he has never spoken plainly of himself, in thofe works which have been afcribed to him without controversy. However, an eager defire to know fomething concerning him has occafioned mankind to labour the point under these disadvantages, and turn on all hands to fee if there were any thing left which might have the leaft appearance of information. Upon the fearch, they find no remains but his name and works, and refolve to torture thefe upon the rack of invention, in order to give some account of the perfon they belong to. The first thing therefore they fettle is, That what paffed for his name must be his name no longer, but an additional title used instead of it. The reason why it was given, must be fome accident of his life. They then proceed to confider every thing that the word may imply by its derivation. One finds that O ngòs: fignifies a thigh; whence arifes the tradition in * Heliodorus, that he was banished Egypt for the mark on that part, which fhewed a fpurious birth; and this they imagine ground enough to give him the life of a wanderer. A fecond finds, that 'Oungos fignifies an boftage, and then he must be delivered as fuch in a war (according to + Proclus) between Smyrna and Chios. A third can derive the name 'O più igav, non videns, from whence he must be a blind man (as in the place afcribed to Herodotus). A fourth brings it from "Ouas ign, Speaking in council; and then (as it is in: Suidas) he muft, by a divine inspiration, declare to the Smyrnæans, that they fhould war against Colophon. A fifth finds the word may be brought to fignify following others, or joining himself to them, and then he must be called Homer for faying, (as it is. quoted from || Ariftotle, in the life afcribed to Plutarch) that he would 'Oungs, or follow the Lydians from Smyrna. Thus has the name been turned and winded, enough at least to give a fufpicion, that he who got a new etymology, got either a new life of him, or fomething which he added to the old one. *Hel. 1. 3. + Proc. vit. Hom. Herod. vit. Hom. However, However, the name itself not affording enough to fur• nish out a whole life, his works must be brought in for affistance, and it is taken for granted, that where he has not spoken of himself, he lies veiled beneath the perfons or actions of those whom he describes. Because he calls a poet by the name of Phemius in his Odyssey, they conclude this * Phemius was his master. Because he fpeaks of Demodocus as another poet who was blind, and frequented palaces; he must be sent about blind, to fing at the doors of rich men. If Ulyffes be fet upon by dogs at his fhepherd's cottage, because this is a low adventure, it is thought to be his own at: Bolliffus . And if he calls the leather-dreffer, who made Ajax's fhield, by the name of Tychius, he must. have been fupported by fuch an one in his wants: Nay, fome have been fo violently carried into this way of conjecturing, that the bare || fimile of a woman who works hard for her livelihood, is faid to have been borrowed from his mother's condition, and brought as a proof of it. Thus he is ftill imagined to intend himfelf; and the fictions of poetry, converted into real facts, are delivered for his life, who has affigned them to others. All thofe ftories in his works which fuit with: a mean condition, are supposed to have happened to him; though the fame way of inference might as well prove him to have acted in a higher fphere, from the many paffages that fhew his skill in government, and his knowledge of the great parts of life. There are fome other fcattered ftories of Homerwhich fall not under thefe heads, but are however of as trifling a nature; as much unfit for the materials of hiftory, ftill more ungrounded, if poffible, and arifing merely from chance, or the humours of men: Such is. the report we meet with from § Heraclides, that "Ho mer was fined at Athens for a madman;" which feems invented by the difciples of Socrates, to caft an odium upon the Athenians for their confenting to the death of their master, and carries in it fomething like a declaiming revenge of the fchools, as if the world. por fhould imagine the one could be esteemed mad, where: the other was put to death for being wicked. Such another report is that in* Ælian," That Homer "tioned his daughter with fome of his works for want "of money;" which looks but like a jeft upon a poor wit, which at firft might have had an Epigrammatist for its father, and been afterwards gravely understood by fome painful collector. In fhort, mankind have laboured heartily about him to no purpose; they have caught up every thing greedily, with that busy minute curiofity and unfatisfactory inquifitiveness, which Seneca calls the Disease of the Greeks; they have puzzled the cause by their attempts to find it out; and, like travellers deftitute of a road, yet refolved to make one over unpaffable deferts, they fuperinduce error, instead of removing ignorance. IV. Homer. IV. Whenever any authors have Probable conjec- clear from fuperftition, envy, and triattempted to write the life of Homer, tures concerning fling, they have grown afhamed of all these traditions. This, however, has not occafioned them to defift from the