Historical And Critical Essays Vol I

_. v.l 66-0390^

De Quincey

Historical and critical essays

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66-0390!!

82*1-

De Quincey

Historical and critical essays

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1994

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HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL

ESSAYS.

BY

THOMAS DE QUINCE Y,

QV
OP AN ENGLISH OPIUM - &ATM&,* ETC. ETC.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. L

BOSTON:
TICKNOR, REED, AND FIELDS.

MDCCCLIXI.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by

TICKNOR, REED, AND FIELDS,
in the Ckrk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

THUBiSTON, TQRRY, AND SMBHSQN, PRINTERS.

CONTENTS,

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY ... I

THE ESBENB3 ..... 29

PHILOSOPHY OF HEKODOTUS . . . .119

PLATO'S REPUBLIC 177

HOMER AND THE HOMEROMG .... 231

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY.

IT would bo thought strange indeed, if there should
exist a large, a memorable section of history, trav-
ersed by many a scholar with various objects, reviewed
by many a reader in a spirit of anxious scrutiny, and
yet to this hour misunderstood ; erroneously appre-
ciated ; its tendencies mistaken, and its whole mean-
ing, import, value, not so much inadequately as
falsely, ignorantly, perversely deciphered. Primd
faciCj one would pronounce this impossible. Never-
theless it is a truth ; and it is a solemn truth ; and
what gives to it this solemnity, is the mysterious mean-
ing, the obscure hint of a still profounder meaning in
the background, which begins to dawn upon the eye
when first piercing the darkness now resting on the
subject. Perhaps no one arc or segment, detached
from the total cycle of human records, promises so
much beforehand so much instruction, so much
gratification to curiosity, so much splendor, so much
depth of interest, as the great period the systole and
diastole, flux and reflux of the Western Roman
Empire. Its parentage was magnificent and Titanic.
It was a birth out of the death-struggles of the colos-

VOL, i. 1

2 PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY.

sal republic : its foundations were laid by that sublime
dictator, c the foremost man of all this world,' who was
unquestionably for comprehensive talents the Lucifer,
the Protagonist of all antiquity. Its range, the corn-
pass of its extent, was appalling to the imagination.
Coming last amongst what arc called the great mon-
archies of Prophecy, it was the only one which realized
in perfection the idea of a monarchia, being, (except
for Parthia and the great fable of India beyond it)
strictly coincident with n oiarot'.Mm/, or the civilized
world. Civilization and this empire were commensu-
rate : they were interchangeable ideas, and co-exten-
sive. Finally, the path of this great Empire, through
its arch of progress, synchronized with that of Chris-
tianity : the ascending orbit of each was pretty nearly
the same, and traversed the same series of generations
These elements, in combination, seemed to promise a
Succession of golden harvests : from the specular sta-
tion of the Augustan age, the eye caught glimpses by
anticipation of some glorious El Dorado for human
hopes. What was the practical result for our historic
experience? Answer A sterile Zaarruh. Preliba-
tions, as of some heavenly vintage, were inhaled by
the Virgils of the day looking forward in the spirit of
prophetic rapture ; whilst in the very sadness of truth,
from that age forwards the Roman world drank from
stagnant marshes. A Paradise of roses was pre-
figured : a wilderness of thorns was found.

Even this fact has been missed even the bare
fact has been overlooked ; much more the causes, the
principles, the philosophy of this fact. The rapid
barbarism which closed in behind Caesar's chariot

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY. 3

wheels, has been hid by the pomp and equipage of
the imperial court. The vast power and domination
of the Roman empire, for the three centuries which
followed the battle of Actium, have dazzled the his-
toric eye, and have had the usual re-action on the
power of vision : a dazzled eye is always left in a
condition of darkness. The battle of Actium was
followed by the final conquest of Egypt That con-
quest rounded and integrated the glorious empire : it
was now circular as a shield orbicular as the disk
of a planet : the great Julian arch was now locked
into the cohesion of granite by its last key-stone.
From that day forward, for three hundred years, there
was sileucc in the world : no muttering was "heard :
no eye winked beneath the wing. Winds of hostility
might still rave at intervals : but it was on the outside
of the mighty empire : it was at a dream-like dis-
tance ; and, like the storms that beat against some
monumental castle, ' and at the doors and windows
seem to call,' they rather irritated and vivified the
sense of security, than at all disturbed its luxurious
lull.

That, seemed to all men the consummation of politi-
cal wisdom the ultimate object of all strife the
very eutlmoasy of war. Except on some fabulous
frontier, armies seemed gay pageants of the Roman
rank rather than necessary bulwarks of the Roman
power ; Bpcar and shield were idle trophies of the
past : c the trumpet spoke not to the alarmed throng/
Hush, ye palpitations of Rome ! was the cry of the
superb Aurelian, 1 from his far-off pavilion in the
deserts of the Euphrates Hush, fluttering heart of

4 PHILOSOPHY ON ROMAN HISTORY.

the eternal city ! Fall back into slumber, yo wars,
and rumors of wars ! Turn upon your couches of
down, ye children of Romulus sink back into your
voluptuous repose : We, your almighty armies, have
chased into darkness those phantoms that had broken
your dreams. We have chased, we have besieged,
we have crucified, we have slain. 'Niliil M/, Rmnuhi
QuiriteS) quod timer e possitis* Ego effic.iani w0 sit
aliqua solicitudo Romana. Vacate ludis vacate, c.ir*
censibus. Nos public necessitates tencant, ; vos occu-
pent voluptatesS Did ever Siren warble so duleet a
song to ears already prepossessed and medicated with
spells of Circcan effeminacy ?

But in this world all things re-act : and the very
extremity of any force is the seed and nucleus of a
counter-agency. You might have thought it as easy
(in the words of Shakspcarc) to

( "Wound the loud winds, or with bc-mock'd-at stabs
Kill the still-closing waters,'

as to violate the majesty of the imperial eagle, or to
ruffle 'one dowle that's in his plume.' But luxurious
ease is the surest harbinger of pain ; and the dead lulls
of tropical seas are the immediate forerunners of tor-
nadoes. The more absolute was the security obtained
by Csesar for his people, the more inevitable was his
own ruin. Scarcely had Aurelian sung his requiem to
the agitations of Eorne, before a requiem was sung by
his assassins to his own warlike spirit Scarcely had
Probus, another Aurelian, proclaimed the eternity of
peace, and, by way of attesting his own martini supre-
macy, had commanded ' that the brazen throat of war

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY. 5

should cease to roar,' when the trumpets of the four
winds proclaimed his own death by murder. Not as
anything extraordinary; for, in fact, violent death
death by assassination was the regular portal (the
porta Libitina, or funeral gate) through which' the
Caesars passed out of this world ; and to die in their
beds was the very rare exception to that stern rule of
fate. Not, therefore, as in itself at all noticeable, but
because this particular murder of Probus stands sceni-
cally contrasted with the great vision of Peace, which
he fancied as lying in clear revelation before him,
permit us, before we proceed with our argument, to
rehearse his golden promises. The sabres were
already unsheathed, the shirt-sleeves were already
pushed up from those murderous hands, which were
to lacerate his throat, and to pierce his heart, when he
ascended the Pisgah from which he descried the Satur-
nian ages to succeed : * .Bran,' said he, c milites
non necessaries JiabeHmus. Romanus jam miles erit
nulhts. Omnia possidcbimus. Respublica orlis ter-
rarum, utiique secura, non arma falricalit. Boves
liabcbuntur aratro : equus nascetvr ad paccm. Nulla
erunt bella : nulla cap tun fas. Ulique pax : ulique
Romans leges: ulique jud ices nostril The historian
himself, tame and creeping as he is in his ordinary
style, warms in sympathy with the Emperor : his
diction blazes up into a sudden explosion of prophetic
grandeur: and he adopts all the views of Caesar.
*Nonno omnos barbaras nationcs subjeccrat pedibus?'
ho demands with lyrical tumult: and then, while con-
fessing the immediate disappointment of his hopes,
thus repeats the great elements of the public felicity

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY.

whenever they should be realized by a Caosur equally
martial for others, but more fortunate for himself:
''JEternos thcsauros liabcret Romana rcspublica. Nihll
expenderetur aprinciyje; nihild possessor c reddervtur.
Aurcum profecto seculum promiUcbat. Null a futura
erant castra : nusquam lUuus audiondus : anna non
erant fabricanda. Populus iste militantiim, qtii nunc
bellis civilians Rempublicam vexat. ' aye ! how was
that to be absorbed ? Flow would that vast crowd of
half-pay emeriti employ itself? c Ararat: studiis in*
cumber et : erudiretur artibus : ncwigarct.^ And he
closes his prophetic raptures thus : 'Adde quod ml /us
occideretur in belJo. Dii loni ! quid tandem vos oj/en*
deret Rcspublicd Romana, cui talem fyrincfycm auttt.it*
listis ? '

Even in his lamentations, it is clear that he mourns
as for a blessing delayed not finally denied. The
land of promise still lay, as before, iu ntcady vision
below his feet ; only that it waited for some happier
Augustus, who, in. the great lottery of Ctr.sarian desti-
nies, might happen to draw the rare prize of a proa*
perous reign not prematurely blighted by the assassin ;
with whose purple alourgis might mingle no fascia of
crape with whose imperial laurels might entwine no
ominous cypress. The hope of a millennial armistice,
of an eternal rest for the earth, was not dead : once
again only, and for a time, it was sleeping in abeyance
and expectation. That blessing, that millennial Bless-
ing, it seems, might be the gift of Imperial Rome.

II. Well: and why not? the reader demands.
What have we to say against it ? This Cwsar, or that

PHILOSOPHY OF EOMAN HISTORY. 7

historian, may have carried his views a little too far,
or too prematurely ; yet, after all, the very enormity
of what they promised must be held to argue the enor-
mity of what had been accomplished. To give any
plausibility to a scheme of perpetual peace, war must
already have become rare, and must have been ban-
ished to a prodigious distance. It was no longer the
hearths and the altars, home and religious worship,
which quaked under the tumults of war. It was the
purse which suffered the exchequer of the state;
secondly, the exchequer of each individual ; thirdly,
and in the end, the interests of agriculture, of com-
merce, of navigation. This is what the historian indi-
cates, in promising his brother Romans that ' omnia
possidebimus ; ' by which, perhaps, he did not mean to
lay the stress on ' omniaj as if, in addition to their own
property, they were to have that of alien or frontier
nations, but (laying the stress on the word possideM-
mus) meant to say, with regard to property already
their own c We shall no longer hold it as joint pro-
prietors with the state, and as liable to fluctuating tax-
ation, but shall hcnceforwards possess it in absolute
exclusive property. 3 This is what he indicates in
saying Bovcs lialeluntur aratro : that is, the oxen,
one and all available for the plough, shall no longer
bo open to the everlasting claims of the publicjfrwwien-
taril for conveying supplies to the frontier armies.
This is what he indicates ia saying of the individual
liable to military service that he should no longer
live to slay or to be slain, for barren bloodshed or vio-
lence, but that henceforth c ararekj or l namgaret?
All these passages, by pointing the expectations em-

8 PHILOSOPHY OF KOMAN HISTORY.

pbatically to benefits of purse exonerated, and industry
emancipated, sufficiently argue the class of interests
which then suffered by war : that it was the interests of
private property, of agricultural improvement, of com-
mercial industry, upon which exclusively fell the evils
of a belligerent state under the Roman empire : and
there already lies a mighty blessing achieved for social
existence when sleep is made sacred, and thresh-
olds secure; when the temple of human life is safe,
and the temple of female honor is hallowed. These
great interests, it is admitted, were sheltered under the
mighty dome of the Homan empire : that is already an
advance made towards the highest civilization : and
this is not shaken because a particular emperor should
be extravagant, or a particular historian romantic.

No, certainly: but stop a moment at this point
Civilization, to the extent of security for life, and the
primal rights of man, necessarily grown out of every
strong government. And it follows also- 'that, as this
government widens its sphere as it pushes back its
frontiers, ultra et Garamantas et Indos, in that pro-
portion will the danger dimmish (for in fact the possi-
bility diminishes) of foreign incursions. The sense of
permanent security from conquest, or from the inroad
of marauders, must of course have been prodigiously
increased when the nearest standing army of Home
was beyond the Tigris and the Inn as compared with
those times when Carthage, Spain, Gaul, Maccdon,
presented a ring-fence of venomous rivals, and when
every little nook in the eastern Mediterranean swarmed
with pirates. Thus far, inevitably, the Eoman police,
planting one foot of its golden compasses in the same

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY, 9

eternal centre, and with the other describing an arch
continually wider, must have banished all idea of
public enemies, and have deepened the sense of secu-
rity beyond calculation. Thus for we have the benefits"
of police ; and those are amongst the earliest blessings
of civilization ; and they are one indispensable condi-
tion what in logic is called the conditio sine qua non,
for all the other blessings. But that, in other words, is
a negative cause, (a cause which, being absent, the
effect is absent;) but not the positive cause, (or causa
siifficiens,) which, being present, the effect will be
present. The security of the Roman empire was the
indispensable condition, but not in itself a sufficient
cause of those other elements which compose a true
civilization. Rome was the centre of a high police,
which radiated to Parthia eastwards, to Britain west-
wards, but not of a high civilization.

On the contrary, what we maintain is that the
Roman civilisation was imperfect al) intra imperfect
in its central principle ; was a piece of watchwork that
began to go down to lose its spring; and was slowly
retrograding to a dead stop, from the very moment that
it had completed its task of foreign conquest: that it
was kq>t going from the very first by strong reaction
and antagonism : that it fell into torpor from the mo-
ment when this antagonism ceased to operate : that
thonceforwardH it oscillated backwards violently to bar-
barwin : that, left to its own principles of civilization,
the Roman empire was barbarizing rapidly from the
time of Trajan: that abstracting from all alien agen-
cies whatever, whether accelerating or retarding, and
supposing Western Rome to have been thrown ex-

10 PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY.

clusivcly upon" the resources and elasticity of her
own proper civilization, she was crazy and superannu-
ated by the time of Commodus must soon have gone
to pieces must have foundered ; and, under any pos-
sible benefit from favorable accidents co-operating
with alien forces, could not, by any great term, have
retarded that doom which was written on her droop-
ing energies, prescribed by internal decay, and not at
all (as is universally imagined) by external assault.

HI. 'Barbarizing rapidly!' the read (if murmurs
'Barbarism! Oh yes, I remember the Barbarians
broke in upon the Western Empire the Ostrogoths,
Visigoths, Vandals, Burgundians, IIuus, lie ml 5, and
swarms beside. These wretches had no tuslo no
literature, probably very few ideas; and naturally they
barbarized and rcbarbarizcd wherever thoy moved*
But surely the writer errs : this influx of barbarism was
not in Trajan's time at the very opening of the second
century from Christ, but throughout the fifth century,'
No, reader ; it is not wo who err, but you. Those wore
not the barbarians of "Rome. That is the miserable
fiction of Italian vanity, always stigmatizing better men
than themselves by the name of barbarians ; and in fact
we all know, that to be an ultramontane is with them
to be a barbarian. The horrible charge against Iho
Greeks of old, viz , that sua Lantum mirantur, a charge
implying in its objects the last descent of narrow sensi-
bility and of illiterate bigotry, in modern times has boon
true only of two nations, and those two arc the French
and the Italians. But, waiving the topic, we uilirm
and it is the purpose of our essay to affirm that the

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTOEY. 11

barbarism of "Rome grew out of Rome herself ; that
these pretended barbarians Gothic, Vandalish, 2 Lom-
bard or by whatever name known to modern history
were in reality the restorers and regenerators of the
effete "Roman intellect ; that, but for them, the indige-
nous Italian would probably have died out in scrofula,
madness, leprosy ; that the sixth or seventh century
would have seen the utter extinction of these Italian
strtillntgs ; for which opinion, if it were important, we
could show cause. But it is much less important to
show cause in behalf of this negative proposition
c that the Uoths and Vandals were not the barbarians of
the western empire ' than in behalf of this Affirma-
tive proposition, c that the Romans were? We do not
wish to overlay the subject, but simply to indicate a
few of the many evidences which it is in our power to
adduce. We mean to rely, for the present, upon four
arguments, as exponents of the barbarous and barba-
rizing tone of feeling, which, like so much moss or
lichens, had gradually overgrown the Roman mind,
and by the third century had strangled all healthy
vegetation of natural and manly thought. During this
third century it was, in its latter half, that most of the
Augustan history was probably composed. Laying
aside tlu*. two Victors, Dion Cassius, Ammianus Marcel-
linus, and a few more indirect notices of history during
this period,, there 5s little other authority for the annals
of the WuHtcrn Empire than this Augustan history;
and at all events, this is the chief well-head of that
history ; hither wo must resort for most of the personal
biography, and the portraiture of characters connected
with that period ; and hero only *we find the regular

12 PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN IIISTOKY.

series of princes the whole gallery of Cocsars, from
Trajan to the immediate predecessor of Dioclesian,
The composition of this work has been usually dis-
tributed amongst six authors, viz., Spartian, Capito-
linus, Lampridius,* Volcatius Gallicauus, Trcbellius
Pollio, and Vopiscus. Their several shares, r is true,
have been much disputed to and fro ; and other ques-
tions have been raised, affecting the very existence of
some amongst them. But all this is irrelevant to our
present purpose, which applies to the work, but not at
all to the writers, excepting in so far as they (by what-
ever names known) were notoriously and demonstrably
persons belonging to that era, trained in Roman habits
of thinking, connected with the court, intimate with
the great Palatine officers, and therefore presumably
men of rank and education. We rely, in so far us wo
rely at all upon this work, upon these two among its
characteristic features : 1st, Upon the quality and style
of its biographic notices ; 2dly, Upon the remarkable
uncertainty which hangs over all lives a little removed
from the personal cognizance or immediate era of the
writer. Bat as respects, not the history, but the sub-
jects of the history, we rely, 3dly, Upon the peculiar
traits of feeling which gradually began to disfigure the
ideal conception of the Roman Caesar in the minds of
his subjects ; 4thly, Without reference to the Augustan
history, or to the subjects of that history, wo rely
generally, for establishing the growing barbarism of
Rome, upon the condition of the Roman literature after
the period of the first twelve Csosars.

IV, First of all', we infer the increasing barbarism

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY. 13

of the Roman mind from the quality of the personal
notices ami portraitures exhibited throughout these bio-
graphical records. The whole may be described by
one word anccdotage. It is impossible to conceive
the dignity of history more degraded than by the petty
nature of the anecdotes which compose the bulk of the
communications about every Caesar, good or bad, groat
or little. They arc not merely domestic and purely
personal, when they ought to have been Coosarian,
Augustan, impcratorial they pursue Ccesar not only
to his fireside, but into his bed-chamber, into his bath,
into his cabinet, nay, even (sit honor auribus /) into
his cabinet d'aisance ; not merely into the Palatine
closet, but into the Palatine water-closet. Thus of
Heliogabalus we are told 4 onus ventris auro excepit

minxit myrrliinis et onychinis ; 3 that is, Csosar's
lasanum was made of gold, and his matula was made
of onyx, or of the undetermined myrrhine mate-
rial. And so on, with respect to the dresses of
Caesar ; how many of every kind he wore in a week

of what material they were made with what orna-
ments. So again, with respect to the meals of Caesar ;

what dishes, what condiments, what fruits, what
confection prevailed at each course ; what wines he
preferred ; how many glasses (cyathos) he usually
drank, whether he drank more when he was angry;
whether ho diluted his wine with water ; half-and-half,
or how ? Did he get drunk often ? How many times
a week ? What did he generally do when he was
drunk ? ITow many chemises did he allow to his wife ?
How were they fringed ? At what cost per chemise?

In this strain how truly worthy of the children of

14 PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY.

Romulus how becoming to the descendants from
Scipio Africanus, from Paulus JGmilius, from the co-
lossal Marius and the godlike Julius the whole of
the Augustan history moves. There is a superb line
in Lucan which represents the mighty phantom of
Paulus standing at a banquet to reproach or to alaim

' Et Fauli ingentem stare miraberis umbram ! '

What a horror would have seized this Augustan scrib-
bler, this Roman Tims, if he could have scon this
' mighty phantom ' at his elbow looking over his inani-
ties ; and what a horror would have seized the phan-
tom ! Once, in the course of his aulic memorabilia,
the writer is struck with a sudden glimpse of such au
idea ; and he reproaches himself for recording such
infinite littleness. After reporting some anecdotes, in
the usual Augustan style, about an Imperial roboi, u.s
for instance that he had ridden upon ostriches, (which
he says was the next thing to flying ;) that he had eaten
a dish of boiled hippopotamus ; 3 and that, having a
fancy for tickling the catastrophes of crocodiles, he
had anointed himself with crocodile fat, by which
means he humbugged the crocodiles, ceasing to be
Cscsar, and passing for a crocodile nswimming and
playing amongst them ; these glorious facts being re-
corded, he goes on to say ' Sed hac scire quid pro*
dest ? Cum et Livius et Sallustius taceant res Icvea
de Us quorum vitas scribendas arripuerint. Non enim
scimus quotes mulos Clodius habuerit ; nee ulrum Tusco
equo sederit Catilina an Sardo ; vel quali cklainyde
Pompeius usus fuerit^ an purpurdS No : we do not
know, Livy would have died * in the high Horn an

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY. 15

fashion' before he would have degraded himself, by
such babble of nursery-maids, or of palace pimps and
eaves-droppers.

But it is too evident that babble of this kind grew up
not by any accident, but as a natural growth, and by a
sort of physical necessity, from the condition of the
Roman mind after it had ceased to be excited by op-
position in foreign nations. It was not merely the
extinction of republican institutions which operated,
(that might operate as a* co-cause,) but, had these
institutions even survived, the unrcsisted energies of
the Roman mind, having no purchase, nothing to push
against, would have collapsed. The eagle, of all
birds, would be the first to flutter and sink plumb
down, if the atmosphere should make no resistance to
his wings. The first Roman of note who began this
system of ariecdotagc was Suetonius. In him the
poison of the degradation was much diluted, by the
strong remembrances, still surviving, of the mighty
republic. The glorious sunset was still burning with
gold and orange lights in the west. True, the disease
had commenced ; but the habits of health were still
strong for restraint and for conflict with its power.
Besides that, Suetonius graces his rninutuio, and em-
balms them in amber, by the exquisite finish of his
rhetoric. But his case, coming so early among the
Cwsarian annals, is sufficient to show that the growth
of such history was a spontaneous growth from the
circumstances of the empire, viz. from the total col-
lapse of all public antagonism.

The noxt literature in which the spirit of anecdotago
arose was that of France* From the age of Louis

16 PHILOSOPHY OF EOMAN HISTORY.

Treize, or perhaps of Henri Quatre, to the Revolution,
this species of chamber memoirs this eaves-dropping
biography prevailed so as to strangle authentic his-
tory. The parasitical plant absolutely killed the sup-
porting tree. And one remark we will venture to
make on that fact ; the French literature would have
been killed, and the national mind reduced to the
strulbrug condition, had it not been for the situation of
France amongst other great kingdoms, making her
liable to potent reactions from them. The Memoirs
of France, that is, the valct-de-chambrc's archives sub-
stituted for the statesman's, the ambassador's, the
soldier's, the politician's, would have extinguished all
other historic composition, as in fact they nearly did,
but for the insulation of France amongst nations with
more masculine habits of thought. That saved Franco*
Rome had no such advantage ; and Rome gave way.
The props, the buttresses, of the Roman intellect, were
all cancered and honeycombed by this dry-rot in her
political energies. One excuse there is: storms yield
tragedies for the historian; the dead calms of u uni-
versal monarchy leave him little but personal memo-
randa. In such a case he is nothing, if he is not
anecdotical.

V, Secondly, we infer the barbarism of Rome,
and the increasing barbarism, from the inconceivable'
ignorance which prevailed throughout tlw Western
Empire, as to the most interesting public facts that
were not taken down on the spot by a tachygraphm or
short-hand reporter. Let a few years pass, and every-
thing was forgotten about everybody. Within a few

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY. 17

years after the death of Aurelian, though a kind of
saint amongst the armies and the populace of Rome,
(for to the Senate he was odious,) no person could tell
who was the Emperor's mother, or where she lived ;
though she must have been a woman of station and
notoriety in her lifetime, having heen a high priestess
at some temple unknown. Alexander Sevcrus, a very
interesting Caesar, who recalls to an Englishman the
idea of his own Edward the Sixth, both as a prince
equally amiable, equally disposed to piety, equally to
reforms, and because, like Edward, he was so placed
with respect to the succession and position of his reign,
between unnatural monsters and bloody exterminators-,
as to reap all the benefit of contrast and soft relief;
this Alexander was assassinated. That was of course.
But still, though the fact was of course, the motives
often varied, and the circumstances/ varied ; and the
reader would be glad to know, in Shakspeare's lan-
guage, c for which of his virtues' it was deemed
requisite to murder him ; as ^also, if it would not be
too much trouble to the historian, who might be the
murderers ; and what might be their rank, and their
names, and their recompense whether a halter or a
palace. But nothing of all this can be learned. And
why? All had been forgotten. 4 Lethe had sent all
her waws over the whole transaction ; and the man
who wrote within thirty years, found no vestige recov-
erable of the imperial murder more than you or we,
reader, would find at this day, if we should search for
fragments of that imperial tent in which the murder
happened, Again, with respect to the princes who
succeeded immediately to their part of the Augustan
VOL. i. S

18 PHILOSOPHY OF EOMAN HISTORY.

history now surviving, princes the most remarkable,
and cardinal to the movement of history, viz., l)io-
clcsian and Constantine, many of the weightiest trans-
actions in their lives are washed oat as hy a sponge,
Did Dioclesian hang himself in his garters ? or did ho
die in his bed ? Nobody knows. And if Dioclosian
hanged himself, why did Dioclesian hang himself?
Nobody can guess. Did Constantino, again, marry a
second wife ? did this second wife fall in love with
her step-son Crispus? did she, in resentment of his
scorn, bear false witness against him to his father ?
did his father, in consequence, put him to death ?
What an awful domestic tragedy ! was it true ?
Nobody knows. On the one hand, Ensebiua (loos not
so much as allude to it ; but, on the other hand,
Eusebins had his golden reasons for favoring Oonstau-
tine, and this was a matter to be hushed up rather than
blazoned. Tell it not in Oath ! Publish it not, in
Ascalon ! Then again, on the one band, the tale
seems absolutely a leaf torn out of the IlippolytUH of
Euripides. It is the identical story, only the name
is changed; Constantine is Theseus, his new *wife is
Phosdra, Crispus is Hippolytus. So far il seems rank
with forgery. Yet again, on the other hand, ueh a
duplicate did lonafide occur in modern history. Such
a domestic tragedy was actually rehearsed, with one
unimportant change ; such a leaf was positively torn
out of Euripides. Philip II. played the part of The.souH,
Don Carlos the part of Hippolytus, and the Queen
filled the situation (without the animus) of Plurdru.
Again, therefore, one is reduced to blank ignorance,
and the world will never know the true history of the

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY. 19

Ccesar who first gave an establishment and an earthly
throne to Christianity, because history had slept the
sleep of death before that Caesar's time, and because
the great muse of history had descended from Parnas-
sus, and was running about Caesar's palace in the
bedgown and slippers of a chambermaid.

Many hundred of similar lacuna we could assign,
with regard to facts the most indispensable to be
known ; but we must hurry onwards. Meantime, let
the reader contrast with this dearth of primary facts
in the history of the empire, and their utter extinction
after even the lapse of twenty years, the extreme cir-
cumstantiality of the republican history, through many
centuries back.

VI. Thirdly, we infer the growing barbarism of
Rome, that is, of the "Roman people, as well as the
Roman armies, from the brutal, bloody, and Tartar
style of their festal exultations after victory, and the
Moloch sort of character and functions with which
they gradually invested their great Sultan, the Caesar.
One of, the lallisteia, that is, the lallets or dances
carried through scenes and representative changes,
which wore performed by the soldiery and by the
mobs of Rome upon occasion of any triumphal dis-
play, has been preserved, in so far as relates to the
words which accompanied the performance ; for there
was always a verbal accompaniment to the choral
parts of the lattisleia. These words ran thus :

* Mille, mille, mille, mille, mille, milk*, [nix times repeated] decollaviraua.
tlruiH homo millo, mille, mille, mille, [four times] decollavit.
Mille mille, mille, vlvat annos, qul mille mille occidit.
Tantuia viul habefc nemo, quantum Ctiesar fudit sanguinia.'

20 PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISEOEY.

And again, a part of a lallislewn runs thus :

* Mille Francos, imlle Sarmatas, scrncl occiiUmis :
Mille, xnille, mille, mille, mille, Persas quanimus.'

