HOMER. THOU poor and old, yet ever rich and young, Tracked those faint steps with worship,-at what time And where, thou untaught master, did the strings Of thine immortal harp echo sublime The rage of heroes, and the toil of kings? Uncertain shadow of a mystic name, The world's dead praise, as Hellas' living shame, There is a mystery brooding on thy birth, That thee its own each willing soil may claim ; Thy fatherland is all the flattered earth. Homer, a personage whose very name is a riddle, (being not impossibly the Hebrew word homerim, anglicè "words," or as likely the Greek öunpos, "blind,") is supposed to have flourished A. C. about 900. His principal works are too well known to need mention, further than that the main subjects of the Iliad turn upon the wrath of Achilles, Ajax, Agamemnon, and others; and that the Odyssey treats of the adventures of the king of Ithaca, and his companions, when returning to their homes, after the fall of Troy. Some learned men have gone the length of conjecturing that Solomon might have written the poems known by the name of "Homer," or "Epic," (words of similar signification in Hebrew and Greek,) during the period of his idolatrous apostacy: but this would appear to be little better than an ingenious expansion of the argument implied in the possible etymology of the name. With respect to the birth-place of the poet, it is well known that many cities of Greece ("Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Ithaca, Pylus, Argos, Athena,") in after-ages contended for the honour of his birth, by way of selfaggrandisement; but perhaps, if the truth were told, all have equal claims, the fact being that there is no credible evidence on the subject; for to look ex ternally, we have nothing but the assertions of interested candidates; and internally there is perhaps no poet in any age who has communicated so little of himself in his works as Homer: it is also matter of history that the author of those immortal poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, received divine honours in the very spots where it is likely that he had wandered as a homeless, and some think sightless, bard. For the matter of blindness, however, we have not the same satisfactory record of the fact, as that so beautifully furnished by our own Homer, Milton, in his individual case; but the wanderings are credible enough, for troubadours, (to use an anachronism in terms,) and the oral diffusion of poetry are common to infant society in every land. It is just possible that the poems which have come down to us from antiquity under the name of Homer, may, as to their genuineness and authenticity, be analogous to those we have in modern times received under the name of Ossian : namely, in both having been a collection of detached pieces, cemented and digested into one by a diligent master-hand; and one meaning of the word ounpos, "joined together," would seem to favour the notion. But after all, it is equally probable, if not more so, that one master-hand wrote it all, for unity of design and consistency of execution are generally apparent throughout, and the art of writing is doubtless of extreme antiquity in the East: indeed, the symbolizing his ideas would appear to be an invention which unassisted man could never have arrived at; and we D have some grounds, from Genesis, ch. ii. vv. 19, 20, to believe that signs of thought were a matter of revelation to the first man. The writer has ventured to subjoin a very close translation, in English hexameters, of the episode concerning the dog of Ulysses, in Od. lib. xvii. line 290, &c. The story is full of nature, and will give the reader, who is unacquainted with Greek, a truer idea of Homer's mind than many passages better known. The metre being the same as in the original, and the version almost word for word, will, it is hoped, give the subject additional interest. Thus to each other spake they; but the hound, as he lay in his weakness, Pricked up his ears and his head,-poor Argus of patient Ulysses; Him had his master rear'd, but not sported with; parting beforehand To the devoted Troy: so, formerly did the young gallants Hunt him to chase the wild goats, and the timorous hare, and the roebuck. But,―he had long been cast out, grown old, and his lord being absent, Lying on heaps of filth, dropped there by the mules and the oxen Outside his master's door,-from which to the farm of Ulysses Servants would clear it away for manure, while cruelly leaving Argus, the fine old dog, full of sores and covered with ver min. Still, when now, the poor creature beheld Ulysses approach ing, He lay back his ears, and fawn'd with his tail in faithful affection, But rose not, nor nearer could get to his own dear master All for neglect and age:-and the king, unobserved by the swineherd, Brushing away his tears at the sight, immediate address'd him. Surely Eumæus, 'tis strange, this dog lies here on the dung heap, He seems to be fine in his form and his breed, yet one thing I know not If he be fleet,-for starving he lies, a shame to his masters,Or if he be a slow hound, such as man often makes his com panion And for his own delight for awhile is accustomed to pamper. Him then answered straight, even thou, Eumæus the swine herd: Truly, I heed not: the dog is a man's who has died on his travels. Were he the same but now, in shape, and power, and courage, As when Ulysses, starting for Ilium, left him behind him, Quickly, I wot, would you wonder, to see his muscle and fleetness: For not a beast could escape him, which he but once got a sight of, All the dark forest through; the hound had the cunning to track them. Now, misfortune in turn catches him; for the king his old master Perish'd away from home; and the careless damsels forget him. For that, servants, whenever a master ceases to govern, |