Comparative Merits of Translators.

And as, when vehement the West wind falls
On standing corn mature, the loaded ears
Innumerable bow before the gale,

So was the Council shaken.'-Cowper.

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He should not have called it the Council; a word which properly denotes the secret meeting of the chiefs, as Cowper has already applied it. The Assembly is the public meeting of the whole army. Newman renders it:

'Thus speaking agitated he the soul within their bosom

To all among the multitude, who had not heard the Council.
Upon the assembly movements vast fell, as on long sea-billows
Amid the depths of Icarus; which East and South together
Tumultuate, from out the clouds of Jove the Father darting.
And as, when on a corn-field deep the West wind rushing sudden
Bestirreth it with squally plunge, and every ear depresseth,

So agitated was the mote entire ;-'

Now for the Grecian army moving to war, like successive rows of waves: Iliad 4, 422.

And as when with the west wind flaws the sea thrusts up her waves,

One after other, thick and high, upon the groaning shores;

First in herself lond, but oppos'd with banks and rocks, she roars,
And, all her back in bristles set, spits every way her foam;

So after Diomed instantly the field was overcome
With thick impressions of the Greeks; . . . . .'—Chapman.
'As when the surges of the sea, beneath a west wind's pressure,
Upon the muchresounding beach, line after line, come rolling;
First in the deep it heaveth high; then, by the strand retarded,
With screech and roar it steepeneth, till, hollow at the summit,
Sputtering the briny spray abroad, the huge crest tumbles over:
So then the bands of Danaï, closewedg'd, to war were moving,
Line after line, incessantly;— . . .'-Newman.

The two hosts meet;

'As when two winter torrents, rolling down

The mountains, shoot their floods thro' gulleys huge

Into one gulf below; station'd remote

The shepherd in the uplands hears the roar:

Such was the thunder of the mingling hosts.'-Cowper.

'As when the stormbegotten brooks, down from the mountains streaming,

Mix in the bottom of a dell the riot of their water,

Spouted from mighty fountainheads, deep in a dingle's hollow,

And far along the cliffs their brawl unto the goatherd soundeth:

So, when in conflict these were mix'd, did scream arise and turmoil.'-Newman. When the embassy to Achilles failed, Agamemnon's distress and anxiety are thus described:

'The other princes, at their ships, softfinger'd Sleep did bind,

But not the general: Somnus' silks bound not his labouring mind,

That turn'd and return'd many thoughts. And as quick lightnings fly
From welldeck'd Juno's sovereign, out of the thicken'd sky,
Preparing some exceeding rain, or hail, the fruit of cold,
Or downlike snow, that suddenly makes all the fields look old,
Or opes the gulfy mouth of war with his ensulphur'd hand,
In dazzling flashes pour'd from clouds on any punish'd land;

So from Atrides' troubled heart, through his dark sorrows, flew
Redoubled sighs: his entrails shook, as often as his view
Admir'd the multitude of fires, that gilt the Phrygian shade,

And

And heard the sounds of fifes and shawms, and tumults soldiers made.
But when he saw his fleet and host kneel to his care and love,

He rent his hair up by the roots, as sacrifice to Jove,

Burnt in his fiery sighs, still breath'd out of his royal heart.'-Chapman.

This translation obtrudes on Homer several improprieties, among which the word Phrygian will meet with Mr. Gladstone's just and indignant reproof. The passage stands thus in Mr. Newman:

'Now all the rest by galley-side, chieftains of Panachaia,

Kept thro' the livelong night repose, by gentle sleep o'ermaster'd.
But not Atrides Agamemnon, shepherd of the people,

Might be in slumber sweet detain'd; but tides of thought did toss him.
And as, when brighthair'd Juno's lord thro' heaven lightning sendeth,
Devising hail or piercing sleet, (when snow the clouds hath powder'd,)
Or rainy flood ineffable, or bitter-yawning battle:

So thickly from his bosom sobb'd the royal Agamemnon,
Deep drawing from his heart the moan; and all his vitals trembled.
When o'er the Troian plain he gaz'd, the many flames admir'd he,
Which burnt in front of Ilium,-the sound of flutes and whistles,
And hum of men; but when he saw the Achaian folk and galleys,
Then many a hair with lowest roots from out his head uptare he
To Jupiter aloft: and deep his noble heart was shaken."

