, sublime. But this part
of the _Iliad_, we firmly believe to be an interpolation of times long
posterior to that of Homer.]

One other little suggestion we could wish to offer. Those who would
contend against the vast superiority of Chaucer (and him we mention
chiefly because he really has in excess those very qualities of life,
motion, and picturesque simplicity, to which the Homeric
characteristics chiefly tend), ought to bear in mind one startling
fact evidently at war with the _degree_ of what is claimed for Homer.
It is this: Chaucer is carried naturally by the very course of his
tales into the heart of domestic life, and of the scenery most
favourable to the movements of human sensibility. Homer, on the other
hand, is kept out of that sphere, and is imprisoned in the monotonies
of a camp or a battle-field, equally by the necessities of his story,
and by the proprieties of Grecian life (which in fact are pretty
nearly those of Turkish life at this day). Men and women meet only
under rare, hurried, and exclusive circumstances. Hence it is, that
throughout the entire _Iliad_, we have but one scene in which the
finest affections of the human heart can find an opening for display;
of course, everybody knows at once that we are speaking of the scene
between Hector, Andromache, and the young Astyanax. No need for
question here; it is Hobson's choice in Greek literature, when you are
seeking for the poetry of human sensibilities. One such scene there
is, and no more; which, of itself, is some reason for suspecting its
authenticity. And, by the way, at this point, it is worth while
remarking, that a late excellent critic always pronounced the words
applied to Andromache [Greek: dakryoen gelasasa] (_tearfully smiling_,
or, _smiling through_ _her tears_), a mere Alexandrian interpolation.
And why? Now mark the reason. Was it because the circumstance is in
itself vicious, or out of nature? Not at all: nothing more probable or
more interesting under the general situation of peril combined with
the little incident of the infant's alarm at the plumed helmet. But
any just taste feels it to be out of the Homeric key; the barbarism of
the age, not mitigated (as in Chaucer's far less barbarous age) by the
tenderness of Christian sentiment, turned a deaf ear and a repulsive
aspect to such beautiful traits of domestic feeling; to Homer himself
the whole circumstance would have been one of pure effeminacy. Now, we
recommend it to the