gn, however,
caused him to publish the poem under the same pseudonyme as his
former work: and the disjointed lays of the ancient bards were
joined together, like those relating to the Cid, into a chronicle
history, named the Iliad. Melesigenes knew that the poem was
destined to be a lasting one, and so it has proved; but, first,
the poems were destined to undergo many vicissitudes and
corruptions, by the people who took to singing them in the
streets, assemblies, and agoras. However, Solon first, and then
Peisistratus, and afterwards Aristoteles and others, revised the
poems, and restored the works of Melesigenes Homeros to their
original integrity in a great measure."(33)

Having thus given some general notion of the strange theories which have
developed themselves respecting this most interesting subject, I must
still express my conviction as to the unity of the authorship of the
Homeric poems. To deny that many corruptions and interpolations disfigure
them, and that the intrusive hand of the poetasters may here and there
have inflicted a wound more serious than the negligence of the copyist,
would be an absurd and captious assumption, but it is to a higher
criticism that we must appeal, if we would either understand or enjoy
these poems. In maintaining the authenticity and personality of their one
author, be he Homer or Melesigenes, _quocunque nomine vocari eum jus
fasque sit,_ I feel conscious that, while the whole weight of historical
evidence is against the hypothesis which would assign these great works to
a plurality of authors, the most powerful internal evidence, and that
which springs from the deepest and most immediate impulse of the soul,
also speaks eloquently to the contrary.

The minutiae of verbal criticism I am far from seeking to despise. Indeed,
considering the character of some of my own books, such an attempt would
be gross inconsistency. But, while I appreciate its importance in a
philological view, I am inclined to set little store on its aesthetic
value, especially in poetry. Three parts of the emendations made upon
poets are mere alterations, some of which, had they been suggested to the
author by his Maecenas or Africanus, he would probably have adopted.
Moreover, those who are most exact in laying down rules of verbal
criticism and interpretation, are often least competent to carry out their
own precepts. Grammarians are not poets by profession,