the germs of something like a personal narrative.
10 Dia logon estionto. A common metaphor. So Plato calls the parties
conversing daitumones, or estiatores. Tim. i. p. 522 A. Cf. Themist.
Orat. vi. p. 168, and xvi. p. 374, ed. Petav So diaegaemasi sophois
omou kai terpnois aedio taen Thoinaen tois hestiomenois epoiei,
Choricius in Fabric. Bibl. Gr. T. viii. P. 851. logois gar estia,
Athenaeus vii p 275, A
11 It was at Bolissus, and in the house of this Chian citizen, that
Homer is said to have written the Batrachomyomachia, or Battle of
the Frogs and Mice, the Epicichlidia, and some other minor works.
12 Chandler, Travels, vol. i. p. 61, referred to in the Voyage
Pittoresque dans la Grece, vol. i. P. 92, where a view of the spot
is given of which the author candidly says,-- "Je ne puis repondre
d'une exactitude scrupuleuse dans la vue generale que j'en donne,
car etant alle seul pour l'examiner je perdis mon crayon, et je fus
oblige de m'en fier a ma memoire. Je ne crois cependant pas avoir
trop a me plaindre d'elle en cette occasion."
13 A more probable reason for this companionship, and for the character
of Mentor itself, is given by the allegorists, viz.: the assumption
of Mentor's form by the guardian deity of the wise Ulysses, Minerva.
The classical reader may compare Plutarch, Opp. t. ii. p. 880;
_Xyland._ Heraclid. Pont. Alleg. Hom. p. 531-5, of Gale's Opusc.
Mythol. Dionys. Halic. de Hom. Poes. c. 15; Apul. de Deo Socrat. s.
f.
14 Vit. Hom. Section 28.
15 The riddle is given in Section 35. Compare Mackenzie's note, p. xxx.
16 Heeren's Ancient Greece, p. 96.
17 Compare Sir E. L. Bulwer's Caxtons v. i. p. 4.
18 Pericles and Aspasia, Letter lxxxiv., Works, vol ii. p. 387.
19 Quarterly Review, No. lxxxvii., p. 147.
20 Viz., the following beautiful passage, for the translation of which
I am indebted to Coleridge, Classic Poets, p. 286.
"Origias, farewell! and oh! remember me
Hereafter, when some stranger from the sea,
A hapless wanderer, may your isle explore,
And ask you, maid, of all the bards you boast,
Who sings the sweetest, and delights you most
Oh! answer all,--'A blind old man and poor
Sweetest he sings--and dwells on Chios' rocky shore.'"
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