doubt arise out of our own ignorance of the language of the

Homeric age, however the irregular use of the digamma may have

perplexed our Bentleys, to whom the name of Helen is said to have

caused as much disquiet and distress as the fair one herself among

the heroes of her age, however Mr. Knight may have failed in

reducing the Homeric language to its primitive form; however,

finally, the Attic dialect may not have assumed all its more

marked and distinguishing characteristics--still it is difficult to

suppose that the language, particularly in the joinings and

transitions, and connecting parts, should not more clearly betray

the incongruity between the more ancient and modern forms of

expression. It is not quite in character with such a period to

imitate an antique style, in order to piece out an imperfect poem

in the character of the original, as Sir Walter Scott has done in

his continuation of Sir Tristram.

"If, however, not even such faint and indistinct traces of

Athenian compilation are discoverable in the language of the

poems, the total absence of Athenian national feeling is perhaps

no less worthy of observation. In later, and it may fairly be

suspected in earlier times, the Athenians were more than

ordinarily jealous of the fame of their ancestors. But, amid all

the traditions of the glories of early Greece embodied in the

Iliad, the Athenians play a most subordinate and insignificant

part. Even the few passages which relate to their ancestors, Mr.

Knight suspects to be interpolations. It is possible, indeed, that

The Iliad of Homer