But, in reality, the national mind was convulsed and
revolutionized by many causes ; and wo may be as-
sured that it must have been so, both as a cause and
as an effect, before that mind could have contemplated
with steadiness the fearful scene of Turkish murder
and bloodshed going on for ever in high places. The
palace floors in Rome actually rocked and quaked with
assassination : snakes were sleeping For ever beneath
the flowers and palms of empire : the throne was
built upon coffins : and any Christian who had read
the Apocalypse, whenever he looked at the altar conse-
crated to Caesar, on which the sacred lire was hum ing
for ever in the Augustan halls, must have seem below
them c the souls of those who had been martyred,' and
have fancied that he heard them crying out to the
angel of retribution ' How long ? Lord ! how
long? 1

Gibbon has left us a description, not very powerful,
of a case which is all-powerful of itself, and needs no
expansion, the case of a state criminal vainly at-
temping to escapfe or to hide himself from Ctosar
from the arm wrapped in clouds, and stretching over
kingdoms alike, or oceans, that arrested and drew
back the wretch to judgment from the inevitable eye
that slept not nor slumbered, and from which, neither
Alps interposing, nor immeasurable deserts, nor track-
less seas, nor a four months' flight, nor perfect inno-
cence, could screen him. The world the world of
civilization, was Caesar's : and he who fled from the

PHILOSOPHY OF KOMAN HISTOKY. 21

wrath of Cocsar, said to himself, of necessity c If I
go down to the sea, there is Ctssar on the shore ; if I
go into the sands of Bilidulgerid, there is Caesar wait-
ing for me in the desert ; if I take the wings of the
morning, and go to the utmost recesses of wild beasts,
there is Caesar before me.' All this makes the con-
dition of a criminal under the Western Empire terrific,
and the condition even of a subject perilous. But how
strange it is, or would be so, had Gibbon been a man
of more sensibility, that he should have overlooked
the converse of the case, viz., the terrific condition of
Ccesar, amidst the terror which he caused to others.
In fact, both conditions were full of despair. But Cse-
sar's was the worst, by a great pre-eminence ; for the
state criminal could not be made such without his own
concurrence ; for one moment, at least, it had been
within his choice to be no criminal at all 5 and then
for him the thunderbolts of Csesar slept. But Caesar
had rarely any choice as to his own election ; and for
him, therefore, the dagger of the assassin never could
sleep. Other men's houses, other men's bedchambers,
were generally asylums ; but for Caesar, his own pal-
ace had not the privileges of a home. His own armies
were no guards his own pavilion, rising in the very
centre of his armies sleeping around him, was no
sanctuary. Tn all those places had Caesar many times
been murdered. All these pledges and sanctities his
household gods, the majesty of the empire, the c sac-
ramcntum mililarc,' all had given way, all had
yawned beneath his feet

The imagination of man can frame nothing so
awful the experience of mail has witnessed nothing

22 PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY.

so awful, as the situation and tenure of the Western
Caesar. The danger which threatened him was like
the pestilence which walketh in darkness, but which
also walketh in the noon-day. Morning and evening,
summer and winter, brought no change or shadow of
turning to this particular evil. In that respect it
enjoyed the immunities of God it was the same
yesterday, to-day, and for ever. After three centuries
it had lost nothing of its virulence ; it was growing
worse continually : the heart of man ached under
the evil, and the necessity of the evil. Can any man
measure the sickening fear which must have possessed
the hearts of the ladies and the children composing
the imperial family ? To them the mere terror, en-
tailed like an inheritance of leprosy upon their family
above all others, must have made it a woe like one of
the evils in the Revelations such in its infliction
such in its inevitability. It was what Pagan language
denominated a sacred danger;' a clanger charmed
and consecrated against human alleviation.

At length, but not until about three hundred and
twenty years of murder had elapsed from the inaugu-
ral murder of the great imperial founder, Dioclesian
rose, and as a last resource of despair, said, let us
multiply our image, and try if that will discourage our
murderers. Like Kehama, entering the eight gates of
Padalon at once, and facing himself eight times over,
he appointed an assessor for himself; and each of
these co-ordinate Augusti having a subordinate Cncsar,
there were in fact four coeval Emperors. C&sar
enjoyed a perpetual alibi : like the royal ghost iu
Hamlet, Cxsar was Me et ubique. And unless treason

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY. 23

enjoyed the same ubiquity, now, at least, one would
have expected that Caesar might sleep in security.
But murder imperial murder is a Briareus. There
was a curse upon the throne of Western Rome : it
rocked like the sea, and for some mysterious reason
could not find rest ; and few princes were more mem-
orably afflicted than the immediate successors to this
arrangement.

A nation living in the bosom of these funerqal con
vulsions, this endless 'billowy oscillation of prosperous
murder and thrones overturned, could not have been
moral ; and therefore could not have reached a high,
civilization, had other influences favored. No causes
act so fatally on public morality as convulsions in the
state. And against Borne, all other influences com-
bined. It was a period of awful transition. It was a^
period of tremendous conflict between all false relig-
ions in the world, (for thirty thousand gods were wor-
% shipped in Rome,) and a religion too pure to be
> comprehended. That light could not be compre-
hended by that darkness. And, in strict philosophic
truth, Christianity did not reach its mature period,
even of infancy, until the days of the Protestant
Reformation. In Home it has always blended with
Paganism : it doe% so to this day. But then, i. e. up to
Dioele.sian, (or the period of the Augustan history,)
even that sort of Christianity, even this foul adultera-
tion of Christianity, had no national influence. Even
a pure and holy religion, therefore, by arraying de-
moniac passions on the side of Paganism, contributed
to the barbarizing of Western Rome.

24 PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY.

VII. Finally, we infer the barbarism of Rome from
the condition of her current literature. Anything
more contemptible than the literature of Western (or
indeed of Eastern) Rome after Trajan, it is not possi-
ble to conceive. Claudian, and two or three others,
about the times of Carinus, are the sole writers in verso
through a period of four centuries. Writers in proso
there are none after Tacitus and the younger Pliny*
Nor in Greek literature is there one man of genius
after Plutarch, excepting Lucian. .As to Libanius, ho
would have been c a decent priest whore monkoys arc
the gods ; ' and he was worthy to fumigate with Ins
leaden censer, and with incense from such dull weeds
as root themselves in Lethe, that earthly idol of modem
infidels, the shallow but at the same time stupid Julian.
Upon this subject, however, we may have two summa-
ry observations to make : 1st, It is a fatal ignorance
in disputing, and has lost many a good cause, not to
perceive on which side rests the onus of proof. Here,.
because on our allegation the proposition to be proved
would be negative, the onus prolandi must lie with our
opponents. For we peremptorily affirm, that from
Trajan downwards, there was no literature in .Rome.
To prove a negative is impossible. But any opponent,
who takes the affirmative side, and says there W&B, will
find it easy to refute us. Only be it remembered, that
one swallow docs not make a summer. J2dly, (Which,
if true, ought to make all writers on general literature
ashamed,) we maintain that in any one period of
sixty years, in any one of those centuries which we call
so familiarly the dark ages, (yes, even in the 10th or
llth,) we engage to name more and better books as

PHILOSOPHY OF EOMAN HISTORY. 25

the product of the period given, than were produced in
the whole three hundred and fifty years from Trajan
to Honorius and Attila. Here, therefore, is at once a
great cause, a great effect, and a great exponent of
the barbarism which had overshadowed the Western
Empire before either Goth or Vandal had gained a
settlement in the land. The quality of their history,
the tenure of the Caesars, the total abolition of literature,
and the convulsion of public morals, these were the
true key to the Roman decay.

NOTES.

NOTE 1. Page 3.

' Of the superb rfurdian ; ' The particular occasion was
the insurrection in the East, of which the ostensible leaders
were the great lieutenants of Palmyra Odenathtis, and his
widow, Zenobia. The alarm at Home was out of all propor-
tion to the danger, and well illustrated the force of the great
historian's aphorism Omne ignotum pro magnifico. In one
sentence of his despatch Aurelian aimed at a contest with the
great Julian gasconade of Veni, vidi, vici. His words are
s, obsedimus, cruciavimuS) occidimus,

NOTE 2. Page 11.

Gothic, Vandalish, <J-c.' Had it been
true that these tramontane people were as ferocious in manners
or appearance as was alleged, it would not therefore have
followed that they were barbarous in their modes of thinking
and feeling j or, if that also had been true, surely it became
the Komans to recollect what very barbarians, both in mind,
and mariners, and appearance, were some of their own
Con.sars. Meantime it appears, that not only Alaric the Goth,
but even Attila the Hun, in popular repute the most absolute
Ogre of all the Transalpine invaders, turns out in more
thoughtful representations to have been a prince of peculiarly
mild demeanor, and apparently upright character*

*o NOTES.

NOTE 3. Page 14.

' Eaten a dish of boiled hippopotamus : ' "We once thought
that some error might exist in the text cdisse for edidissc
and that a man exposed a hippopotamus at the games of the
amphitheatre ; but we are now satisfied that he ate the hip-
popotamus.

NOTE 4. Page 17.

< All had been forgotten. 1 It is true that the Augustan
writer, rather than appear to know nothing at all, tells a most
idle fable about a scurra having intruded into Caesar's tent,
and upon finding the young Emperor awake, had excited his
comrades to the murder for fear of being punished for his in-
solent intrusion. But the whole story is nonsense ; a camp
legend, or at the best a fable put forth by the real conspirators
to mask the truth. The writer did not believe it himself. By
the way, a scnrra does not retain its classical sense of a buf-
foon in the Augustan History j it means a oG\Mro(/u'P., or
body-guard; but why, is yet undiscovered. Our own belief
is that the word is a Thracian or a Gothic word; the body-
guards being derived from those nations.

THE ESSENES.

SOME time ago, we published a little essay, that
might easily be expanded into a very large volume ;
and ultimately into a perfectly new philosophy of Ro-
man history, in proof that Rome was self-barbarized
barbarized ah intra, and not by foreign enemies. The
evidences of this, 1st, in the death of her literature,
and, 2d, in the instant oblivion which swallowed up
all public transactions, are so obvious as to challenge
notice from the most inattentive reader. For instance,
as respects this latter tendency, what case can be more
striking, than the fact that Trebellius Pollio, expressly
dedicating himself to such researches, and having the
state documents at his service, cannot trace, by so
much as the merest outline, the biography of some
great officers who had worn the purple as rebels,
though actually personal friends of his own grand-
father ? So nearly connected as they were with his
own age and his own family, yet had they utterly
perished for want of literary memorials ! A third
indication of barbarism, in the growing brutality of the
army and the Emperor, is of a nature to impress many
readers even more powerfully, and especially by con-

30 * THE ESSENES. 58

trast with the spirit of Roman warfare in its republican
period. Always it fiad been an insolent and haughty
warfare; but, upon strong motives of policy, sparing
in bloodshed. Whereas, latterly, the ideal of a Ro-
man general was approaching continually nearer to
the odious standard of a cabocecr amongst the Ashan-
tees. Listen to the father of his people (Gallicnus)
issuing his paternal commands for the massacre, in
cold blood, of a whole district not foreign but do-
mestic after the offence had become almost obsolete :
4 Non satisfacies mihi, si tantum armalos occidcris
quos et fors belli intcrimcro potuissct. Peril nondus
est omnis sexus virilis : ' and, lest even this swooping
warrant should seem liable to any merciful distinctions,
he adds circumstantially 'Si et scncs atquo impu-
beres sine mea rcprchcnsione occidi possent.' And
thus the bloody mandate winds up: * Oceidendus cst
quicunquc male volnit, occklcndus est quieunque mule
dixit contra me : Laccra, occide, concide.' Was ever
such a rabid tiger found, except amongst the Ilytlor
Alis or Nadir Shahs of half-civilized or docivilixod
tribes ? Yet another and a very favorite Emperor out-
herods even this butcher, by boasting of the sabring
which he had let loose amongst crowds of Jielplow*
women.

The fourth feature of the Roman barbarism upon
which we insisted, viz., the growing passion for trivial
anecdotage in slight of all nobler delineations, may ho
traced, in common with all the other features, lotho de-
cay of a public mind and a common connecting inkrest,
amongst the different members of that va.st miporial
body, This was a necessity, arising out of the morely

THE ESSENES. 31

personal tenure by which the throne was held. Com-
petition for dignities, ambition under any form, could
not exist with safety under circumstances which imme-
diately attracted a blighting jealousy from the highest
quarter. Where hereditary succession was no fixed
principle of state- no principle which all men were
leagued to maintain every man, in his own defence,
might be made an object of anxiety in proportion to
his public merit. Not conspiring, ho might still be
placed at the head of a conspiracy. There was no
oath of allegiance taken to the emperor's family, but
only to the emperor personally. But if it was thus
dangerous for a man to offer himself as a participator
in state honors; on the other hand, it was impossible
for a people to feel any living sympathy with a public
grandeur in which they could not safely attempt to
participate. Simply to be a member of this vast body
was no distinction at all : honor could not attach to
what was universal. One path only lay open to per-
sonal distinction ; and that being haunted along Us
whole extent by increasing danger, naturally bred the
murderous spirit of retaliation or pre-occupation. It is
besides certain, that the very change wrought in the
nature of warlike rewards and honors, contributed to
cherish a spirit of atrocity amongst the officers. Tri-
umphs had been granted of old for conquests ; and
these were generally obtained much more by intellec-
tual qualities than by any display of qualities merely
or rudely martial. Triumphs were now forbidden
fruit to any officer less than Augustan. And this one
change, hud there been no other, sufficed to throw the
efforts of military men into a direction more humble,

32 THE ESSENES.

more directly personal and more brutal. It became
dangerous to be too conspicuously victorious. There
yet remains a letter, amongst the few surviving from
that unlettered period, which whispers a thrilling cau-
tion to a great officer, not to be too meritorious : * Dig-
nus eras triumpho,' says the letter, ' si antiqua tcmpora
extarent.' But what of that ? What signified merit
that was to cost a man his head ? And the letter goes
on to add this gloomy warning c Memor cujusdum
ominis, cautius velim uincasS The warning was
thrown away ; the man (Regillianus) persisted in
these imprudent victories ; he was too meritorious ; he
grew dangerous ; and he perished. Such examples
forced upon the officers a less suspicious and a more
brutal ambition ; the laurels of a conqueror marked a
man out for a possible competitor, no matter through
whose ambition his own in assuming the purplo, or
that of others in throwing it by force around him. The
differences of guilt could not be allowed for where they
made no difference in the result. But the laurels of a
butcher created no jealousy, whilst they sufficed for
establishing a camp reputation. And thus the clangor
of a higher ambition threw a weight of encouragement
into the lower and more brutal.

So powerful, indeed, was this tendency so head-
long this gravitation to the brutal that unless a new
force, moving in an opposite direction, hucl begun to
rise in the political heavens, the Roman empire would
have become an organized engine of barbarism bar-
barous and making barbarous. This fact gives one
additional motive to the study of Christian antiquities,
which on so many other motives interest and perplex

THE ESSENES. 33

our curiosity. About the time of Dioclesian, the weight
of Christianity was making itself felt in high places,
There is a memorable scene between that Emperor
and a Pagan priest representing an oracle, (that is,
speaking on behalf of the Pagan interests,) full forty
years before the legal establishment of Christianity,
which shows how insens-ibly the Christian faith had
crept onwards within the fifty or sixty years previous.
Such hints, such i momenta,' such stages in the subtle
progress of Christianity, should be carefully noted,
searched, probed, improved. And it is partly because
too little anxiety of research has been applied in this
direction, that every student of ecclesiastical history
mourns over the dire sterility of its primitive fields,
For the first three or four centuries we know next to
nothing of the course by which Christianity moved,
and the events through which its agency was developed.
That it prospered, we know; but how it prospered,
(meaning not through what transcendent cause, but
by what circumstantial steps and gradations,) is pain-
fully mysterious. And for much of this darkness, we
must confess that it is now past all human power of
illumination. Nay, perhaps it belongs to the very
sanctity of a struggle, in which powers more than hu-
man were working concurrently with man, that it should
be lost, (like much of our earliest antediluvian history,)
in a mysterious gloom ; and for the same reason viz.,
that when man stands too near the super-sensual world,
and is too palpably co-agent with schemes of Provi-
dence, there would arise, upon the total review of the
whole plan and execution, were it all circumstantially
laid below our eyes, too compulsory an evidence of a
VOL. i. 3

34 THE ESSENES.

supernatural agency. It is not meant that men should
deforced into believing: free agencies must be left to
the human belief, both in adopting and rejecting, else
it would cease to be a moral thing, or to possess a
moral value. Those who were contemporary to these
great agencies, saw only in part; the fractionary
mode of their perceptions intercepted this compulsion
from them. But as to us who look back upon the
whole, it would perhaps have been impossible to secure
the same immunity from compulsion, the same integ-
rity of the free, unbiased choice, unless by darkening
the miraculous agencies, obliterating many facts, and
disturbing their relations. In such a way the equality
is maintained between generation and generation ; no
age is unduly favored, none penuriously depressed.
Each has its separate advantages, each its peculiar
difficulties. The worst has not so little light as to have
a plea for infidelity. The best has not so much as to
overpower the freedom of election a freedom which
is indispensable to all moral value, whether iu doing or
in suffering, in believing or denying.

Meantime, though this obscurity of primitive Chris-
tianity is past denying, and possibly, for the reason
just given, not without an a priori purpose and moan*
ing, we nevertheless maintain that something may yet
be done to relieve it. We need not fear to press into
the farthest recesses of Christian antiquity, under any
notion that we are prying into* forbidden HOC rots, or
carrying a torch into shades consecrated to mystery.
For wherever it is not meant that we should raise the
veil, there we shall carry our torch in vain. Precisely
as our researches are fortunate, they authenticate

THE ESSENES. 35

themselves as privileged : and in such a chase all
success justifies itself.

No scholar not even the wariest has ever read
with adequate care those records which we still pos-
sess, Greek or Latin, of primitive Christianity. He
should approach this subject with a vexatious scrutiny.
He should lie in ambush for discoveries, as we did in
reading Joseph us.

Let "us examine his chapter on the Essenes, and
open the very logic of the case, its very outermost
outline, in these two sentences: A thing there is
in Josephus, which ought not to be there ; this thing
we will call Epsilon, (E.) A thing there is which
ought to be in Josephus, but which is not ; this thing
we"call Chi, (X.)

The Epsilon, which ought not to be there, but is
what is that? It is the pretended philosophical sect
amongst the Jews, to which Josephus gives the name
of Essenes ; this ought not to be in Josephus^ nor any
where else, for certain we arc that no such sect ever
existed,

" The Chi, which ought by every obligation obliga-
tions of reason, passion, interest, common sense to
have been more broadly and emphatically present in
the Jiuhmin history of Josephus 1 period than in any
other period whatever, but unaccountably is omitted
what is that ? It is, reader, neither more nor less
than the new-born brotherhood of Christians. The
whole monstrosity of this omission will not be apparent
to the reader, until his attention be pointed closely to
the chronological position of Joseph his longitude as
respects the great meridian of the Christian era.

36 THE ESSENES.

The period of Josephus 1 connection with Palestine,
running abreast, (as it were,) with that very genera-
tion succeeding to Christ with that very Epichristian
age which dated from the crucifixion, and terminated
in the destruction of Jerusalem how, hy what possi-
bility, did he escape all knowledge of the Christians
as a body of men that should naturally have chal-
lenged notice from the very stocks and stones of their
birthplace ; the very echo of whose footsteps ought to
have sunk upon the ear with the awe that belongs to
spiritual phenomena ? There were circumstances of
distinction in the very closeness of the confederation
that connected the early Christians, which ought to
have made them interesting. But, waiving all that,
what a supernatural awe must naturally have attended
the persons of those who laid the corner-stone of their
faith in, an event so affecting and so appalling as the
Resurrection ! The CM, therefore, that should be in
JosephuSj but it is not, how can wo suggest any
approximation to a solution of this mystery any
clue towards it any hint of a clue ?

True it is, that an interpolated passage, found in wll
the printed editions of Josephus, makes him tuko a
special and a respectful notice of our Saviour. But
this passage has long been given up as a forgery by
all scholars. And in another essay on the Epichris-
tian era, which we shall have occasion to write, some
facts will be laid before the reader exposing a deeper
folly in this forgery than is apparent at first sight*

True it is, that Whiston makes the astounding dis-
covery that Josephus was himself an Ebionito Chris-
tian. Joscphus a Christian ! In the instance before

THE ESSENES, 37

us, were it possible that lie had been a Christian, in
that case the wonder is many times greater, that he
should have omitted all notice of the whole body as a
fraternity acting together with a harmony unprece-
dented amongst their distracted countrymen of that
age ; and, secondly, as a fraternity to whom was
assigned a certain political aspect by their enemies.
The civil and external relations of this new party he
could not but have noticed, had he even omitted the
religious doctrines which bound them together inter-
nally, as doctrines too remote from Roman compre-
hension. In reality, so far from being a Christian, we
shall show that Josephus was not even a Jew, in any
conscientious or religious sense. He had never taken
the first step in the direction of Christianity ; but was,
as many other Jews were in that age, essentially a
Pagan ; as little impressed with the true nature of the
God whom his country worshipped, with his ineffable
purity and holiness, as any idolatrous Athenian what*
soever.

The wonder therefore subsists, and revolves upon
us with the more violence, after Whiston's efforts to
extinguish it how it could have happened that a
writer, who passed his infancy, youth, manhood, in
the midst of a growing sect so transcendently inter-
esting to every philosophic mind, and pre-eminently so
interesting to a Jew, should have left behind him, in a
compass of eight hundred and fifty-four pages, double
columns, each column having sixty-five lines, (or a
double ordinary octavo page,) much of it relating to
his owa times, not one paragraph, line, or fragment

38 THE ESSENES.

of a line, by which it can be known thai he ever
heard of such a body as the Christians.

And to our mind, for reasons which we shall pres-
ently sh6w, it is equally wonderful that he should
talk of the Essenes, under the idea of a known,
stationary, original sect amongst the Jews, as that he
should not talk of the Christians ; equally wonderful
that he should remember the imaginary as that he
should forget the real. There is not one difficulty,
but two difficulties ; and what we need is, not one
solution but two solutions.

If, in an ancient palace, re-opened after it had been
shut up for centuries, you were to find a hundred
golden shafts or pillars, for which nobody could sug-
gest a place or a use; and if, in some other quarter
of the palace, far remote, you were afterwards to find
a hundred golden sockets lixcd in' the floor- first of
all, pillars which nobody could apply to any purpose,
or refer to any place ; secondly, sockets which nobody
could fill ; probably even 4 wicked Will Winston *
might be capable of a glimmering suspicion that the
hundred golden shafts belonged to the hundred golden
sockets. And if, upon applying the shafts to the
sockets, it should turn out that each several .shaft
screwed into its own peculiar socket, why, in such a
case, not ' Whiston, Ditton, <S& Co.' could resist tho
evidence, that each enigma had brought a key to tho
other ; and that by means of two mysteries there had
ceased even to be one mystery.

Now, then, first of all, before slating our objections
to the Essenes as any permanent or known sect
amongst the Jews, let us review as nipidly as passible

THE ESSENES. 39

the main features by which Joseph characterizes these
supposed Essenes ; and in a brief comment point out
their conformity to what we know of the primitive
Christians. That done, let us endeavor to explain all
the remaining difficulties of the case. The words of
Josephus we take from Whiston's translation ; having
in fact, at this moment, no other copy within reach-
But we do this unwillingly : for Whiston was a poor
Grecian ; and, what is worse, he knew very little
about English.

'The third sect' (i. e., third in relation to the

Pharisees, who are ranked as the first, and the Sad-
ducees, who are ranked as the second) ' are called
Essenes, These last are Jews by birth, and seem to
have a greater affection for one another than the other
sects have.'

We need not point out the strong conformity in this
point to the distinguishing features of the new-born
Christians, as they would be likely to impress the eye
of a stranger. There was obviously a double reason
for a stricter cohesion amongst the Christians inter-
nally, than could by possibility belong to any other
sect 1st, in the essential tendency of the whole
Christian faith to a far more intense lovo than the
world could comprehend, as well as in the express
charge to love one another ; 2dly, in the strong com-
pressing power of external affliction, and of persecu-
tion too certainly anticipated. The little flock, turned
out to face a wide world of storms, naturally drew
close together. Over and above the indefeasible hos-
tility of the world to a spiritual morality, there was
the bigotry of Judaicul superstition on the one hand,

40 THE JSSSENES.

and the bigotry of Paganism on the other. All this
would move in mass against nascent Christianity, so
soon as that moved ; and well, therefore, might the
instincts of the early Christians instruct them to act in
the very closest concert and communion.

'These men are dcspisers of riches, and so very
communicative, as raises our admiration. Nor is
there any one to be found among them who hath
more than another; every one's possessions are inter-
mingled with every other's possessions, and so there
is, as it were, one patrimony among all the brethren,'

In this account of the l communicativeness,' as to
temporal wealth, of the third sect, it is hardly neces-
sary that we should point out the mirror which it holds
up to the habits of the very first Christians in Jerusa-
lem, as we see them recorded in the Acts of the
Apostles. This, the primary record of Christian his-
tory, (for even the disciples were not in any full sense
Christians until after the resurrection and the Divino
afflatus,) is echoed afterwards in various stages of
primitive Christianity. But all these subsequent acts
and monuments of early Christian faith were derived
by imitation and by sympathy from the Apontolic
precedent in Jerusalem ; as that again was derived
from the t common purse ' carried by the Twelve
Disciples.

'They have no certain city, but many of them
dwell in every city ; and if any of their sect come
from other places, what they find lies open for them
just as if it were' their own : and they go iu to such
as they never knew before, as if they had been ever
so long acquainted with them.'

THE ESSENES. 41

All Christian antiquity illustrates and bears witness
to this, as a regular and avowed Christian habit. To
this habit points* St. Paul's expression of ''given to
hospitality ; ' and many passages in all the apostoli-
cal writings. Like other practices, however, that had
been firmly established from the beginning, it is rather
alluded to, and indirectly taken for granted and as-
sumed, than prescribed ; expressly to teach or enjoin
it was as little necessary, or indeed open to a teacher,
as with us it would be open to recommend marriage.
What Christian could be imagined capable of neglect-
ing such an institution ?

4 For which reason they carry nothing with them
when they travel into remote parts.'

This dates itself from Christ's own directions,
(St. Luke, x. 3, 4,) * Go your way. Carry neither
purse, nor scrip, nor shoes.' And, doubtless, many
other of the primitive practices amongst the Christians
wore not adopted without a special command .from
Christ, traditionally retained by the Church whilst
standing in the same civil circumstances, though not
committed to writing amongst the great press of mat*
ter circumscribing the choice of the Evangelists.

* As for their piety towards God, it is very cxtraor*
dinary : for before sun-rising they speak not a word
about profane matters, but put up certain prayers
which they have received from their forefathers.'

Thin practice of antclucan worship, possibly having
reference, to the ineffable mystery of the resurrection,
(all the Evangelists agreeing in the awful circum-
stance that it was very early in the morning, and one
even saying, 'whilst it was yet dark,') a symbolic

42 THE ESSENES.

pathos which appeals to the very depths of human
passion as if the world of sleep and the anarchy of
dreams figured to our apprehension the dark worlds
of sin and death it happens remarkably enough that
we find confirmed and countersigned by the testimony
of the first open antagonist to our Christian faith.
Pliny, in that report to Trajan so universally known to
every class of readers, and so rank with everlasting
dishonor to his own sense and equity, notices this point
in the ritual of primitive Christianity. c However,'
says be, ' they assured me that the amount of their
fault, or of their error, was this, that they were
wont, on a stated day, to meet together before it was
light, and to sing a hymn to Christ,' dec. The (late of
Pliny's letter is about forty years after the siogo of
Jerusalem ; about seventy-seven, therefore, after the
crucifixion, when Joseph would be just seventy-two
years old. But we may be sure, from collateral
records, and from the entire uniformity of early
Christianity, that a much longer lapse of time would
have made no change in this respect

1 They neglect wedlock ; but they do not absolutely
deny the fitness of marriage.'

This is a very noticeable article in his account of
the Essenes, and powerfully illustrates tho sort of
acquaintance which Joscphus had gained with their
faith and usages. In the first place, as to the doctrine
itself, it tallies remarkably with the leanings of St.
Paul. lie allows of marriage, overruled by his own
moral prudence. But evidently hi t s bias was the other
way. And the allowance is notoriously a concession
to the necessities which experience bad taught him,

THE ESSENES, 43

and by way of preventing greater evils : but an evil,
on the whole, it is clear that he regarded it. And
naturally it was so in relation to that highest mode of
spiritual life which the apostles contemplated as a
fixed ideal. Moreover,* we know that the apostles fell
into some errors which must have affected their views
in these respects. For a time at least they thought
the cod of the world close at hand : who could think
otherwise that had witnessed the awful thing which
they had witnessed, or had drunk out of the same
spiritual cap ? Under such impressions, they reasona-
bly pitched the key of Christian practice higher than
else they would have done. So far as to the doctrine
here ascribed to the Essenes. But it is observable,
that in this place Joscphus admits that these Essenes
did tolerate marriage. Now, in his earlier notice of
the same people, he had denied this. What do we
infer from that ? Why, that he came tcr his know-
ledge of the Essenes by degrees ; and as would be
likely to happen with regard to a sect sequestrating
themselves, and locking up their doctrines as secrets :
which description exactly applies to the earliest Chris-
tians. The instinct of self-preservation obliged them
to rot rout from notoriety. Their tenets could not be
learned easily ; they wore gathered slowly, indirectly, '
by fragments. This accounts for the fact that people
standing outside, like Josephus or Philo Juclcous, got
only euBual glimpses of the truth, and such as were
continually shifting. Hence at different periods Jose-
plius contradicts himself. But if he had been speaking
of a Meet as notorious as the Pharisees or Sadducees,
no such error, and no such alteration of views, could
have happened.

44 THE ESSENES.

6 They arc eminent for fidelity, and are the minis-
ters of peace.'

We suppose that it cannot be necessary to remind
any reader of such characteristic Christian doctrines
as 'Blessed are the peace-makers,' &c. ; still less
of the transcendent demand made by Christianity for
singleness of heart, uprightness, and entire conscien-
tiousness ; without which all pretences to Christian
truth are regarded as mere hollow mockeries. Here,
therefore, again we read the features, too plainly for
any mistake, of pure Christianity. But. lot the reader
observe keenly, had there been this pretended sect of
Essenes teaching all this lofty and spiritual morality,
It would have been a fair inference to ask what more
or better had been taught by Christ ? in which case
there might still have remained the groat redomptional
and mediatorial functions for Christ ; but, as to his
divine morality, it would have been forestalled. Such
would have been the inference ; and it is an inference
which really has been drawn from this romance of the
Essenes adopted as true history.

'Whatsoever they say is firmer than an oath; but
swearing is avoided by them ; and they esteem it
worse than perjury.'

We presume that nobody can fail to recognise in
this great scrupulosity the memorable command of
Christ, delivered in such unexampled majesty of lan-
guage, ' Swear not at all : neither by houvon, for it
is God's throne ; nor by the earth, for it is his foot-
stool,' &c. This was said in condemnation of a
practice universal amongst the Jows ; and if any man
can believe that a visionary sect, of whom no man

THE ESSENES. 45

ever heard except through two writers, both lying
under the same very natural mistake, could have come
by blind accidents into such an inheritance of spiritual
truth as is here described by Josephus, that man will
find nothing beyond his credulity. For he presumes
a revelation far beyond all the wisdom of the Pagan
world to have been attained by some unknown Jewish
philosopher, so little regarded by his followers that
they have not even preserved his name from obliv-

ion.

Amongst the initiatory and probationary vows which
these sectarians are required to take, is this 'That
he will ever show fidelity to all men, and especially to
those in authority, because no one obtains the govern-
ment loUhout God's assistance.'' Here, again, we see
a memorable precept of St. Paul and the apostles gen-
erally the same precept, and built on the very same
reason, viz. that rulers are of God's appointment.

c They arc long-lived also : insomuch, that many of
them live above a hundred years, by means of the
simplicity of their diet.* 5

Here we are reminded of St. John the Evangelist :
whilst others, no doubt, would have attained the same
ago, had they not been cut oil by martyrdom.

