to Homer, a prayer to Venus for success in a poetical difpute, but it neither mentions where, nor against whom. But though they have neglected to name their antagonists, others have fince taken care to fill up the ftories by putting them together. The making two fuch confiderable names in poetry engage, carries an amusing pomp in it, like making two heroes of the first rank enter the lifts of combat. And if Homer and Hefiod had their parties among the Grammarians, here was an excellent opportunity for Hefiod's favourers to make a sacrifice of Homer. Hence a bare conjecture might fpread into a tradition, then the tradition give occafion to an epigram, which is yet extant, and again the epigram (for want of knowing the time it was writ in) be alledged as a proof of that conjecture from whence it sprung. After this a whole treatife was written upon it, which appears not very ancient, because it mentions Adrian: the ftory agrees in the main with the fhort account we find in † Plutarch, "That Ganictor, the fon of Amphidamas,

"his father's funeral games, invited from all parts men famous for strength and wisdom.

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Among these Homer and Hefiod arrived at "Chalcis. The king Panidas prefided over "the contest, which being finished, he decreed the Tripos to Hefiod, with this fentence, "That the poet of peace and husbandry better deferved to be crowned, than the poet of war "and contention*. Whereupon Hefiod dedi"cated the prize to the mufes, with this infcription:

« Ἡσίοδο. Μέσαις Ελικωνίσι τὸν ἀνέθηκεν,

σε Ὕμνῳ νικήσας ἐν Χαλκίδι θεῖον Όμηρον,

Which are two lines taken from that place in Hefiod where he mentions no antagonist, and altered, that the two names might be brought in, as is evident by comparing them with these, Ὕμνω νικήσαντα φέρειν τρίποδ ̓ ἀτωένια,

Τὸν μὲν Ἑγὼ Μέσης Ελικωνιάδεσσ ̓ ἀνέθηκα.

To answer this ftory, we may take notice that Hefiod is generally placed after Homer. Grævius, his own commentator, fets him a hundred years lower; and whether he were

* Thus in the first edition :-" with this elogy in the sentence, "That the poet of peace and husbandry better deserved to be “crowned, than he who ftirs us up to war and contention.”

fo or no, yet * Plutarch has flightly paffed the whole account as a fable. Nay, we may draw an argument against it from Hefiod himfelf: he had a love of Fame, which caufed him to engage at the funeral games, and which went fo far as to make him record his conqueft in his own works; had he defeated Homer, the fame principle would have made him mention a name that could have fecured his own to immortality. A Poet who records his glory, would not omit the noblest circumftance, and Homer, like a captive Prince, had certainly graced the tiiumph of his adversary.

TOWARDS the latter end of his life, there is another story invented, which makes him conclude it in a manner altogether beneath the greatness of a genius. We find, in the life faid to be written by Plutarch, a tradition, "That he was warned by an oracle to beware of the young men's riddle. This remained

"

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long obfcure to him, till he arrived at the "ifland Iö. There as he fat to behold the

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fishermen, they proposed to him a riddle in

verfe, which he being unable to anfwer,

*Plut. Sym. l. 5. §. 2.

"died for grief." This story refutes itself by carrying fuperftition at one end, and folly at the other. It seems conceived with an air of derifion, to lay a great man in the dust after a foolish manner. The fame fort of hand might have framed that tale of Ariftotle's drowning himself because he could not account for the Euripus: the defign is the fame, the turn the fame; and all the difference, that the great men are each to fuffer in his character, the one by a poetical riddle, the other by a philofophical problem. But these are actions which can only arise from the meanness of pride, or extravagance of madness: a foul enlarged with knowledge (fo vastly as that of Homer) better knows the proper ftrefs which is to be laid upon every incident, and the proportion of concern, or careleffnefs, with which it ought to be affected. But it is the fate of narrow capacities to measure mankind by a false standard, and imagine the great, like themselves, capable of being difconcerted by little occafions; to frame their malignant fables according to this imagination, and to stand detected by it as by an evident mark of ignorance.

III.

Stories of Homer proceeding from trifling curiofity.

III. THE third manner in which the life of Homer has been written is but an amaffing of all the traditions and hints which the writers could meet with, great or little, in order to tell a ftory of him to the world. Perhaps the want of choice materials might put them upon the neceffity; or perhaps an injudicious defire of faying all they could, occafioned the fault. However it be, a life composed of trivial circumstances, which (though it give a true account of feveral paffages) fhews a man but little in that light in which he was most famous*, and has hardly any thing correfpondent to the idea we entertain of him: fuch a life, I fay, will never answer rightly the demand the world has upon an hiftorian. Yet the moft formal account we have of. Homer is of this nature, I mean that which is faid to be collected by Herodotus. It is, in fhort, an unsupported minute treatise, composed of events which lie within the compafs of probability, and belong to the lowest sphere of life. It seems through all its frame to be entirely con

paffages) has but little of that

In the first edition thus : 66 appearance in which a man was most famous."

VOL. I.