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"
There is some truth, though some malicious exaggeration, in the lines of
Pope.--
"'The critic eye--that microscope of wit
Sees hairs and pores, examines bit by bit,
How parts relate to parts, or they to whole
The body's harmony, the beaming soul,
Are things which Kuster, Burmann, Wasse, shall see,
When man's whole frame is obvious to a flea.'"(19)
Long was the time which elapsed before any one dreamt of questioning the
unity of the authorship of the Homeric poems. The grave and cautious
Thucydides quoted without hesitation the Hymn to Apollo,(20) the
authenticity of which has been already disclaimed by modern critics.
Longinus, in an oft quoted passage, merely expressed an opinion touching
the comparative inferiority of the Odyssey to the Iliad,(21) and, among a
mass of ancient authors, whose very names(22) it would be tedious to
detail, no suspicion of the personal non-existence of Homer ever arose. So
far, the voice of antiquity seems to be in favour of our early ideas on
the subject; let us now see what are the discoveries to which more modern
investigations lay claim.
At the end of the seventeenth century, doubts had begun to awaken on the
subject, and we find Bentley remarking that "Homer wrote a sequel of songs
and rhapsodies, to be sung by himself, for small comings and good cheer,
at festivals and other days of merriment. These loose songs were not
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