In many other points of their interior discipline,
their white robes, their meals, their silence and grav-
ity, we woo in this account of the Esscnes a mere echo
of the primitive economy established among the first
Christians, us we find it noticed up and down the apos-
tolical constitutions.

It is remarkable that Josephus notices, as belonging
to the sect of the Esscnes, the order of ' angels ' or

46 THE ESSENES.

messengers. Now, everybody must remember this
order of officers as a Christian institution .noticed in
the Apocalypse.

Finally, in all that is said of the contempt which tho
Essencs showed for pain and death ; and that 4 al-
though tortured and distorted, burnt and torn to pieces,
yet could they not be made to flatter their tormentors,
or to shed a tear, but that they smiled in their very
torments/ &c., we see the regular habit of Christian
martyrs through the first three centuries. We sec that
principle established amongst them so early as that
first examination of Pliny's ; for he is so well aware
how useless it would be to seek for any discoveries by
torture applied to the Christian men, that he resorts
instantly to the torture of females servants. Tho
secrecy, again, as to their opinions, is another point
common to the supposed ESHOIICS and tho Christ fans.
Why the Essencs, as an orthodox Jewish sect, should
have practised any secrecy, Josephus would have found
it hard to say ; but the Christian reasons will appear
decisive to any man who reflects.

But first of all, let us recur to tho argument we
have just employed, and summon you to a review of
the New Testament. Christ, during his ministry hi
Palestine, is brought as if by special arrangement into
contact with all known orders of men, "Scribes and
Doctors, Pharisees and Sadducces, Hcrodians and fol-
lowers of the Baptist, .Roman oiTicers, insolent with
authority, tax-gatherers, the Pariahs of the laud, (tali-
leans, the most undervalued of the Jews, Samaritans,
hostile to the very name of Jew, rich men elotlwd in
purple, and poor men fishing for their daily bread, tho

THE ESSENES. 47

happy and those that sate in darkness, wedding parties
and funeral parties, solitudes amongst hills or sea-
shores, and multitudes that could not be counted,
mighty cities and hamlets the most obscure, golden
sanhedrims, and the glorious temple, where he spoke
to myriads of the worshippers, and solitary corners,
where he stood in conference with a single contrite
heart. Were the subject or the person different, one
might ascribe a dramatic purpose and a sccnical art
to the vast variety of the circumstances and situations
in which Christ is introduced. And yet, whilst all
other sorts and orders of men converse with him,
never do we hear of any interview between him and
the Essenes. Suppose one Evangelist to have over-
looked such a scene, another would not. In part, the
very source of the dramatic variety in the New Tes-
tament scenes, must be looked for in the total want of
collusion amongst the Evangelists. Each throwing
himself back upon overmastering remembrances, all-
glorified to his heart, had no more need to consult a
fellow-witness, than a man needs, in rehearsing the
circumstances of a final parting with a wife or a child,
to seek collateral vouchers for his facts. Thence it
was in part left to themselves, mi modified by each
other, that they attained so much variety in the midst
of so much inevitable sameness. One man was im-
pressed by one case, a second by another. And thus,
it must have happened amongst four, that at least one
would have noticed the Essenes. But no one of the
four gospels alludes to thorn. The Acts of the Apos-
tles, again, whether by a fifth author or not, is a fifth
body of remembrances, a fifth act of the memory

48 THE ESSENES.

applied to the followers of Christ. Yet neither does
this notice them. The Apocalypse of St. John, re-
viewing the new church for a still longer period, and
noticing all the great outstanding features of the state
militant, then unrolling for Christianity, says not one
word about them. St. Peter, St. James, utterly over-
look them. Lastly, which weighs more than all the
rest, St. Paul, the learned and philosophic apostle,"
bred up in all the learning of the most orthodox
amongst the Jews, gives no sign that ho had ever heard
of such people. In short, to sum up -all in one sen-
tence, the very word Essenc and Essenes is not found
in the New Testament.

Now, is it for one moment to be credited- that a
body of men so truly spiritual in the eternals of their
creed, whatever might be the temporals of their prac-
tice, should have won no word of praise from Christ
for that by which they so far exceeded other soots
no word of reproach for that by which they might
happen to fall short of their own profession <uoiwortl
of admonition, founded on the comparison between
their good and their bad their heavenly and earthly ?
Or, if that had been supposable, can we believe that
Christ's enemies, so eager as they showed themselves
to turn even the Baptist into a handle of reproach
against the new teacher, would have lost the over-
whelming argument derived from the Ksscucs ? c A
new command I give unto you.' ' Not at all,' they
would have retorted 'Not at all new. Everything
spiritual in your ethics has been anticipated by tho
Essenes.' It would have been alleged, that the func-
tion of Eedeemer for Israel was to be judged and tried

THE ESSENES. 49

by the event. The only instant touchstone for the
pretensions of Christ lay in the divine character of his
morality, and the spirituality of that worship which he
taught. Miracles were or were not from God, accord-
ing to purposes to which they ministered. . That moral
doctrine and that worship were those purposes. By
these only they could try the soundness of all beside ;
and if these had been forestalled by the Essenes, what
remained for any new teacher or new founder of a
religion? In fact, were the palpable lies of this Jew-
traitor built on anything but delusions misinterpreted
by his own ignorant heart, there would be more in that
one tale of his about the Essenes to undermine Chris-
tianity, than in all the batteries of all the infidels to
overthrow it. No infidel can argue away the spirit-
uality of the Christian religion : attacks upon miracles
leave that unaffected. But he, who (confessing the
spirituality) derives it from some elder and unknown
source, at one step evades what he could not master.
Ho overthrows without opposition, and enters the
citadel through ruins caused by internal explosion.

What then is to be thought ? If this deathlike
silence of all the evangelists, and all the apostles,
makes it a mere impossibility to suppose the existence
of such a sect as the Essenes in the time of Christ,
did such a sect arise afterwards, viz. in the Epichris-
tian generation ? Or, if not, how and by what steps
came up the romance we have been considering?
Was there any substance in the tale ? Or, if positively
none, how came the fiction ? Was it a conscious lie ?
Was it a mistake ? 'Was it an exaggeration ?

Now, our idea is as follows : What do we suppose

VOL. i. 4

50 THE ESSENES.

the early Christians to have been called ? By what
name were they known amongst themselves and
amongst others ? Christians? Not at all, Whom it
is said ' The disciples were first called Christians at
Antioch,' we are satisfied that the meaning is not
this name, now general, was first used at Antioch ; but
that, whereas we followers of Christ generally call one
another, and are called by a particular name X, in
Antitfch that name was not used ; but from the very
beginning they were called by another name, viz.
Christians. At all events, since this name Christian
was confessedly used at Antioch before it was used
anywhere else, there must have boon another namo
elsewhere for the same people. What ww> that name?
It was The Brethren,"* [of afctytn ,-] and at times, by
way of variety, to prevent the awkwardness of loo
monotonously repeating the same word, perhaps it wan
6 The FaithfidJ [of m=ror.] The name Christians trav-
elled, we are convinced, not immediately amongst
themselves, but slowly amongst their enemies. It was
a name of reproach ; and the -meaning was * Wo
Pagans are all worshippers of gods, such as they are ;
but this sect worships a man, and that man a male*
factor.' For, though Christ should properly have been
known by his name, which was Jesus, yet, because
his crime, in the opinion of the Jews, lay in the office
he had assumed in having made himself the ChrMos,
the anointed of God, therefore it happened that he was
published amongst the Roman, world by that name : his
offence, his ' titulus* on the cross, (the king, or the
anointed,) was made his Roman name. Accordingly
Tacitus, speaking of some insurgents in Judca, says

THE ESSENES. 51

c that they mutinied under the excitement of Christ,
(not Jesus,) their original ringleader,' (impulsore
Chresto.) And no doubt it had become a scoffing
name, until the Christians disarmed the scoff of its
sting by assuming it themselves ; as was done in the
case of ' the Beggars ' in the Netherlands, and f the
Methodists' in England.

Well : meantime, what name did the Christians bear
in their very birthplace ? Were they called c The
brethren' there? No. And why not? Simply be-
cause it had become too dangerous a name. To be
bold, to affront all reasonable danger, was their instinct
and their duty ; but not to tempt utter extinction or
utter reduction to imbecility. We read amiss, if we
imagine that the fiery persecution, which raged against
Christ, had burned itself out in the act of the cruci-
fixion. It slept, indeed, for a brief interval : but that
wa's from necessity ; for the small flock of scattered
sheep easily secreted themselves. No sooner did they
multiply a little, no sooner did their meetings again
proclaim their ' whereabouts,' than the snake found
them out, again raised its spiry crest amongst them,
and again crushed them for a time. The martyrdom
of St. Stephen showed that no jesting was intended.
It was determined that examples should be made. It
was resolved that this rcsvolt against the Temple (the
Law and the Prophets) must be put down. The next
event quickened this agency sevenfold. A great ser-
vant of the persecution, in the very agony of the
storm which he was himself guiding and pointing,
working the very artillery of Jerusalem upon some
scent which his bloodhounds had found in Syria, sud-

52 THE ESSENES.

denly, in one hour passed over to the enemy. What
of that ? Did that startle the persecution ? Probably
it did : failure from within was what they had not
looked for. But the fear which it bred was sister to
the wrath of hell. The snake turned round ; but not
for flight. It turned to fasten upon the rcvoltor. St.
Paul's authority as a leader in the Jewish councils
availed him nothing after this. Orders were undoubt-
edly expedited from Jerusalem to Damascus, as soon
as messengers could be interchanged, for his assassina-
tion. And assassinated he would have been, had ho
been twenty St. Pauls, but for his secret evasion, and
his flight to Arabia. Idumea, probably a sort of Ire-
land to Judea, was the country to which he fled ;
where again he might have been found out, but his
capture would have cost a negotiation ; and in all like-
lihood he lay unknown amongst crowds. Nor did he
venture to show his face again in Jerusalem for some
years ; and then again not till a term of fourteen youra,
half a generation, during which many of the burning
zealots, and of those who could have challenged him
personally as the great apostate, must have gone to
their last sleep.

During the whole of this novitiate for Christianity,
and in fact throughout the whole Epichristian era, there
was a brooding danger over the name and prospects of
Christianity. To hold up a hand, to put forth a head,
in the blinding storm, was to perish. It was to solicit
and tempt destruction. That could not be right. Those
who were answerable for the great interest confided to
them, if in their own persons they might have braved
the anger of the times, were not at liberty to do so on

THE ESSENES. 53

this account that it would have stopped effectually
the expansion of the Church. Martyrdom and perse-
cution formed the atmosphere in which it throve ; hut
not the frost of death. What, then, did the fathers of
the Church do ? You read that, during a part of this
Epichristian age, c the churches had peace. 7 True,
they had so. But do you know how they had it ? Do
you guess what they did ?

It was this : They said to each other If we are to
stand such consuming fires as we have seen, one year
will finish us all. And then what will become of the
succession that we are to leave behind us ? We must
hide ourselves effectually. And this can be done only
by symbolizing. Any lesser disguise our persecutors
will penetrate. But this, by its very nature, will baffle
them, and yet provide fully for the nursing of an infant
Church. They proceeded, therefore, thus : * Let there
be darkness' was the first word of command: c let
us muffle ourselves in thick clouds, which no human
eye can penetrate. And towards this purpose let us
immediately take a symbolic name. And, because
any name that expresses or implies a secret fraternity
a fraternity bound together by any hidden tie or
purpose will instantly be challenged for the Christian
brotherhood under a new masque, instantly the bloody
Sanhedrim will get to, their old practices torturing
our weaker members, (as afterwards the cruel Pliny
selected for torture the poor frail women-servants of
the brethren,) and the wolf will be raging amongst our
folds in three months, therefore two things are requi-
site ; one, that this name which we assume should be
such as to disarm suspicion, [in this they acted upon

54 THE ESSENES,

V

the instinct of those birds, which artfully construct
signs and appearances to draw away the fowler from
their young ones;] the other, that- in case, a ft or all,
some suspicion should arise, and the enemy again break
in, there must be three or four barriers to storm before
he can get to the stronghold, in the centre.'

Upon this principle all was arranged. First, for the
name that was to disarm suspicion what name
could do that? Why, what was the suspicion? A
suspicion that Christian embers were sleeping under
the ashes. True : but why was that suspicious ? Why
had it ever been suspicious ? For two reasons : be-
cause the Christian faith was supposed to carry a secret
hostility to the Temple and its whole ritual economy ;
secondly, for an earnest political reason, because it
was believed to tend, by mere necessity, to such tu-
mults or revolutions as would furnish the Roman, on
tiptoe for this excuse, with a plea for taking away the
Jewish name and nation ; that is, for taking away thoir
Jewish autonomy, (or administration by their own Mo-
saic code,) which they still had, though otherwise in a
state of dependency. Well now, for this sort of sus-
picion, no name could be so admirably fitted as one
drawn from the very ritual service of that very Tern-
pie which was supposed to bo in danger. That Tem-
ple was in danger : the rocks on which it stood wore
already quaking beneath it. All was accomplished.
Its doom had gone forth. Shadows of the coming fate
were spreading thick before it. Its defenders had a
dim misgiving of the storm that was gathering. But
they mistook utterly the quarter from which it was to
come. And they closed the great gates against an

THE ESSENES. 55

enemy that entered by the postern. However, they
could not apprehend a foe in a society that professed
a special interest in Israel. The name chosen, there-
fore, was derived from the very costume of the Jewish
High Priest, the pontifical ruler of the temple. This
great officer wore upon his breast a splendid piece of
jewellery ; twelve precious stones were inserted in the
breast-plate, representing the twelve sons of Jacob, or
twelves tribes 1 of Israel : and this was called the Es-
sen. Consequently to announce themselves as the
Society of the Essen, was to express a peculiar solici-
tude for the children of Israel. Under this masque
nobody could suspect any hostility to Jerusalem or
its temple ; nobody, therefore, under the existing mis-
conception of Christian objects and the Christian char-
acter, could suspect a Christian society.

But was not this hypocritical disguise ? Not at all.
A profession was thus made of paramount regard to
Judea and her children. Why not ? Christians every-
where turned with love, and yearning, and thankful-
ness the profoundest, to that ; Holy City,' (so called by
Christ himself,) which had kept alive for a thousand
years the sole vestiges of pure faith, and which, fora far
longer term mystically represented that people which
had known the true God, c when all our fathers worship-
ped stocks and stones.' Christians, or they would have
been no Christians, everywhere prayed for her peace.
And if the downfall of Jerusalem was connected with
the rise of Christianity, that was not through any
enmity borne to Jerusalem by Christians, (as the Jews
falsely imagine ;) but because it was not suitable for
the majesty of God, as the father of truth, to keep up

56 THE ESSENES.

a separation amongst the nations when the fulness of
time in his counsels required that all separation should
be at an end. At his bidding the Temple had boon
raised. At his bidding the Temple must bo destroyed.
Nothing could have saved it but becoming Christian.
The end was accomplished for which it had existed ;
a great river had been kept pure ; that was now to
expand into an ocean.

But, as to any hypocrisy in the fathers of this indis-
pensable scheme for keeping alive the lire that burned
on the altar of Christianity, that was impossible. So
far from needing to assume more love for Judaism than
they had, we know that their very infirmity was to
have by much too sectarian and exclusive a regard for
those who were represented by the Temple, The
Bible, which conceals nothing of any men's errors,
does not conceal that. And we know that all the
weight of the great intellectual apostle was necessary
to overrule the errors,*in this point, of St. Peter. The
fervid apostle erred ; and St. Paul c withstood him to
his face.' But his very error proves the more certainly
his sincerity and singleness of heart in setting up a
society that should profess in its name the service of
Jerusalem and her children as its primary function.
The name Essen and Essenes was sent bo fore to dis-
arm suspicion, and as a pledge of loyal fidelity.

Next, however, this society was to be a secret so-
ciety an Eieusinian society a Freemason society.
For, if it were not, how was it to provide for the cul-
ture of Christianity ? Now, if the reader pauses u
moment to review the condition of Palestine and tho
neighboring countries at that time, he will begin to HOC

THE ESSEJNES. 57

the opening there was for such a society. The condi-
tion of the times was agitated and tumultuous beyond
anything witnessed amongst men, except at the Re-
formation and the French Revolution. The flame on
the Pagan altars was growing pale, the oracles over
the earth were muttering their alarm, panic terrors
were falling upon nations, murmurs were arising, whis-
pers circulating from nobody knew whence that out
of the East, about this time, should arise some great
and mysterious deliverer. /'/This whisper had spread to
Rome was current everywhere. It was one of those
awful whispers that have no author* Nobody could
ever trace it Nobody could ever guess by what path
it had travelledA But observe, in that generation, at
Rome and all jmrts of the Mediterranean to the west
of Palestine, the word c Oriens ' had a technical and
limited meaning ; it was restricted to Syria, of which
Palestine formed a section. This use of the word will
explain itself to anybo'dy who looks at a map of the
Mediterranean as seen from Italy.' But some years
after the Epichristian generation, the word began to
extend ; and very naturally, as the Roman armies
began to make permanent conquests nearer to the
Euphrates. Under these remarkable circumstances,
and agitated beyond measure between the oppression
of the Roman armies on the one hand and the con-
sciousness of a peculiar dependence on God on the
other, all thoughtful Jews were disturbed in mind.
The more conscientious, the more they were agi-
tated. Was it their duty to resist the Romans ? God
could deliver them, doubtless ; but God worked often-
times by human means. Was it his pleasure that they

58 THE ESSENES.

should resist by arms? Others again replied If
you do, then you prepare aa excuse for the Romans
to extirpate your nation. Many, again, turned more to
religious hopes : these were they who, in scriptural
language, ' waited for the consolation of Israel : ' that
is, they trusted in that Messiah who had been prom-
ised, and they yearned for his manifestation. They
mourned over Judea ; they felt that who had rebelled ;
but she had been afflicted, and perhaps her transgres-
sions might now be blotted out, and her glory might
now be approaching. Of this class was he who took
Christ in his arms when an infant in tho temple. Of
this class were the two rich men, Joseph and Nieode*
mus, who united to bury him. Bat even of this class
many there were who took different views of the
functions properly belonging to the Messiah ; and
many that, either through this dilference of original
views, or from imperfect acquaintance with the life of
Jesus, doubted whether he were indeed the promised
Messiah. Even John the Baptist doubted that, and his
question upon that point, addressed to Christ himself,
'Art thou he who should come, or do we look for
another?' has been generally fancied singularly at
war with his own earlier testimony, ' Behold the Lamb
of God, that takcth away the sins of the world ! 7 But
it is not. The offices of mysterious change for Israel
were prophetically announced as coming through a
series and succession of characters Klias, c that
prophet,' and the Messiah. The succession might
even be more divided. And the Baptist, who did not
know himself to be Elias, might reasonably bo in
doubt (and at a time when his career 'to as only lagin*
ning) whether Jesus were the Messiah.

THE ESSENES. 59

Now, oat of these mixed elements men in every
stage and gradation of belief or spiritual knowledge,
but all musing, pondering, fermenting in their minds
all tempest-shaken, sorrow-haunted, perplexed, hop-
ing, socking, doubting, trusting the apostles would
see abundant means for peopling the lower or initiatory
ranks of their new society. Such a craving for light
from above probably never existed. The land was on
the brink of convulsions, and all men felt it. Even
amongst the rulers in Jerusalem had been some who
saw the truth of Christ's mission, though selfish terrors
had kept back their testimony. From every rank and
order of men, would press in the meditative to a
society where they would all receive sympathy, what-
ever might be their views, and many would receive
light.

This society how was it constituted ? In the
innermost class were placed, no doubt, all those, and
those only, who were thoroughly Christians. The
danger was from Christianity. And this danger was
made operative only, by associating with the mature
and perfect Christian any false brother, any half-
Christian, any hypocritical Christian, any wavering
Christian. To meet this danger, there must be a win-
nowing and a sifting of all candidates. And because
the danger was awful, involving not one but many,
not a human interest but a heavenly interest; therefore
these winnowings and sittings must be many, must be
repeated, must be soul-searching. Nay, even that will
not suffice. Oaths, pledges to God as w.cll as to man,
must be exacted. All this the apostles did : serpents
by experience, in the midst of their dove-like faith,

60 THE ESSENES.

they acted as wise stewards for God. They sur-
rounded their own central consistory with lines im-
passable to treachery. Josephus, the blind Jew
blind in heart, we mean, and understanding, reporting
a matter of which he had no comprehension, nor could
have (for we could show to demonstration that, for
a specific reason, he could not have belonged to the
society) even this man, in his utter darkness, tele-
graphs to us by many signals, rockets thrown up by
the apostles, which come round and are visible to us,
but unseen by him, what it is that the apostles were
about. He tells us expressly, that a preparatory or
trial period of two years was exacted of every candi-
date before his admission to any order ; that, after this
probationary attendance is finished, they arc parted
into four classes ; ' and these classes, he tells us, are
so severely separated from all intercommunion, that
merely to have touched each other was a pollution that
required a solemn purification. Finally, as if all this
were nothing, though otherwise disallowing of oaths,
yet in this, as in a service of God, oaths, which Jose-
phus styles 'tremendous,' are exacted of each mem-
ber, that he will reveal nothing of what ho learns.

Who can fail to see, in these multiplied precautions
for guarding, what according to Josephus is no secret
at all, nor anything approaching to a secret, that, hore
we have a central Christian society, secret from neces-
sity, cautious to excess from the extremity of the dan-
ger, and surrounding themselves in their outer rings by
merely Jewish disciples, but those whoso state of mind
promised a hopeful soil for the solemn and affecting
discoveries which awaited them in the higher states* of

THE ESSENES. 61

their progress ? Here is the true solution of this mys-
terious society, the Essenes, never mentioned in any
one record of the Christian generation, and that be-
cause it first took its rise in the necessities of the
Epichristian generation. There is more by a good
deal to say of these Essenes ; but this is enough for
the present. And if any man asks how they came to
be traced to so fabulous an antiquity, the account now
given easily explains that. Three authors only men-
tion them Pliny, Philo-Judoeus, and Josephus. Pliny
builds upon these two last, and other Jewish roman-
cers. The two last may be considered as contempo-
raries. And ail that they allege, as to the antiquity of
the sect, flows naturally from the condition and cir-
cumstances of the outermost circle in, the series of the
-classes. They were occupied exclusively with Juda-
ism. And Judaism had in fact, as we all know, that
real antiquity in its people, and its rites, and its sym-
bols, which these then uninitiated authors understand
and fancy to have been meant of the Essenes as a
philosophical sect.

PART II.

We have sketched rapidly, in the first part of our
essay, some outline of a theory with regard to the
Essenes, confining ourselves to such hints as are sug-
gested by the accounts of this sect in Josephus. And
we presume that most readers will go along with us so
far as to acknowledge some shock, some pause given,
lo that blind acquiescence in the Bible statement which

62 THE ESSENKS.

had hitherto' satisfied them. By the Bible statement
we mean, of course, nothing which any inspired part
of the Bible tells us on the contrary, one capital
reason for rejecting the old notions is, the tolal silence
of the Bible ; but we mean that little explanatory note
on the Esscnos, which our Bible translators under
James I. have thought fit to adopt, and in reality to
adopt from Josophus, with a reliance on his authority
which closer study would have shown to bo unwar-
ranted. We do not wonder that Josephus has boon
misapprcciatcd by Christian readers. It is painful to
read any author in a spirit of suspicion ; most of all,
that author to whom we must often look as our only
guide. Upon Joscphus we are compelled to rely for
the most affecting section of ancient history. Merely
as a scene of human passion, the main portion of his
Wars transcends, in its theme, all other histories. But
considered also as the agony of a mother church, out
of whose ashes arose, like a phoonix, that filial faith
' which passcth all understanding,' the last conflict of
Jerusalem and her glorious temple exacts from the
devotional conscience as much interest as would other-
wise be yielded by our human sympathies. For the
circumstances of this struggle we must look to Jose-
phus : him or none we must- accept for witness. And
in such a case, how painful to suppose a hostile heart
in every word of his deposition ! Who could bear to
take the account of a dear friend's last hours and fare-
well words from one who confessedly hated him ?
one word melting us to tears, and the next rousing u
to the duty of jealousy and distrust! Hence wo do not
wonder at the pious fraud which interpolated the well*

THE ESSENES. 63

known passage about our Saviour. Let us read any
author in those circumstances of time, place, or imme-
diate succession to the cardinal events of our own
religion, and we shall find it a mere postulate of the
heart, a mere necessity of human feeling, that we
should think of him as a Christian ; or, if not abso-
lutely that, as every way disposed to be a Christian,
and falling short of that perfect light only by such
clouds as his hurried life or his personal conflicts might
interpose. We clo not blame, far from it we admire
those who find it necessary (even at the cost of a little
sclf-cl elusion) to place themselves in a state of charity
with an. author treating such subjects, and in whose
company they were to travel through some thousands
of pages. We also find it painful to read an author
and to loathe him. We too would be glad to suppose,
as a possibility about Josephus, what many adopt as a
certainty. But we know too much. Unfortunately,
we have read Josephus^ with too scrutinizing (and,
what is more, with too combining} an eye. We know
him to be an unprincipled man, and an ignoble man ;
one whose adhesion to Christianity would have done
no honor to our faith one who most assuredly was
not a Christian one who was not even in any tolera-
ble sense a Jew one who was an enemy to our faith,
a traitor to his own : as an enemy, vicious and igno-
rant; as a traitor, steeped to the lips in superfluous
baseness. r ^

The vigilance with which we have read Josephus,
lias (amongst many other hints) suggested some with
regard to the Essenes : and to these we shall now
make our own readers a party ; after stopping to say,

64 THE ESSENES.

that thus far, so far as we have gone already, wo count
on their assent to our theory, were it only from those
considerations : First, the exceeding improbability that
a known philosophic sect amongst the Jews, chiefly
distinguished from the other two by its moral aspects,
could have lurked unknown to the Evangelists ; Sec-
ondly, the exceeding improbability that such a sect,
laying the chief burden of its scrupulosity in the matter
of oaths, should have bound its members by 4 tremen-
dous' oaths of secrecy in a case where there was
nothing to conceal ; Thirdly, the staring contradictor! -
ness between such an avowal on the part of Joscphus,
and his deliberate revelation of what he fancied to bo
their creed. The objection is too inevitable : either
you have taken the oaths or you have not. Y6u hare, $
Then by your own showing you are a perjured traitor.
You have not?- Then you confess yourself to speak
from no personal knowledge. How can you know
anything of their secret doctrines ? The seal is want-
ing to the record.

However, it is possible that some people will evade
this last djlemma, by suggesting that Josephus wrote
for Roman readers for strangers and for strangers
after any of his countrymen who might be interested in
the secret, had perished ; if not personally perished, at
least as a body politic. The last vestiges of the tboo-
retical government had foundered with Jerusalem ; and
it might be thought by a better man than Josephus, that
all obligations of secrecy had perished in the general
wreck.

We need not dispute that point. There is enough
in what remains, The positive points of contact be-

THE ESSENES. 65

tween the supposed Essenes and the Christians are too
many to be got over. But upon these we will not at
present insist. In this place we confine ourselves to
the two points : 1. Of the universal silence amongst
Christian writers, who, of all parties, would have felt
it most essential to notice the Essenes, had there ex-
isted such a sect antecedently to Christ : and, 2. Of the
absurdity involved in exacting an inexorable conceal-
ment from those who had nothing to reveal.

But then recollect, reader, precisely the Christian
truths, which stood behind the exoteric doctrines of the
Essenes, were the truths hidden from Joscphus. Rea-
son enough there was for concealment, IF the Essenes
were .Christians ; and reason more than was ever known
to Josephus. But then, this reason for concealment in
the Essenes could be known only to him who was
aware that they had something to conceal. He who
saw only the masque, supposing it to be the true face,
ought to have regarded the mystifying arrangements
as perfect mummery./ He that saw the countenance
behind the masque a countenance sweet as Paradise,
but fearful as the grave at that particular time in Jeru-
salem, would never ask again for the motives to this,
concealment. "/Those he would apprehend in a mo-
ment. But as 10 Joscphus, who never had looked
behind tho masque, the order for concealment, the
adjurations to concealment, the vows of concealment,
the adamantine walls of separation between the differ*
ent orders of the fraternity, in order to ensure conceal-
ment, ought to have been, must have been regarded by
him, as the very hyperbole of childishness.

Partly because Josephus was in this state of dark-

VOL, i. 5

66 THE ESSENES,

ness, partly from personal causes, has he failed to clear
up the secret history of Judca, in her final, that is her
epichristian generation. The evidences of his having
failed are two, 1st, the absolute fact, as existing in
his works ; which present us with a mere anarchy of
incidents, as regards the politics of his own times,
under no law of cohesion whatsoever, or of intelligible
derivation ; 2dly, the d priori necessity that he should
fail; a necessity laid in the very situation of Josephus
as a man of servile temper placed amongst elements
that required a Maccabee, and as a man without prin-
ciple, who could not act so that his actions would bear
to be reported without disguise, and as one in whom
no confidence was likely to be lodged by the managers
of great interests, or the depositories of great secrets.

This view of things summons us to pause, and to
turn aside from our general inquiry into a special ono
as to Josephus. Hitherto we have derived our argu-
ments on the Essenes from Josephus, as a willing wit-
ness a volunteer even. But now we are going to
extort our arguments ; to torture him, to put; him on
the rack, to force him into confession ; and upon points
which he has done his best to darken, by throwing dust
in the eyes of us all. Why ? because hand-in-hund
with the truth must go the exposure of himself, Jose-
phus stands* right in the very doorway of the light,
purposely obscuring it, A glare comes round by side
snatches; oblique rays, stray gleams, from the truth
which he so anxiously screens, j But before the roal
state of things can be guessed at, it is necessary to
destroy this man's character.

Now, let us try to appreciate the exact position mid

THE ESSENES. 67

reasonable credibility of Josephus, as he stands at
present, midway between us a distant posterity, and
his own countrymen of his own times, sole interpreter,
sole surviving reporter, having all things his own way,
nobody to contradict him, nobody to taint his evidence
with suspicion. His case is most remarkable ; and yet,
though remarkable, is not so rare but that many times
it must have occurred in private (sometimes in public)
life. It is the case of a solitary individual surviving
out of a multitude embarked in a desperate enterprise
some playing one part, (a part, suppose, sublime
and heroic,) some playing another, (base, treacherous,
fiendish.) Suddenly a great convulsion involves all in
one common ruin, this man only excepted. He now
finds himself with a carte Handle before him, on
which he may inscribe whatever romance in behalf of
himself he thinks proper. The whole field of action
is open to him the whole field of motives. He may
take what side he will. And be assured that, what-
ever part in the play he assumes, he will give himself
the best of characters. For courage you will find him
a Maccabee. His too tender heart interfered, or he
could have signalized his valor even more emphat-
ically. And, descending to such base things as
treasures of money, jewels, land, &c., the chief part
of 'what had been captured, was of course (strictly
speaking) his own property. What impudent false-
hood, indeed, may such a man not bring forward,
when there is nobody to confront him ?

