HOMER., (the Grecian poet.) Without leaning to the faith of those who have denied the existence of Homer, we cannot avoid noticing the remarkable circumstance of his existence having been called in question. Both learning and ingenuity have been employed in attempting to prove, that neither the Iliad nor the Odyssey were the production of a single genius, but composed by the rhapsodists, who recited those poems in detached parts ; and that the name of Homer, which in the Eolian dialect of Greek, signifies " blind," was either applied to some personage wholly fan ciful, or, by way of eminence, to some strolling declaimer of the Iliad, who may have executed parts of the poem, but cannot be supposed to be the author of the whole. It may seem a paradoxical way of annihilating an individual to multiply his existence ; but yet, by proving a diversity of Homers, if such a thing could be proved, our homage to the single author of the Iliad would be shaken, and the re putation of a sacred name would fall with its loss of unity. Annius of Viterba pretends to give the authority of Archi lochus, an author to whom he ascribes the most remote an tiquity, for the existence of eight different authors of the Iliad, among whom are gravely registered Aviles the pain ter, and Phidias the statuary. But for the comfort of those who may feel alarmed at the threatened dismemberment of the Homeric existence, it must be mentioned, that this An nius 01 Viterba, who was a Dominican friar, and master of the sacred palace under Pope Alexander VI., was an im postor, who had not even skill to palm upon the world the MS. page of this ancient Archilochus, which he pretended to find, and stands upon record as one of the most impu dent and clearly convicted of forgers. The book, which he called the Genuine Remains of Sanconiathon Manetho, Sze. brought him the same species of reputation that accrued to the younger Ireland, from his•Shakespeare MSS., olio Mr John Pinkerton from his execrable additions to Hardyknute.
By far the most formidable opponent of the unity of the author of the Iliad is the learned German Professor Wolff, who supposes Homer to be either an imaginary being, or, at most, one of the earliest of the rhapsodists. In the works which he prefixed to the works and remains of Ho me• and the Homcrides, there are several false inferences, deduced from admissible facts, brought forward with a boldness that might indeed have been expected from a wri ter who arrogantly pronounced his work to be above all cri tical objections, and who predicted, that no Grecian scholar should attack it with impunity.
In opposition to all scepticism regarding Homer, every candid mind will agree, that the settled and prevailing be lief of antiquity is not to be made light of in such a ques tion. It is true that Homer's birth-place, as well as his age, are disputed, but such controversies are not apt to be started about imaginary bei ngs. It is unreasonable to say, that a poet so illustrious as Homer, if he had been the ac knowledged author of the Iliad, must have been known to his own contemporaries. Only a few scattered anecdotes of Shakespeare himself have reached the present day. In an age, such as the probable age of Homer, had a man of genius a better chance of finding contemporary biogra phers ? When Massinger was buried, all that could be told of hint, in the inscription upon his tomb, was, " Here lies Philip Massinger, a stranger." To adduce all the proofs that could be given of great poets being neglected by their contemporaries, would unhappily be to write the history of the greater part of them. In forming our opinion of narratives that exceed the accustomed phenomena of nature, we cannot be sufficiently cautious of making the creed of a past age the standard of our own belief. But tradition that is free from the marvellous is fairly entitled to confidence, and the tradition which assigns a single au thor to the Iliad, a tradition which Lycurgus and Aristotle believed, has surely nothing in it so incredible, as that a work, so remarkable for simplicity of design, should have been the work of fortuitous and successive composers. Great works of science may, indeed, be thus built up by accumulation, but great poems and pictures are not usually constructed by a multiplicity of artists. Nor, if the Iliad had been the work of successive rhapsodists, is it easy to conceive by what poetical effort of modesty those authors suppressed their respective rights upon the gratitude and admiration of posterity.