His

The reader from these extracts may form some idea of the comparative merits of the translators, but to give specimens of Homer is like showing bricks as an illustration of a house. versatility and his inexhaustible variety in treating subjects that differ slightly, can only be appreciated by a close study of the whole, in the original, if possible; but if not, in a faithful translation, which does not intrude upon him the fancies of some conceited modern, nor omit anything characteristic. The oratorical powers of Homer, so proclaimed by Quinctilian and highly panegyrized by Mr. Gladstone, cannot be exhibited even in specimen a whole book at least must be read. His vividness of conception and infinite pictorial power might perhaps be further exhibited by a few examples, if our space permitted. His moral and religious tone is a study in itself, as well as his extraordinary simplicity of mythical conception, in which tradition, philosophy, poetry and morals are strangely fused into a sort of arbitrary homogeneity. As a striking specimen of his moral tone, we select from the address of Phoenix to Achilles, Il. 9, 496.

'Oh Achileus! thy mighty soul subdue! nor is it rightful
For thee a ruthless heart to hold: the very gods are yielding,
The gods, who are pre-eminent in virtue, force and honour.
E'en they by penitence of men are from their purpose turned
With sacrifice and pleasing vow and incense and libation,
When mortal man hath trespassèd, and made himself a sinner.
For, Penitences damsels are, by mighty Jove begotten,

Knee-stumbling, haggard in the cheek, with eyes askance and downcast,
Who in the track of Frenesy with sad remorse do follow.
But Frenesy is vigorous and sound of limb; for alway
She plungeth far ahead of them, and earlier for mischief

Man's heart doth occupy; and they but heal the wounds behind her.

Now

Homer's Religion.

Now whoso kindly pitieth Jove's daughters near approaching,
Him greatly do they benefit, and to his prayèr hearken:
But whoso to their word is deaf, and e'en refuseth harshly,
They unto Jove Saturnius go and implore in guerdon,
That Frenesy on him may come and craze him for disaster.
But Achileus! do also thou unto the heavenly damsels

151

Pay deference, and bend thy soul. . . . . &c. . . . . -Newman. The word here translated Penitence, ordinarily means Supplication; but one of the old scholiasts discerned the true spirit of the passage, which speaks only of a penitent offender's supplication. Frenzy goes first, and sins; Penitence follows suppliant. The penitent offender ought to be forgiven. If any one refuses forgiveness to the penitent, the unforgiving man is liable to judicial infatuation, becomes frenzied himself, and falls into disaster.

Many have expressed surprise and pleasure at Dr. Livingstone's testimony concerning the moral knowledge of the pagans of Africa; but the phenomena are on the surface of Greek and Roman literature. It would be no honour to Christianity to have invented a system of morals to which the human conscience bears no testimony. But the novelty which has seemed to belong to Dr. Livingstone's statement strikingly proves how ignorant of antiquity is the English public. A proper reading of Homer even in a translation (if a faithful one) would furnish matter for reflection such as twenty intelligent travellers among pagan tribes will scarcely give.

When we pass from morals into religion, the mixture of sound feeling with puerility and monstrous error in Homer is often highly interesting, as displaying the tracks of human thought and feeling. His religion is a fruit partly of conscience, but far more largely of fantastic and superficial observation; and many of the mythical tales are evidently little else than a development out of metaphor. When the eminently handsome heroes Achilles and Æneas are called sons of goddesses, nothing is more obvious than that this was in its origin a mere phrase of compliment to their beauty. Mr. Gladstone treats it too seriously. Equally gratuitous is his grave statement (as if of historical fact), that 'Polydore, sister of Achilles, had a spurious son.' This rests on nothing but a poetical compliment to Menesthius, Achilles's nephew and the first of his five captains. Borus,' (says Homer,) 'who led his mother into bridal, was esteemed his father; but his real origin was from the never-resting river Spercheius, who streams down from Jupiter.' To mistake such a statement for a dishonour, is like accounting Alexander the Great a bastard,

*

The case of Eudorus (next mentioned), Iliad 16, 179, is different. He is plainly said to be maidenborn (i. e. born before his mother's marriage), and not reared by the husband to whom his mother was afterwards married, but by his mother's father. In this case, the putative father, the god Hermeias (Mercury), is only a decorous cover to his mother's shame.

because

because his flatterers said he was the son of Jupiter, not of Philip. These are small matters; but they make us keenly feel, that Mr. Gladstone, with all his vast erudition, is led astray from the true and obvious meaning, where inferior men would probably go right.