But was there nobody ? Reader, absolutely nobody.
Prisoners captured with himself at Jotopata there were
none not a man. That fact, indeed the inexorable

68 THE ESSENES.

fact, that he only endured to surrender that one fact,
taken with the commentary which we could furnish as
to the circumstances of the case, and the Jewish
casuistry under those circumstances, is one of the
many damning features of his tale. -But was there
nobody, amongst the ninety thousand prisoners taken
at Jerusalem, who could have spoken to parts of this
man's public life ? Doubtless there were ; but to
what purpose for people in their situation to come
forward ? One and all, positively without a solitary
exception, they were themselves captives, slaves con-
demned, despairing. Ten thousand being selected for
the butcheries of the Syrian amphitheatres, the rest
were liable to some punishment equally terrific ; mul-
titudes were perishing of hunger; under the mildest
award, they were sure of being sentenced to the stone
quarries of Egypt. Wherefore, in this extremity of
personal misery and of desperate prospects, should
any man find himself at leisure for a vengeance on
one happier countryman which could bring no profit
to the rest ? Still, in a case so questionable as that of
Josephus, it is possible enough that Titus would have
sought some further light amongst the prisoners under
any ordinary circumstances. In his heart, the noble
Roman -must have distrusted Josephus and his vain-
glorious account of himself. There were circumstances
outstanding, many and strong, that must have pointed
his suspicions in that direction; and the very con-
versation of a villain is sure to entangle him in
contradictions. But it was now too late to move upon
that inquest. Josephus himself acknowledges, that
Vespasian was shrewd enough from the first to suspect

THE ESSENES. 69

him for the sycophantish knave that he was. But that
time had gone by. And, in the interval, Josephus had
used his opportunities skilfully ; he had performed that
particular service for the Flavian family, which was
the one desideratum they sought for and yearned for.
By his pretended dreams, Josephus had put that seal
of heavenly ratification to the ambitious projects of
Vespasian^* which only was wanting for the satisfaction
of his soldiers. The service was critical. What Titus
said to his father is known : This man, be he what
he may, has done a service to us. It is not for men
of rank like us to haggle arid chaffer about rewards.
Having received a favor, we must make the reward
princely ; not what he deserves to receive, but what is
becoming for us to grant. On this consideration these
great men acted. Sensible that, not having hanged
Josephus at first, it was now become their duty to
reward him, they did not do the thing by halves. Not
content with releasing him from his chains, they sent
an officer to cut his chains to pieces that being a
symbolic act b^ which the Romans abolished the very
memory and legal record that ever a man had been in
confinement. The fact is, that amongst the Roman
public virtues in that age, was an intense fidelity to
engagements; and where they had even tacitly per-
mitted a man to form hopes, they fulfilled them
beyond the letter. But what Titus said to his staff,
though naturally not put on record by Josephus, was
very probably this: 'Gentlemen, I see you look
upon this Jew as a poltroon, and perhaps worse.
Well, possibly we don't much differ upon that point.
But it has become necessary to the public service that

70 THE ESSENES.

this man should be reinstated in credit. Tie will
now, perhaps, turn over a new leaf. If he does not,
kick him to Hades. But, meantime, give the man a
trial.'

Such, there can be little doubt, was the opinion of
Caesar about this man. But now it remains to give
our own, with the reasons on which it rests.

H,

I. First of all which we bring merely as a proof
of his habitual mendacity in one of those tongue-
doughty orations, which he represents himself as
having addressed to the men of Jerusalem, they
standing on the walls patiently, with paving-stones
in their hands, to hear a renegade abuse them by the
hour, [such is his lying legend,] Josephus roundly
asserts that Abraham, the patriarch of their nation,
had an army of three hundred and sixty thousand
troops, that is, somewhere about seventy-five legions

an establishment beyond what the first Caesars had
found requisite for mastering the Mediterranean sea
with all the nations that belted it that is, a ring-
fence of five thousand miles by seven hundred on an
average. Now, this is in the style of the Baron
Munchausen. But it is worthy of a special notice,
for two illustrations which it offers of this renegade's
propensities. One is the abject homage with which he
courted the Roman notice. Of this lie, as of all his
lies, the primary purpose is, to fix the gaze and to
court the admiration of the Eomans. Judea, Jerusalem

these were objects never in his thoughts; it was
Home, the haven of his apostasy, on which his anxieties
settled. Now, it is a judgment upon the man who

THE ESSENES. 71

carried these purposes in bis heart it is a judicial
retribution that precisely this very lie, shaped and
pointed to conciliate the Roman taste for martial
splendor, was probably the very ground of that disgust
which seems to have alienated Tacitus from his works.
Apparently Josephus should have been the foremost
authority with this historian for Jewish affairs. But
enough remains to show that he was not; and it is
clear that the confidence of so sceptical a writer must
have been shaken from the very first by so extravagant
a tale. Abraham, a mere stranger and colonist in
Syria, whoso descendants in the third generation mus-
tered only seventy persons in emigrating to Egypt, is
here placed at the head of a force greater than great
empires had commanded or had needed. And from
what resources raised ? From a little section of Syria,
which (supposing it even the personal domain of
Abraham) could not be equal to Wales. And for
what objects? To face what enemies? A handful
of robbers that might congregate in the desert. Such
insufferable fairy tales must have vitiated the credit
even of his rational statements ; and it is thus pleasant
to see the apostate missing one reward which he
courted, purely through his own eagerness to buy it
at the price of truth. But a second feature which this
story betrays in the mind of Joscphus, is the thorough
defect of Hebrew sublimity and scriptural simplicity
which mark his entire writing. How much more
impressive is the picture of Abraham, as the father of
the faithful, the selected servant and feudatory of God,
sitting in the wilderness, majestically reposing at the
door of his tent, surrounded by a little camp of

72 THE ESSENES.

servants and kinsmen, a few score of camels and a
few herds of cattle, than in the melodramatic altitude
of a general, belted and plumed, with a glittering stalF
of officers at his orders ? But tlio mind of Josephus,
always irreligious, was now violently warped into a
poor imitation of Roman models. He absolutely talks
of ^lilcrty^ and 'glory? as the moving impulses of
Hebrew saints ; and does his best to translate the
Maccabees, and many an elder soldier of the Jewish
faith, into poor theatrical mimics of Spartans and
Thebans. This depravity of taste, and abjuration of
his national characteristics* must not be overlooked in
estimating the value whether of his opinions or his
statements. We have evidence superabundant; to
these two features in the character of Josephus
that he would distort everything in order to meet the
Roman taste, and that he had originally no sympathy
whatsoever with the peculiar grandeur of Ins own
country,

II. It is a remarkable fact, that Josephus never speaks
of Jerusalem and those who conducted its resistance,
but in words of abhorrence and of loathing that amounts
to frenzy. Now in what point did they differ from
himself? Change the name Judea to (lalilee, and the
"name Jerusalem to Jotopata, and their case was his ;
and the single difference was that the men, whom
he reviles as often as he mentions them, had persevered
to martyrdom, whilst he he only had snatched at
life under any condition of ignominy. But precisely
in that difference lay the ground of his hatred. lie
could not forgive those whose glorious resistance

THE ESSENES. 73

(glorious, were it even in a mistaken cause) embla-
zoned and threw into relief his own apostasy. This
we cannot dwell on ; but we revert to the question
What had the people of Jerusalem done, which Jose-
phus had not attempted to do ?

III. Winston, another Caliban worshipping another
Trinculo, finds out a divinity in Josephus, because, on
being brought prisoner to Vespasian, he pretended to
have seen in a dream that the Roman general would
be raised to the purple. Now,

1. When we see Cyrus lurking in the prophecies of
Isaiah, and Alexander in those of Daniel, we appre-
hend a reasonableness in thus causing the spirit of
prophecy to settle upon those who were destined to
move in the great cardinal revolutions of this earth.
But why, amongst all the Caesars, must Vespasian, in
particular, be the subject of a prophecy, and a pro-
phecy the most thrilling, from the mysterious circum-
stances which surrounded it, and from the silence with
which it stole into the mouths of all nations ? The
reigns of all the three Flavian Caesars, Vespasian, with
his sons Titus and Domitian, were memorable for
nothing : with the sole exception of the great revolu-
tion in Judea, none of them were marked by any great
event; and all the three reigns combined filled no
important space of time.

2. If Vespasian, for any incomprehensible reason,
were thought worthy of being heralded by a prophecy,
what logic was there in connecting him with Syria?
That which raised him to the purple, that which sug-
gested him to men's minds, was his military eminence,
and this was obtained in Britain.

74 THE ESSENES.

3. If the mere local situations from which any unin-
teresting emperer happened to step on to the throne,
merited this special glorification from prophecy, why
was not many another region, town, or village, illus-
trated in the same way ? That Thraciun hamlet, from
which the Emperor Maximin arose, had boon pointed
out to notice before the event as a place likely to bo
distinguished by some great event. And yet, because
this prediction had merely a personal reference, and
no relation at all to any great human interest, it was
treated with little respect, and never crept into a gen-
eral circulation. So of this prophecy with respect to
one who should rise out of the East, and should ulti-
mately stretch his sceptre over the whole world, (rerum
potireturj if Josephus is allowed to ruin it by his syco-
phancy, instantly, from the rank of a Hebrew prophecy

a vision seen by ' the man whose eyes God had
opened' it sinks to the level of a vagrant gipsy's
gossip. What ! shall Home combine with Jerusalem ?

for we find this same mysterious prediction almost
verbally the same in Suetonius and in Tacitus, no loss
than in the Jewish prophets. Shall it stretch not only
from the east to the west in point of space, but through
the best part of a thousand years in point of time, all
for the sake of preparing one day's adulatory nuzznr,
by which a trembling Jew may make his propitiation
to an intriguing lieutenant, of Caesar? And how came
it that Whiston (who, to do him justice, was too pious
to have abetted an infidel trick, had his silliness suffered
him to have seen through it) failed to perceive this
consequence ? If the prophecy before us belong to
Vespasian, then does it not belong to Christ. And in

THE ESSENES. 75

that case, the worst error of the Herodian Jews, who
made the Messiah prophecies terminate in Herod, is
ratified by Christians ; for between Herod and Vespa-
sian the difference is none at all, as regards any interest
of religion. Can human patience endure the spectacle
of a religious man, from perfect folly, combining in
their very worst efforts with those whom it was the
object of his life to oppose ?

4. But finally, once for all, to cut sharp off by the
roots this corruption of a sublime prophecy, and to re-
enthrone it in its ancient sanctity, it was not in the
c Orient? (which both technically meant Syria in that
particular age, and is acknowledged to mean it here
by all parties,) that Vespasian obtained the purple.
The oracle, if it is to be translated from, a Christian
to a Pagan oracle, ought at least to speak the truth.
Now, it happens not to have been Syria in which
Vespasian was saluted emperor by the legions, but
Alexandria; a city which, in that age, was in no
sense either in Syria or in Egypt. So that the great
prophecy, if it is once suffered to be desecrated by
Joscphus, fails even of a literal fulfilment.

IV, Meantime, all this is a matter of personal false-
hood in a case of trying personal interest. Even
under such a temptation, it is true that a man of
generosity, to say nothing of principle, would not
have been capable of founding his own defence upon
the defamation of his nobler compatriots. But in fact
it is ever thus : he, who has sunk deepest in treason,
is generally possessed by a double measure of rancor
against the loyal and the faithful. What follows, bow-

76 THE ESSENES.

ever, has respect not to truth personal, truth of fact,
truth momentary but to truth absolute, truth doc-
trinal, truth eternal. Let us preface what we arc
going to say, by directing the reader's attention to this
fact : how easy it is to observe any positive feature in
a man's writings or conversation how rare to observe
the negative features ; the presence of this or that char-
acteristic is noticed in an hour, the absence shall often
escape notice for years. That a friend, for instance,
talks habitually on this or that literature, we know as
familiarly as our own constitutional taskts ; that he
does not talk of any given literature, (the Greek sup-
pose,) may fail to strike us through a whole life, until
somebody happens to point our attention in that direc-
tion, and then perhaps we notice it in every hour of
our intercourse. This only can excuse the various
editors, commentators, and translators of Josephus, for
having overlooked one capital omission in this author ;
it is this never in one instance does Josephus allude
to the great prophetic doctrine of a Messiah. To
suppose him ignorant of this doctrine is impossible ;
it was so mixed up with the typical part of the Jewish
religion, so involved in the ceremonies of Judaism,
even waiving all the Jewish writers, that no Jew what-
ever, much less a master in Israel, a Pharisee, a doctor
of the law, a priest, all which Josephus proclaims
himself, could fail to know of such a doctrine, even
if he failed to understand it, or failed to appreciate its
importance.

Why, then, has Josephus suppressed it ? For this
reason : the doctrine offers a dilemma a choice be-
tween two interpretations one being purely spiritual.

THE ESSENES. 77

one purely political. The first was offensive and unin-
telligible (as was everything else in his native religion
beyond the merely ceremonial) to his own worldly
heart ; the other would have T)ten offensive to the
Romans. The mysterious idea of a Redeemer, of a
Deliverer, if it were taken in a vast spiritual sense,
was a music like the fabled Arabian voices in the desert
utterly jnuudible when the heart is deaf, and the
sympathies untuned. The fleshly mind of Josephus
everywhere shows its incapacity for any truths, but
those of sense. On the other hand, the idea of a
political deliverer that was comprehensible enough;
but, unfortunately, it, was too comprehensible. It was
the very watchword for national conspiracies ; and the
Romans would state the alternative thus : The idea of
a great deliverer is but another name for insurrection
against us ; of a petty deliverer is incompatible with the
grandeur implied by a vast prophetic machinery. With-
out knowing much, or caring anything about the Jewish
prophecies, the Romans were sagacious enough to per-
ceive two things 1st, that most nations, and the Jews
above all others, were combined by no force so strongly
as by one which had the reputation of a heavenly
descent ; 2dly, that a series of prophecies, stretching
from the century before Cyrus to the age of Pericles,
(confining ourselves to the prophets from Isaiah to
Haggai,) was most unlikely to find its adequate result
and consummation in any petty change any change
short of a great national convulsion or revolution.

Hence it happened, that no mode in which a Roman
writer could present the Jewish doctrine of a Messiah,
was free from one or other of the objections indicated

78 THE ESSENES.

by the great Apostle : either it -was too spiritual and
mysterious, in which case it was 'foolishness 1 to him-
self; or it was too palpably the symbol of a political
interest, too real in a worldly sense, in which case it
was a c stone of offence' to his Roman patrons gen-
erally to the Roman people, specially to the Ron mil
leaders. Josophus found himself between Seyllu and
Chary bdis if he approached that subject And there-
fore it was that he did not approach it.

V. Yet, in this evasion of a theme which interested
every Jew, many readers will see only an evidence of
that timidity and servile spirit which must, of course,
be presumed in one who had sold the cause of his
country. His evasion, they will say, docs not argue
any peculiar carelessness for truth ; it is simply one
instance amongst hundreds of his mercenary coward-
ice. The doctrine of a Messiah was the subject of
dispute even to the Jews the most religious and the
most learned. Some restrained it to an earthly sense ;
some expanded it into a glorified hope. And, though
a double sense will not justify a man in slighting* both
senses, still, the very existence of a dispute about the
proper acceptation of a doctrine, may be pleaded as
some palliation for a timid man, in seeking to puss it
sub silentio. But what shall we say to this coming
count in the indictment? Hitherto Josephus is only
an apostate, only a traitor, only a libeller, only a false
witness, only a liar ; and as to his Jewish faith, only
perhaps a coward, only perhaps a heretic. But now
he will revoal himself (in the literal sense of that
word) as a miscreant ; one who does not merely go

THE ESSENES. 79

astray in his faith, as all of us may do at times, but
pollutes his faith by foul adulterations, or undermines
it by knocking away its props a misbeliever, not in
the sense of a heterodox believer, who errs as to some
point in the superstruction, but as one who unsettles
the foundations the eternal substructions. la one
short sentence, Josephus is not ashamed to wrench out
the keystone from the great arch of Judaism ; so far
as a feeble apostate's force will go, he unlocks the
whole cohesion and security of that monumental faith
upon which, as its basis and plinth, is the * starry-
pointing ' column of onr Christianity. He delivers it
to the Romans, as sound Pharisaic doctrine, that God
had enjoined upon the Jews the dufy of respectful hom-
age to all epichorial or national deities to all idols,
that is to say, provided their rank were attested by
a suitable number of worshippers, The Romans ap-
plied this test to the subdivisions amongst princes ; if
a prince ruled over a small number of subjects, they
called him (without reference to the original sense of
the word) a tetrarch ; if a certain larger number, an
ethnarch ; if a still larger number, a king. So again,
the number of throats cut determined the question
between a triumph and an ovation. And upon the
same principle, if we will believe Josephus, was regu-
lated the public honor due to the Pagan deities. Count
his worshippers call the roll over.

Does the audacity of man present us with such
another instance of perfidious miscreancy 1 God the
Jehovah anxious for the honor of Jupiter and Mercury !
God, the Father of light and truth, zealous on behalf
of those lying deities, whose service is everywhere

80 THE ESSENES.

described as * whoredom and adultery ! ' He who
steadfastly reveals himself as 'a jealous God,' jealous
also (if we will believe this apostate Jew) cm behalf
of that impure Pantheon, who had counterfeited his
name, and usurped his glory ! Reader, it would be
mere mockery and insult to adduce on this occasion
the solemn denunciations against idolatrous compli-
ances uttered through the great lawgiver of the Jews
the unconditional words of the two first command-
ments the magnificent thunderings and lightnings
upon the primal question, in the twenty-eighth chapter
of Deuteronomy, (which is the most awful peroration
to a long series of prophetic comminations that exists
even in the Hebrew literature ;) or to adduce the end-
less testimonies to the same effect, so unvarying, so
profound, from all the Hebrew saints, beginning with
Abraham and ending with the prophets, through a
period of fifteen hundred years.

This is not wanted : this would be superfluous. But
there is an evasion open to an apologist of Josephus,
which might place the question upon a more casuist-
ical footing. And there is also a colorable vindica-
tion of the doctrine in its very worst shape, viss., in
one solitary text of the English Bible, according to
our received translation. To this latter argument, the
answer is first ^ that the word gods is then* a mis-
translation of an Oriental expression for princes ; sec-
ondly ', that an argument from an English version of
the Scriptures, can be none for a Jew, writing A. I).
70; thirdly ', that if a word, a phrase, an idiom, could
be alleged from any ancient and contemporary Jewish
Scripture, what is one word against a thousand

THE ESSENES. 81

against the whole current (letter and spirit) of the
Hebrew oracles ; what, any possible verbal argument
against that which is involved in the acts, the monu-
ments, the sacred records of the Jewish people ? But
this mode of defence for Josephus, will scarcely be
adopted. It is the amended form of his doctrine
which will be thought open to apology. Many will
think that it is not the worship of false gods which the'
Jew palliates, but simply a decent exterior of respect
to their ceremonies, their ministers, their altars : and
this view of his meaning might raise a new and large
question.

This question, however, in its modern shape, is
nothing at ail to us, when applying ourselves to Jose-
phus. The precedents from Hebrew antiquity show
us, that not merely no respect, no lip honor, was con-
ceded to false forms of religion ; but no toleration not
the shadow of toleration : c Thine eye shall not spare
them.' And we must all be sure that toleration is a
very different thing indeed when applied to varieties of
a creed essentially the same toleration as existing
amongst us people of Christendom, or even when
applied to African and Polynesian idolatries, so long
as we all know that the citadel of truth is safe, from
the toleration applied in an age when the pure faith
formed a little island of light in a world of darkness.
Intolerance the most ferocious may have been among
the sublimest of duties when the truth was so intensely
concentrated, and so intensely militant; all advantages
barely sufficing to pass down the lamp of religion
from one generation to the next. The contest was
for an interest then riding at single anchor. This is a

VOL. i. 6

82 THE ESSENES.

very possible case to the understanding. And thai il
was in fact the real case, so that no compromise with
idolatry could be suffered for a moment; that the Jews
were called upon to scofF at idolatry, and spit upon it ;
to trample it under their feet as the spreading pesti-
lence which would taint the whole race of man irre-
trievably, unless defeated arid strangled by /.Am, seems
probable in the highest degree, from the examples of
greatest sanctity amongst the Jewish inspired writers.
Who can forget the blasting mockery with \\hich
Elijah overwhelms the prophets of Baal the great-
est of the false deities, Syrian or Assyrian, whose
worship had spread even to the Druids of the Western
islands ? Or the withering scorn with which Isaiah
pursues the whole economy of idolatrous worship ?
how he represents a man as summoning the carpen-
ter and the blacksmith ; as cutting down a tree of his
own planting and rearing ; part he applies as fuel, part
to culinary purposes ; and then having satisfied the
meanest of his animal necessities what will he clo
with the refuse, with the offal ? Behold c of the
residue he maketh himself a god ! ' Or again, who
can forget the fierce stream of ridicule, like a flume
driven through a blowpipe, which Jeremiah forces
with his whole afflatus upon the process of idol manu-
facturing? The workman's part is described as un-
exceptionable : he plates it with silver and with gold ;
he rivets it with nails ; it is delivered to order, true
and in workmanlike style, so that as a figure, as a
counterfeit, if counterfeits might avail, it is perfect
But then, on examination, the prophet detects over-
oversights : it cannot speak; the breath of life has

THE ESSENES. 83

been overlooked ; reasoa is omitted ; pulsation has
been left out; motion has been forgotten it must be
carried, ' for it cannot go.' Here, suddenly, as if a
semichorus stepped in, with a moment's recoil of feel-
ing, a movement of pity speaks, c Be not afraid of
them, for they cannot do evil ; neither also is it in
them to do any good.' But in an instant the recoil is
compensated : an overwhelming reaction of scorn
comes back, as with the reflux of a tide ; and a full
chorus seems to exclaim, with the prophet's voice,
'They (viz. the heathen deities) are altogether brutish
and foolish ; the stock is a doctrine of vanities.'

What need, after such passages, to quote the express
injunction from Isaiah, (chap. xxx. 21, 22,) 'And
thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This
is the way ; walk ye in it : Ye shall defile the covering
of the graven images, &c. ; ye shall cast them away
as a polluted cloth'? Or this, (chap. xlii. 8,) ' lam
the Lord ; that is my name : and my glory will I not
give to another; neither my praise to graven images'?
Once for all, if a man would satisfy himself upon this
question of possible compromises with idolatry, let him
run over the eleven chapters of Jeremiah, from the
tenth to the twentieth inclusive. The whole sad train
of Jewish sufferings, all the vast equipage of woes and
captivities that were to pursue them through so many
a weary century, arc there charged upon that one re-
bellion of idolatry, which Josephus would have us
believe not only to be privileged, but (and that is the
reason that we call him a miscreant) would have us
believe to have been promoted by a collusion emanat-
ing from God. In fact, if once it had been said authen-

84 THE ESSENES.

tically, Pay an outward homage to the Pagan Pantheon,
but keep your hearts from going along with it then,
in that countenance to idolatry as a suffcrablc thing,
and in that commendation of it to the forbearance and
indulgence of men, would have lurked every advantage
that polytheism could have desired for breaking clown
the total barriers of truth.

Josephus, therefore, will be given up to reprobation ;
apologist he will find none ; he will be abandoned as a
profligate renegade, who, having sold his country out
of fear and avarice, having sold himself, sold also his
religion, and his religion not simply in the sense of
selling his individual share in its hopes, but who sold
his religion in the sense of giving it up to be polluted
in its doctrine for the accommodation of its Pagan
enemies.

VI. But, even after all this is said, there are other
aggravations of this Jew's crimes. One of these, though
hurrying, we will pause to state. The founder of the
Jewish faith foresaw a certain special seduction certain
to beset its professors in every age. But how and
through what avenues ? Was it chiefly through the
base and mercenary propensities of human nature that
the peril lay ? No ; but through its gentleness, its
goodness, its gracious spirit of courtesy. And in .that
direction it was that the lawgiver applied his warnings
and his resistance. What more natural than that an
idolatrous wife should honor the religious rites which
she had seen honored by her parents? What more
essential to the dignity of marriage, than that a husband
should show a leaning to the opinions and the wishes

THE ESSENES. 85

of his wife ? It was seen that this condition of things

o

would lead to a collision of feelings not salutary for
man. The condition was too full of strife, if you sup-
pose the man strong of temptation, if you suppose
him weak. How, therefore, was the casuistry of such
a situation practically met ? By a prohibition of mar-
riages between Jews and pagans ; after which, if a
man were to have pleaded his conjugal affection in
palliation of idolatrous compliances, it would have been
answered ''It is a palliation ; but for an error com-
mitted in consequence of such a connection. Your
error was different ; it commenced from a higher point;
it commenced in seeking for a connection which had
been prohibited as a snare.' Thus it was that the
' wisest heart ' of Solomon was led astray. And thus
it was in every idolatrous lapse of the Jews ; they
fell by these prohibited connections. Through that
channel it was, through the goodness and courtesy of
the human heart, that the Jewish law looked for its
dangers, and provided for them. But the treason of
Josephus came through no such generous cause. It
had its origin in servile fear, self-interest the most
mercenary, cunning the most wily. Josephus argued
with himself that the peculiar rancor of the Roman
mind towards the Jews had taken its rise in religion.
The bigotry of the Jews, for so it was construed by
those who could not comprehend any possible ground
of distinction in the Jewish God, produced a reaction
of Roman bigotry. Once, by a sudden movement of
condescension, the Senate and people of Rome had
been willing to make room for Jehovah as an assessor
to their own Capitoline Jove. This being declined, it

86 THE ESSENES.

was supposed at first that the overture was too over-
whelming to the conscious humility of Juclca. The
truth neither was comprehended, nor could he com-
prehended, that this miserable Palestine, a dark speck
in the blazing orb of the Roman empire, had declined
the "union upon any principle of superiority. But all
things became known in time. This also became
known ; and the delirious passion of scorn, retorting
scorn, was certainly never, before or since, exempli-
fied on the same scale. Josephus, therefore, profoundly
aware of the Roman feeling, sets himself, in this au-
dacious falsehood, to propitiate the jealousy so wide
awake, and the pride which had been so much irritated.
You have been misinformed, he tells the Eomans ; \vo
have none of that gloomy unsociality which is imputed
to us. It is not true that we despise alien gods. We
do not worship, but we venerate Jupiter. Our law-
giver commanded us to do so. Josephus hoped in this
way to soothe the angry wounds of the Iloman spirit.
But it is certain that, even for a moment, he could not
have succeeded. His countrymen of Jerusalem could
not expose him; they had perished. But there were
many myriads of his countrymen spread over tint face
of the world, who would contradict every word that
any equivocating Jew might write. And this treachery
of Josephus, therefore, to the very primal injunction of
his native law, must have been as useless in the event
as it was base in the purpose.

VII. Now, therefore, we may ask, was there over a
more abject perfidy committed than this which wo have
exposed this deliberate surrender, for a selfish object,

THE ESSENES. 87

of the supremacy and unity in the Jehovah of the Jews

this solemn renunciation of that law and its integrity,
in maintenance of which seventy generations of Jews,
including weak women and children, have endured the
penalties of a dispersion and a humiliation more bitter
by many degrees than death ? Weighing the grounds
of comparison, was a viler treason ever perpetrated ?
We take upon ourselves to say No. And yet, even
in treason there is sometimes a dignity. It is by possi-
bility a bold act, a perilous act. Even in this case,
though it will hardly be thought such, the treason of
Josephus might have been dangerous : it was certainly
committed under terror of the Roman sword, but it
might have been avenged by the Jewish dagger. Had
a written book in those days been as much & publica-
tion of a man's words as it is now, Josephus would
not long have survived that sentence of his Antiquities.
This danger gives a shadow of respectability to that
act of Josephus. And therefore, when it is asked
can a viler act be cited from history ? we now answer

Yes: there is one even viler. And by whom com-
mitted ? By Josephus. Listen, reader.

The overthrow of his country was made the subject
of a E,oman triumph of a triumph in which his
patrons, Vespasian and. his two sons, figured as the
centres of the public honor. Judea, with her banners
trailing in the dust, was on this day to be carried cap-
tive. The Jew attended with an obsequious face,
dressed in courtly smiles. The prisoners, who are to
die by the executioner when the pomp shall have
reached the summit of the hill, pass by in chains.
What is their crime ? They have fought like brave

88 THE ESSENES.

men for that dear country which the base spectator has
sold for a bribe. Josephus, the prosperous renegade,
laughs as he sees them, and hugs himself on his
cunning. Suddenly a tumult is seen in the advancing
crowds what is it that stirs them? It is the sword
of the Maccabees : it is the image of Judas Maccalxcus,
the warrior Jew, and of his unconquerable brothers.
Josephus grins with admiration of the jewelled trophies.
Next but what shout is that which tore the very
heavens ? The abomination of desolation is passing
by the Law and the Prophets, surmounted by Capi-
toline Jove, vibrating his pagan thunderbolts. Judca, in
the form of a lady, sitting beneath her palms Judca,
with her head muffled in her robe, speechless, sightless,
is carried past. And what docs the' Jew ? ITe sits,
like a modern reporter for a newspaper, taking notes
of the circumstantial features in this unparalleled scene,
delighted as a child at a puppet-show, and finally
weaves the whole into a picturesque narrative. The
apologist must not think to evade the effect upon all
honorable minds by supposing the case that the Jew's
presence at this scene of triumph over his ruined
country, and his subsequent record, of its circumstances,
might be a movement of frantic passion bent ou
knowing the worst, bent on drinking up the cup of
degradation to the very last drop. No, no : this escape
is not open. The description itself remains to this
hour in attestation of the astounding fact, that this
accursed Jew surveyed the closing scene in the great
agonies of Jerusalem not with any thought for its
frenzy, for its anguish, for its despair, but absorbed m
the luxury of its beauty, and with a single eye for its

THE ESSENES. 89

purple and gold. * Off, off, sir ! ' would be the cry
to such a wretch in any ago of the world : to ' spit upon
his Jewish gaberdine,' would be the wish of every
honest man. Nor is there any thoughtful person who
will allege that such another case exists. Traitors
there have been many : and perhaps traitors who,
trusting to the extinction of all their comrades, might
have had courage to record their treasons. But cer-
tainly there is no other person known to history who
did, and who proclaimed that he did,, sit as a volunteer
spectator of his buried country carried past in effigy,
confounded with a vast carnival of rejoicing niobs and
armies, echoing their jubilant outcries, and pampering
his eyes with ivory and gold, with spoils, and with
captives, torn from the funeral pangs of his country.
That case is unique, without a copy, without a prece-
dent.

