HOMER (in Greek, Homdros), the supposed author of the earliest Greek heroic poems extant, and of some hymns in praise of different gods. Opinions the most various have been held regarding his birth place, his age, his station, cud the circumstances of his life; so that it seems almost hopeless to come to any satisfactory conclusion on sub jects which history has given us such scanty materials to determine. The author or authors of the 'Iliad' must have been accurately acquainted with the geography of Greece and the northern part of the archipelago. Leaks notices several instances where epithets are applied with an exactness which seems to indicate personal knowledge of the places; and as these places are in different parts of Greece, we may infer that Homer was a wandering minstreL The existence of such wandering minstrels seems to be shown by the Hymn to Apollo,' quoted by Thucydides ; as the notices of Phemius and Demodocus, in the Homeric poems, prove the existence of bards attached to par ticular courts ; and indeed, without this information, the analogy of our own heroic age would render it highly probable that there should have been an order of wandering minstrels, while in a country like Greece, inhabited by kindred though often hostile tribes, it would be impossible for a wandering musician to recite the same tales at every court and before every audience. Either he must have had contra dictory accounts to retail according to -the tribe among which lie exercised his powers, if he exercised them on international feuds at all, or, which is much more probable, considering the reverence iu which national legends were held, he must have confined himself to subjects where the whole race could be contemplated as uniting ageing, a oomiuou foe, or have resigned all claim to be considered an heroic hard.
Of these two plans, the author of the 'Iliad' adopted the former. The story of Helen was probably an Atheuiau legend, as we find that the Attic hero Theseus is reported to have stolen her when young. What then could be more natural than for a minstrel, particularly an Attic minstrel, to take this legend, and, combining it with others which gave some account of an expedition undertaken by the Greeks against Asia, produce the narrative which we find in the 'Iliad ?' We do not insist on this method of accounting for the origin of the Homeric poems; all we wish to do is to illustrate the way in which they might have arisen, and to give what we think a rational exhibition of the causes, or some few of the more important of the causes, which led to the establishment of a national heroic epos in opposition to a cycle of poems referring to the expinits of particular tribes. Whatever be the origin of the 'Iliad,' it is peculiarly remarkable in ' standing as it does a witness of the unity of the Hellenic races. Wo find these races, historically epe.aking, opposed iu every possible way, as rivals, as strangers, as enemies ;—if we turn to their poetry, we find them united. The common Christianity of Europe is not a more strongly-marked bond of union than the common poetry of the Greeks, and this community must, in the Epic period particularly (wherein it is most strongly marked), be referred to that genius— whether in the author, or in the race for whom he composed, matters ' not—which has given birth to the Iliad.' The poems attributed to Homer are the 'Iliad' and the ' Odyssey, to which some have added the 'Homeric Hymns.' Of these poems, the 'Iliad' steads first, as the oldest and at the same time the com pletest specimen of a national heroic poem. Its subject, as is known to is the revenge which Achilles took on Agamemnon for depriving him of his mistress Briseie, during the siege of Troy, and the conse quent evils which befel the Greeks. It is divided into twenty-four
rhapsodies or hooks, which detail the history of the besieging force during the period of Achilles' anger, and cud with the death of Hector (who is slain by Achilles in retaliation for Hector's having killed Patroclus), and the solemn burial of the Trojan warrior. If any one reflects on the form which the first Imaginative compositions of any reople in an early stage of progress must take, and when he has aecertaiued, what he probably will ascertain, that those compositions, if not of a sacred nature, will bear reference to external and active life, goes on to apply his conclusions to the Greek nations in particular, and furthermore to the haroie are of the Greeks, he will doubtless find little difficulty in agreeing with a remark which has already been made regarding heroic poetry, namely, that fie a simple form of art It does not imply the development of a plot, but rather the extraction of a certain portion from the poetical annals of a nation, beginning and ending just where the subject may seem to suggest, but not necessarily ending with a regular disengagement of a plot regularly worked up and studiously combined from the beginning of the poem. To apply this to the 'Iliad :' we shall ace that it would be vain, not to say out of place, to aim at proving, as some have done, that the 'Iliad' is a poem constructed on regular principles of art. It is a poem of natural growth; the earliest and yet the noblest attempt made by the epic spirit in the most imaginative nation of which we have any record, and, as Thirlwall has remarked, perhapa the first work to which was applied the nowly-iuvented art of writing. This last supposition, if adopted, would lead us to infer that the reason why the 'Iliad' luta attained to a size much greater, as far as we can tell, than any earlier poems, is because Homer, seeing the art of writing in its rudest state already practised, was the first to apply it, as well as the first to supply extensive material for its application. Whether what wo now possess be the exact poem which thus forma the beginning of all lite rature, leoperly so called, or not, is scarcely doubtful. The lapse of ect many ages can hardly have failed to have introduced some passages, and altered and removed others, but whether to any great extent seems Almost impossible to decide. Particular scholars may impugn par ticular passages, and themselves entertain no doubt of their own infallibility ; but it behoves every one to remember that the same practice in style which would be necessary to enable a scholar to decide correctly on a passage of doubtful authenticity would, unless that scholar's ingenuity were under perfect control, be very likely to suggest difficulties and questions too tempting for his judgment to resist. But the same spirit of criticism which suggested these doubte has also suggested others, as it would seem, on better foundation : we mean those relating to the authorship of the Odyssey.' Before entering on this question, it will be as well to observe that the • Odyssey' can hardly be called a national epic. It is much nearer the romance of chivalry than arty other ancient work. It contains the account of those adventures which Ulysses encountered on his way home from Trey, and in its present state consists of twenty-four books, which division is said to be owing to the grammarians in the time of the Ptolemies Nitzsch ('Aurnerkungen; vol. ii. p. 34) divides the 'Odyssey' into four parts, ending with the Ath, the 92nd line of the 13th, the 19th, and the 29th books respectively, and containing the story of the absent, the returning, tho vengeance-planning, and the vengeance-accomplishing Ulysses ; and lie professes, as many others have douo, to point out all the interpolations.