Our limits do not permit us to say more on this subject than to notice that there is little doubt that much has been interpolated in the account of Ulyasea's visit to the shades, and that Aristophonea and Aristarchus the grammarians considered the latter part of the 23rd and all the 21th book spurious. It will be more to our purpose to consider the question whether the Iliad and Odyssey are or are not to be referred to the same author, and this we shall do rather more with the view of pointing out some important features in the dis cussion, than as hoping to arrive at any very definite result. A sect arose very early among the grammarians called ' The Dividers' (et eceplCorres), who deuicd to Homer the authorship of the Odyssey. The grounds of this opinion were mostly critical, ouch as the different use of different words in the two poems ; or historical, such as con tradictions, real or apparent, in points relating to Helen, Neleus' sons, Aphrodite's husbaucl, &e.; but we possess but little of tho fruits of their researches, although enough, according to Grauert Rheluischcs Museum,' i.), to show that they could not have belonged to the early childhood of criticism. In our day, or at least in that of our fathers, the question has been revived, with a power of suggesting doubts, as much greeter as that of satisfying them is less. With regard to the argument from the use of different words in the two poems, both in ancient and in modern times, it must be observed that in the Iliad itself, compared with itself, there is, if anything, a more remarkable variety in the use of words than in the two poems. We do not remember to have seen the observation, but we think that any one who reads the Iliad, noting down any words which etriko him, will fled that no sooner has he got acquainted with a set of words than they disappear, and that this rising stud setting of worda continues all through the poem. If then the use of different words argues different authors, there will be some difficulty in escaping the conclusion that diffinent books of the Iliad, as well as the two Homeric) poems, were the production of separate authors. The different use of words however is a strong argument, but a stronger than all is to be found iu the different state of civilisation which the two poems exhibit, and in the tendency which the Odyssey displays to exalt the individual 100V0 the class, a tendency which proves that an advance had been made to that kind of poetry which treats of individual feeling, namely lyrical poetry. But there is one other characteristic of the Odyssey to which we have before slightly alluded, we mean its romantic look, using romantic) as opposed to classical. There is some thing quite northern in the adventures of Ulysses ; they might have happened to a knight of Arthur's court, or perhaps still better to Beowulf. The Sirens would be singing maidens, who decoy travellers by their strains; the nymph Calypso would find an anti typo in some enchantress. Ulysses slays the suitors, much in the way of William of Cloudesley, in the old ballad ; and the horror of groat darkness which the prophet aces surrounding the suitors is so like Sir IV. Scott's description of the banquet at the end of the ' Lay of the Last Minstrel; whero the goblin-page is recalled, that wo might suppose that it had suggested the scene, were we not almost certain that he had borrowed, consciously or unconsciously, from some northern story, if at alL To this we might add the charm in shape of a which Leucothee gives Ulyssea (' v. 316), tho story of the Lotos-eatere, the tying up the winds iu a bag (' x. Iii), a practice still iu use among the Laplanders, and the ship of the Phoenicians, "That asked no aid of sail or oar, That footed no spite of wind or tide." These grounds and others have impressed many modern scholars with the opinion that the Odyssey and Iliad are not the produce of the same mind. How far either poem can claim a single author is another question, and one which it is far less easy to We have mentioned some of the arguments that have been urged, and to those we might add an historical analogy from the same kind of poetry in our own country. The great romances, some of them at least, were more than a century in their production, and one, the 'Romance of Alexander,' had, if we mistake net, at least is dozen contributors. Whether there be the same traces of unity of design in the two poems, we must leave to others; if not, the iustance proves no more than it would to refer to the 'Mirror for Magistrates,' which contains more separate accounts thau it had authors. Again, Henry the Minstrel, although blind, was the author of a poem which rivals the Iliad in length ; so that it is not impossible that Homer, whether blind or not, should have composed and recited the whole Iliad, even without the aid of letters. Examples then lead in this case to no definite result,