So much for Josephus. We have thought it neces-
sary to destroy that man's character, on the principles
of a king's ship in levelling bulkheads and partitions
when clearing for action. Such a course is requisite
for a perfect freedom of motion. Were Josephus
trustworthy, he would sometimes prove an impediment
in the way of our views : and it is because he has been
too carelessly received as trustworthy, that more accu-
rate glimpses have not been obtained of Jewish affairs
in more instances than one. Let the reader understand
also that, as regards the Essenes, Josephus is not trust-
worthy on a double reason ; first, on account of his
perfidy, as now sufficiently exposed, which too often
interfered to make secondary perfidies requisite, by way
of calling off the field of hunters from his own traces

90 THE ESSENES.

in the first ; secondly, because his peculiar situation as
a Pharisaic doctor of the law, combined with his char-
acter, (which surely could not entirely have concealed
itself in any stage of his public life,) must have made
it necessary for the Essenes to trust him very cautious-
ly, and never to any extent that might have been irre-
trievable in. the event of his turning informer. The
Essenes. at, all events, had some secret to guard ; in
any case, therefore, they were responsible for the lives
of all their members, so far as they could be affected
by confidences reposed; and, if that secret happened
"tp be Christianity, then were they trebly bound to care
and jealousy, for that secret involved not only many
lives, but a mighty interest of human nature, so that a
single instance of carelessness might be the most awful
of crimes. Hence we understand at once why it is
that Josephus never advanced beyond the lowest rank
in the secret society of the Essenes. His worldly
character, his duplicity, his weakness, were easily
discerned by the eagle-eyed fathers of Christianity.
Consequently, he must be viewed as under a perpetual
surveillance from what may be called the police of
history liable to suspicion as one who had a frequent
interest in falsehood, in order to screen himself; sec-
ondly, as one liable to unintentional falsehood, from
the indisposition to trust him. Having now extracted
the poison-fangs from the Jewish historian, we will take
a further notice of his history in relation to the EHSCUCS
in Part III.

THE ESSENES. 91

PART III.

The secret Tiistory of Judea, through the two gene-
rations preceding the destruction of Jerusalem, might
yet be illuminated a little better than it has been by
Josephus. It would, however, require a separate paper
for itself. At present we shall take but a slight glance
or two at that subject, and merely in reference to the
Essenes. Nothing shows the crooked conduct of Jose-
phus so much as the utter perplexity, the mere laby-
rinth of doubts, in which he has involved the capital
features of the last Jewish war. Two points only we
notice, for their connection with the Essenes.

First, What was the cause, the outstanding pretext,
on either side, for the Jewish insurrectionary war ?
We know well what were the real impulses to that
war ; but what was the capital and overt act on either
side which forced the Jewish irritation into a hopeless
contest ? What was the ostensible ground alleged for
the war ?

Josephus durst not have told, had he known. He
must have given a Roman, an ex parte statement, at
any rate ; and let that consideration never be lost sight
of in taking his evidence. He might blame a particu-
lar Roman, such as Gcssius Floras, because he found
that Romans themselves condemned him. He might
vaunt his veracity and his 7Ttfj>>,oiu in a little corner of
the general story ; but durst he speak plainly on the
broad field of Judscan politics ? Not for his life. Or,
had the Roman magnanimity taken off his shackles,
what became of his court favor and preferment, in
case he spoke freely of Roman policy as a system ?

92 THE ESSENES.

Hence it is that Joscphus shuffles so miserably when
attempting to assign the cause or causes of the war.
Four different causes he assigns in diifercnt places, not
one of which is other than itself an effect from higher
causes, and a mere symptom of the convulsions work-
ing below. For instance, the obstinate withdrawal of
the daily sacrifice offered for Caesar, which Ls one of
the causes alleged, could not have occurred until the
real and deep-seated causes of that war had operated
on the general temper for some time. It was a public
insult to Home : would have occasioned a demand for
explanation : would have been revoked : the immedi-
ate author punished : and all would have subsided into
a personal affair, had it not been supported by exten-
sive combinations below the surface, which could no
longer be suppressed. Into them we are not going to
enter. We wish only to fix attention upon the igno-
rance of Josephus, whether unaffected in this instance,
or assumed for the sake of disguising truths unaccept-
able to Roman ears.

The question of itself has much to do with the
origin of the Essenes.

Secondly, Who were those Sicarii of whom Josc-
phus talks so much during the latter years of Jerusa-
lem ? Can any man believe so monstrous a fable as
this, viz. that not one, but thousands of men wore con-
federated for purposes of murder ; 2dly, of murdornot
interested in its own success murder not directed
against any known determinate objects, but rnunlor
indiscriminate, secret, objectless, what a lawyer might
call Jwmiddium vagum; 3dly, that this confederacy
should subsist for years, should levy war, should en-

THE ESSENES. 93

trench itself in fortresses ; 4thly, (which is more in-
comprehensible than all the rest,) should talk and
harangue in the spirit of sublime martyrdom to some
holy interest ; 5thly, should breathe the same spirit
into women and little children ; and finally, that all,
with one accord, rather than submit to foreign con-
quest, should choose to die in one hour, from the oldest
to the youngest? Such a tale in its outset, in the
preliminary confederation, is a tale of ogres and
ogresses, not of human creatures trained under a divine
law to a profound sense of accountability. Such a
talej in its latter sections, is a tale of martyrs more
than human. Such a tale, as a whole, is self-contra-
dictory. A vile purpose makes vile all those that
pursue it. Even the East Indian Thugs are not con-
gregated by families. It is much if ten thousand fami-
lies furnish one Thug. And as to the results of such
a league, is it possible that a zealous purpose of murder

of murder for the sake of murder, should end in
nobility of spirit so eminent, that nothing in Christian
martyrdoms goes beyond the extremity of self-sacrifice
which even their enemies have granted to the Sicarii ?
* Whose courage,' (we are quoting from the bitterest
of enemies,) ' whose courage, or shall we call it mad-
ness, everybody was amazed at ; for, when all sorts of
torments that could be imagined were applied to their
bodies, not one of them would comply so far as to
confess, or seem to confess, that Caesar was their lord

as if they received those torments, and the very
fury of the furnace which burned them to ashes, with
bodies that were insensible and with souls that exceed-
ingly rejoiced. But what most, of all astonished the

94 THE ESSENES.

beholders was the courage of the children ; for not
one of all those children was so far subdued by the
torments it endured, as to confess Cajsar for its lord.
Such a marvellous thing for endurance is the tender
and delicate body of man, when supported by an un-
conquerable soul ! '

No, no, reader, there is villany at work in this whole
story about the Sicarii. We are duped, we are cheat-
ed, we arc mocked. Felony, conscious murder, never
in this world led to such results as these. Conscience
it was, that must have acted here. No power short of
that, ever sustained frail women and children in such
fiery trials. A conscience it may have been erring in
its principles; but those principles must have been
divine. Resting on any confidence less than /7m/, the
resolution of women and children so tried must have
given way. Here, too, evidently, we have the genuine
temper of the Maccabees, struggling and suffering in
the same spirit and with the same ultimate hopes.

After what has been exposed with regard to Jose-
phus, we presume that his testimony against the Sicarii
will go for little. That man may readily be supposed
to have borne false witness against his brethren who
is proved to have borne false witness against (Jlocl.
Him, therefore, or anything that he can say, wo set
aside. But as all is still dark about the Sicarii, we
shall endeavor to trace their real position in the Jewish
war. For merely to prove that they have been calum-
niated does not remove the cloud that rests upon llwir
history. That, indeed, cannot be removed at this day
in a manner satisfactory ; but we sec enough to indi-
cate the purity of their intentions. And, with respect

THE ESSENES. 95

to their enemy Joseplius, let us remember one fact,
which merely the want of a personal interest in the
question has permitted to lie so long in the shade, viz.
that three distinct causes made it really impossible for
that man to speak the truth. First, his own partisan-
ship : having adopted one faction, he was bound to
regard all others as wrong and hostile : Secondly, his
captivity and interest: in what regarded the merits
of the cause, a Roman prisoner durst not have spoken
the truth. These causes of distortion or falsehood in
giving that history would apply even to honest men,
unless with their honesty they combined a spirit of
martyrdom. But there was a third cause peculiar to
the position of Josephus, viz, conscious guilt and shame.
He could not admit others to have been right but in
words that would have confounded himself. Tf they
were not mad, he was a poltroon: if they had done
their duty as patriots, then was he a traitor ; if they
were not frantic, then was Josephus an apostate. This
was a logic which required no subtle dialectician to
point and enforce : simply the narrative, if kept steady
to the fact and faithful, must silently suggest that con-
clusion to everybody. And for that reason, had there
been no other, it was not steady ; for that reason it was
not faithful. Now let us turn to the Sicarii. Who
were they ?

Thirdly, It is a step towards the answer if we ask
previously, Who were the Galileans ? Many people
read Josephus under the impression that, of course,
this term designates merely the inhabitants of the two
Galilecs. We, by diligent collation of passages, have
convinced ourselves that it does not it means a

96 THE ESSENES.

particular faction in Jewish politics. And, which is a
fact already noticed by Eusebius, it often includes
many of the new Christian sect. But this requires an
explanation.

Strange it seems to us that men should overlook so
obvious a truth as that in every age Christianity must
have counted amongst its nominal adherents the erring
believer, the partial believer, the wavering believer,
equally with the true, the spiritual, the entire, and the
steadfast believer. What sort of believers were those
who would have taken Christ and forcibly made him a
king ? Erroneous believers, it must be admitted ; but
still in some points, partially and obscurely, they must
have been powerfully impressed by the truth which
they had heard from Christ. Many of these might
fall away when that personal impression was with-
drawn ; but many must have survived all hindcranccs
and obstacles. Semi- Christians there must always
have been in great numbers. Those who were such
in a merely religious view we believe Co have been
called Nazarenes; those in whom the political aspects,
at first universally ascribed to Christianity, Happened
to predominate, were known by the more general
name of Galileans. This name expressed in its fore-
most element, opposition to the Romans ; in its sec-
ondary element, Christianity. And its rise may be
traced thus :

Whoever would thoroughly investigate the very
complex condition of Palestine in our Saviour's days,
must go back to Herod the Great. This man, by his
peculiar policy and his power, stood between the Jews
and the Romans as a sort of Janus or indifferent

THE ESSENES. 97

mediator. Any measure which Roman ignorance
would have inflicted, unmodified, on the rawest con-
dition of Jewish bigotry, he contrived to have tem-
pered and qualified. For his own interest, and not
with any more generous purpose, he screened from
the Romans various ebullitions of Jewish refractori-
ness, and from the Jews he screened all accurate
knowledge of the probable Roman intentions. But
after his death, and precisely during the course of our
Saviour's life, these intentions ' transpired : reciprocal
knowledge and menaces were exchanged ; and the
elements of insurrection began to mould themselves
silently, but not steadily ; for the agitation was great
and increasing as the crisis seemed to approach,
Herod the Great, as a vigorous prince, and very rich,
might possibly have maintained the equilibrium, had
he lived. But this is doubtful. In his old age various
events had combined to shake his authority, viz., the
tragedies in his own family, and especially the death
of Mariamne ; 2 by which, like Ferdinand of Aragon,
or our Henry VII., under the same circumstances, he
seemed in law to lose his title to the throne. But,
above all, his compliance with idolatry, (according to
the Jewish interpretation,) in setting up the golden
eagle by way of homage to Rome, gave a shock to
bis authority that never could have been healed. Out
of the affair of the golden eagle grew, as we are
persuaded, the sect of the Herodians those who
justified a compromising spirit of dealing with the
Romans. This threw off, as its anti-pole, a sect furi-
ously opposed to the Romans. That sect, under the
management of Judas, (otherwise called Theudas,)

98 THE ESSENES.

expanded greatly; he was a Galilean, and the sect
were therefore naturally called Galileans. Into this
main sea of Jewish nationality emptied themselves
all other less powerful sects that, under any modifica-
tion, avowed an anti-Roman spirit. The religious sect
of the Christians was from the first caught and hurried
away into this overmastering vortex. No matter that
Christ lost no opportunity of teaching that his kingdom
was not of this world. Did he not preach a now
salvation to the House of Israel ? Where could that
lie but through resistance to Rome ? His followers
resolved to place him at their head as a king ; and his
crucifixion in those stormy times was certainly much
influenced by the belief that, as the object of political
attachment, he had become dangerous whether sanc-
tioning that attachment or not.

Out of this sect of Galileans, comprehending all
who avowed a Jewish nationality, (and therefore many
semi-Christians, that is, men who 3 in a popular sense,
and under whatever view, had professed to follow
Christ,) arose the sect of Sicarii that is, out of a
vast multitude professing good-will to the service,
these men separated themselves as the men of action,
the executive ministers, the self-devoting soldiers.
This is no conjecture. It happens that Josephus, who
had kept us in the dark about these Sicarii in that part
of his narrative which most required some clue to
their purposes, afterwards forgets himself, and inci-
dentally betrays [Wars, B. vii. chap. 8, sect. 1] that
the Sicarii had originally been an offset from the sect
founded by Judas the Galilean ; that their general
purpose was the same ; so that, no doubt, it way a

THE ESSENES. 99

new feature of the time giving a new momentary
direction to the efforts of the patriotic which had
constituted the distinction and which authorized the
denomination. Was Miltigdes wrong ? Was Tell
wrong ? Was Wallace wrong ? Then, but not else,
were the Galileans ; and from them the Sicarii proba-
bly differed only as the brave doer differs from the
just thinker. But the Sicarii, you will say, used un-
hallowed means, Probably not. We do not know
what means they used, except most indistinctly from
their base and rancorous enemy. The truth, so far as
it can be descried through the dust of ages ancl the
fury of partisanship, appears to be, that, at a moment
when law slumbered and police was inefficient, they
assumed the duties of resistance to a tyranny which
even the Roman apologist admits to have been insuf-
ferable. They are not heard of as actors until the
time when Gessius Florus, by opening the floodgates
to military insolence, had himself given a license to
an armed reaction. Where justice was sought in vain,
probably the Sicarii showed themselves as ministers of
a sudden retribution. When the vilest outrages were
offered by foreigners to their women, probably they
'visited' for such atrocities. That state of things,
which caused the tribunal to slumber, privileged the
individual to awake. And in a land whose inspired
monuments recorded for everlasting praise the acts of
Judith, of Samson, of Judas Maccaboeus, these sum-
mary avengers, the Sicarii, might reasonably conceive
that they held the same heavenly commission under
the same earthly oppression.

[Reviewing the whole of that calamitous period,

100 THE ESSENES.

combining the scattered notices of the men and their
acts, and the reflections of both thrown back from
the mirrors offered to us by the measures of counter-
action adopted at the time, we have little doubt that
the Sicarii and the Zealots were both offsets from the
same great sect of the Galileans, and that in an
imperfect sense, or by tendency., all were Christiana ;
whence partly the re-infusion of the ancient Jewish
spirit into their acts and counsels and indomitable
resolution.

But also we believe that this very political leaven it
was, as dispersed through the body of the Galileans,
which led to the projection from the main body of a
new order called the Essenes ; this political taint, that
is to say, combined with the danger of professing a
proselytizing Christianity. In that anarchy, which
through the latter years of Nero covered Judsua as with
the atmosphere of hell, the Christian fathers saw the
necessity of separating themselves from these children
of violence. They might be right politically and
certainly they began in patriotism but too often the
apprehensive consciences of Christians recoiled from
the vengeance in which they ended. By tolerating the
belief that they countenanced the Galileans or Sicarii,
the primitive Church felt that she would be making
herself a party to their actions often bloody and
vindictive, and sometimes questionable on any princi-
ples, since private enmities would too easily mingle
with public motives, and if right, would be right in an
earthly sense. But the persecution which aroso at
Jerusalem would strengthen these conscientious scruples
by others of urgent prudence. A sect that prosoly-

THE ESSENES. 101

tized was at any rate a hazardous sect in Judea ; and
a sect that had drawn upon itself persecution must
have felt a triple summons to the instant assumption of
a disguise.

Upon this warning, we may suppose, arose the
secret society of the Essenes ; and its organization
was most artful In fact, the relations of Judaism to
Christianity furnished a means of concealment such as
could not have otherwise existed without positive deceit.
By arranging four concentric circles about one mys-
terious centre hy suffering no advances to be made
from the outside to the innermost ring but through
years of probation, through multiplied trials of temper,
multiplied obligations upon the conscience to secrecy,
the Christian fathers were enabled to lead men on-
wards insensibly from intense Judaic bigotry to the
purest forrri of Christianity. The outermost circle
received those candidates only whose zeal for rigorous
Judaism argued a hatred of pagan corruptions, and
therefore gave some pledge for religious fervor. In
this rank of novices no ray of light broke out from the
centre no suspicion of any alien doctrine dawned
upon them : all was Judaic, and the whole Mosaic the-
ology was cultivated alike. This we call the ultimate
rank. Next, in the penultimate rank, the eye was fa-
miliarized with the prophecies respecting the Messiah,
and somewhat exclusively pointed to that doctrine, and
such other doctrines in the Mosaic scheme as express
an imperfection, a tendency, a call for an integration.
In the third, or antepenultimate rank, the attention was
trained to the general characters of the Messiah, as
likely to be realized in some personal manifestation ;

102 THE ESSENES.

and a question was raised, as if for investigation, in
what degree these characters met arid were exempli-
fied in the mysterious person who had so lately
engaged the earnest attention of all Palestine. He
had assumed the office of Messiah : he had suffered
for that assumption at Jerusalem. By what evidences
was it ascertained, in a way satisfactory to just men,
that he\vas not the Messiah? Many points, it would
be urged as by way of unwilling concession, did cer-
tainly correspond between the mysterious person and
the prophetic delineation of the idea. Thus far no
suspicion has been suffered to reach the disciple, that
he is now rapidly approaching to a torrent that will
suck him into a new faith. Nothing has transpired,
which can have shocked the most angry Jewish fanati-
cism. And yet all is ready for the great transition.
But at this point comes the last crisis for the aspirant.
Under color of disputing the claims of Christ, the
disciple has been brought acquainted with the whole
mystery of the Christian theory. If his heart is good
and true, he has manifested by this time such a sense
of the radiant beauty which has been gradually un-
veiled, that he reveals his own trustworthiness. If ho
retains his scowling bigotry, the consistory at the
centre are warned, arid trust him no farther. He is
excluded from the inner ranks, and is reconciled to the
exclusion (or, if not, is turned aside from, suspicion)
by the impression conveyed to him, that these central
ranks are merely the governing ranks, highest in
power, but not otherwise distinguished in point of
doctrine.
Thus, though all is true from first to last, from centre

THE ESSENES. 103

to circumference though nothing is ever taught but
the truth yet, by the simple precaution of gradua-
tion, and of not teaching everywhere the whole truth
in the very midst of truth the most heavenly, were
attained all the purposes of deceit the most earthly.
The case was as though the color of blue were a pro-
hibited and a dangerous color. But upon a suggestion
that yellow is a most popular color, and green tole-
rated, whilst the two extremes of .blue and yellow are
both blended and confounded in green, this last is
selected for the middle rank ; and then breaking it up
by insensible degradations into the blue tints towards
the 4 interior, and the yellow towards the outermost
rings, the case is so managed as to present the full
popular yellow at the outside, and the celestial blue
at the hidden centre. """"*'

Such was the constitution of tho Essenes ; in which,
however, the reader must not overlook one fact, that,
because the danger of Christianity as a religious pro-
fession was confined, during the epichristian age, to
Judsea, therefore the order of the Essenes was con-
fined to that region ; and that in the extra-Syrian
churches, the Christians of Palestine were known
simply as the- Brethren of Jerusalem, of Scpphoris,
&c., without further designation or disguise. Let us
now see, having stated the particular circumstances in
which this disguise of a secret society called Essenes
arose, what further arguments can be traced for iden-
tifying these Essenes with the Christians of Palestine.

We have already pursued the Essenes and the
Christians through ten features of agreement. Now
let us pursue them through a few others. And let the

104 THE ESSENES.

logic of the parallel be kept steadily in view : above,
we show some characteristic reputed ,to be true of the
Essenes ; below, we show that this same characteristic
is known from other sources to be true of the Chris-
tians.

No. I. The Essenes^ according to Josephus,
in the habit of prophesying. The only prophets
known in the days of the Apostles, and recognised as
such by the Christian writers, Agabus for instance,
and others, were Christians of the Christian brother-
hood in Judaea.

6 And it is "but seldom? says Josephus, * they miss
in their predictions.'' Josephus could not but have
been acquainted with this prophecy of Agabus too
practical, too near, too urgent, too local, not to have
rung throughout Judaea ; before the event, as a warn-
ing; after it, as a great providential miracle. Ho
must therefore have considered Agabus as one of those
people whom he means by the term Essenes. Now
we know him for a Christian. Ergo, here is a case
of identity made out between a Christian, owned for
such by the Apostles, and one of the Essenes.

No. II. The Essenes particularly applied them-
selves to the study of medicine. This is very re-
markable in a sect like the Essenes, who, from their
rigorous habits of abstinence, must of all men have
had the least personal call for medicine : but not at all
remarkable if the Essenes are identified with the
Christians. For,

1. Out of so small a number as four Evangelist^

THE ESSENES. 105

one was a physician which shows at least the fact
that medicine was cultivated amongst the Christians.
But,

2. The reason of this will appear immediately in
the example left by Christ, and in the motives to that
example.

As to the example, at least nine in ten of Christ's
miracles were medical miracles miracles applied to
derangements of the human system.

As to the motives which governed our Saviour in
this particular choice, it would be truly ridiculous and
worthy of a modern utilitariafi, to suppose that Christ
would have suffered his time to be occupied, and the
great vision of his contemplations to be interrupted,
by an employment so trifling, (trifling surely by com-
parison with his transcendent purposes,) as the healing
of a few hundreds, more or less, in one small district
through one brief triennium. This healing office was
adopted, not chiefly for its own sake, but partly as a
symbolic annunciation of a superior healing, abun-
dantly significant to Oriental minds ; chiefly, however,
as the indispensable means, in an eastern land, of
advertising his approach far and wide, and thus con-
voking the people by myriads to his instructions.
From Barbary to Hindostan from the setting to the
rising sun it is notorious that no travelling character
is so certainly a safe one as that of hakim or physician.
As he advances on his route, the news fly before him ;
disease is evoked as by the rod of Amram's son ; the
beds of sick people, in every rank, are ranged along
the road-sides ; and the beneficent dispenser of health
or of relief moves through the prayers of hope on the

106 THE ESSENES,

/

one side, and of gratitude on the other. Well may
the character be a protection : for not only is every
invalid in the land his friend from the first, but every
one who loves or pities an invalid. In fact, the char-
acter is too favorable, because it soon becomes burden-
some ; so that of late, in Afghanistan, Bokhara, &c,,
Englishmen have declined its aid for inevitably it
impedes a man's progress ; and it exposes him to two
classes' of applications, one embarrassing from the
extravagance of its expectations, (as that a man should
understand doubtful or elaborate symptoms at a glance,)
the other degrading to an Englishman's feelings, by
calling upon him for aphrodisiacs or other modes
of collusion with Oriental sensuality. This medical
character the Apostles and their delegates adopted,
using it both as the trumpet of summons to some cen-
tral rendezvous, and also as the very best means of
opening the heart to religious influences the heart
softened alrea'cly by suffering, turned inwards by soli-
tary musing ; or melted, perhaps, by relief from
anguish, into fervent gratitude. This, upon consid-
eration, we believe to have been the secret key to the
apostolic meaning, in sending abroad the report that
they cultivated medicine. They became what so
many of us Englishmen have become iu Oriental
countries, hakims ; and as with us, that character wan
assumed as a disguise for ulterior purposes that could
not have been otherwise obtained 3 our pui poses
were liberal, theirs divine. Therefore we conclude
our argument No. II. by saying, that this modieul
feature in the Esscncs is not only found in the Chris-
tians, but is found radicated in the very constitution

THE ESSENES. 107

of that body, as a proselytizing order, who could not
dispense with some excuse or other for assembling the
people in crowds.

No. III. The Esscnes think that oil is a defilement.
So says Josephus, as one who stood in the outermost
rank of the order admitted to a knowledge of some
distinctions, but never to the secret meaning upon
which those distinctions turned. Now with respect to
this new characteristic, what is our logical duty ? It
is our duty to show that the Essenes, supposing them
to be the latent Christians, had a special motive for re-
jecting oil ; whereas on any other assumption they had
no such motive. And next, we will show that this
special motive has sustained itself in the traditionary
usages of a remote posterity.

First of all, then, how came the Jews ever to use oil
at all for the purpose of anointing their persons ? It was
adopted as a Grecian luxury, from their Grecian fellow-
townsmen in cities without number, under the Syro-
Macedonian kings. Not only in Syria proper, but in
many other territories adjacent to Judoea, there were
cities like the two Ccesarcas, the maritime and the in-
land, which were divided between Greeks and Jews;
from which equality of rights came feuds and dreadful
calamities in the end, but previously a strong contagion
of Grecian habits. Hence, in part, it arose that the
Jews in our Saviour's time were far from being that
simple people which they had been whilst insulated in
gloomy seclusion, or whilst associated only with mo-
notonous Oriental neighbors. Amongst other luxuries
which they had caught from their Grecian neighbors,

108 THE ESSENES.

were those of the bath and the palaestra. But, in Jeru-
salem, as the heart of Judea, 4 and the citadel of Jewish
principle, some front of resistance was still opposed to
these exotic habits. The language was one aid to this
resistance ; for elsewhere the Greek was gaining
ground, whilst here the corrupted Hebrew prevailed.
But a stronger repulsion to foreigners was the eternal
gloom of the public manners. No games in Jerusalem
no theatre no hippodrome ; for all these you must
go down to the seaside, where Crcsarea, though built
by a Jew, and half-peopled by Jews, was the "Roman
metropolis of Palestine, and with every sort of Roman
luxury. To this stern Jerusalem standard all .lows con-
formed in the proportion of their patriotism ; to Gnrcize
or not to GrsDcizc had become a test of patriotic feel-
ing ; and thus far the Essencs had the same general
reasons as the Christians (supposing them two distinct
orders of men) for setting their faces against the luxu-
rious manners of the age. But if the Essoncs were
Christians, then we infer that they had a much stronger
and a special motive to all kinds of abstinence, from
the memorable charge of Christ to his evungeli/Jng
disciples ; for which charge there was a double motive :
1st. To raise an ideal of abstinence ; 2d. To rdeaso
the disciple from all worldly cares, and concentrate his
thoughts upon his duty. Now, the Essonos, if Chris-
tians, stood precisely in that situation of evaugoliicors.
Even thus far, therefore, the Essonos, as Christians,
would have higher motives to abstinence than simply
as a sect of Jews ; yet still against oil, merely us a
mode of luxury, their reasons were no stronger than
against any luxury in any other shape. But a Chris-

THE ESSENES. 109

tian of that day had a far more special restraint with
regard to the familiar use of oil not as a luxury, but
as a consecrated symbol, he regarded it with awe
oil was to him under a perpetual interdict. The very
name Christos, the anointed, gave in one instant an
inaugurating solemnity, a baptismal value, to the act
of anointing. Christians bearing in their very name
(though then, by the supposition, c a secret name,') a
record and everlasting memorial of that chrism by
which their Founder was made the Anointed of God,
thought it little consistent with reverential feelings to
use that consecrated right of anointing in the economy
of daily life. They abstained from this Grecian prac-
tice, therefore, not as the ignorant Jew imagines, from
despising it, but from too much revering it. The sym-
bolic meaning overpowered and eclipsed its natural
meaning ; and they abstained from the unction of ihe
palaestra just as any man amongst ourselves, the least
liable to superstition, would (if he had any pious feel-
ing at all) recoil from the use of sacramental vessels
in a service of common household life.

After this explanation of our view, we shall hardly
need to go forward in proof, that this sanctity of the
oil and of the anointing act has sustained itself in tra-
ditionary usages, and propagated its symbolic meaning
to a posterity far distant from the Essenes. The most
solemn of the ceremonies in the coronation of Chris-
tian kings is a memorial of this usage so reverentially
treated by the Essenes. The affecting rite by which a
new-born stranger upon earth is introduced within the
fold of the Christian Church, is but the prolongation of
that ancient chrism. And so essential, in earlier ages,

110 THE ESSENES.

was the presence of the holy Judecan oil used by the
first Christians, were it only to the amount of one soli-
tary drop, that volumes might be collected on the ex-
ertions made for tending the trees which produced it,
and if possible for multiplying or transplanting them.
Many eastern travellers in our own day, have given the
history of those consecrated trees, and their slow de-
clension to the present moment ; and to this hour, in
our London bills of mortality, there is one subdivision
headed, 'Chrysom children,' 5 which echoes from a
distance of almost two thousand years the very act and
ceremony which was surrounded with so much reve-
rence by the Essenes.

No. IV. The Essenes think it a thing of good
omen to be dressed in white roles. Yes ; hore again
we find the external fact reported by Joscphus, but
with his usual ignorance of its symbolic value, and the
secret record which it involved. lie does not protend
to have been more than a novice that is, at most
be had been admitted into the lowest or outermost
class, where no hint would be given of the Christian
mysteries that would open nearer to the centre. The
white robes were, of com-sc, either the baptismal robes,
the albatcz vestes noticed in the foot-note, or some
other of the typical dresses assumed in diilbront ranks
and situations by the primitive Christians.

