London Review of English and Foreign Literature

venture to conclude, that the part of the poet's fiction, which difhonours his deities with the weakness and paffions of human nature, was founded in popular legends and vulgar opinion, for which every good poet, from Homer to Shakespeare, has thought proper to have great complaifance. Take from that original genius of our own country the popular belief in his ghofts and hobgoblins, his light fairies and his dapper elves, with other fanciful perfonages of the Gothic mythology; and you fap the true foundation of fome of the most beautiful fictions, that ever poet's imagination produced. That Homer carried this too far, and fludying to please neglected to inftruct, may be very true; for though Plato's feverity on this head has been criticifed, we muft find it extremely becoming his zeal for the infeparable interefts of religion and virtue, if we confider that he had weighty reasons, which do not reach Shakespeare's mythology, to be alarmed at examples of vice and immorality in the very perfons, who were at that time the acknowledged objects of public religious worship."

In the next section of this learned and ingenious work, the author treats of Homer's manners; of which he justifies the propriety, by observing, that they were fuch as were drawn from nature at the time and place in which they were defcribed; adding, that thofe manners bear a furprifing fimilarity to the manners of the fame countries even at this day. We wish we could give an abstract of this curious piece of claffical criticism without doing it an effential injury: but that is impoffible.

Mr. Wood confiders Homer, next, in the light of an Hiftorian and a Chronologift. In refpect to the former of which characters, he attempts to fhew, that Homer was a faithful hiftorian, because he was a correct painter. In regard to the latter, he oppofes Homer to Virgil in a view of comparison, that gives the Greek bard a ftriking advantage over the latter.

The following fection treats of Homer's language and learning; on which subject Mr. Wood remarks, that it is much to be regretted that thofe, who are in other refpects fo well qualified to throw light on this part of the fubject, by not taking into their confideration the poet's age and manners, have not conceived a juft idea of the genius and character of his language.

"Profeffed fcholars, as he observes, and critics in the Greek tongue, confine their obfervations principally to its state of perfection*,

This was not till after the Perfian invafion, when the Greeks were roused to a fenfe of liberty, to which we may, in a great meafure, attribute more great actions and more elegant compofitions than any other nation ever produced. The diftinction of Greek and Barbarian was unknown to Homer, and his fuppofed partiality to the former feems to have as little foundation as the political plan of his poem. But Efchylus, who fought at Marathon, Salamis, and Platea; Sophocles, who was alfo a foldier; and Euripides, who was born amidft the triumphs of his country for victories obtained in defence of the rights of a free people, looked down upon the Afiatic character with a confcious dignity and fuperiority, which, though it breathes through their writings, Homer never felt, and therefore could nor exprefs. Virgil did

without confidering how long Homer lived before that period. They compliment him for having enriched his language with the different dialects of Greece; though the diftinction of dialects can be only known to a cultivated, and, in fome degree, fettled ftate of language, as deviations from an acknowledged ftandard +:-They point out his poetical licences; forgetting that, in his time, there were no compofitions in profe.-They fettle his pronunciation by an alphabet ‡ which he did not know, and by characters he never faw.-For whatever credit his story of fixteen letters brought into Greece by Cadmus may deserve, it is allowed, that the twenty-four letters of the Ionian alphabet were not in ufe till after Homer's time.-His profody §. or mufical expreffion, muft have been foon corrupted; for it is remarkable that the old chafte Greek melody was loft in refinement, before their other arts had acquired perfection. Could Homer have heard his poems fung or recited, even at the Panathenæan Festival, I dare fay, he would have been offended at the elegance, perhaps the affectation, of the Attie accent and articulation; not to mention the various changes to which Greek pronunciation has been and is daily expofed. I remember, when I was at Athens, that I fent for a Greek fchoolmaster, and when we read the Iliad together, we could not bear each other's manner of pronunciation. I make no doubt but Homer would have been as much at a lofs to understand his own works, read by us, as we were to understand one another."

As to the learning of this celebrated poet, different accounts are given of it even by his best commentators; Mr. Wood, however, appears to hold it in a lefs refpectable light than it is held in by many others.

"I wonder, fays he, that thofe who have conceived fo highly of the poet's fcience, fhould not have attempted to fettle a question, which feems fo neceffary towards forming a juft judgment on that head, viz. How far the ufe of writing was known to Homer?

not attend to this diftinction, and even the hero of the Æneid lets flip fome allusion. to the term Barbarian, which is the effect of this negligence:

"Quinquaginta illi thalami, fpes tanta nepotum.