undertaking; but still the difficulty which could not make them defift, has neceffitated them, either to deliver the old ftory with excuses, or else, instead of a life, to compole a treatise partly of criticism, and partly of character rather descriptive, than supported by action, and the air of history. His Time. They begin with acquainting us, that the Time in which he lived has never been fixed beyond difpute, and that the opinions of authors are various concerning it: but the controverfy, in its feveral conjectures, includes a space of years between the earliest and latest, from twenty-four to about five hundred, after the fiege of Troy. Whenever the time was, it seems not to have been near that fiege, from his own † Invocation of the Muses to recount the catalogue of the fhips: "For we, fays he, have only *heard a rumour, and know nothing particular.” Elian. 1. 9. cap. 15. † Ἡμεῖς δὲ κλέος οἷον ακέομεν ἐδί το ἴδμεν. Iliad 2, ν. 487. It is remarked by t Velleius Paterculus, That it muft have been confiderably later, from his own confefsion, that" mankind was but half as ftrong in his age, as in that he writ of;" which, as it is founded upon a notion of a gradual degeneracy in our nature, discovers the interval to have been long between Homer and his fubject. But not to trouble ourselves with entering into all the dry difpute, we may take notice, that the world is inclined to stand by the † Arundelian marble, as the most certain computation of those early times; and this, by placing him at the time when Diogenetus ruled in Athens, makes him flourish a little Before the Olympiads were established; about three hundred years after the taking of Troy, and near a thoufand before the Chriftian Era. For a farther confirmation of this, we have fome great names of antiquity, who give him a cotémporary agreeing with the computation: ‡ Cicero fays, There was a tradition that Homer lived about the time of Lycurgus. || Strabo tells us, It was reported that Lycurgus went to Chios for an interview with him. And even § Plutarch, when he fays, Lycurgus received Homer's works from the grandfon of that Creophilus with. whom he had lived, does not put him fo far backward, but that poffibly they might have been alive at. the fame time. The next difpute regards his country, concerning which Adrian inquired of the Gods, His Country. * as a question not to be fettled by men : And Appion (according to Pliny,) raised a fpirit for his information. That which has increafed the difficulty, is the number of contefting places, of which Suidas has reckoned up nineteen in Hic longe a temporibus belli quod compofuit, Troici, quam quidam rentur, abfuit. Nam ferme ante annos 950 floruit, intra mille natus eft: quo nomine non eft mirandum quod fæpe illud ufurpat, εἷοι νῦν Βροτόι εἰσι· Hoc enim ut bominum ita fæculorum notatur differentia. Vell. Paterc. lib. 1. + Vide Dacier, Du Pin. &c, concerning the Arundelian marble. + Cicero Qu. Tufcul. 1. 5. vita Lycurgi. Oracle || Strabo 1. 10 Plut. + Αγών Ομήρε καὶ Ἡσιόδε, of adrian's Plin. 1, 30, cap. 2. one one breath. But his ancient commentator, * Didy. mus, found the fubject fo fertile, as to employ a great part of his four thousand volumes upon it. There is a prophefy of the Sybils, that he fhould be born at Salamis in Cyprus; and then to play an argument of the fame nature against it, there is the oracle given to Adrian afterwards, that fays he was born in Ithaca. There are cuftoms of Eolia and Egypt cited from his works, to make out by turns and with the fame probability, that he belonged to each of them. There was a fchool fhewed for his at Colophon, and a tomb. at Io, both of equal ftrength to prove he had 'his. birth in either. As for the Athenians, they challenged him as born where they had a colony; or else in behalf of Greece in general, and as the metropolis of its learning, they made his name free of their city (qu. Licinia et Mutia lege, fays + Politian) after the manner of that law by which all Italy became free of Rome. All these have their authors to record their titles, but ftill the weight of the question feems to lie between Smyrna and Chios, which we must therefore take a little more notice of. That Homer was born at Smyrna, is endeavoured to be proved by an ‡ epigram, recorded to have been under the ftatue of PIfiftratus at Athens; by the reports mentioned in Cicero, Strabo, and A. Gellius; and by the Greek lives, which pass under the names of Herodotus, Plutarch, and Proclus; as alfo the two that are anonymous. The Smyrnæans built a temple to him, cast medals of him, and grew fo poffeft of his having been theirs, that it is faid they burned Zoilus for affronting them in the person of Homer. On the other hand, the Chians plead the ancient authorities of ++ Simonides and Theocritus for his being born among them. + Politian. Præf. Epigram on Pififtratus in the anonymous life be**Vitruvius. Prooem. 1. 7. tt Simo ** *Seneca. Ep. 88. concerning Didymus. in Homerum. fore Homer.. nides Frag. de brevitate vitæ, quoting a verfe of Homer, Ἐν δὲ τὸ κάλλισον Χῖος ἔειπεν ἀνής· Theocritus in Diofcuris, ad fin. Χίος αοιδός, Υμνήσας Πριάμοιο πολιν καὶ νῆας ̓Αχαιών, Ἰλιάδας τε μάχας. They |