for us. My opinion is, that what is best for us is our admiration of good.

No man living venerates Homer more than I do." (18)

But, greatly as we admire the generous enthusiasm which rests contented

with the poetry on which its best impulses had been nurtured and fostered,

without seeking to destroy the vividness of first impressions by minute

analysis--our editorial office compels us to give some attention to the

doubts and difficulties with which the Homeric question is beset, and to

entreat our reader, for a brief period, to prefer his judgment to his

imagination, and to condescend to dry details.

Before, however, entering into particulars respecting the question of this

unity of the Homeric poems, (at least of the Iliad,) I must express my

sympathy with the sentiments expressed in the following remarks:--

We cannot but think the universal admiration of its unity by the better,

the poetic age of Greece, almost conclusive testimony to its original

composition. It was not till the age of the grammarians that its primitive

integrity was called in question; nor is it injustice to assert, that the

minute and analytical spirit of a grammarian is not the best qualification

for the profound feeling, the comprehensive conception of an harmonious

whole. The most exquisite anatomist may be no judge of the symmetry of the

human frame: and we would take the opinion of Chantrey or Westmacott on

the proportions and general beauty of a form, rather than that of Mr.

Brodie or Sir Astley Cooper.

The Iliad of Homer