he following
observations--

"There are several incidental circumstances which, in our opinion,
throw some suspicion over the whole history of the Peisistratid
compilation, at least over the theory, that the Iliad was cast
into its present stately and harmonious form by the directions of
the Athenian ruler. If the great poets, who flourished at the
bright period of Grecian song, of which, alas! we have inherited
little more than the fame, and the faint echo, if Stesichorus,
Anacreon, and Simonides were employed in the noble task of
compiling the Iliad and Odyssey, so much must have been done to
arrange, to connect, to harmonize, that it is almost incredible,
that stronger marks of Athenian manufacture should not remain.
Whatever occasional anomalies may be detected, anomalies which no
doubt arise out of our own ignorance of the language of the
Homeric age, however the irregular use of the digamma may have
perplexed our Bentleys, to whom the name of Helen is said to have
caused as much disquiet and distress as the fair one herself among
the heroes of her age, however Mr. Knight may have failed in
reducing the Homeric language to its primitive form; however,
finally, the Attic dialect may not have assumed all its more
marked and distinguishing characteristics--still it is difficult to
suppose that the language, particularly in the joinings and
transitions, and connecting parts, should not more clearly betray
the incongruity between the more ancient and modern forms of
expression. It is not quite in character with such a period to
imitate an antique style, in order to piece out an imperfect poem
in the character of the original, as Sir Walter Scott has done in
his continuation of Sir Tristram.

"If, however, not even such faint and indistinct traces of
Athenian compilation are discoverable in the language of the
poems, the total absence of Athenian national feeling is perhaps
no less worthy of observation. In later, and it may fairly be
suspected in earlier times, the Athenians were more than
ordinarily jealous of the fame of their ancestors. But, amid all
the traditions of the glories of early Greece embodied in the
Iliad, the Athenians play a most subordinate and insignificant
part. Even the few passages which relate to their ancestors, Mr.
Knight suspects to be interpol