y, as from that of the
blind bard of Chios, in the Hymn to the Delian Apollo, whom Thucydides, as
well as the general tenor of Grecian legend, identifies with Homer
himself. The author of that hymn, be he who he may, could never have
described a blind man as attaining the utmost perfection in his art, if he
had been conscious that the memory of the bard was only maintained by
constant reference to the manuscript in his chest."

The loss of the digamma, that _crux_ of critics, that quicksand upon which
even the acumen of Bentley was shipwrecked, seems to prove beyond a doubt,
that the pronunciation of the Greek language had undergone a considerable
change. Now it is certainly difficult to suppose that the Homeric poems
could have suffered by this change, had written copies been preserved. If
Chaucer's poetry, for instance, had not been written, it could only have
come down to us in a softened form, more like the effeminate version of
Dryden, than the rough, quaint, noble original.

"At what period," continues Grote, "these poems, or indeed any other Greek
poems, first began to be written, must be matter of conjecture, though
there is ground for assurance that it was before the time of Solon. If, in
the absence of evidence, we may venture upon naming any more determinate
period, the question a once suggests itself, What were the purposes which,
in that state of society, a manuscript at its first commencement must have
been intended to answer? For whom was a written Iliad necessary? Not for
the rhapsodes; for with them it was not only planted in the memory, but
also interwoven with the feelings, and conceived in conjunction with all
those flexions and intonations of voice, pauses, and other oral artifices
which were required for emphatic delivery, and which the naked manuscript
could never reproduce. Not for the general public--they were accustomed to
receive it with its rhapsodic delivery, and with its accompaniments of a
solemn and crowded festival. The only persons for whom the written Iliad
would be suitable would be a select few; studious and curious men; a class
of readers capable of analyzing the complicated emotions which they had
experienced as hearers in the crowd, and who would, on perusing the
written words, realize in their imaginations a sensible portion of the
impression communicated by the reciter. Incredible as the statement may
seem in an age like the present, there is in all early societies, and
there wa