"Barbarico poftes auro fpoliifque fuperbi,
"Procubuere."

Æn. ii. 504.

Nor would it be judicious to employ them indifferently. The Bergamafe, Neapolitan, and Venetian dialects, do well on the Italian tage in the mouths of Harlequino, Pulcinello, and Pantalone; but a Tufcan would never think of enriching his language by using them promifcuoufly in an epic poem.

Without entering into a debate, whether writing was in common ufe in the days of Homer; let us suppose it to have been familiar to him; yet the letters with which he was acquainted were few. If they were the Cadmian, they were all capitals; and there were no flops: and accents were of later introduction. And if we may judge from the Sigean inscription, the arrangement by the manner of writing ftated Burpo ondov was different and embarraffed.

Much has been written on this fubject; but to fo little purpose, that even the meaning of that word is not ascertained. It is not clear in what degree the powder of the ancients belonged to mufic or to grammar. If they were at firft entirely mu fical (which I think highly probable) at what time were they adopted to fix pronunciation? Could we understand the real ufe of thofe marks which we call accents, it is probable, that all we should learn by it would be to know imperfectly, how Greek was pronounced by those who studied and taught it as a dead or foreign language.

"We

"We are not far removed from the age, when great ftatefmen and profound politicians, did not know their alphabet. I mention this undoubted fact to leffen the reader's astonishment at any infinua¬ tion, that Homer could neither read nor write. Nor will it appear altogether fo paradoxical, if we confider, how much the one is the work of genius, and the other of art. Poetry is found in favage life; and, even there, is not without thofe magic powers over our pations, which is the boasted character of its perfect state. But the art of establishing that wonderful intercourfe between the fenfes of hearing and feeing, by means of arbitrary marks, that have no refemblance to the idea, which is by agreement affixed to them, must have been the refult of much deep thought and reflection. I am not furprized that antiquity, how ever fond of tracing every art up to its inventor, fhould attribute that of writing to the gods. If the invention of printing is ingenious, what fhall we fay to that of letters? But indeed we treat this invaluable gift of art, of which we are in conftant ufe, as we do fome of the greatest gifts of nature, which we daily enjoy, without due attention, or proper refpect either for the ingenuity or utility of the difcovery."

With the fciences, for the knowledge of which Homer has been fometimes highly extolled, our diftinguifhing critic conceives he had as limited an acquaintance as he had with letters.

Indeed fo far, fays he, am I from fubfcribing to the wild pretenfions of that refined criticism, which difcovers not only the principles of all arts and fcience, but the most profound system of ethics and politics, in Homer, that I confider it to have been of peculiar advantage to his original genius, that he was not diverted by any hypothesis from a free and impartial examination of things; and that, whatever his plan of inftruction, either moral or political, might have been (for to deny that he had any would be highly unreafonable), his choice of characters for that purpofe never carried him beyond nature, and his own experience of life.

"To this unbiaffed inveftigation of the different powers of nature, and the various fprings of action, not as they are fancied in the clofet, tranfcribed from fpeculative systems, and copied from books; but as they were feen exerted in real life, we owe the most correct hiftory of human paffions and affections, that have ever yet been exhibited under one view; fo impartially checquered with the goodand bad qualities, which enter, in various proportions, into the compofition of every character, that he has not left us one compleat pattern of moral beauty or deformity."

How different the practice of this great genius and discriminating obferver of mankind, from that of modern writers, who pride themselves on obtruding on the public the futile example Of faultlefs monfters, which the world ne'er saw,

Strabo, p. 34, tells us, that as poetical compofition firft appeared with fuccefs, profe only left out the meafore; following the poet in every thing else. By degrees the poetical manner was discontinued, and poetry, as Plutarch expreflies it, at length defcended from her car.

As to the famous queftion "whether Homer is to be esteemed a philofopher?" Mr. Wood obferves, that

"Had the treatife of Longinus upon this question reached us, we Thould probably have feen many references to the opinions of antiquity upon this fubject. Strabo does not fcruple to put him in the cals with Anaximander: and it is curious to fee opposite fects lay claim to him.

"Whatever ftrefs I may lay upon this compliment to the poet as a philofopher: it is certainly a very great one to him as a painter; when we fee the leading writers in ethics confider Homer and nature as the fame.

