“It was Homer who formed the character of the Greek nation. No poet has

ever, as a poet, exercised a similar influence over his countrymen. Prophets,

lawgivers, and sages have formed the character of other nations; it was

reserved to a poet to form that of the Greeks. This is a feature in their

character which was not wholly erased even in the period of their degeneracy.

When lawgivers and sages appeared in Greece, the work of the poet had already

been accomplished; and they paid homage to his superior genius. He held up

before his nation the mirror in which they were to behold the world of gods and

heroes, no less than of feeble mortals, and to behold them reflected with

purity and truth. His poems are founded on the first feeling of human nature;

on the love of children, wife, and country; on that passion which outweighs all

others, the love of glory. His songs were poured forth from a breast which

sympathized with all the feelings of man; and therefore they enter, and will

continue to enter, every breast which cherishes the same sympathies. If it is

granted to his immortal spirit, from another heaven than any of which he

dreamed on earth, to look down on his race, to see the nations from the fields

of Asia, to the forests of Hercynia, performing pilgrimages to the fountain

which his magic wand caused to flow; if it is permitted to him to view the vast

assemblage of grand, of elevated, of glorious productions, which had been

called into being by means of his songs; wherever his immortal spirit may

reside, this alone would suffice to complete his happiness.”


Can we contemplate that ancient monument, on which the “Apotheosis of

Homer” is depictured, and not feel how much of pleasing association, how

much that appeals most forcibly and most distinctly to our minds, is lost by

the admittance of any theory but our old tradition? The more we read, and the

more we think—think as becomes the readers of Homer,—the more