many points of difficulty in the transmission of the Iliad and Odyssey to

a period so remote from that of their first creation.

I have already expressed my belief that the labours of Peisistratus were

of a purely editorial character; and there seems no more reason why

corrupt and imperfect editions of Homer may not have been abroad in his

day, than that the poems of Valerius Flaccus and Tibullus should have

given so much trouble to Poggio, Scaliger, and others. But, after all, the

main fault in all the Homeric theories is, that they demand too great a

sacrifice of those feelings to which poetry most powerfully appeals, and

which are its most fitting judges. The ingenuity which has sought to rob

us of the name and existence of Homer, does too much violence to that

inward emotion, which makes our whole soul yearn with love and admiration

for the blind bard of Chios. To believe the author of the Iliad a mere

compiler, is to degrade the powers of human invention; to elevate

analytical judgment at the expense of the most ennobling impulses of the

soul; and to forget the ocean in the contemplation of a polypus. There is

a catholicity, so to speak, in the very name of Homer. Our faith in the

author of the Iliad may be a mistaken one, but as yet nobody has taught us

a better.

While, however, I look upon the belief in Homer as one that has nature

herself for its mainspring; while I can join with old Ennius in believing

in Homer as the ghost, who, like some patron saint, hovers round the bed

of the poet, and even bestows rare gifts from that wealth of imagination

which a host of imitators could not exhaust,--still I am far from wishing

The Iliad of Homer