"We have respectable authority for fuppofing, that he has been partial to human nature in his picture of life; and that he has reprefented men better than they are. See Ariftot. Poet. C. 2. But of the ac curacy of this moft interesting part of the poet's imitation, which for its object the human mind, and its various operations and affections, every reader is a judge. And if this matter is to be canvafied by the fuffrages of fo many ages and countries, to whofe feelings the poet has appealed, the question feems to be decided; and his impartiality established."

To these obfervations is annexed, as advertised in the titlepage, a comparative view of the ancient and prefent ftate of the Troade; Mr. Wood, more modeftly than neceflarily, obferving, that it is as a traveller only, he can hope to do Homer the justice he intended him. But, having extended this article as far as our limits will permit, we must refer our readers to the tract itself for the farther gratification of their curiosity.

ART. VIII. Readings on Statutes, chiefly thofe affecting the Adminiftration of public Justice, in criminal and civil Cafes; paffed in the Reign of his late Majefty, King George the Second. Containing the Occafion of the Rife and the Progress of the Bills through both Houses of Parliament, to their receiving Legislative Sanction; and also the Decifion of Courts of Justice thereon, explaining the most obfcure and difficult Points in the Statute Law. Taken and extracted principally from Records, Acts of Parlia ment, Appeals, Debates, Speeches, Arguments, Votes, Protefts, Orders, Rules, Trials, Journals, Reports, Hiftories, and other parliamentary and judicial Treatifes, Commentaries and Proceedings, relative to the Law and Conflitution, MSS. as well as printed. The whole chronologically digefted, and illuftrated with Notes, References, and Obfervations. Likewife, 1. An Addrefs to the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. 2. A prefatory Introduction, in Explanation of the Plan, and Execution of the Work. 3. Rules of Law, for the Conftruction of, and Profecutions on, Acts of Parliament. 4. Anecdotes of the judicial Characters of the Judges. 5. Precedents, adapted to the feveral

Acts; and, 6. Tables, Explanations, and Indexes.
Rayner, the younger, a Member of the faid Society.
Browne.

Legum interpretatio, optima lex eft, nam lex loquens.

By John 4to. gs.

The publication of Readings on particular ftatutes is a very ancient mode of inftruction; having received the fan&tion of the most able and venerable fages of the law *. The ftatutes, on which Mr. Rayner hath given his readings, in the publication before us, are the following.

"I Geo. II. ft. 2. chap. 14. An act for encouraging feamen to enter into his Majelly's fervice. "2 Geo. II. chap. 20. "2 Geo. II. chap. 22. respect to the imprifonment 2 Geo. II. chap. 23. torneys and folicitors.

An act for the relief of infolvent debtors. An act for the relief of debtors, with of their perfons.

་་

An act for the better regulation of at

"2 Geo. II. chap. 24. An act for the more effectual preventing bribery and corruption in the election of members, to ferve in par liament.

"2 Geo. II. chap. 25. An act for the more effectual preventing, and further punishment of forgery, perjury, and fubornation of perjury; and to make it felony to steal bonds, notes, or other securities, for payment of money.

2 Geo. II. chap. 26. An act for making more effectual, several acts paffed, relating to watermen, wherrymen, and lightermen, rowing on the river Thames, and for the better ordering and governing fuch watermen, &c.

2 Geo. II. chap. 28. An act (inter alia) for the better regulation of licenfes, for common inns and ale-houses.

"2 Geo. II. chap. 29. An aft to impower his Majefty to visit the collegiate church of Manchester, during fuch time, as the war

* Of the feveral authors of fuch Readings, the prefent Reader gives the follow ing lift.

3 Edw. I. chap. 1.

Magna charta, chap. 17. Pleas of the Crown,' by Sir Robert Brooke.
Religious and Civil Peace,' by Thomas Marrow.
The Statute de Donis Conditionalibus,' by Littleton,

13 Edw. I. chap. 12.

"27 Edw. ft. 1. chap. 1. Fines,' by Sir Edward Coke.

«17 Edw. II. ft. 1. chap. 1. &c. The King's Prerogative,' by William Staundford, “25 Edw. III. chap. 2. • Treasons,' by Sir Francis Holburne.

8 Hen. VI. chap. 9. 'Forcible Entries,' by Thomas Rifedon.