made of this expedient by many modern critics, but at the same time we cannot but feel disposed to allow far more latitude than he would concede to this element of Homeric criticism. That the circumstances under which the poems were produced, and the conditions attending their transmission to posterity, were such as to render their interpolation and corruption not only possible, but highly probable, Colonel Mure is obliged to admit; but he is always reluctant to apply this admission in practice, and, in his eagerness to vindicate the integrity of the poems as we now possess them, has more than once exceeded the bounds of a sound critical discretion.

The second head under which Colonel Mure has arranged his arguments in favour of the original unity of the Homeric poems, that of their consistent and uniform delineation of character,is developed by him with great ability. Indeed, there is no part of his task which he has executed more carefully, or with greater success. Strange as it may appear, this line of proof has the farther advantage of being almost entirely new. While the variety, the distinctness, and the consistency of the several characters introduced by Homer have been in all ages the theme of admiration, and are felt by every schoolboy, the important argument, which this fact supplies in favour of unity of authorship, has been in great measure neglected. Even the Esthetic appreciation of the characters themselves, with which this argument is essentially connected, has been rarely followed out with the fulness of detail essential to its perfect comprehension. The broader strokes with which the outlines are sketched are obvious to every reader, but it is precisely in those nicer shades of discrimination, those delicate touches of individuality which escape superficial observation, that consists the main strength of the argument, as well as the highest excellence of the poet.

6

It is probable' (as Colonel Mure has truly remarked) that, like most other great painters of human nature, Homer was indebted to previous tradition for the original sketches of his principal heroes. These sketches, however, could have been little 'more than outlines, which, as worked up into the finished portraits of the Iliad and Odyssey, must rank as his own genuine 'productions.' The number and variety of these portraits greatly exceed that produced by any other epic poet, and have, perhaps, been equalled only by our great English dramatist. Homer's characters, indeed, are not less essentially dramatic than those of Shakspeare. We have no formal delineation of their portraits, no elaborate contrasting of their peculiarities; the only instance in which any person is ushered in by the sort of description so usual with modern writers of fiction is that

1850.

Character of Achilles.

421

of Thersites, who is brought on the stage for too short a time to enable him fully to develope his own personality; in every other case they are allowed to tell their own tale, and the reader is left to learn their characters, as we do those of people in real life, from their words and actions. This mode of dealing with his actors, while it enhances to an almost incalculable extent the artistic merit of the poet, increases, in at least the same degree, the improbability of such portraits being the result of the combined labour of many hands. To conceive and maintain throughout with perfect consistency even one such character as Achilles in the Iliad, or Ulysses in the Odyssey, is, perhaps, the highest attribute of poetic genius, and to suppose such a picture to be produced by two or more poets without previous concert, would appear to us next to impossible; but when we have to extend the same individuality not only to a whole series of other heroes, but to many subordinate and incidental persons, some of them, as Alcinous and Nausicaa, unquestionably pure creatures of fiction, the impossibility becomes, we should have thought, too palpable to be entertained for a moment. Even in the character of Achilles himself, how delicate are the traits by which the poet has softened down those sterner and fiercer features with which tradition had doubtless transmitted it, and which the nature of his subject compelled him to bring into prominent relief. We have no doubt that the youthful hero figured in poetic lays and ballads, long before the time of Homer, with the same leading characteristics as he is described in the Horatian precepts:

But we believe that it was Homer who first added the softer shades which redeem and palliate his ferocity. Just in the same manner, the character of Lady Macbeth was received by Shakspeare from the chronicles of his time as a woman of an aspiring and ambitious character, of fierce passions, and strong resolutions; but he found there no trace of her subsequent hesitations and regrets, no suggestion of those dark whisperings of remorse which would not suffer her to rest in her sleep. In the delineation of Achilles Homer never forgets these gentle characteristics of his hero. The same chivalrous courtesy which leads him to greet with a kindly welcome, as the unwilling ministers of his violence, the heralds sent by Agamemnon to wrest Briseis from her captor, is displayed again in the ninth book towards the deputation from Agamemnon, and still more strikingly in his pathetic

VOL. XCII. NO. CLXXXVIII.

F F

·L

of Alles met vere ndier inclized Tens of the Emerie en -s ecaadamlar tear midzement in with the frailties Hi de sang ▼man, and the virvari intelses of a passionate Ter-rument ir vademy buended with the tenderness of a zomi mi afermare deposit.c, and with the dignity of earZ mi iemeanor beseeming the princess of royal lineage md the inciter if Jive. The Helen of Homer never appears Tom de sace winent or feeling disposed to exclaim with the Iman ebbers —

νὰ τὸ με τις. Τρώας καὶ ἐπκνημίας ̓Αχαίαις

στην αυθε γυναια πολυν χρόνον άλγεα πάσχειν.

