the genius of Homer, without doubt, his name would have been transmitted along with his poems, and according to the common course of vulgar admiration, many romances which he never wrote would have been ascribed to him.

This view of the subject, reasonable in itself and so well supported by analogy, has not satisfied some modern scholars; and the uncer⚫tainty which hangs over the life of the old bard, has induced an acute and learned critic to deny his existence, and to ascribe the Iliad and Odyssey to a series of Poets to whom he gives the name of Homerides. It is true we know but little of Homer, but is this a reason for stripping him of life and fame in favor of the Homerides, of whom we know nothing? This theory was started at a time when scepticism had become fashionable; it was well received and much applauded. But the writings of Eichhorn betrayed the dangerous tendency of such speculations, and many a proselyte to the new doctrine became alarmed, when he saw Moses beginning to be involved in the same dark cloud, which had snatched Homer from his sight. It may be said that to appeal to religious prejudices, is to silence a critic, not to answer him. This is true; but it surely is a valid argument against any theory whatsoever, that it tends to overthrow all our settled notions of antiquity, and to set us afloat, without star or compass, on the wide ocean of conjecture. Apart from such general reasoning, the poems themselves, by their accurate observance of the unity of action, sufficiently refute the idea that they are only a collection of detached songs; and the grand argument against their authenticity, drawn from the supposed impossibility that poems of such length could be preserved for two or three centuries by memory alone, seems not absolutely unanswerable. Heeren, in his Politics of Ancient Greece, mentions a Calmuc poem, consisting, as it is said, of three hundred and sixty cantos, a canto equalling in length a Rhapsody of Homer. This poem, he tells us, is preserved only in the memories of those, who sing it. Of such prodigious memory as this, civilized life can furnish no examples; yet Erasmus is said to have been able to repeat the whole of Terence and Horace, and who does not know how easily players commit, and how faithfully they remember, the parts which they speak on the stage ?*

*Wolf is commonly spoken of, as the original author of the theory of the Homerides. He first brought it into favor, by illustrating it with great learning in his famous Prolegomena; but the idea that the Iliad and Odyssey were not the work of a single poet, was long ago started by Perault. The arguments which Perault urged were, first, the authority of a certain abbe d' Aubignac; secondly, the title of Rhapsody, which is the name given in the original to the several books of Homer; and thirdly, a passage of Elian, which, however, when rightly translated, is nothing to the purpose. One may read a spirited and witty reply to Perault, in Boileau's "Reflections sur Longin." That the poems of Homer were not, when first composed, immediately committed to writing was first suggested by Wood. (Essay on the life and Writings of Homer.) The opinion seems not improbable; Wolf and Heyne have supported it with infinite learning, but when the witnesses are dead and the evidence lost, what avails the ingenuity of the advocate?

If we are willing to admit that Homer lived at all, we shall probably fall in with the commonly received opinion, that he lived about nine hundred years before the Christian era; that he was an inhabitant of Chios, and a bard by profession. How honorable a member of society a bard was, Homer himself has sufficiently informed us. He was always a welcome guest, and often a constant attendant at the houses of the chieftains. Loved and revered by all, it was his duty to sing the deeds of gods and men, to inspire his hearers with piety and to kindle in their bosoms a spirit of enterprise, a fiery courage, and a restless longing after fame. Without cares to distract him, he had full opportunity to study the characters of men and the beauties of nature. Poetry was the employment and the pleasure of his life.

Homer's two poems have each a distinct character. The one is all fire, sublimity and hurry; the other is more calm and even. The Iliad astonishes; the Odyssey delights. The first is like the thunderbolt of Homer's own simile ;

Ως δ' ὁθ' υπό πληγῆς πατρὸς Διὸς εξερίπη δους
Προῤῥιζος, δεινὴ δε θεείου γίγνεται οδμὴ

Εξ αυτης τον δ' ουπες έχει θράσος, οςκεν ἴδηται,

Εγγὺς ἑών· χαλεπὶς δὲ Διος μεγάλοιο κεραυνός—11. xiv. 414.