The severity of his moral judgment against Venus, Paris, Agamemnon, is as earnest as if he were dealing with living characters; and in fact, his treatment of the great king Agamemnon is (if we may be allowed the phrase) quite edifying. Heartily do we wish that Christian rulers had the humility which he claims of Agamemnon; and glad shall we be to know, that whenever Mr. Gladstone is in the queen's councils, he urges his colleagues to humble themselves in the public eye (when they happen to have misconducted themselves,) as he insists Agamemnon should have done. This great king, after suffering vexatious defeat, in consequence of the absence of Achilles and the Myrmidons, sends a humble supplication to Achilles, proposing to restore Briseis, with seven ingenuous and accomplished damsels of picked beauty, and numerous other presents of great value, and offers in marriage either of his three daughters with seven valuable fortress-towns as dowry. We had always supposed Achilles to be clearly and vehemently wrong in harshly refusing to accept the offered reconciliation; nor do we read in his sarcastic and proud speech that specific ground of refusal by which Mr. Gladstone now justifies him; viz. that Agamemnon did not plainly and publicly confess that he had done wrong, but only proposed to send the woman back with splendid presents and with an oath that she had remained pure from his approaches. This is as much humiliation as we are accustomed to expect from monarchs, and is certainly far more than we ever get from ministers of state, when they have authorized iniquities and violences on a scale ten thousand times as great as Agamemnon's offence.

We have not touched in the above on the great controversy concerning the unity of Homer. Considering the vast length at which Mr. Grote and Colonel Mure have discussed the unity of the Iliad, no one could have wished much about this from Mr. Gladstone. But admitting the substantial unity of the Iliad equally as of the Odyssey, the assumption that the same poet wrote both seems to be far too easily made. The fact is, that we have absolutely no historical testimony whatsoever concerning the authorship, any more than if all the Homeric' poems were now for the first time disinterred in Pompeii. The ancients say 'Homer,' indifferently for the author of any one of these very numerous poems. Herodotus refers to the Cyprian Epic as Homer's, Thucydides to the Delian Hymn, Aristotle to the Margites; while it is universally agreed among the moderns that

these

Mankind dependent on Oral Instruction.

153

these are not and cannot have been composed by the author of the Iliad. When we thus unceremoniously discard the authority of the ancient writers in regard to all the poems except the Odyssey, it is absurd to pretend their opinion concerning the authorship of the Odyssey has any other weight than their recorded arguments may give it. The difference of the Iliad and Odyssey is not merely in definite representations, but in their entire genius. We do not undertake to prove that one man cannot have produced both. To prove such negatives is impossible. If Southey's Kehama and Shelley's Prometheus were both anonymous, we could not venture to say: It is impossible for one man at different times of his life to have written both.' But, as there is a decided difference of genius in the two works, we take for granted that they come from different authors, until external testimony shall establish that they are from one. Exactly the same is the case with the two great epics of the Greeks: and since no external testimony exists, or will exist, on which any one can reasonably rest, we think they should be always treated as of separate authorship.

We have not been able to touch on Mr. Gladstone's copious and curious analysis of the Homeric deities, nor on his learned and careful attempts to fix to the imagination Homer's notions of the Earth. He here blends the Odyssey with the Iliad. His belief that by the Hellespont Homer meant the open sea of Troas is, we believe, new, and deserves careful consideration. But we have, we fear, already overrun our limits.

ART. V.-1. The Modern Pulpit viewed in its relation to the State of Society. By Robert Vaughan, D.D. London: Jackson 1842.

and Walford.

2. An Earnest Ministry the Want of the Times.

By John Angell

James. London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co. 1847.

3. The Preaching for the Age. Reprinted from the New Englander in British and Foreign Evangelical Review. 1854. 4. Preachers and Preaching. By the Rev. H. Christmas, M.A., F.R.S., &c. London: Lay. 1858.

ANKIND have hitherto been more dependent for their

instruction upon the living teacher than upon written or printed books. Until a very recent period in the history of Europe, and even to the present day in other continents, the few only can be reached by the art of printing; the many receive all their knowledge from the oral instructor. Pagan religions courted mystery rather than disclosure, and kept the veil of Isis before the eyes of the commonalty. Their exoteric Vol. 1.-No. 2. doctrines

M