No. V. In the judgments they pass, the
are most accurate and j mt ; nor do they pans sm
ly the votes of a court that is lower than a hundred.
Here we find Josephus unconsciously alluding to

THE ESSENES. HI

the secret arrangements of the early Christian Church
the machinery established for conducting affairs so
vast, by their tendency, in a condition so critical by its
politics. The apostolical constitutions show that many
of the forms in general councils, long after that age,
had been traditionally derived from this infancy of the
Christian Church a result which is natural in any
case, but almost inevitable where the original organ-
izers are invested with that sort of honor and authority
attached to inspired apostles. Here are positive traces
of the Christian institutions, as viewed by one who
knew of their existence under another name, and wit-
nessed some of their decisions in the result, but was
never admitted to any conjectural glimpse of their
deliberations, or their system of proceeding, or their
principles. Here is the truth, but traced by its shadow.
On the other hand, if the Essenes (considered as dis-
tinct from Christians) were concerned, what need
should they have of courts numerous or not nume-
rous ? Had the Sadducees courts ? Had the Pharisees
courts ? DoitDtless they had, in their general character
of Jews, but certainly not in their separate character
as sects. Here again, therefore, in this very mention
of courts, had there been no word dropped of their
form, \ve see an insuperable evidence to the fact of the
Christians being the parties concerned.

No. VI. The Essenes are divided by Philo-

Judseus into the Therapeutici and the Practici. A

division into four orders has already been noticed, in
explaining the general constitution of the society.
TReso orders would very probably have characteristic

112 THE ESSENES.

names as well- as barely distinguishing numbers. And
if so, the name of Therapeutic would exactly corres-
pond to the medical evangelists (the Jialdms) noticed
under No, IL

No. VII. Moreover the Essenes are stricter than
any other of the Jeivs in resting from their labors on
the seventh day : for they even get their food ready
on the day before, that they may not le obliged to kindle
ajire on that day, Now, then, it will be said, these
Essenes, if Christians, ought not to have kept the
Jewish Sabbath. This seems a serious objection. But
pause, reader. One consideration, is most important
in this whole discussion. The Jews are noiv ranged in
hostility to the Christians ; because now the very name
of Jew makes open proclamation that they have
rejected Christianity ; but in the earliest stage of
Christianity, the Jew's relation to that new creed was
in suspense and undetermined: he might be, 1, in a
state of hostility ; 2, in a state of certain transition ;
3, in a state of deliberation. So far, therefore, from
shocking his prejudices by violent alterations of form,
and of outward symbol, not essential to the truth sym-
bolized, the error of the early Christians would lie the
other way ; as in fact we know that it did in Juclaw,
that is, in the land of the Essenes, where they retained
too much rather than too little of Mosaic rites. Judaism
is the radix of Christianity Christianity the integra-
tion of Judaism. And so long as this integration was
only not accepted, it was reasonable to presume it tho
subject of examination; and to regard the Jew as a
Christian in transitu, and by tendency as a Christian

THE ESSENES. 113

elect. For one generation the Jews must have been
regarded as novices in a lower class advancing erad-

D O

ually to the higher vows not as enemies at all, but
as imperfect aspirants. During this pacific interim,
(which is not to be thought hostile, because individual
Jews were hostile,) the Christians most entangled with
Jews, viz., the Christians of Palestine, would not seek
to widen the interval which divided them. On the con-
trary, they would too much concede to the prejudices
of 'their Jewish brethren 5 they would adopt too many
of the Jewish rites : as at first even circumcision a
fortiori, the Jewish Sabbath. Thus it would be during
the period of suspense. Hostility would first com-
mence when the two orders of men could no longer be
viewed as the inviting and invited as teaching and
learning; but as affirming and denying as worship-
pers and blasphemers. Then began the perfect schism
of the two orders. Then began amongst the Syrian
Christians the observance of a Christian Sunday ; then
began the general disuse of circumcision.

Here we are called upon to close this investigation,
and for the following reasons : Most subjects offer them-
selves under two aspects at the least, often under more.
This question accordingly, upon the true relations of
the Essenes, may be contemplated either as a religious
question, or as a question of Christian antiquities.
Under this latter aspect, it is not improperly entertained
by a journal whose primary functions are literary. But
to pursue it further might entangle us more intricately
in speculations of Christian doctrine than could be
suitable to any journal not essentially theological. We
pause, therefore ; though not for want of abundant

VOL. i. 8

114 THE ESSENES.

matter to continue the discussion. One point only we
shall glance at in taking leave : The Church of Home
has long ago adopted the very doctrine for which we
have been contending : she has insisted, as if it were
an important article of orthodox faith, upon the identity
of the Essenes and the primitive Christians. But
does not this fact subtract from the originality of our
present essay ? Not at all. If it did, we are careless.
But the truth is it does not. And the reason is this
as held by the Church of Rome the doctrine is
simply what the Germans call a machtspruch, i. c. a
hard dogmatical assertion, without one shadow of proof
or presumptive argument that so it must have Z/een,
nothing beyond the allegation of an old immemorial
tradition that so in fact it was. Papal Rome adopts
our theory as a fact, as a blind result 5 but not as a
result resting upon any one of our principles. Having,
as she thinks, downright testimony and positive depo-
sitions upon oath, she is too proud to seek the aid of
circumstantial evidence, of collateral probability, or of
secret coincidence.

If so, and the case being that the Papal belief on this
point (though coinciding with our own) offers it no
collateral support, wherefore do we mention it ? For
the following reason important at any rate and
specially important as a reason in summing up; as a
reason to take leave with as a linen-pin or iron bolt
to lock up all our loose arguments into one central
cohesion. Dogmatism, because it is haughty, because
it is insolent, will not therefore of necessity be false,
Nay, in this particular instance, the dogmatism of
Rome rests upon a sense of transcendent truth of

THE ESSENES. 115

truth compulsory to the Christian conscience. And
what truth is that ? It is one which will reply triumph-
antly to the main objection likely to be urged by the
reader. He will be apt to say This speculation is
curious ; but of what use is it ? Of what consequence
to us at this day, whether the Essenes were or were
not the early Christians ? Of such consequence, we
answer, as to have forced the Church of Rome into a
probable lie; that Church chose rather to forge a
falsehood of mere historical fact, [in its pretended tra-
dition of St. Mark,] than to suffer any risk as to the sum
total and principle of truth doctrinal. The Christian
religion offers two things a body of truth, of things
to be believed, in the first place ; in the second place,
a spiritual agency, a mediatorial agency for carrying
these truths into operative life. Otherwise expressed,
the Christian religion offers 1st, a knowledge ; 2d, a
power that is, 1st, a rudder to guide ; 2dly, sails to
propel. Now mark : the Essenes, as reported to us
by Josephus, by Philo-Judceus, or three centuries after-
wards by Eusebius, do not appear to have claimed No.
2 ; and for this reason because, as a secret society
and for the very cause which made it prudent for them
to be a secret society, that part of their pretensions
could not have been stated safely ; not without avow-
ing the very thing which it was their purpose to con-
ceal, viz , their allegiance to Christ. But as to No. 1
as to the total truths taught by Christianity, taken
in contradistinction to the spiritual powers these the
Essenes did claim ; these they did appropriate ; and
therefore take notice of this : If the Essenes were not
the early Christians in disguise, then was Christianity,

116

THE ESSENES.

as a knowledge, taught independently of Christ ; nay,
in opposition to Christ ; nay, if we were to accept the
hyperbolical fairy-tale of Pliny, positively two thousand
years before the era of Christ. Grant the affirm-
ative of our hypothesis, all is clear, all consistent ;
and Christianity here, as for ever, justifies herself.
Take the negative alternative Suppose the Essencs
a distinct body from the primitive Christians of Pales-
tine, (i. e. those particular Christians who stood under
the ban of Jerusalem,) and you have a deadlier wound
offered to Christian faith than the whole army of infi-
dels ever attempted. A parhelion a double sun
a secondary sun, that should shine for centuries with
equal proofs for its own authenticity as existed for the
original sun, would not be more shocking to the sense
and to the auguries of man than a secondary Chris-
tianity not less spiritual, not less heavenly, not less
divine than the primary, pretending to a separate and
even hostile origin. Much more is to be said in behalf
of^our thesis. But say more or say less say it well
or say it ill the main argument that the Essencs
were the early Christians, locally in danger, and there-
fore locally putting themselves, with the wisdom of the
serpent, under a cloud of disguise, impenetrable to
fierce Jewish enemies and to timid or treacherous
brethren that argument is essential to the dignity of
Christian truth. That theory is involved in the
almighty principle that, as there is but one God,
but one hope, but one anchorage for man so also
there can be but one authentic faith, but one derivation
of truth, but one perfect revelation.

NOTES.

NOTE 1. Page 55.

< The twelve tribes} It is a beautiful circumstance in the
symbology of the Jewish ritual, where all is symbolic and all
significant, where all in Milton's language ' was meant mys-
teriously,' that the ten tribes were not blotted out from the
breastplate after their revolt; no, nor after their idolatrous
lapse, nor after their captivity, nor after their supposed utter
dispersion. Their names still burned in the breastplate, though
their earthly place knew them no more.

NOTE 2. Page 97.

< Especially the death of Mmiamne.' There is a remarkable
proof extant of the veneration attached in Jewish imagination
to the memory of this lady as a Maccabee. Long after her
death, a pretender (or alleged pretender) to the name and
rights of Alexander, one of her two murdered sons, appeared
at Rome, and instantly drew to himself the enthusiastic sup-
port of all the Jews throughout Italy.

NOTE 3. Page 106.

' That could not have been otherwise obtained.' One thing is
entirely overlooked. Neither in Syria, nor any part of Asia
Minor, of Achaia, &c., could the Apostles have called a
general meeting of the people without instant liability to
arrest as public disturbers. But the character of physicians

118 THE ESSENES.

furnished a privileged case, which operated as a summons,
instant, certain, safe, uniformly intelligible to others, and
without effort of their own.

NOTE 4. Page 108,

'As the heart of JudaaS It was an old belief amongst the
Jews, upon their ideas of cosmography, that Judcca was the
central region of the earth, and that Jerusalem was the
omphalos or navel of Judcca an idea which the Gieeks ap-
plied to Delphi.

NOTE 5. Page 110.

'Chrysom children. 1 Tell a child of three years old to pro-
nounce the word helm ; nine times out of ten it will say helom
from the imperfection of its organs. By this mode of corrup-
tion came the word chrysom, from the baptismal chrism of the
early Christians. In England, if a child dies within the first
month of its life, it is called a chrysom child ; whence the title
in the London bills of mortality. In such a case, it was the
"beautiful custom, amongst our ancestors, perhaps still is so
amongst those who have the good feeling to appreciate these
time-honored usages, to bury the innocent creature in its
baptismal robe; to which the northern Spaniards add, as
another symbol of purity, on the hd of the little coflin,

1 A happy garland of the pure white rose.'

How profoundly this mysterious chrism influenced the im-
aginations of our forefathers, is shown by the multiplied
ricochets through which it impressed itself upon the vocabulary
of the case j the oil, the act of anointing, the little infant
anointed, the white robe in which it was dressed, all and
each severally bore the name of the chrysom.

PHILOSOPHY OP HERODOTUS.-

FEW, even amongst literary people, are aware of
the true place occupied by Herodotus in universal
literature ; secondly, scarce here and there a scholar
up and down a century is led to reflect upon the
multiplicity of his relations to the whole range of
civilization. We endeavor in these words to catch,
as in a net, the gross prominent faults of his appre-
ciation ; on which account, first, we say pointedly,
universal literature, not Grecian since the primary
error is, to regard Herodotus merely in relation to the
literature of Greece ; secondly, on which account we
notice the circuit, the numerical amount, of his col-
lisions with science because the second and greater
error is, to regard him exclusively as an historian.
But now, under a juster allocation of his rank, as
the general father of prose composition, Herodotus is
nearly related to all literature whatsoever, modern not
less than ancient ; and as the father of what may
be called ethnographical geography, as a man who
speculated most ably on all the humanities of science
that is, on all the scientific questions which naturally
interest our human sensibilities in this great temple

120 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

which we look up to, the pavilion of the sky, the sun,
the moon, the atmosphere, with its climates and its
winds ; or in this home which we inherit, the earth,
with its hills and rivers Herodotus ought least of
all to be classed amongst historians: that is but a
secondary title for him ; he deserves to be rated as
the leader amongst philosophical polyhistors, which is
the nearest designation to that of encyclopaedist cur-
rent in the Greek literature. And yet is not this word
encyclopaedist much lower than his ancient name
father of history ? Doubtless it is no great distinction
at present to be an encyclopaedist, which is often but
another name for bookmaker, .craftsman, mechanic,
journeyman, in his meanest degeneration ; yet in those
early days, when the timid muse of science had
scarcely ventured scandal deep into waters so un-
fathomable, it seems to us a great thing indeed, that
one young man should have founded an entire ency-
clopaedia for his countrymen, upon those difficult
problems which challenged their primary attention,
because starting forward from the very roof the
walls the floor of that beautiful theatre which they
tenanted. The habitable world, >; oiyovuw], was now
daily becoming better known to the human race ;
but how ? Chiefly through Herodotus. There arc
amusing evidences extant, of the profound ignorance
in which nations the most enlightened had hitherto
lived, as to all lands beyond their own and its frontier
adjacencies. But within the single generation (or the
single half century) previous to the birth of Herodotus,
vast changes had taken place. The mere revolutions
consequent upon the foundation of the Persian empire

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS, 121

had approximated the whole world of civilization.
First came the conquest of Egypt by the second of
the tfiew emperors. This event, had it stood alone,
was immeasurable in its effects for meeting curiosity,
and in its immediate excitement for prompting it. It
brought the whole vast chain of Persian dependencies,
from the river Indus eastwards to the Nile westwards,
or even through Gyrene to the gates of Carthage,
under the unity of a single sceptre. The world was
open. Jealous interdicts, inhospitable laws, national
hostilities, always in procinctu^ no longer fettered the
feet of the merchant, or neutralized the exploring
instincts of the philosophic traveller. Next came the
restoration of the Jewish people. Judea, no longer
weeping by the Euphrates, was again sitting for
another half millennium of divine probation under
her ancient palm-tree. Next after that came the
convulsions of Greece, earthquake upon earthquake;
the trampling myriads of Darius, but six years before
the birth of Herodotus ; the river-draining millions of
Xerxes in the fifth year of his wandering infancy.
Whilst the swell from this great storm was yet angry,
and hardly subsiding, (a metaphor used by Herodotus
himself, m otiJaorTwv T/jn/yt/aTajr,) whilst the scars of
Greece were yet raw from the Persian scymitar,
her towns and temples to the east of the Corinthian
isthmus smouldering ruins yet reeking from the Per-
sian torch, the young Herodotus had wandered forth
in a rapture of impassioned curiosity, to see, to touch,
to measure, all those great objects, whose names had
been recently so rife in men's mouths. The luxurious
Sardis, the nation of Babylon, the Nile, the oldest of

122 PHILOSOPHY OF HEEODOTUS.

rivers, Memphis, and Thebes the hundred -gated, that
were but amongst his youngest daughters, with the
pyramids inscrutable as the heavens all these he
had visited. As far up the Nile as Elephantine lie
had personally pushed his inquiries ; and far beyond
that, by his obstinate questions from all men presum-
ably equal to the answers. Tyre, even, he made a
separate voyage to explore. Palestine he had trodden
with Grecian feet; the mysterious Jerusalem he had
visited, and had computed her proportions. Finally,
as to Greece continental, though not otherwise con-
nected with it himself than by the bond of language,
and as the home of his Ionian ancestors, (in which
view he often calls it by the great moral name of
Hellas, regions that geographically belong to Asia and
even to Africa,) he seems by mere casual notices,
now prompted by an historical incident, now for
the purpose of an illustrative comparison, to have
known so familiarly, that Pausanias in after ages
does not describe more minutely the local features to
which he had dedicated a life, than this extraordinary
traveller, for whom they did but point a period or
circumstantiate a parenthesis. As a geographer, often
as a hydrographer witness his soundings thirty miles
off the mouths of the Nile Herodotus was the first
great parent of discovery, as between nation and
nation he was the author of mutual revelation ; what-
soever any one nation knew of its own little ring-
fence, through daily use and experience, or had re-
ceived by ancestral tradition, that he published to all
other nations. He was the first central interpreter,
the common dragoman to the general college of

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 123

civilization that now belted the Mediterranean, holding
up, in a language already laying the foundations of
universality, one comprehensive mirror, reflecting to
them all the separate chorography, habits, institutions,
and religious systems of each. Nor was it in the
facts merely, that he retraced the portraits of all
leading states ; whatsoever in these facts was mys-
terious, for that he had a self-originated solution ;
whatsoever was perplexing by equiponderant counter-
assumptions, for that he brought a determining impulse
To the one side or the other; whatsoever seemed
contradictory, for that he brought a reconciling hypo-
thesis. Were it the annual rise of a river, were it the
formation of a famous kingdom by alluvial depositions,
were it the unexpected event of a battle, or the
apparently capricious migration of a people for all
alike Herodotus had such resources of knowledge as
took the sting out of the marvellous, or such resources
of ability as at least suggested the plausible. Anti-
quities or mythology, martial institutions or pastoral,
the secret motives to a falsehood which he exposes, or
the hidden nature of some truth which he deciphers
all alike lay within the searching dissection of this
astonishing intellect, the most powerful lens by far
that has ever been brought to bear upon the mixed
objects of a speculative traveller.

To have classed this man as a mere fabling annalist,
or even if it should be said on better thoughts no,
not as a fabling annalist, but as a great scenical-histo-
rian is so monstrous an oversight, so mere a neglect
of the proportions maintained amongst the topics
treated by Herodotus, that we do not conceive any

124 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

apology requisite for revising, in this place or at this
time, the general estimate on a subject always interest-
ing. What is everybody's business, the proverb in-
structs us to view as nobody's by duty ; but under the
same rule it is anybody's by right; and what belongs
to all hours alike, may, for that reason, belong, without
blame, to January of the year 184*2. Yet, if any man,
obstinate in demanding for all acts a * sufficient reason,'
[to speak Leibnitice] demurs to our revision, as having
no special invitation at this immediate moment, then
we are happy to tell him that Mr. Hermann Bobrikhas
furnished us with such an invitation, by a recent re-
view of Herodotus as a geographer, 1 and thus furnished
even a technical plea for calling up the great man
before our bar.

We have already said something towards reconsider-
ing the thoughtless classification of a writer whose
works do actually, in their major proportion, not essen-
tially concern that subject to which, by their translated
title, they are exclusively referred ; for even that part
which is historical, often moves by mere anecdotes or
personal sketches. And the uniform object of these is
not the history, but the political condition of the par-
ticular state or province. But we now feel disposed to
press this rectification a little more keenly, by asking
What was the reason for this apparently wilful error ?
The reason is palpable : it was the ignorance of irrc-
flectiveness.

I. For with respect to the first oversight on the claim
of Herodotus, as an earliest archetype of composition,
so much is evident that, if prose were simply the

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 125

negation of verse, were it the fact that prose had no
separate laws of its own, but that, to be a composer in

prose meant only his privilege of being inartificial

his dispensation from the restraints of metre then,
indeed, it would be a slight nominal honor to have
been the Father of Prose. But this is ignorance, though
a pretty common ignorance. To walk well, it is not
enough that a man abstains from dancing. Walking
has rules of its own, the more difficult to perceive or
to practise as they are less broadly prononces. To
forbear singing is not, therefore, to speak well or to
read well : each of which offices rests upon a separate
art of its own. Numerous laws of transition, connec-
tion, preparation, are different for a writer in verse and
a writer in prose. Each mode of composition is a
great art; well executed, is the highest and most diffi-
cult of arts. And we are satisfied that, one century
before the age of Herodotus, the effort must have been
greater to wean the feelings from a key of poetic com-
position to which all minds had long been attuned and
prepared, than at present it would be for any paragraphist
in the newspapers to make the inverse revolution by
suddenly renouncing the modesty of prose for the im-
passioned forms of lyrical poetry. It was a great
thing to be the leader of prose composition ; great
even, as we all can see at other times, to be absolutely
first in any one subdivision of composition : how much
more in one whole bisection of literature ! And if it
is objected that Herodotus was not the eldest of prose
writers, doubtless, in an absolute sense, no man was.
There must always have been short public inscriptions,
not admitting of metre, as where numbers, quantities.

126 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

dimensions were concerned. It is enough that all fee-
ble tentative explorers of the art had been too meagre
in matter, too rude in manner, like Fabius Pictor
amongst the Romans, to captivate the ears of men,
and thus to ensure their own progagation. Without
annoying the reader by the cheap erudition of parading
defunct names before him, it is certain that Scylax, an
author still surviving, was nearly contemporary with
Herodotus; and not very wide of him by his subject.
In Ms case it is probable that the mere practical bene-
fits of his book to the navigators of the Mediterranean
in that early period, had multiplied his book so as
eventually to preserve it. Yet, as Major Eenncll re-
marks, ' Geog. Syst. of Herod.,' p. 610 'Scylax
must be regarded as a seaman or pilot, and the author
of a coasting directory ; ' as a mechanic artisan, rank-
ing with Hamilton, Moore, or Gunter, not as a great
liberal artist an intellectual potentate like Herodotus.
Such now upon the scale of intellectual claims us was
this geographical rival by comparison with Herodotus,
such doubtless were his rivals or predecessors in^ his-
tory, in antiquities, and in the other provinces which
he occupied. And, generally, the fragments of those
authors, surviving in Pagan as well as Christian collec-
tions, show that they were such. So that, in a high,
virtual sense, Herodotus was to prose composition what
Homer, six hundred years earlier, had been to verse*

II. But whence arose the other mistake about Herod-
otus the fancy that his great work was exclusively
(or even chiefly) a history ? It arose simply from a
mistranslation, which subsists everywhere to this day.

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 127

We remember that Kant, in one of his miscellaneous
essays, finding a necessity for explaining the term
Histoire, [why we cannot say, since the Germans
have the self-grown word Geschichte for that idea,]
deduces it, of course, from the Greek 'IQTQQICC. This
brings him to an occasion for defining the term. And
how ? It is laughable to imagine the anxious reader
bending his ear to catch the Kantean whisper, and
finally solemnly hearing that e iaroQia means History.
Eeally, Professor Kant, we should almost have guessed
as much. But such derivations teach no more than the
ample circuit of Bardolph's definition ' accommo-
dated that whereby a man is, or may be thought to
fee ' what ? 6 accommodated." 1 Kant was an excellent
Latin scholar, but an indifferent Grecian. And spite
of the old traditional ' Historiarum Libri Novem,*
which stands upon all Latin title-pages of Herodotus,
we need scarcely remind a Greek scholar, that the
verb tcTogsw or the noun taroQia never bears, in this
writer, the latter sense of recording and memorializing.
The substantive is a word frequently employed by
Herodotus: often in the plural number; and uniformly
it means inquiries or investigations ; so that the proper
English version of the title-page would be 'Of the
Researches made by Herodotus, Nine Books. And, in
reality, that is the very meaning, and the secret drift,
the conservation running overhead through these nine
sections to the nine muses. Had the work been de-
signed as chiefly historical, it would have been placed
under the patronage of the one sole muse presiding over
History. But because the very opening sentence tells
us that it is not chiefly historical, that it is so partially,

128 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

that it rehearses the acts of men, [? ysj-o^ra,] together
with the monumental structures of human labor, [ra
*(jya] for the true sense of which word, in this posi-
tion, see the first sentence in section thirty-five of Eu-
terpe, and other things beside, [r rs ana,] because, in
short, not any limited annals, because the mighty
revelation of the world to its scattered inhabitants,
because

* Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timer, ira, voluptas,
Gaudia, discursus, nostri est farrago libelli '

therefore it was that a running title, or superscription,
so extensive and so aspiring had at some time been
adopted. Every muse, and not one only, is presumed
to be interested in the work ; and, in simple truth, this
legend of dedication is but an expansion of variety
more impressively conveyed of what had been already
notified in the inaugural sentence ; whilst both this
sentence and that dedication were designed to meet
the very misconception which has since, notwithstand-
ing, prevailed. 2

These rectifications ought to have some effect in
elevating first, the rank of Herodotus ; secondly,
his present attractions. Most certain we are that few
readers are aware of the various amusement conveyed
from all sources then existing, by this most splendid
of travellers. Dr. Johnson has expressed in print,
(and not merely in the strife of conversation,) the
following extravagant idea that to Homer, as its
original author, may be traced back, at least in out-
line, every tale or complication of incidents, now mov-
ing in modern poems, romances or novels. Now, it is

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 129

not necessary to denounce such an assertion as false,
because, upon two separate reasons, it shows itself to
be impossible. In the first place, the motive to such
an assertion was to emblazon the inventive faculty
of Homer ; but it happens that Homer could not
invent anything, small or great, under the very prin-
ciples of Grecian art. To be a fiction, as to matters
of action, (for in embellishments the rule might be
otherwise,) was to be ridiculous and unmeaning in
Grecian eyes. We may illustrate the Grecian feeling
on this point (however little known to critics) by our
own dolorous disappointment when we opened the Al-
liamlra of Mr. Washington Irving. We had supposed
it to be some real Spanish or Moorish legend con-
nected with that romantic edifice ; and, behold ! it
was a mere Sadler's Wells travesty, (we speak of its
plan, not of its execution,) applied to some slender
fragments from past days. Such, but far stronger,
would have been the disappointment to Grecian feel-
ings, in finding any poetic (d fortiori, any prose)
legend to be a fiction of the writer's words cannot
measure the reaction of disgust. And thence it was that
no tragic poet of Athens ever took for his theme any
tale or fable not already pre-existing in some version,
though now and then it might be the least popular
version. It was capital as an offence of the intellect,
it was lunatic to do otherwise. This is a most impor-
tant characteristic of ancient taste ; and most interest-
ing in its philosophic value for any comparative esti-
mate of modern art, as against ancient. In particular,
no just commentary can ever be written on the poetics
of Aristotle, which leaves it out of sight. Secondly,
VOL, i. 9

130 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

it Is evident that the whole character, the very princi-
ple of movement, in many modern stories, depends
upon sentiments derived remotely from Christianity ;
and others upon usages or manners peculiar to modern
civilization ; so as in either case to involve a moral
anachronism if viewed as Pagan. Not the coloring
only of the fable, but the very incidents, one and all,
and the situations, and the perplexities, arc constantly
the product of something characteristically modern in
the circumstances, sometimes, for instance, in the
climate ; for the ancients had no experimental knoiol-
edge of severe climates. With these double impossi-
bilities before us, of any absolute fictions in a Pagan
author that could be generally fitted to anticipate
modern tales, we shall not transfer to Herodotus the
impracticable compliment paid by Dr. Johnson to
Homer. But it is certain, that the very best collection
of stories furnished by Pagan funds, lies dispersed
through his great work. One of the best of the Ara
Han Nights, the very best as regards the structure
of the plot viz., the tale of All Bala and the Forty
Thieves is evidently derived from an incident in
that remarkable Egyptian legend, connected with the
treasury-house of Rhampsinilus. This, except two of
his Persian legends, (Cyrus and Darius,) is the longest
tale in Herodotus, and by much the best in an artist's
sense ; indeed , its own remarkable merit, as a fable in
which the incidents successively generate each other,
caused it to be transplanted by the Greeks to their
own country. Vossius, in his work on the Greek his-
torians, and a hundred years later, Valckenaer, with
many other scholars, had pointed out the singular con*

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 131

formity of this memorable Egyptian story with several
that afterwards circulated in Greece. The eldest of
these transfers was undoubtedly the Boeotian tale (but
in days before the name Boeotia existed) of Agamedes
and Trophonius, architects, and sons to the King of
Orchomenos, who built a treasure-house at Hyria,
(noticed by Homer in his ship catalogue,) followed
by tragical circumstances, the very same as those
recorded by Herodotus. It is true that the latter inci-
dents, according to the Egyptian version the mon-
strous device of Rhampsinitus for discovering the rob-
ber at the price of his daughter's honor, and the final
reward of the robber for his petty ingenuity, (which,
after all, belonged chiefly to the deceased architect,)
ruin the tale as a whole. But these latter incidents
are obviously forgeries of another age ; c angescJilossen '
fastened on by fraud, an den eisten aelteren tlieilj to
the first and elder part, as Mueller rightly observes,
p. 97, of his Orchomenos. And even here it is pleasing
to notice the incredulity of Herodotus, who was not,
like so many of his Christian commentators, sceptical
upon previous system and by wholesale, but equally
prone to believe wherever his heart (naturally reve-
rential) suggested an interference of superior natures,
and to doubt wherever his excellent judgment detected
marks of incohercncy. lie records the entire series
of incidents as rm isyonsva axoy, reports of events which
had reached him by hearsay, e/iot 3s ov mara ' but to
me,' he says pointedly, * not credible.'

In this view, as a thesaurus fabularum, a great re-
pository of anecdotes and legends, tragic or romantic,,
Herodotus is so far beyond all Pagan competition, that

ll$X PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

we are thrown upon Christian literatures for any cor-
responding form of merit. The case has often been
imagined playfully, that a man were restricted to one
book ; and, supposing all books so solemn as those of
a religious interest to be laid out of the question,
many are the answers which have been pronounced,
according to the difference of men's minds. Rousseau,
as is well known, on such an assumption made his
election for Plutarch. But shall we tell the reader
wliy!- It was not altogether his taste, or his judicious
choice, which decided him ; for choice there can be
none amongst elements unoxamincd it was his lim-

o

ited reading. Except a few papers in the French
Encyclopedic during his maturer years, and some
dozen of works presented to him by their authors, his
own friends, Rousseau had read little or nothing be-
yond Plutarch's Lives in a bad French translation,
and Montaigne. Though not a Frenchman, having
had an education (if such one can call it) thoroughly
French, he had the usual puerile French craxo about
Roman virtue, and republican simplicity, and Cato, and
4 all that.' So that his decision goes for little. And even
he, had he read Herodotus, would have thought twice
before he made up his mind. The truth is, that in
such a case, suppose, for example, Robinson Crusoe
empowered -to import one book and no more into his
insular hermitage, the most powerful of human books
must be unavoidably excluded, and for the following
reason : that in the direct ratio of its profundity will
be the unity of any fictitious interest ; a Paradise Lost,
or a King Lear, could not agitate or possess the mind
that they do, if they were at leisure to ' amuse ' us.

PHILOSOPHY OF HEKODOTTJS. 133

So far from relying on its unity, the work which should
aim at the maximum of amusement, ought to rely
on the maximum of variety. And in that view it is
that we urge the paramount pretensions of Herodotus :
since not only are his topics separately of primary
interest, each for itself, but they are collectively the
most varied in the quality of that interest, and they
are touched with the most flying and least lingering
pen ; for, of all writers, Herodotus is the most cautious
not to trespass on his reader's patience : his transitions
are the most fluent whilst they are the most endless,
justifying themselves to the understanding as much as
they recommend themselves to the spirit of hurrying
curiosity; and his narrations or descriptions are the
most animated hy the generality of their abstractions,
whilst they are the most faithfully individual by the
felicity of their minute circumstances.