As when the bolt red-hissing from above,

Darts on the consecrated plant of Jove,
The mountain oak in flaming ruin lies,

Black from the blow, and smokes of sulphur rise;
Stiff with amaze, the pale beholders stand,
And own the terrors of th' Almighty hand!—

The second resembles the milder landscape ;

Ως δ' ότ' εν οὐρανῶ ἄστρα φαεινὴν ἀμφὶ Σεληνην
Φαίνετ' αριπρεπέα, ότε τ' έπλετο νήνεμος αιθής
Εκ τ' έφανεν πᾶσαι σκοπιαί και πρώ ενες άκροι,

Και νάπαι' ουρανόθεν δ ̓ ἂς' υπέραγη άσπετος αιθής,

Πάντα δε τ' είδεται άστρα γέγηθε δε τε φρένα ποιμήν -11. viii. 555.

As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,

O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light,
When not a breath disturbs the sweet serene,

And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene,
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole,
O'er the dark trees a yellow verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain's head.
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies,
The conscious swains rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.

The poems differ, too, not only in their character, but in their artificial construction. The time occupied by the action of the Iliad is very short, and the whole narration comes from the mouth of the

poet. The action of the Odyssey extends through ten years, and the hero is himself introduced, relating the greater portion of his adventures. These are the only two forms of the Epic, which the ingenuity of man has yet been able to devise.

Nor are the subjects of the poems unworthy of the genius of Homer. From the earliest settlement of the country, down to the invasion of the Persians, the Trojan war is, by far, the most conspicuous event in the Grecian annals. At a time when Greece was divided into a thousand petty states, this war brought all the independent chiefs together, and engaged them in the prosecution of the same adventure. Besides securing for the poet a willing audience wherever the Grecian name was known, it enabled him to collect, without violating probability, the noblest assemblage of kings and warriors, which the world ever saw. The events of the war were impressive, and not less so the misfortunes and wanderings of the returning chiefs. Ulysses, while prosecuting his homeward voyage, saw the manner and the cities of various nations, and more strange than these, those specious wonders

Antiphatem, Scyllamque, et cum Cyclope Charybdim

with which the imagination of the Greeks had peopled the shores and islands of the Mediterranean.

Achilles, the hero of the Iliad, possesses in the highest degree, all those bodily accomplishments, so indispensable to one of Homer's heroes, and which, indeed, in the politest age of the Grecian commonwealths, were esteemed essential qualifications for a general or a statesman. But it is not in bodily powers alone, that Achilles surpasses the common standard of humanity. He excels as much in pride and passion as in strength of hand or swiftness of foot,

Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer,—

his courage is ferocious, his anger terrible, and from the same constitution of mind, his love unbounded.

Ulysses is a very different character. Artful, eloquent, insinuating, his passions controlled and his pride subdued, he forms his plans with sagacious foresight, and to accomplish them, shrinks from no labor, danger or humiliation.

Achilles and Ulysses are the heroes of the poems, but Hector is the masterpiece of the poet. Warm-hearted, noble, patriotic, with all the proud spirit of honor, and gentle mildness of manners, which we might look for in a christian knight, that reader has little of humanity, who does not honor, love and pity him.

Nor has Homer delineated men only, with truth and spirit. The ladies have no need to be ashamed of the figure they make in his poems. Love is the passion of most prevailing influence in female minds; and how well are its various operations exhibited in the gay

and sportive fondness of Helen, the gentle and anxious tenderness of Andromache, in Penelope's noble and untiring constancy! If to these well known names we add the Dido of the Roman poet, we shall be convinced, that whether the ancients have been justly or not accused of undervaluing the female character, at least, they did not misunderstand it.

