and we have not much difficulty in assenting to the request. But ask us to disbelieve that one man wrote of them, on account of certain, remarkable, if you like, differences or even discrepancies of style, of genius, of allusions, nay of manners and of facts, and we may on other grounds be allowed to hesitate.

With Shakespeare before the English mind, and Goethe before the German, we should not have supposed the indisposition would have been so great to allow so much to one mind, as we are obliged to do to that of Homer, if he were the author of the Iliad, and still more if he were the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey; and we trace much of this incredulity to a vanity of disinclination to believe that the momentum which civilization and learning bear down with them in their course is still so light that a man in what we call semi-barbarous ages could have produced that which is unrivalled still. But for ourselves we believe, and in nothing more firmly than, in the existence of these great, astounding Minds. We believe in men making ages, much more than in ages making men. This disinclination to believe in individual greatness is not among the best signs of our age. It is the scepticism of an

age of diffusion, when every body has something and nobody has everything. If there be a danger of the belief in a personal God drifting away into a belief in the universal Godhead of things as they are, there is a similar danger also of belief in individual personalities merging itself into a preferential belief in aggregates, and age-collections— age-sweepings rather.

The non-existence of Homer-that is, of the one author of the Iliad and Odyssey-and the substitution of a bank or club of Poets-politely called a cycle-would involve us in far greater improbabilities and unlikelihoods than any that our fathers so unperceivingly believed in. Among them are these. Aristotle knew nothing about this. He regards the Homeric Poems as regularly constructed Epics; nay, so regularly constructed, as themselves to supply the laws for that kind of composition. The Alexandrine critics had not got further than the idea of the twofold separation of the Poems, and dismissed that as unfounded. The multiform origin is not even alluded to by them as an existing idea. If there were not one Homer, but several, how extraordinary would be the number of first-rate poets, and all selecting the Trojan War for their subject, and the last year, nay, the last month, of the War for their time! The modern fancy of great Poets is to choose subjects somewhat different from each otherbut here was a happy family indeed, who, had they not treated their one subject with so much power, might be otherwise regarded as a family of fools. It is true that the collector, Pisistratus, may have limited the time, and have made varied material all refer to the selected moment, but even this (a very clever and not an easy performance) would not affect the singular fact of the choice of one subject. That one Homer should not apply the designations of Hellas to Greece, or Peloponnesus to the southern peninsula, is easily accounted for, from the more recent application of those names; but that many Homers, spread over 500 years, during the later portion of which period the terms were so employed, should have omitted their use, is not likely. "That one Homer should have been ignorant of the use of cavalry in war, or from eccentricity or antiquarian affectation should have pretended to be so, is possible; but scarcely credible in the case of a number CHRISTIAN TEACHER.-No. 49. 2 B

of Homers of different ages and countries. That one poet should systematically exclude from his heroes' tables, fish, boiled meat, game, and other articles of good cheer, so much esteemed by heroes of other ages and countries, has often been remarked as singular; that ten or twelve Homers should enter into any such conspiracy against heroic freedom of diet, seems unaccountable."*

One of the favourite presumptions against the unity of the authorship and the age of the Two Poems, is that derived from the supposed differences in the state of manners and the arts, discernible in the Poems. In reply to this, there is the very obvious defence, that one Poem, the scene of which is laid in a military encampment, and the chief actors in which are soldiers, and another, the scene of which is laid in a variety of courts and cities, and in which the chief actors are princes on their travels, or "living at home at ease," may well (calling into view entirely different aspects of human life and habits) have a marked difference in the allusions made in them to the arts, the habits, the refinements and the dispositions of the parties brought upon the scene. But besides this defence, there is always that counter-argument, so dangerous, so fatal in these discussions-namely, the number of passages which an adverse ingenuity may bring forward to prove exactly the opposite opinion. It is this notorious fact in a large portion of the modern criticism-this power in equal ingenuities and perseverances of quoting passages on both

We think Colonel Mure would inculcate too servile a spirit of submission to ancient critics, when he presumes that Aristotle, Aristarchus, and Longinus, as living nearer the times, and having the whole national library at their command, must therefore be not less competent "to judge of the relation which one portion of that library bore to another in style or merit than foreigners toiling by dint of grammar and lexicon through its scanty existing remains." We admit the reasonableness of this argument as applied to the case, the circumstances, the parties and the subject under our author's immediate discussion. But we think that it would be a very erroneous general ground of judgment. "Foreigners toiling by dint of grammar and lexicon," often see things which native critics overlook. We must not bind posterity to the judgment of their ancestors. We must be careful how we pronounce Livy right and Niebuhr wrong. The argument is applicable to still more important matters, and is one of the most dangerous and unsatisfactory that can be employed. Every matter that receives a discussion worthy of the name, must receive it on the ground of its own merits. Use the opinions of Aristotle, Aristarchus and Longinus as elements of judgment— but do not let their opinions override all others that may subsequently, on new or different data, be brought against them.

sides in nearly equal proportions, which has nearly closed our ears to internal arguments of this character, unless supported by more general considerations of a more solid and reliable kind. In the matter before us, in reply to the subtle industry which quotes the more advanced character of the arts and habits of social life, and therefore the later origin of the Odyssey, may be opposed a similarly subtle industry which will show how much more advanced are the arts and habits of the Iliad than those of the Odyssey, and how much later therefore in its origin must be the former Poem. Horn-dressing, tanning, leathercutting, chariot-making, wool-carding, (with weights and prices,) the fabric of armour, the winnowing machine, the culture of peas and beans, threshing and irrigation-these arts, mentioned in the Iliad, are (if we are to judge by the accident of silence,) unknown to the Odyssey. Embroidery, ivory ornaments, and the shield of Achilles,* may be pressed into the same argument. How many arts introduced by force and contrivance in an encampment, and at a siege, and therefore attracting a marked notice, may well be passed over as part of the ordinary and natural course of daily life in the times and places of Peace; and on the other hand, how many indications of culture and refinement might we expect to find in courts and cities, among queens and princesses at home, which might have no existence among the rough warriors of a camp, even though their contemporaries. Thus mole-eyed is a large quantity of this scholastic criticism.

Again the difference in language, in the employment of words, supplies a great many sharp arrows of argument against the unity of authorship. But the opposite view is not without some arrows of defence, which may be found greatly to neutralize the shower from the hostile camp. Payne Knight, among his archaisms of the Iliad in contradistinction to the more modern forms of the Odyssey, introduces certain contractions of words which are dissyllabic in the Iliad as monosyllabic in the Odyssey. Thus êρɛɑ in the Iliad is sounded кpη in the Odyssey. But then unfortunately the occurrence of ῥεα, εᾶ, βελεα, in a monosyllabic form in the Iliad, entirely reverses this argu

* Mure, ii. 161-2.

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