Once, and in a public situation, we ourselves de-
nominated Herodotus the Froissart of antiquity. But
we were then speaking of him exclusively as an
historian ; and even so, we did him injustice. Thus
far it is true the two men agree, that both are less
political, or reflecting, or moralizing, as historians,
than they arc scenical and splendidly picturesque.
But Froissart is little else than an historian. Whereas
Herodotus is the counterpart of some ideal Pandora,
by the universality of his accomplishments. He is a
traveller of discovery, like Captain Cook or Park.
He is a naturalist, the earliest that existed. He is a
mythologist, and a speculator on the origin, as well as
value, of religious rites. He is a political economist
by instinct of genius, before the science of economy

134 PHILOSOPHY OF HEKODOTITS.

had a name or a conscious function ; and by two great
records, he has put us up to the level of all that can
excite our curiosity at that great era of moving civi-
lization : first, as respects Persia, by the elaborate
review of tbe various satrapies or great lieutenancies
of the empire that vast empire which had absorbed
the Assyrian, Median, Babylonian, Little Syrian, and
Egyptian kingdoms, registering against each separate
viceroyalty, from Algiers to Lahore beyond the Indus,
what was the amount of its annual tribute to the
gorgeous exchequer of Susa ; and secondly, as re-
spects Greece, by his review of the numerous little
Grecian states, and their several contingents in ships,
or in soldiers, or in both, (according as their position
happened to be inland or maritime,) towards the uni-
versal armament against the second and greatest of
the Persian invasions. Two such documents, such
archives of political economy, do not exist elsewhere
in history. Egypt had now ceased, and we may say
that (according to the Scriptural prophecy) it had
ceased for ever to be an independent realm. Persia
had now for seventy years had her foot upon the neck
of this unhappy land ; and, in one century beyond the
death of Herodotus, the 3 two-horned he-goat of Mace-
don was destined to butt it down into hopeless prostra-
tion. But so far as Egypt, from her vast antiquity, or
from her great resources, was entitled to a more cir-
cumstantial notice than any other satrapy of the great
empire, such a notice it has ; and we do not scruple
to say, though it may seem a bold word, that, from
the many scattered features of Egyptian habits or
usages incidentally indicated by Herodotus, a bettor

PHILOSOPHY OF HEKODOTTJS. 135

portrait of Egyptian life, and a better abstract of
Egyptian political economy, might even yet be gath-
ered, than from all the writers of Greece for the cities
of their native land.

But take him as an exploratory traveller and as a
naturalist, who had to break ground for the earliest
entrenchments in these new functions of knowledge ;
we do not scruple to say that mutatis mutandis, and
concessis concedendis, Herodotus has the separate
qualifications of the two men whom we would select
by preference as the most distinguished amongst
Christian traveller-naturalists ; he has the universality
of the Prussian Humboldt ; and he has the picturesque
fidelity to nature of the English Dampier of whom
the last was a simple self-educated seaman, but strong-
minded by nature, austerely accurate through his
moral reverence for truth, and zealous in pursuit of
knowledge, to an excess which raises him to a level
with the noble Greek. Dampier, when in the last
stage of exhaustion from a malignant dysentery, un-
able to stand upright, and surrounded by perils in a
land of infidel fanatics, crawled on his hands and feet
to verify some fact of natural history, under the
blazing forenoon of the tropics ; and Herodotus, hav-
ing no motive but his own inexhaustible thirst of
knowledge, embarked on a separate voyage, fraught
with hardships, towards a chance of clearing up what
seemed a difficulty of some importance in deducing
the religious mythology of his country.

But it is in those characters by which he is best
known to the world viz , as an historian and a
geographer that Herodotus levies the heaviest trib-

136 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

ute on our reverence ; and precisely in those charac-
ters it is that he now claims the amplest atonement,
having formerly sustained the grossest outrages of
insult and slander on the peculiar merits attached to
each of those characters. Credulous he was supposed
to he, in a degree transcending the privilege of old
garrulous nurses ; hyperbolically extravagant beyond
Sir John Mandeville ; and lastly, as if he had been a
Mendez Pinto or a Munchausen, he was saluted as the
* father of lies.' Now, on these calumnies, it is
pleasant to know that his most fervent admirer no
longer feels it requisite to utter one word in the way
of complaint or vindication. Time has carried him
round to the ^diametrical counterpole of estimation.
Examination and more learned study have justified
every iota of those statements to which lie pledged his
own private authority. His chronology is better to
this day than any single system opposed to it. His
dimensions and distances arc su far superior to those
of later travellers, whose hands were strengthened by
all the powers of military command and regal au-
tocracy, that Major Kennell, upon a deliberate retro-
spect of his works, preferred his authority to that of
those who came after him as conquerors and rulers of
the kingdoms which he had described as a simple
traveller ; nay, to the late authority of those who had
conquered those conquerors. It is gratifying that a
judge, so just and thoughtful as the Major, should
declare the reports of Alexander's officers on the dis-
tances and stations in the Asiatic part of his empire,
less trustworthy by much than the reports of Herodo-
tus : yet, who was more liberally devoted to science

PHILOSOPHY OF HEKODOTTJS. 137

than Alexander ? or what were the humble powers of
the foot traveller in comparison with those of the
mighty earth-shaker, for whom prophecy had heen on
the watch for centuries ? It is gratifying, that a judge
like the Major should find the same advantage on the
side of Herodotus, as to the distances in the Egyptian
and Libyan part of this empire, on a comparison with
the most accomplished of Romans, Pliny, Strabo,
Ptolemy, (for all are Romans who benefited by any
Roman machinery,) coming five and six centuries
later. We indeed hold the accuracy of Herodotus to
be all but marvellous, considering the wretched appa-
ratus which he could then command in the popular
measures. The stadium, it is true, was more accu-
rate, because less equivocal in those Grecian days,
than afterwards, when it inter-oscillated with the
Roman stadium; but all the multiples of that stadium,
such as the schoenus, the Persian parasang^ or the
military statlimus, were only less vague than the coss
of Hindostan in their ideal standards, and as fluctua-
ting practically as are all computed distances at all
times and places. The close approximations of Herod-
otus to the returns of distances upon caravan routes
of five hundred miles by the most vigilant of modern
travellers, checked by the caravan controllers, is a
bitter retort upon his calumniators. And, as to the
consummation of the insults against him in the charge
of wilful falsehood, we explain it out of hasty reading
and slight acquaintance with Greek. The sensibility
of Herodotus to his own future character in this re-
'spect, under a deep consciousness of his upright for-
bearance on the one side, and of the extreme liability

1 PHILOSOPHY OP IIEEODOTTJS.

on the other side to uncharitable construction for any
man moving amongst Egyptian thaumaturgtcal tradi-
tions, comes forward continually in his anxious dis-
tinctions between what he gives on his own ocular
experience (ui/'f?) what upon his own inquiries, or
combination of inquiries with previous knowledge
(fozooaj what upon hearsay (W<^) what upon cur-
rent tradition (;<jyoe.) And the evidences are multi-
plied over and above these distinctions, of the irrita-
tion which besieged his mind as to the future wrongs
he might sustain from the careless and the unprinci-
pled. Had truth been less precious in his eyes, was
it tolerable to be supposed a liar for so vulgar an
object as that of creating a stare by wonder-making ?
The high-minded Grecian, justly proud of his superb
intellectual resources for taking captive the imagina-
tions of his half-polished countrymen, disdained such
base artifices, which belong more properly to an
effeminate and over-stimulated stage of civilization.
And, once for all, he had announced ui an early
point as the principle of his work, as what ran along
the whole line of his statements by way of basis or

Subsumption, (;*(><* nunu rov Juyav VMostrnti') that llO

wrote upon the faith of hearsay from the Egyptians
severally: meaning by 'severally, 1 (^w) that, ho
did not adopt any chance hearsay, but such us was
guarantied by the men who presided over each several
department of Egyptian official or ceremonial life.

Having thus said something towards re-vintliculing
for Herodotus his proper station first, as a power hi
literature; next, as a geographer, economist, mytholo*
gist, antiquary, historian we shall draw the render's

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 139

attention to the remarkable 'set of the current' to-
wards that very consummation and result of justice
amongst the learned within the last two generations.
There is no such case extant of truth slowly righting
itself. Seventy years ago, the reputation of Herodotus
for veracity was at the lowest ebb. That prejudice
still survives popularly. But amongst the learned, it
has gradually given way to better scholarship, and to
two generations of travellers, starting with far superior
preparation for their difficult labors. Accordingly, at
this day, each successive commentator, better able to
read Greek, and better provided with solutions for the
inevitable errors of a reporter, drawing upon others
for his facts, with only an occasional interposition of
his own opinion, comes with increasing reverence to
his author. The laudator temporis acti takes for
granted in his sweeping ignorance, that we of the
present generation are less learned than our immediate
predecessors. It happens, that all over Europe the
course of learning has been precisely in the inverse
direction. Poor was the condition of Greek learning
in England, when Dr. Cooke (one of the five wretched
old boys who operated upon Gray's Elegy in the
character of Greek translators) presided at Cambridge
as their Greek professor. See, or rather touch with
the tongs, his edition 4 of Aristotle's Poetics. Equally
poor was its condition in Germany : for, if one swal-
low could make a summer, we had that in England.
Poorer by far was its condition (as generally it is) in
France : where a great Don in Greek letters, an Abbe
who passed for unfathomably learned, having occasion
to translate a Greek sentence, saying that ' Herodotus,

140 PHILOSOPHY OP HERODOTUS.

even whilst lonicizing, (using the Ionic dialect,) had
yet spelt a particular name with the alpha and not
with the etaj rendered the passage ( Hcrodote et
aussi Jazon.' The Greek words were these three
^HifiotWo? Ttai tauw. He had never heard that %ai means
even almost as often as it means and : thus he intro-
duced to the world, a fine new author, one Jazon,
Esquire ; and the squire holds his place in the learned
Abbe's book to this day. Good Greek scholars arc
now in the proportion of perhaps sixty to one by
comparison with the penultimate generation : and this
proportion holds equally for Germany and for Eng-
land. So that the restoration of Herodotus to his
place in literature, his Palingcnesia^ has been no
caprice, but is due to the vast depositions of knowl-
edge, equal for the last seventy or eighty years to the
accumulated product of the entire previous interval
from Herodotus to 1760, in every one of those par-
ticular fields which this author was led by his situation
to cultivate.

Meantime the work of cleansing this great tank or
depository of archaeology (the one sole reservoir, so
placed in point of time as to collect and draw all the
contributions from the frontier ground between tbe
mythical and the historical period) is still proceeding.
Every fresh laborer, by new accessions of direct aid,
or by new combinations of old suggestions, finds him-
self able to purify the interpretation of Herodotus by
wider analogies, or to account for his mistakes by more
accurately developing the situation of the speaker.
We also bring our own unborrowcd contributions. We
also would wish to promote this groat labor, which, be

PHILOSOPHY OP HERODOTUS. 141

it remembered, concerns no secondary section of hu-
man progress, searches no blind corners or nooks of
history, but traverses the very crests and summits of
human annals, with a solitary exception for the Hebrew
Scriptures, so far as opening civilization is concerned.
The commencement the solemn inauguration of
history, is placed no doubt in the commencement of
the Olympiads, 77*7 years before Christ. The doors
of the great theatre were then thrown open. That is
undeniable. But the performance did not actually
commence till 555 B. C., (the locus of Cyrus.) Then
began the great tumult of nations the termashaw^ to
speak Bengalice. Then began the procession, the
pomp, the interweaving of the western tribes, not
always by bodily presence, but by the actio in distans
of politics. And the birth of Herodotus was precisely
in the seventy-first year from that period. It is the
greatest of periods that is concerned. And we also as
willingly, we repeat, would offer our contingent. What
we propose to do, is to bring forward two or three
important suggestions of others not yet popularly known

shaping and pointing, if possible, their application

brightening their justice, or stregthening their out-
lines. And with these we propose to intermingle one
or two suggestions, more exclusively our own.

I. The Non-Planetary Earth of Herodotus in its

relation to the Planetary Sun.
Mr, Hermann Bobrik is the first torch-bearer to He-
rodotus, who has thrown a strong light on his theory of
the earth's relation to the solar system. This is one of
the pr&cognita^ literally indispensable to the compre-

142 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

hcnsion of the geographical basis assumed by Herodo-
tus. And it is really interesting to see how one origi-
nal error had drawn after it a train of others how
one restoration of light has now illuminated a whole
hemisphere of objects. We suppose it the very next
thing to a fatal impossibility, that any man should at
once rid his mind so profoundly of all natural biases
from education, or almost from human instinct, as
barely to suspect the physical theory of Herodotus
barely to imagine the idea of a divorce occurring in
any theory between the solar orb and the great phe-
nomena of summer and winter. Prcjudications, hav-
ing the force of a necessity, had blinded generation
after generation of students to the very admission f/i
liminG of such a theory as could go the length of de-
throning the sun himself from all influence over the
great vicissitudes of heat and cold seed-time and
harvest for man. They did not sec what actually
was, what lay broadly below their eyes, in Herodotus,
because it seemed too fantastic a dream to suppose
that it could be. The case is far more common iliau
feeble psychologists imagine. Numerous arc the in-
stances in which we actually see not that which is
really there to be seen but that which we believe a
priori ought to be there. And in cases so palpable us
that of an external sense, it is not difficult to set the
student on his guard. But in cases more intellectual
or moral, like several in Herodotus, it is difficult for the
teacher himself to be effectually vigilant. It was not
anything actually seen by Herodotus which led him
into denying the solar functions ; it was his own inde-
pendent speculation. This suggested to him a plausi-

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 143

ble hypothesis ; plausible it was for that age of the
world; and afterwards, on applying it to the actual
difficulties of the case, this hypothesis seemed so far
good, that it did really unlock them. The case stood
thus : Herodotus contemplated Cold not as a mere
privation of Heat, but as a positive quality ; quite as
much entitled to ' high consideration,' in the language
of ambassadors, as its rival heat ; and quite as much
to a ' retiring pension,' in case of being superannuated.
Thus we all know, from Addison's fine raillery, that a
certain philosopher regarded darkness not at all as any
result from the absence of light, but fancied that, as
some heavenly bodies are luminaries, so others (which
he called tenelrific stars) might have the office of c ray-
ing out positive darkness.' In the infancy of science,
the idea is natural to the human mind ; and we re-
member hearing a great man of our own times declare,
that no sense of conscious power had ever so vividly
dilated his mind, nothing so like a revelation, as when
one clay in broad sunshine, whilst yet a child, he
discovered that his own shadow, which he had often
angrily hunted, was no real existence, but a mere hin-
dering of the sun's light from filling up the space
screened by his own body. The old grudge, which he
cherished against this coy fugitive shadow, melted
away in the rapture of this great discovery. To him
the discovery had doubtless been originally half-sug-
gested by explanations of his elders imperfectly com-
prehended. But in itself the distinction between the
affirmative and the negative is a step perhaps the most
costly in effort of any that the human mind is sum-
moned to take ; and the greatest indulgence is due to

144 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

those early stages of civilization when this step had
not been taken. For Herodotus, there existed two
great counter-forces in absolute hostility heat and
cold ; and these forces were incarnated in the WINDS.
It was the north and north-cast wind, not any distance
of the sun, which radiated cold and frost; it was the
southern wind from Ethiopia, not at all the sun, which
radiated heat. But could a man so sagacious as He-
rodotus stand with his ample Grecian forehead exposed
to the noonday sun, and suspect no part of the calorific
agency to be seated in the sun ? Certainly he could
not. But this partial agency is no more than what we
of this day allow to secondary or tertiary causes apart
from the principal. We, that regard the sun as upon
the whole our planetary fountain of light, yet recog-
nise an electrical aurora, a zodiacal light, &c., as sub-
stitutes not palpably dependent. We that regard the
sun as upon the whole our fountain of heat, yet recog-
nise many co-operative, many modifying forces having
the same office such as the local configuration of
ground such as sea neighborhoods or land neighbor-
hoods, marshes or none, forests or none, strata of soil
fitted to retain heat and fund it, or to disperse it and
cool it. Precisely in the same way Herodotus did
allow an agency to the sun upon the daily range of
heat, though he allowed none to the same luminary in
regulating the annual range. What caused the spring
and autumn, the summer and winter, (though generally
in those ages there were but two seasons recognised,)
was the action of the winds. The diurnal arch of heat
(as we may call it) ascending from sunrise to some
hour, (say two P. M ) when the sum of the two heats

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 145

(the funded annual heat and the fresh increments of
daily heat) reaches its maximum, and the descending

limb of the same arch from this hour to sunset this

he explained entirely out of the sun's daily revolution,
which to him was, of course, no apparent motion, but a
real one in the sun. It is truly amusing to hear the
great man's infantine simplicity in describing the
effects of the solar journey. The sun rises, it seems,
in India ; and these poor Indians, roasted by whole
nations at breakfast-time, are then up to their chins in
water, whilst we thankless Westerns are taking tea
and toast' at our ease. However, it is a long lane
which has no turning ; and by noon the sun has driven
so many stages away from India, that the poor crea-
tures begin to come out of their rivers, and really find
things tolerably comfortable. India is now cooled
down to a balmy Grecian temperature. 'All right
behind ! ' as the mail-coach guards observe ; but not
quite right ahead, when the sun is racing away over
the boiling brains of the Ethiopians, Libyans, &c., and
driving Jupiter-Ammon perfectly distracted with his
furnace. But when things are at the worst, the proverb
assures us that they will mend. And for an early five
o'clock dinner, Ethiopia finds that she has no great
reason to complain. All civilized people are now cool
and happy for the rest of the day. But, as to the
woolly-headed rascals on the west coast of Africa, they
c catch it ' towards sunset, and c no mistake.' Yet why
trouble our heads about inconsiderable black fellows
like them, who have been cool all day whilst better
men were melting away by paiifuls ? And such is the
history of a summer's day in the heavens above and
VOL. i. 10

146 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

on the earth beneath. As to little Greece, she is but
skirted by the sun, who keeps away far to the south ;
thus she is maintained in a charming state of equilib-
rium by her fortunate position on the very frontier line
of the fierce Boreas and the too voluptuous Notos.

Meantime one effect follows from this transfer of the
solar functions to the winds, which has not been re-
marked, viz. that Herodotus has a double north ;
one governed by the old noisy Boreas, another by the
silent constellation Arktos. And the consequence of
this fluctuating north, as might be guessed, is the want
of any true north at all ; for the two points of the wind
and the constellation do not coincide in the first place ;
and secondly, the wind docs not coincide with itself,
but naturally traverses through a few points right and
left. Next, the cast also will be indeterminate from a
different cause. Had Herodotus lived in a high north-
ern latitude, there is no doubt that the ample range of
difference between the northerly points of rising in the
summer, and the southerly in winter, would have forced
his attention upon the fact, that only at the equinox,
vernal or autumnal, does the sun's rising accurately
coincide with the east. But in his Ionian climate, the
deflexions either way, to the north or to the south, wore
too inconsiderable to /orc<? themselves upon the eye ;
and thus a more indeterminate cast would arise
never rigorously corrected, because requiring so mode-
rate a correction. Now, a vague unsettled east, would
support f a vague unsettled north. And of course,
through whatever arch of variations either of these
points vibrated, precisely upon that scale the west and
the south would follow them.

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 147

Thus arises, upon a simple and easy genesis, that
condition of the compass (to use the word by anticipa-
tion) which must have tended to confuse the geographi-
cal system of Herodotus, and which does, in fact,
account for the else unaccountable obscurities in some
of its leading features. These anomalous features
would, on their own account, have deserved notice ;
but now, after this explanation, they will have a sepa-
rate value of illustrated proofs in relation to the present
article, No. I.

II. The Danube of Herodotus considered as a
counterpole to the Nile.

There is nothing more perplexing to some of the
many commentators on Herodotus than all which he
says of the river Danube ; nor anything easier, under
the preparation of the preceding article. The Danube,
or, in the nomenclature of Herodotus, the Istros, is
described as being in all respects E * naQaU^ov, by which
we must understand corresponding rigorously, but
antistrophically, (as the Greeks express it,) similar
angles, similar dimensions, but in an inverse order, to
the Egyptian Nile. The Nile, in its monstrous section,
flows from south to north. Consequently the Danube,
by the rule of parallelism, ought to flow through a
corresponding section from north to south. But, say
the commentators, it does not. Now, verbally they
might seem wrong ; but substantially, as regards the
justification of Herodotus, they are right Our business,
however, is not to justify Herodotus, but to explain him.
Undoubtedly there is a point about one hundred and
fifty miles east of Vienna, where the Danube descends.

148 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

almost due south for a space of three hundred miles ;
and this is a very memorable reach of the river ; for
somewhere within that long corridor of land which lies
between itself, (this Danube section,) and a direct
parallel section equally long, of the Hungarian river
Theiss, once lay, in the fifth century, the royal city or
encampment of Attila. Gibbon placed the city in the
northern part of this corridor, (or, strictly speaking,
this Mesopotamia,) consequently about two hundred
miles to the east of Vienna : but others, and especially
Hungarian writers, better acquainted by personal ex-
amination with the ground, remove it to one hundred
and fifty miles more to the south that is, to the
centre of the corridor, (or gallery of land enclosed by
the two rivers.) Now, undoubtedly, except along the
margin of this Attila's corridor, there is no considerable
section of the Danube which flows southward ; and this
will not answer the postulates of Herodotus. Generally
speaking, the Danube holds a headlong course to the
east. Undoubtedly this must be granted ; and so far
it might seem hopeless to seek for that kind of parallel-
ism to the Nile which Herodotus asserts. But the
question for us does not concern what is or then was
the question is solely about what Herodotus can be
shown to have meant. And here comes in, seasonably
and serviceably, that vagueness as to the points of the
compass which we have explained in the preceding
article. This, connected with the positive assertion of
Herodotus as to an inverse correspondency with the
Nile, (north and south, therefore, as the antistrophc to
south and north,) would place beyond a doubt the creed
of Herodotus which is the question that concerns

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 149

us. And, vice versa, this creed of Herodotus as to the
course of the Danube, in its mam latter section when
approaching the Euxine Sea, re-acts to confirm all we
have said, proprio marie, on the indeterminate articu-
lation of the Ionian compass then current. Here we
have at once the d priori reasons making it probable
that Herodotus would have a vagrant compass; second-
ly, many separate instances confirming this probability ;
thirdly, the particular instance, of the Danube, as antis-
trophizing with the Nile, not reconcilable with any
other principle ; and fourthly, the following indepen-
dent demonstration, that the Ionian compass must have
been confused in its leading divisions. Mark, reader,
Herodotus terminates his account of the Danube and
its course, by affirming that this mighty river enters
the Euxine at what point? Opposite, says he, to
Sinope. Could that have been imagined ? Sinope,
being a Greek settlement in a region where such settle-
ments were rare, was notorious to all the world as the
flourishing emporium, on the south shore of the Black
Sea, of a civilized people, literally hustled by barba-
rians. Consequently and this is a point to which all
commentators alike are blind the Danube descends
upon the Euxine in a long line running due south,
Else, we demand, how could it antistrophize with the
Nile ? Else, we demand, how could it lie right over
against the Sinope? Else, we demand, how could it
make that right-angle bend to the west in the earlier
section of its course, which is presupposed in its perfect
analogy to the Nile of Herodotus ? If already it were
lying east and west in that lower part of its course
which approaches the Euxine, what occasion could it

150 PHILOSOPHY OF HEBODOTUS.

offer for a right-angle turn, or for any turn at all
what possibility for any angle whatever between this
lower reach and that superior reach so confessedly
running eastward, according to all accounts of its
derivation ?

For as respects the Nile, by way of close to this
article, it remains to inform the reader that He-
rodotus had evidently met in Upper Egypt slaves or
captives in war from the regions of Sou don, Tombuc-
too, &c. This is the opinion of Ecnncll, of Browne
the visitor of the Ammonian Oasis, and many other
principal authorities ; and for a reason which we
always regard with more respect, though it were the
weakest of reasons, than all the authorities of this
world clubbed together, And this reason was the
coincidence of what Herodotus reports, with the truth
of facts first ascertained thousands of years later.
These slaves, or some people from those quarters, had
told him of a vast river lying east and west, of course
the Niger, but (as he and they supposed) a superior
section of the Nile ; and therefore, by geometrical
necessity, falling at right angles upon that other section
of the Nile, so familiar to himself, lying south and
north. Hence arose a faith that is not primarily hence,
but hence in combination with a previous construction
existing in his mind for the geometry of the Danube,
that the two rivers Danube and Nile had a mystic
relation as arctic and antarctic powers over man.
Herodotus had been taught to figure the Danube as a
stream of two main inclinations an upper section
rising in the extreme west of Europe, (possibly in
Charlotte Square, Edinburgh,) whence he travelled

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 151

with the arrow's flight due east in search of his wife
the Euxine ; but somewhere in the middle of his
course, hearing that her dwelling lay far to the south,
and having then completed his distance in longitude,
afterwards he ran down his latitude with the headlong
precipitation of a lover, and surprised the bride due
north from Sinope. This construction it was of the
Danube's course which subsequently, upon his hearing
of a corresponding western limb for the Nile, led him
to perceive the completion of that analogy between
the two rivers 3 its absolute perfection 3 which already
he had partially suspected. Their very figurations
now appeared to reflect and repeat each other in
solemn mimicry, as previously he had discovered the
mimical correspondence of their functions ; for this
latter doctrine had been revealed to him by the Egyp-
tian priests, then the chief depositaries of Egyptian
learning. They had informed him, and evidently had
persuaded him, that already more than once the sun
had gone round to the region of Europe ; pursuing
his diurnal arch as far to the north of Greece as now
he did to the south ; and carrying in his equipage all
the changes of every kind which were required to
make Scythia an Egypt, and consequently to make
the Istros a Nile. The same annual swelling then
filled the channel of the Danube, which at present
gladdens the Nile. The same luxuriance of vegeta-
tion succeeded as a dowry to the gay summer-land of
Trans-Euxine and Para-Danubian Europe, which for
thousands of years had seemed the peculiar heirloom
of Egypt. Old Boreas we are glad of that was
required to pack up ' his alls,' and be off; his new

152 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

business was to plague the black rascals, and to bake
them with hoar-frost ; which must have caused them
to shake their cars in some astonishment for a few
centuries, until they got used to it. Whereas c the
sweet south wind' of the ancient mariner, leaving
Africa, pursued ' the mariner's holloa, all over tho
Euxine and the Palus Mceotis. The Danube, in short,
became the Nile ; and the same deadly curiosity
haunted its fountains. So that many a long-legged
Bruce would strike off in those days towards Charlotte
Square. But all in vain: ' Ncc licuit populis 5 or
stop, to save the metre

1 Nee poteras, Charlotte, populis turn parva videri.'

Nobody would reach the fountains ; particularly as
there would be another arm, El-Abiad or white river,
perhaps at Stockbridgc. However, the explorers rnnst
have 'burned' strongly (as children say at hide-and-
seek) when they attained a point so near to the foun-
tains as BlackwoocFs Magazine, which doubtless was
going on pretty well in those days.

We are sorry that Herodotus should have been so
vague and uncircurnstantial in his account of these
vicissitudes ; since it is pretty evident to any man who
reflects on the case that, had he pursued the train
of changes inevitable to Egypt under the one single
revolution affecting the Nile itself as a slime-depositing
river, his judicious intellect would soon have descried
the obliteration of the whole Egyptian valley, [else-
where he himself calls that valley SMQW -rot; Ntiiw a
gift of the Nile,] consequently the obliteration of the
people, consequently the immemorial extinction of all

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 153

those records or, if they were posterior to the last
revolution in favor of Egypt, at any rate of the one
record which could have transmitted the memory of
such an astonishing transfer. Meantime the reader is
now in possession of the whole theory contemplated
by Herodotus. It was no mere lusus naturce that the
one river repeated the other, and, as it were, mocked
the other in form and geographical relations. It was
no joke that lurked under that mask of resemblance.
Each was the other alternately. It was the case of
Castor and Pollux, one brother rising as the other set.
The Danube could always comfort himself with the
idea that he was the Nile c elect;' the other, or
provisional Nile, only 'continuing to hold the seals
until his successor should be installed in office.' The
Nile, in fact, appears to have the best of it in our
time ; but then there is ' a braw time coming,' and,
after all, swelling as he is with annual conceit, father
Nile, in parliamentary phrase, is but the ' warming-
pan ' for the Danube ; keeping the office warm for
him. A new administration is formed, and out he
goes bag and baggage.

It is less important, however, for us, though far more
so for the two rivers, to speculate on the reversion of
their final prospects, than upon the present symbols
of this reversion in the unity of their forms. That is,
it less concerns us to deduce the harmony of their
functions from the harmony of their geographical
courses, than to abide by the inverse argument that,
where the former harmony was so loudly inferred
from the latter, at any rate, that fact will demonstrate
the existence of the latter harmony in the judgment

154 PHILOSOPHY OF HEKODOTUS.

and faith of Herodotus. He could not possibly have
insisted on the analogy between the two channels
geographically, as good in logic for authenticating a
secret and prophetic analogy between their alternating
offices, but that at least he must firmly have believed
in the first of these analogies as already existing
and open to the verification of the human eye. The
second or ulterior analogy might be false, and yet
affect only its own separate credit, whilst the falsehood
of the first was ruinous to the credit of both. Whence
it is evident that of the two resemblances in form and
function, the resemblance in form was the least dis-
putable of the two for Herodotus.

This argument, and the others which we have indi-
cated, and amongst those others, above all, the position
of the Danube's mouths right over against a city situ-
ated as was Sinopc, i, e. not doubtfully emerging
from either flank of the Euxinc, west or east, but
broadly and almost centrally planted on the southern
basis of that sea, we offer as a body of demonstra-
tive proof, that, to the mature faith of Herodotus, the
Danube or Istros ran north and south in its Euxinc
section, and that its right-angled section ran west and
east a very important element towards the true Eu-
rope of Herodotus, which, as we contend, has not yet
been justly conceived or figured by his geographical
commentators.

