The Iliad (tr. Pope) | Page 7

to destroy our delights, our composure,
our devotion to superior power. Of all the animals on earth we least know what is good
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." [Footnote: Pericles and Aspasia, Letter lxxxiv., Works,
vol ii. p. 387.]
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.
"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.'"
[Footnote: Quarterly Review, No. lxxxvii., p. 147.]
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, [Footnote: Viz., the following beautiful passage, for the
translation of which I am indebted to Coleridge, Classic Poets, p. 286. "Origias, farewell!
and oh! remember me Hereafter, when some stranger from the sea, A hapless wanderer,
may your isle explore, And ask you, maid, of all the bards you boast, Who sings the
sweetest, and delights you most Oh! answer all,--'A blind old man and poor Sweetest he
sings--and dwells on Chios' rocky shore.'" See Thucyd. iii, 104.] 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, [Footnote: Longin., de Sublim., ix. Section 26. Othen en tae Odysseia pareikasai tis
an kataduomeno ton Omaeron haelio, oo dixa taes sphodrotaetos paramenei to megethos]
and, among a mass of ancient authors, whose very names [Footnote: See Tatian, quoted
in Fabric. Bibl. Gr. v. II t. ii. Mr. Mackenzie has given three brief but elaborate papers on
the different writers on the subject, which deserve to be consulted. See Notes and Queries,
vol. v. pp. 99, 171, and 221. His own views are moderate, and perhaps as satisfactory, on
the whole, as any of the hypotheses hitherto put forth. In fact, they consist in an attempt
to blend those hypotheses into something like consistency, rather than in advocating any
individual theory.] 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 collected together, in the form of an epic poem, till about
Peisistratus' time, about five hundred years after." [Footnote: Letters to Phileleuth; Lips.]
Two French writers--Hedelin and Perrault--avowed a similar scepticism on the subject;
but it is in the "Scienza Nuova" of Battista Vico, that we first meet with the germ of the
theory, subsequently defended by Wolf with so much learning and acuteness. Indeed, it is
with the Wolfian theory that we have chiefly to deal, and with the following bold
hypothesis, which