common scholastic trick to imitate, nowadays, and with considerable
felicity, the style of the greatest writers, ancient and modern. But
the unity of Homer does not depend on the question whether imitative
forgeries were introduced into a great poem, but whether a multitude
of great poets combined in one school on one subject. An ingenious
student of Shakspeare, or the elder dramatists, might impose upon the
public credulity a new scene, or even a new play, as belonging to
Shakspeare, but would that be any proof that a company of Shakspeares
combined in the production of Macbeth? I own, by-the-way, that I am a
little doubtful as to our acumen in ascertaining what is Homeric and
what is not, seeing that Schlegel, after devoting half a life to
Shakspeare (whose works are composed in a living language, the
authenticity of each of which works a living nation can attest),
nevertheless attributes to that poet a catalogue of plays of which
Shakspeare is perfectly innocent!--but, to be sure, Steevens does the
same!

[171] That Pisistratus or his son, assisted by the poets of his day,
did more than collect, arrange, and amend poems already in high
repute, we have not only no authority to suppose, but much evidence to
contradict. Of the true services of Pisistratus to Homer, more
hereafter.

[172] "The descent of Theseus with Pirithous into hell," etc.--Paus.,
ix., c. 31.

[173] Especially if with the Boeotians we are to consider the most
poetical passage (the introductory lines to the muses) a spurious
interpolation.

[174] A herdsman.

[175] I cannot omit a tradition recorded by Pausanias. A leaden
table near the fountain was shown by the Boeotians as that on which
the "Works and Days" was written. The poems of Hesiod certainly do
not appear so adapted to recital as perusal. Yet, by the most
plausible chronology, they were only composed about one hundred years
after those of Homer!

[176] The Aones, Hyantes, and other tribes, which I consider part of
the great Pelasgic family, were expelled from Boeotia by Thracian
hordes. [They afterward returned in the time of the Dorian
emigration.] Some of the population must, however, have remained--the
peasantry of the land; and in Hesiod we probably possess the national
poetry, and arrive at the national religion, of the old Pelasgi.

[177] Welcker.

[178] The deadly signs which are traced by Praetus on the tablets of
which Bellerophon was the bearer, and whi