hypothesis. I will not repeat the many discussions respecting whether the

poems were written or not, or whether the art of writing was known in the

time of their reputed author. Suffice it to say, that the more we read,

the less satisfied we are upon either subject.

I cannot, however, help thinking, that the story which attributes the

preservation of these poems to Lycurgus, is little else than a version of

the same story as that of Peisistratus, while its historical probability

must be measured by that of many others relating to the Spartan Confucius.

I will conclude this sketch of the Homeric theories, with an attempt, made

by an ingenious friend, to unite them into something like consistency. It

is as follows:--

"No doubt the common soldiers of that age had, like the common

sailors of some fifty years ago, some one qualified to 'discourse

in excellent music' among them. Many of these, like those of the

negroes in the United States, were extemporaneous, and allusive to

events passing around them. But what was passing around them? The

grand events of a spirit-stirring war; occurrences likely to

impress themselves, as the mystical legends of former times had

done, upon their memory; besides which, a retentive memory was

deemed a virtue of the first water, and was cultivated accordingly

in those ancient times. Ballads at first, and down to the

beginning of the war with Troy, were merely recitations, with an

The Iliad of Homer