the scene,

But to characterize all the personages introduced upon to mark the obvious differences, and point out the more delicate shades of character, to show what different passions spring from the same source, and how the most trifling actions often betray the secrets of the soul, were to do again the work of the poet. He who does not see and feel all this, will search for it in vain in the commentaries of the critic. Not to see and feel it is almost impossible; for it is in the delineation of character, that Homer, by the confession of all ages, especially excels. Indeed, he deserves to be studied as a perfect master of the science of human nature. The lessons, which he teaches, are of universal application. He has noted almost all the more common traits, and striking features; so that succeeding authors have, for the most part, been obliged to content themselves, with dwelling on unusual peculiarities or accidental distortions. The present age seems satisfied with characters of manners, or if nature is ever attempted, it is nature so extravagant as to be unnatural. Perhaps we despair too soon. Much ground is, no doubt, preoccupied, but perhaps there is yet room for originality. The most brilliant picture is but an artful arrangement of a few common colors; and what is called poetical invention, seems to be only a new combination of old materials.

But Homer is not content with human agents only. He brings the gods to his aid. He introduces us to the palaces of Olympus and the shadowy realms of Pluto.

Among his own countrymen, this must have added, in no ordinary degree to the dignity of his poems; and even upon a modern reader, the effect is far from inconsiderable. It has been said of the Greek language, that it gives a soul to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of philosophy. Grecian genius has performed the harder task, of giving substance and reality, to the airy visions of fancy. The religious fables of other nations, may now and then excite a momentary interest; but, for the most part, they are as unsatisfactory as they are unsubstantial, and make no more impression on the memory, than the faint images of a troubled dream. But the Greek mythology has an air of truth and a stamp of reality. It has ceased to serve the purposes of a religious creed, but its copious and variegated fictions still survive in the pages of literature. It was hence, that the Epic and Lyric poets of Greece supplied themselves with machinery, episodes and allusions; here tragedy found subjects, and philosophy,

illustrations. The Roman writers borrowed copiously, from the same source; modern authors have followed their example, and Grecian fable is closely woven into English poetry. Spencer, Milton, even the "unlearned" Shakspeare, show on every page how familiar to their thoughts was the Grecian mythology. But it is not the excitable imagination of poets alone, that has been carried away, by the prevailing charms of classic fiction. About the end of the fourteenth century, when the study of the Greek language, after a long oblivion, was revived in Europe, some enthusiastic scholars, seduced by the visions of beauty and magnificence revealed to them in the pages of Homer, came near renouncing their Christian faith, in favor of the ancient superstition, and were suspected of secretly sacrificing, (not metaphorically, but literally) to Bacchus and Apollo; and even that arch-infidel David Hume, who could see no shadow of truth in the Christian scheme, or even in the received doctrines of natural religion, was so struck with the verisimilitude of the Grecian mythology, as to declare, that very likely, a system so probable and consistent was somewhere, in the boundless extent of the universe, actually realized.

Along with the gods, may be classed the fabled monsters, which the poet has introduced into the Odyssey. Some critics, among whom is Longinus, have argued from the strange fables to be found in this poem, that when it was composed, Homer's genius was on the decline. The inference, however, seems as unjust as it is unkind. Passages will rarely be found in any author, which so much interest the mind, and engage the attention, as the adventures of Ulysses in the cave of the Cyclops, and the island of Circe. So naturally do the human agents act, that the improbability of the circumstances, in which they are placed, never once occurs to us.

Perhaps, however, the genius of Homer shines out most conspicuously in his descriptions of battles. He enters into them with his whole heart and soul. Indeed, the poet's taste for war, has brought him into bad repute with some peace-loving speculatists, who, like Plato, would banish him from the commonwealth, even without according that justice, which Plato did not deny, of twining his brows with myrtle and crowning his head with flowers. But Homer speaks the language and expresses the feelings of a man. Natural impulses are stronger than artificial reasoning; and while human nature remains what it is, wars will be prosecuted, and Homer will be read. It is curious to observe the artifices, by which he keeps up the interest of his battles, which extend in some instances through several books. We should soon tire of wounds and death, of the shouts of the victors and the groans of the vanquished, but our attention is relieved by an infinite variety of incident and description, by a thousand little digressions, which give, as it were, a back ground