1850.

Priam and Helen.

425

The conduct of Priam to his daughter-in-law is strictly in accordance with the characters of both, and the feeling and encouraging regard with which he greets her appearance on the ramparts (in the third book) is in perfect keeping with her own incidental admission (in the twenty-third) that he had ever ⚫ been gentle and kind to her as a father,'

ἑκυρὸς δὲ, πατὴρ ὡς, ἤπιος ἀιεί.

It is such undesigned coincidences as this-touches which, although they occur in the most distant parts of the poem, betray the workings of the same creative mind that afford, to our apprehension, the strongest proof of its original unity of conception.

Imperfectly as we have been able to do justice to this part of our subject, we trust that we have said enough to convey to the minds of our readers the same impression which we feel certain they will derive from the complete analysis of Colonel Mure; and which he has well summed up in the following words:

It seems difficult to understand how any impartial reader, who has carefully weighed these facts and citations, can believe it possible that a series of such singularly delicate portraits, individualised by so subtle an unity of mechanism, not only in their broader features of peculiarity, but in the nicest turns of sentiment and phraseology, can be the produce of the medley of artists to which the Wolfian school assigns them. It were about as probable that some ten or twenty sculptors of the age of Pericles, undertaking each a different part or limb of a statue of Jupiter, should have produced the Olympian Jove of Phidias, as that a number of ballad-singers of the anteOlympic era should have combined, by a similar process of patchwork, in producing the Achilles or Agamemnon, the Priam, the Hector, or the Helen of Homer.' (Vol. i. p. 361.)

The arguments classed by Colonel Mure under the third head, that of Style-a term which he employs in its widest sense, as including all peculiarities, not only of language and phraseology, but of sentiment and imagery — except in as far as these last were turned directly to the delineation of characteradmit of condensation and abridgment in a still less degree than those which we have been already considering. Yet they are in one respect of even greater importance, because it is almost exclusively from this source that must be derived all arguments in favour of the common authorship of the two poems. It is hardly necessary to observe that this question stands on grounds wholly distinct from that of the unity of composition of each, separately considered. Even in ancient times, while we find scarcely any approach to the boldness of the Wolfian school in their attempt to break up each poem into separate portions, we

interview with Priam in the twenty-fourth.* Both these books have been stigmatised by some modern critics as later interpolations or additions to the original poem; but both appear to us, on the contrary, essential to the development of the character of Achilles. We have already had occasion in a former Number to express our entire dissent from the objections brought by Mr. Grote against the Ninth Book of the Iliad, objections founded, in part at least, upon the supposed incongruity of the character of Achilles, as there represented, with other parts of the poem; and we rejoice to find that we are supported by the high authority of Colonel Mure. With his remarks upon this subject we cordially concur:

'It is in his address to Agamemnon's deputation in the ninth book, that the genius of the hero's eloquence is most vividly displayed. This whole debate is indeed a wonderful specimen of rhetorical as well as poetical power, perhaps the highest effort of Homer's dramatic art. The order and dignity with which it is conducted, the happy allotment to each speaker of his own characteristic tone and style, and the skill with which their respective resources of natural oratory are brought to bear on the momentous question at issue, are all equally admirable. The harangue of Ulysses is distinguished by the persuasive eloquence of the sage, the courtier, and the practised pleader: that of Phoenix is the touching, but somewhat diffuse, appeal of the ancient guardian to his beloved pupil; while Ajax steps in at the close, cutting short the fruitless negociation by a blunt expression of sullen resentment at the stern unforgiving temper of their host. The address of Achilles himself is one continued struggle of a proud spirit, to preserve calmness amid a fierce conflict of passions. So long as the train of his discourse is confined to explanation of his own conduct, it maintains a comparatively equable tenor: but no sooner does it involve any closer allusion to the author of his wrong, than his indignation effervesces into sallies of virulent, almost bewildered invective. It is this mixture of calmness and impetuosity, of haughty self-command and fervid agitation, which gives tone to the whole speech, subdividing it, by successive bursts of excited feeling, into clauses or paragraphs, which rising in pathos to a sort of climax, again subside into more placid mood, until a fresh recurrence of the former stimulus.'

It is unnecessary to recall to the reader's attention the wonder

* Observe particularly the exquisite delicacy with which (v. 583 -586.), after commanding his handmaids to wash and anoint the body of Hector, he desires them to keep it out of the sight of Priam till the moment of his departure, lest the aspect of it should lead the old man to break out into lamentations and upbraidings, which might again arouse the fiery passions of Achilles himself, and endanger the safety of his guest.