and if we attempt to base our conclusions upon them, we may bo led with nearly equal probabilities to opposite results. But there is an historical fact which has been adduced in support of one side of this question, namely, the existence of a race of men called Rhapsodists, or Homcridm, who imitated Homer, enlarged upon him, and iuterpolated his poems with verses of their own (Hermann, Preface to Homer's ilymne,' p. 7); treating him very much as the Bible was treated by one school of the early Mystery-mongers. Now those who deny the unity of the Iliad assert that these Rhapsodists manufactured it among themselves, until it gradually assumed that form in which I'isistratos finally established it, and in which we now have it. The question thou comes again to be one of taste. Those who think they seo iu the Iliad proofs of such unity of design as outweigh all the arguments brought from history and criticism, will have reason for considering the Iliad to bo the work of one author far stronger than any which their opponents can possibly possess on the other side, inasmuch as the conviction of taste is always much more binding than is logical proof, especially one which only goce on probabilities.• Each man who engages in the controversy will have it decided for him as much by his own natural character and beat as by argument ; and here we may leave it, with this one remark, that the most which can be proved, even by the rules of taste, is that the great design and chief filling-up is by one author : individual lines or even whole passages may in any case be interpolations. On this part of the question tho reader will find some very valuable remarks in Hermann's preface already quoted, which relate also to the opening lines of the Theogony, and more especially to those other poems which we now come to notice, the Homeric Hymns.
The Hymn to Apollo, as Hermann thinks, owes its present form to the fact of the last transcriber having bad before him at least four hymns, each with a eimilar Introduction, all which introductions, iu transcribing, ho mixed up together ; and furthermore to his having mixed up two separate hymns, one to the Dollen and one to the Pythian Apollo, of which the latter was itself composed of two, one to the l'ythian and ono to the Tilphuasian Apollo. The Hymn to Hermes is very corrupt, consisting of a larger and a smaller hymn, and interpolations. The Hymn to Aphrodite and that to Demeter are also much altered ; the latter, according to Hermann, bears marks of at least two editions. Those are the principal of the Homeric' hymns: the fragmentary one to Dionysius seems also to have been one of the larger and more important ones. There are twenty-eight shorter hymns given in Hermanu's edition, as well as seventeen epigrams, or rather epigraphs. These, with the ' Battle of the Frogs and Mice,' mnko up the sum of the Homeric poems, genuine and spurious.
The earliest mention made of Homer is by Pinder. ilerodotus and Thucydides quote and refer to him; rind when we got to Plato he is constantly either hinted at or transcribed. There is a good deal of information on this topic and others in Heyno'e work already quoted ; but we may quote Thirlwall's authority for tho remark that "an argument which confines itself to the writings of Wolf and Heyne can now add but little to our means of formiug a judgment on the question, and must keep some of its most important elements out of sight." A great deal more information is to be found, by those who will take the trouble to look for it, scattered up and down in the pages of German periodicals. Buttmann's Lexilogus and Thiersch's Grammar supply critical matter in abundance. Creuzer's "Symbolik and '. Hermann and Creuzer's Letters on Homer and Healed,' Voss, Nitzsch, and K. 0. Mueller, may be also studied with advantage, as well as vol. i., ed. 1845, of Thirlwall's ' History of Greece.' The principal modern editions of Homer are, those by Clarke and Payne Knight, in this country (the latter having the digammas inserted in what the editor supposes to be their proper places), and abroad, Heyne, Bekker, I fermann, and Nitzscb, for the Iliad, Hymns, and Odyssey respectively. Of translations we have Hobbes, Chapman, Pope, and Cowper ; but of these the beet known, is rather an imitation, not at all in the style of tho original, than a translation. Perhaps, on the whole, Chapman's is tho best. The German trans lation by Voss is perfectly wonderful as regards accuracy. It is in hexameters, and preserves every sentence and nearly every word.