Having thus given some general notion of the strange theories which have

developed themselves respecting this most interesting subject, I must still

express my conviction as to the unity of the authorship of the Homeric poems.

To deny that many corruptions and interpolations disfigure them, and that the

intrusive hand of the poetasters may here and there have inflicted a wound more

serious than the negligence of the copyist, would be an absurd and captious

assumption; but it is to a higher criticism that we must appeal, if we would

either understand or enjoy these poems. In maintaining the authenticity and

personality of their one author, be he Homer or Melesigenes, quocunque

nomine vocari eum jus fasque sit, I feel conscious that, while the whole

weight of historical evidence is against the hypothesis which would assign

these great works to a plurality of authors, the most powerful internal

evidence, and that which springs from the deepest and most immediate impulse of

the soul, also speaks eloquently to the contrary.


The minutiae of verbal criticism I am far from seeking to despise. Indeed,

considering the character of some of my own books, such an attempt would be

gross inconsistency. But, while I appreciate its importance in a philological

view, I am inclined to set little store on its aesthetic value, especially in

poetry. Three parts of the emendations made upon poets are mere alterations,

some of which, had they been suggested to the author by his Maecenas or

Africanus, he would probably have adopted. Moreover, those who are most exact

in laying down rules of verbal criticism and interpretation, are often least

competent to carry out their own precepts. Grammarians are not poets by

profession, but may be so per accidens. I do not at this moment remember

two emendations on Homer, calculated to substantially improve the poetry of a

passage, although a mass of remarks, from Herodotus down to Loewe, have given