sistratus, could hardly have failed to notice, even without
design, had they then, for the first time, undertaken the task of piecing
together many self existent epics into one large aggregate. Everything in
the two great Homeric poems, both in substance and in language, belongs to
an age two or three centuries earlier than Peisistratus. Indeed, even the
interpolations (or those passages which, on the best grounds, are
pronounced to be such) betray no trace of the sixth century before Christ,
and may well have been heard by Archilochus and Kallinus--in some cases
even by Arktinus and Hesiod--as genuine Homeric matter(29) As far as the
evidences on the case, as well internal as external, enable us to judge,
we seem warranted in believing that the Iliad and Odyssey were recited
substantially as they now stand (always allowing for paitial divergences
of text and interpolations) in 776 B.C., our first trustworthy mark of
Grecian time; and this ancient date, let it be added, as it is the
best-authenticated fact, so it is also the most important attribute of the
Homeric poems, considered in reference to Grecian history; for they thus
afford us an insight into the anti-historical character of the Greeks,
enabling us to trace the subsequent forward march of the nation, and to
seize instructive contrasts between their former and their later
condition."(30)

On the whole, I am inclined to believe, that the labours of Peisistratus
were wholly of an editorial character, although, I must confess, that I
can lay down nothing respecting the extent of his labours. At the same
time, so far from believing that the composition or primary arrangement of
these poems, in their present form, was the work of Peisistratus, I am
rather persuaded that the fine taste and elegant mind of that Athenian(31)
would lead him to preserve an ancient and traditional order of the poems,
rather than to patch and re-construct them according to a fanciful
hypothesis. I will not repeat the many discussions respecting whether the
poems were written or not, or whether the art of writing was known in the
time of their reputed author. Suffice it to say, that the more we read,
the less satisfied we are upon either subject.

I cannot, however, help thinking, that the story which attributes the
preservation of these poems to Lycurgus, is little else than a version of
the same story as that of Peisistratus, while its historical probability
must be measured by that of m