III. On the Africa of Herodotus.
There is an amusing blunder on this subject com-
mitted by Major Kcnncll. How often do we hear
people commenting on the Scriptures, and raising up

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 155

aerial edifices of argument, in which every iota of the
logic rests, unconsciously to themselves, upon the acci-
dental words of the English version, and melts away
when applied to the original text ; so that, in fact, the
whole has no more strength than if it were built upon
a pun or an equivoque. Such is the blunder of the
excellent Major. And it is not timidly expressed. At
p. 410, Geog. Hist, of Herodotus, he thus delivers
himself: 'Although the term Lybia' (so thus does
Rennell always spell it, instead of Libya) t is occa-
sionally used by Herodotus as synonymous to Africa,
(especially in Melpom., &c. &c.) yet it is almost ex-
clusively applied to that part bordering on the Mediter-
ranean Sea between the Greater Syrtis and Egypt ; '
and he concludes the paragraph thus : 'So that
Africa, and not Lybia, is the term generally employed
by Herodotus.' We stared on reading these words, as
Aladdin stared when he found his palace missing, and
the old thief, who had bought his lamp, trotting off
with it on his back far beyond the bills of mortality.
Naturally we concluded that it was ourselves who must
be dreaming, and not the Major; so, taking a bed-
candle, off we marched to bed. But the next morning,
air clear and frosty, ourselves as sagacious as a grey-
hound, we pounced at first sight on the self-same words.
Thus, after all, it was the conceit mantling in our brain
(of being in that instance a cut above the Major) which
turned out to be the sober truth ; and our modesty, our
sobriety of mind, it was which turned out a windy
tympany. Certainly, said we, if this be so, and that
the word Africa is really standing in Herodotus, then
it must be like that secret island called Eifa, lying in

156 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

some Egyptian lake, which was reported to Herodotus
as having concealed itself frorn human eyes for five
hundred and four years a capital place it must have
been against duns and the sheriff; for it was an Eng-
lish mile in diameter, and yet no man could sec it until
a fugitive king, happening to be hard pressed in the
rear, dived into the water, and came up to the light in
the good little island ; where he lived happily for fifty
years, and every day got bousy as a piper, in spite of
all his enemies, who were roaming about the lake night
and day to catch his most gracious majesty. He was
king of Elbo, at least, if he had no particular subjects
but himself, as Nap was in our clays of Elba ; and per-
haps both were less plagued with rebels than when
sitting on the ampler thrones of Egypt and France.
But surely the good Major must have dreamed a dream
about this word Africa; for how would it look in Ionic
Greek sltpQixy ? Did any man ever see such a word ?
However, let not the reader bcliovc that wo arc tri-
umphing meanly in the advantage of our Greek,
Milton, in one of his controversial works, exposing an
insolent antagonist who pretended to a knowledge of
Hebrew, which in fact he had not, remarks, that the
man must be ignoble, whoever he were, that would
catch at a spurious credit, though it were but from a
language which really he did not understand. But so
far was Major Rennell from doing this, that, when no
call upon him existed for saying one word upon the
subject, frankly he volunteered a confession to all the
world that Greek ho had none. The marvel is the
greater that, as Saundcrson, blind from his infancy,
was the best lecturer on colors early in the eighteenth

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 157

century, so by far the best commentator on the Greek
Herodotus has proved to be a military man, who knew
-nothing at all of Greek. Yes, mark the excellence of
upright dealing. Had Major Kennell pretended to
Greek, were it but as much as went to the spelling of
the word Africa, here was he a lost man. Blackivood^s
Magazine would now have exposed him. Whereas,
things being as they are, we respect him and admire
him sincerely. And, as to his wanting this one accom-
plishment, every man wants some. We ourselves can
neither dance a hornpipe nor whistle Jim Crow, without
driving the whole musical world into black despair. /

Africa, meantime, is a word imported into Herod-
otus by Mr. Beloe ; whose name, we have been given
to understand, was pronounced like that of our old
domesticated friend the bellows, shorn of the s ; and
whose translation, judging from such extracts as we
have seen in books, may be better than Littlebury's;
but, if so, we should be driven into a mournful opinion
of Mr. Littlebury. Strange that nearly all the classics,
Roman as well as Greek, should be so meanly repre-
sented by their English reproducers. The French
translators, it is true, are worse as a body. But in this
particular instance of Herodotus they have a respecta-
ble translator. Larcher read Greek sufficiently ; and
was as much master of his author's peculiar learning
as any one general commentator that can be men-
tioned.

But Africa the thing, not Africa the name, is that
which puzzles all students of Herodotus, as, indeed,
no little it puzzled Herodotus himself. Rennell makes
one difficulty where in fact there is none ; viz. that

158 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

sometimes Herodotus refers Egypt to Libya, and
sometimes refuses to do so. But in this there is no
inconsistency, and no forgetfulness. Herodotus wisely
adopted the excellent rule of 'thinking with the
learned, and talking with the people.' Having once
firmly explained his reasons for holding Egypt to be
neither an Asiatic nor an African, but the neutral
frontier artificially created by the Nile, as a long cor-
ridor of separation between Asia and Africa, after-
wards, and generally, he is too little of a pedant to
make war upon current forms of speech. What is the
use of drawing oil men's attention, in questions about
things, by impertinent provisions of diction or by alien
theories? Some people have made it a question
Whether Great Britain were not extra-European ? and
the Island of Crete is generally assumed to he so.
Some lawyers also, nay, some courts of justice, have
entertained the question Whether a man could be
held related to his own mother? Not as though too
remotely related, but as too nearly, and in fact absorbed
within the lunar beams. Yet, in all such cases, the
publicist the geographer the lawyer, continue to
talk as other people do ; and, assuredly, the lawyer
would regard a witness as perjured who should say, in
speaking of a woman notoriously his mother, c Oh ! I
do assure you, Sir, the woman is no relation of mine.'
The world of that day (and, indeed, it is not much
more candid even now) would have it that Libya com-
prehended Egypt ; and Herodotus, like the wise man
that he was, having once or twice lodged his protest
against that idea, then replies to the world c Very
well, if you say so, it is so ; ' precisely as Pctruchio's

PHILOSOPHY OF HEE.ODOTTTS. 159

wife, to soothe her mad husband, agrees that the sun is
the moon; and, back again, that it is not the moon.

Here there is no real difficulty ; for the arguments
of Herodotus are of two separate classes, and both too
strong to leave any doubt that his private opinion never
varied by a hair's breadth on this question. And it
was a question far from verbal, of which any man
may convince himself by reflecting on the disputes, at
different periods, with regard to Macedon (both Mace-
donis the original germ, and Macedonia the expanded
kingdom) as a claimant of co-membership in the house-
hold of Greece ; or on the disputes, more angry if less
scornful, between Carthage and Gyrene as to the true
limits between the daughter of Tyre and the daughter
of Greece. The very color of the soil in Egypt
the rich black loam, precipitated by the creative river
already symbolized to Herodotus the deep repulsion
lying between Egypt on the one side, and Libya, where
all was red ; between Egypt on the one side, and Asia,
where all was calcined into white sand. And, as to
the name, does not the reader catch ws still using the
word c Africa ' instead of Libya, after all our sparring
against that word as scarcely known by possibility to
Herodotus ?

But, beyond this controversy as to the true marches
or frontier lines of the two great continents in com-
mon Asia and Africa there was another and a
more grave one as to the size, shape and limitations
of Africa in particular. It is true that both Europe
and Asia were imperfectly defined for Herodotus.
But he fancied otherwise ; for them he could trace a
vague, rambling outline. Not so for Africa, unless a

160 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

great event in Egyptian records were adopted for
true. This was the voyage of circumnavigation ac-
complished under the orders of Pharaoh Necho. Dis-
allowing this earliest recorded Pcriplus, then no man
could say of Africa whether it were a large island or
a boundless continent having no outline traceable by
man, or (which, doubtless, would hove been the
favorite creed) whether it were not a technical aide.
such as Asia Minor ; that is, not a peninsula like the
Peloponnesus, or the tongues of land near Mount
Athos because in that case the idea required a
narrow neck or isthmus at the point of junction with
the adjacent continent but a square, tabular plate
of ground, c a block of ground ' (us the Americans
say) having three sides washed by some sea, but a
fourth side absolutely untouched by any sea whatever.
On this word akte^ as a term but recently drawn out
of obscurity, we shall say a word or two further on ;
at present we proceed with the great African Periplns.
We, like 'the rest of this world, held this to be a pure
fable, so long as we had never anxiously studied the
ancient geography, and consequently had never medi-
tated on the circumstances of this story under the
light of that geography, or of the current astronomy.
But we have since greatly changed our opinion. And,
though it would not have shaken that opinion to find
Rennell dissenting, undoubtedly it much strengthened
our opinion to find so cautions a judge concurring.
Perhaps the very strongest argument in favor of the
voyage, if we speak of any single argument, is that
which Jicnnell insists on namely, the sole circum-
stance reported by the voyagers which Herodotus

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 161

pronounced incredible, the assertion that in one part
of it they had the sun on the right hand. And as we
have always found young students at a loss for the
meaning of that expression, since naturally it struck
them that a man might bring the sun at any place
on either hand, or on neither, we will stop for one
moment to explain, for the use of such readers and
ladies, that, as in military descriptions, you are always
presumed to look down the current of a river, so that
the c right ' bank of the Rhine, for instance, is always
to a soldier the German bank, the ' left ' always the
French bank, in contempt of the traveller's position ;
so, in speaking of the sun, you are presumed to place
your back to the east, and to accompany him on his
daily route. In that position, it will be impossible for
a man in our latitudes to bring the sun on his right
shoulder, since the sun never even rises to be verti-
cally over his head. First, when he goes south so far
as to enter the northern tropic, would such a phe-
nomenon be possible ? and if he persisted in going
beyond the equator and southern tropic, then he would
find all things inverted as regards oar hemisphere.
Then he would find it as impossible, when moving
concurrently with the sun, not to have the sun on
his right hand, as with us to realize that phenomenon.
Now, it is very clear, that if the Egyptian voyagers
did actually double the Cape of Good Hope so far to
the south of the equator, then, by mere necessity, this
inexplicable phenomenon (for to them it was inexpli-
cable) would pursue them for months in succession.
Here is the point in this argument which we would
press on the reader's consideration ; and, inadver-
VOL. i. 11

162 PHILOSOPHY OF HEEODOTtJS.

tently, Rennell has omitted this aspect of the argu-
ment altogether. To Herodotus, as we have seen, it
was so absolutely incredible a romance, that he re-
jected it summarily. And why not, therefore, 4 go the
whole hog,' and reject the total voyage, when thus in
Ms view partially discredited ? That question recalls
us to the certainty that there must have been other
proofs, independent of this striking allegation, too
strong to allow of scepticism in this wise man's mind.
He fancied (and with his theory of the heavens, in
which there was no equator, no central limit, no prov-
ince of equal tropics on either hand of that limit,
could he have done otherwise than fancy?) that Jack,
after his long voyage, having then no tobacco for his
recreation, and no grog, took out his allowance in the
shape of wonder-making. He * bounced ' a little, he
' Cretized ; ' and who could be angry ? And laugha-
ble it is to reflect, that, like the poor credulous mother,
who listened complacently to her sea-faring son whilst
using a Sinbad's license of romancing, but gravely
reproved him for the sin of untruth when he told her
of flying fish, or some other simple zoological fact
so Herodotus would have made careful memoranda
of this Egyptian voyage had it told of men whose
heads do grow beneath their shoulders,' (since, if he
himself doubted about the one-eyed Arimaspians, he
yet thought the legend entitled to a report,) but scouted
with all his energy the one great truth of the Periplus,
and eternal monument of its reality, as a fable too
monstrous for toleration. On the other hand, for us,
who know its truth, and how inevadilly it must have
haunted for months the Egyptians in the face of all

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 163

their previous impressions, it ought to stand for an
argument, strong c as proofs of holy writ,' that the
voyage did really take place. There is exactly one
possibility, but a very slight one, that this truth might
have been otherwise learned learned independently ;
and that is, from the chance that those same Africans
of the interior who had truly reported the Niger to
Herodotus, (though erroneously as a section of the
Nile,) might simultaneously have reported the phenom-
ena of the sun's course. But we reply to that possible
suggestion that in fact it could scarcely have hap-
pened. Many other remarkable phenomena of Nigri-
tia had not been reported ; or had been dropped out of
the record as idle or worthless. Secondly, as slaves
they would have obtained little credit, except when
falling in with a previous idea or Belief. Thirdly,
none of these men would be derived from any place
to the south of the line, still less south of the southern
tropic. Generally they would belong to the northern
tropic : and (that being premised) what would have
been the true form of the report ? Not that they had
the sun on the right hand ; but that sometimes he was
directly vertical, sometimes on the left hand, some-
times on the right. ' What, ye black villains I The
sun, that never was known to change, unless when he
reeled a little at seeing the anthropophagous banquet
of Thyestes, lie to dance cotillions in this absurd
way up and down the heavens, why, hamstringing
is too light a punishment for such insults to Apollo,'
so would a Greek have spoken. And, at least, if the
report had survived at all, it would have been in this
shape as the report of an uncertain movement in
the African sun.

164 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

But as a regular nautical report made to the Pharaoh
of the day, as an extract from the log-book, for this
reason it must be received as unanswerable evidence,
as an argument that never can be surmounted on be-
half of the voyage, that it contradicted all theories
whatsoever Greek no less than Egyptian and was
irreconcilable with all systems that the wit of men had
yet devised [viz., two centuries before Herodotus] for
explaining the solar motions. Upon this logic we will
take our stand. Here is the strong-hold, the citadel, of
the truth. Many a thing has been fabled, many a thing
carefully passed down by tradition as a fact of abso-
lute experience, simply because it fell in with some
previous fancy or prejudice of men. And even Baron
Munchausen's amusing falsehoods, if examined by a
logician, will uniformly be found squared or adjusted ;
not indeed to a belief, but to a whimsical sort of plausi-
bility, that reconciles the mind to the extravagance for
the single instant that is required. If he drives up a hill
of snow, and next morning finds his horse and gig
hanging from the top of a church steeple, the mon-
strous fiction is still countenanced by the sudden thaw
that had taken place in the night-time, and so far
physically possible as to be removed beyond the limits
of magic. And the very disgust, which revolts us in
a supplement to the baron, that we remember to have
seen, arises from the neglect of those smooth plausi-
bilities. We are there summoned to believe blank
impossibilities, without a particle of the baron's most
ingenious and winning speciousness of preparation.
The baron candidly admits the impossibility ; faces it ;
regrets it for the sake of truth : but a fact is a fact ;

PHILOSOPHY OF HEKODOTUS. 165

and he puts it to our equity whether we also have not
met with strange events. And never in a single instance
does the baron build upwards, without a massy founda-
tion of specious physical possibility. Whereas the fic-
tion, if it had been a fiction, recorded by Herodotus,
is precisely of that order which must have roused the
'incredulus odV in the fulness of perfection. Neither
in the wisdom of man, nor in his follies, was there one
resource for mitigating the disgust which would have
pursued it. This powerful reason for believing the
main fact of the circumnavigation let the reader,
courteous or not, if he is but the logical reader, conde-
scend to balance in his judgment,

Other arguments, only less strong on behalf of the
voyage, we will not here notice except this one,
most reasonably urged by Rennell, from his peculiar
familiarity, even in that day, (1799,) with the currents
and the prevalent winds of the Indian ocean; viz.,
that such a circumnavigation of Africa was almost
sure to prosper if commenced from the Red Sea, (as
it was,) and even more sure to fail if taken in the
inverse order; that is to say, through the Straits of
Gibraltar, and so down the western shore of Africa in
the first place. Under that order, which was peculiarly
tempting for two reasons to the Carthaginian sailor or
a Phoenician, Rennell has shown how all the currents,
the monsoons, &c., would baffle the navigator ; whilst,
taken in the opposite series, they might easily co-
operate with the bold enterpriser, so as to waft him, if
once starting at a proper season, almost to the Cape,
before (to use Sir Bingo Binks' phrase) he could say
dumpling. Accordingly, a Persian, nobleman of high

166 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTITS.

rank, having been allowed to commute his sentence
of capital punishment for that of sailing round Africa,
did actually fail from the cause developed hy Rennell.
Naturally he had a Phoenician crew, as the king's best
nautical subjects. Naturally they preferred the false
route. Naturally they failed. And the nobleman,
returning from transportation before his time, as well
as re, infectd, was executed.

But (ah, villanous word !) some ugly objector puts
in his oar, and demands to know why, if so vast an
event had actually occurred, it could have ever been
forgotten, or at all have faded ? to this we answer
briefly, what properly ought to form a separate section
in our notice of Herodotus. The event was not so
vast as we, with our present knowledge of Africa,
should regard it.

This is a very interesting aspect of the subject. We
laugh long and loud when we hear Des Cartes (great
man as he was) laying it down amongst the golden
rules for guiding his studies, that he would guard him-
self against all 'prejudices;' because we know that
when a prejudice of any class whatever is seen as such,
when it is recognised for a prejudice, from that moment
it ceases to le a prejudice. Those are the true baffling
prejudices for man, which he never suspects for preju-
dices. How widely, from the truisms of experience,
could we illustrate this truth ! But we abstain. We
content ourselves with this case. Even Major Rennell,
starting semi-consciously from his own previous knowl-
edge, (the fruit of researches a thousand years later
than Herodotus,) lays down an Africa at least ten
times too great for meeting the Greek idea. Unavoid-

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 167

ably Herodotus knew the Mediterranean dimensions of
Africa ; else he would have figured it to himself as an
island, equal perhaps to Greece, Macedon and Thrace.
As it was, there is no doubt to us, from many indica-
tions, that the Libya of Herodotus, after all, did not
exceed the total bulk of Asia Minor carried eastwards
to the Tigris. But there is not such an awful corrupter
of truth in the whole world there is not such an
unconquerable enslaver of men's minds, as the blind
instinct by which tl^ey yield to the ancient root-bound
trebly-anchored prejudications of their childhood and
original belief. Misconceive us not, reader. We do
not mean that, having learned such and such doctrines,
afterwards they cling to them by affection. Not at all.
We mean that, duped by a word and the associations
clinging to it, they cleave to certain notions, not from
any partiality to them, but because this pre-occupation
intercepts the very earliest dawn of a possible concep-
tion or conjecture in the opposite direction. The most
tremendous error in human annals is of that order. It
has existed for seventeen centuries in strength ; and
is not extinct, though public in its action, as upon
another occasion we shall show. In this case of Africa
it was not that men resisted the truth according to the
ordinary notion of a prejudice ; ' it was, that every
commentator in succession upon Herodotus, coming to
the case with the fullest knowledge that Africa was a
vast continent, ranging far and wide in both hemis-
pheres, unconsciously slipped into the feeling, that this
had always been the belief of men; possibly some
might a little fall short of the true estimate, some a
little exceed it ; but that, on the whole, it was at least

168 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

as truly figured to men's minds as either of the two
other continents. Accordingly, one and all have pre-
sumed a bulk for the Libya of Herodotus absolutely
at war with the whole indications. And, if they had
once again read Herodotus under the guiding light
furnished by a blank denial of this notion, they would
have found a meaning in many a word of Herodotus,
such as they never suspected whilst trying it only
from one side. In this blind submission to a preju-
dice of words and clustering associations, Kennell also
shares.

It will be retorted, however, that the long time al-
lowed by Herodotus for the voyage argues a corres-
ponding amplitude of dimensions. Doubtless a time
upwards of two years, is long for a modern Periplus,
even of that vast continent. But Herodotus knew
nothing of monsoons, or trade-winds or currents : he
allowed nothing for these accelerating forces, which
were enormous, though allowing fully [could any
Greek have neglected to allow ?] for all the retarding
forces. Daily advances of thirty-three miles at most ;
nightly reposes, of necessity to men without the com-
pass ; above all, a coasting navigation, searching (if it
were only for water) every nook and inlet, bay, and
river's mouth, except only where the winds or currents
might violently sweep them past these objects. Then
we are to allow for a long stay on the shore of West-
ern Africa, for the sake of reaping, or having reaped
by natives, a wheat harvest a fact which strengthens
the probability of the voyage, but diminishes the dis-
posable time which Herodotus would use as the expo-
nent of the space. We must remember the want of

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 169

sails aloft in ancient vessels, the awkwardness of their
build for fast sailing, and, above all, their cautious
policy of never tempting the deep, unless when the
wind would not be denied. And, in the mean time,
all the compensatory forces of air and water, as utterly
unsuspected by Herodotus, we must subtract from his
final summation of the effective motion, leaving for the
actual measure of the sailing, as inferred by Herodo-
tus consequently for the measure of the virtual
time, consequently of the African space, as only to be
collected from the time so corrected a very small
proportion indeed, compared with the results of a
similar voyage, even by the Portuguese, about A. D.
1500. To Herodotus we are satisfied that Libya (dis-
arming it of its power over the world's mind, in the
pompous name of Africa) was not bigger than the true
Arabia as known to ourselves.

And hence, also, by a natural result, the obliteration
of this Periplus from the minds of men. It accom-
plished no great service, as men judged. It put a zone
about a large region, undoubtedly ; but what sort of a
region? A mere worthless wilderness, now %*co<%,
dedicated by the gods to wild beasts, now c^uw^/s,
trackless from sands, and everywhere fountainless,
arid, scorched (as they believed) in the interior. Sub-
tract Egypt, as not being part, and to the world of
civilization at that time Africa must have seemed a
worthless desert, except for Gyrene and Carthage, its
two choice gardens, already occupied by Phoenicians
and Greeks. This, by the way, suggests a new con-
sideration, viz. that even the Mediterranean extent of
Africa must have been unknown to Herodotus since

170 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

all beyond Carthage, as Mauritania, &c., would wind
up into a small inconsiderable tract, as being dis-
puncted by no great states or colonies.

Therefore it was that this most interesting of all
circumnavigations at the present day did virtually and
could not but perish as a vivid record. It measured a
region which touched no man's prosperity. It recorded
a discovery, for which there was no permanent appre-
ciator. A case exists at this moment, in London, pre-
cisely parallel. There is a chart of New Holland still
preserved among the xeipiflta of the British Museum,
which exhibits a Periplus of that vast region, from
some navigator, almost by three centuries prior to
Captain Cook. A rude outline of Cook's labors in
that section had been anticipated at a time when it
was not wanted. Nobody cared about it : value it had
none, or interest ; and it was utterly forgotten. That
it did not also perish in the literal sense, as well as in
spirit, was owing to an accident.

IV. The Geographical AKTE of Greece.
We had intended to transfer, for the use of our
readers, the diagram imagined by Niebuhr in illus-
tration of this idea. But our growing exorbitance
from our limits warns us to desist. Two points only
we shall notice : 1. That Niebuhr not the travel-
ler, as might have been expected, but his son, the phi-
losophic historian first threw light on this idea, which
had puzzled multitudes of honest men. Here we see
the same similarity as in the case of Rennell ; in that
instance, a man without a particle of Greek, c whip-
ped ' (to speak KentucJdce] whole crowds of sleeping

PHILOSOPHY OF HEKODOTUS. 171

drones who had more than they could turn to any
good account And in the other instance, we see a
sedentary scholar, travelling chiefly between his study
and his bedroom, doing the work that properly belong-
ed to active travellers. 2. Though we have already
given one illustration of an Akte in Asia Minor, it may
be well to mention as another, the vast region of Ara-
bia. In fact, to Herodotus the tract of 'Arabia and
Syria on the one hand, made up one akte (the south-
ern) for the Persian empire ; Asia Minor, with part of
Armenia, made up another akte (the western) for the
same empire ; the two being at right angles, and both
abutting on imaginary lines drawn from different points
of the Euphrates.

V. Chronology of Herodotus.
The commentator of Herodotus, who enjoys the
reputation of having best unfolded his chronology, is
the French President Buhier. We cannot say that
this opinion coincides with our own. There is a la-
mentable imbecility in all the chronological commenta-
tors, of two opposite tendencies. Either they fall into
that folly of drivelling infidelity, which shivers at every
fresh revelation of geology, and every fresh romance
of fabulous chronology, as fatal to religious truths ; or,
with wiser feelings but ^qual silliness, they seek to
protect Christianity by feeble parryings, from a danger
which exists only for those who never had any rational
principles of faith ; as if the mighty spiritual power
of Christianity were to be thrown upon her defence,
as often as any old woman's legend from Hindostan,
(see Bailly's Astronomic) or from Egypt, (see the

172 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

whole series of chronological commentators on Herod-
otus,) became immeasurably extravagant, and exactly
in proportion to that extravagance. Amongst these
latter chronologers, perhaps Larcher is the most false
and treacherous. He affects a tragical start as often
as he rehearses the traditions of the Egyptian priests,
and assumes a holy shuddering. c Eh quoi ! Ce seroit
done ces gens-la, qui auroient ose insulter a notre
sainte religion ! ' But, all the while, beneath his
mask the reader can perceive, not obscurely, a perfid-
ious smile ; as on the face of some indulgent mother,
who affects to menace with her hand some favorite
child at a distance, whilst the present subject of a
stranger's complaint, but, in fact, ill disguises her
foolish applause to its petulance.

Two remarks only, we shall allow ourselves upon
this extensive theme, which, if once entered in good
earnest, would go on to a length more than commen-
surate with all the rest of our discussion.

1. The three hundred and thirty kings of Egypt,
who were interposed by the Egyptian priests, between
the endless dynasty of the gods, arid the pretty long
dynasty of real kings, (the Shepherds, the Pharaohs,
&c.) are upon this argument to be objected as mere
unmeaning fictions, viz. that they did nothing. This
argument is reported as a fad, (not as an argument of
rejection,) by Herodotus himself, and reported from
the volunteer testimony of the priests themselves ; so
that the authority for the number of kings, is also their
inertia. Can there be better proof needed, than that
they were men of straw, got up to color the legend of
a prodigious antiquity ? The reign of the gods was

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 173

felt to be somewhat equivocal, as susceptible of
allegoric explanations. So this long human dynasty
is invented to furnish a substantial basis for the
extravagant genealogy. Meantime, the whole three
hundred and thirty are such absolute faineans, that,
confessedly, not one act not one monument of art
or labor is ascribed to their auspices ; whilst every
one of the real unquestionable sovereigns, coinciding
with known periods in the tradition of Greece, or with
undeniable events in the divine simplicity of the
Hebrew Scriptures, is memorable for some warlike
act, some munificent institution, or some almost im-
perishable monument of architectural power.

2. But weaker even than the fabling spirit of these
genealogical inanities, is the idle attempt to explode
them, by turning the years into days. In this way, it
is true, we get rid of pretensions to a cloudy antiquity,
by wholesale clusters. The moonshine and the fairy
tales vanish but how ? To leave us all in a moon-
less quagmire of substantial difficulties, from which
(as has been suggested more than once) there is no
extrication at all ; for if the diurnal years are to rec-
oncile us to the three hundred and thirty kings, what
becomes of the incomprehensibly short reigns, (not
averaging above two or three months for each,) on the
long basis of time assumed by the priests ; and this in
the most peaceful of realms, and in fatal contradiction
to another estimate of the priests, by which the kings
are made to tally with as many yswat, or generations of
men ? Herodotus, and doubtless the priests, under-
stood a generation in the sense then universally cur-

174 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

rent, agreeably to which, three generations were
valued to a century.

But the questions are endless which grow out of
Herodotus. Pliny's Natural History has been usually
thought the greatest treasure-house of ancient learning.
But we hold that Herodotus furnishes by much the
largest basis for vast commentaries revealing the
archaeologies of the human race : whilst, as the eldest
of prose writers, he justifies his majestic station as a
brotherly assessor on the same throne with Homer.

NOTES.

NOTE 1. Page 124.

Geographic des Herodot dargestellt von Hermann Bobrik.
Koenigsberg, 1S38.

NOTE 2. Page 128.

But ' How has it prevailed,' some -will ask, ' if an error ?
Have not great scholars sate upon Herodotus ? ' Doubtless,
many. There is none greater, for instance, merely as a verbal
scholar, than Valckenaer. Whence we conclude that inevita-
bly this error has been remarked somewhere. And as to the
erroneous Latin version still keeping its ground, partly that
may be due to the sort of superstition which everywhere pro-
tects old usages in formal situations like a title-page, partly to
the fact that there is no happy Latin word to express < Re-
searches.' But, however that may be, all the scholars in the
world cannot get rid of the evidence involved in the general
use of the word laTQQia by Herodotus.

NOTE 3. Page 134.

1 Two-horned,* in one view, as having no successor, Alexan-
der was called the one-horned. But it is very singular that all
Oriental nations, without knowing anything of the scriptural
symbols under which Alexander is described by Daniel as
the strong he-goat who butted against the ram of Persia, have

176 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.

always called him the < two-horned/ with a covert allusion to
his European and his Asiatic kingdom. And it is equally
singular, that unintentionally this symbol falls in with Alex-
ander's own assumption of a descent from Libyan Jupiter-
Ammon, to whom the double horns were an indispensable and
characteristic symbol.

NOTE 4. Page 139.

Which edition the arrogant Mathias in his Pursuits of Lit-
erature (by far the most popular of books from 1797 to 1802)
highly praised ; though otherwise amusing himself with the
folly of the other grey-headed men contending for a school-
boy's prize. It was the loss of dignity, however, in the trans-
lator, not their worthless Greek, which he saw cause to
ridicule.

PLATO'S REPUBLIC.

THERE is no reader who has not heard of Solon's
apologetic distinction between the actual system of
laws, framed by himself for the Athenian people,
under his personal knowledge of the Athenian temper,
and that better system which he would have framed
in a case where either the docility of the national
character had been greater, or the temptations to
insubordination had been less. Something of the
same distinction must be taken on behalf of Plato,
between the ideal form of Civil Polity which he con-
templated in the ten books of his Kepublic, and the
practical form which he contemplated in the thirteen
books of his Legislative System.* In the former
work he supposes himself to be instituting an inde-
pendent state, on such principles as were philosophi-
cally best; in the latter, upon the assumption that
what might be the best as an abstraction, was not

4(1 Thirteen books. There are twelve books of the Laws; but
the closing book, entitled the Epinomos or Supplement to the
Laws, adds a thirteenth. "We have thought it convenient to
designate the entire work by the collective name of the
Legislative System.

VOL. i. 12

178 PLATO'S REPUBLIC.

always the best as adapted to a perverse human
nature, nor under ordinary circumstances the most
likely to be durable. He professes to make a com-
promise between his sense of duty as a philosopher,
and his sense of expedience as a man of the world.
Like Solon, he quits the normal for the attainable ;
and from the ideal man, flexible to all the purposes of
a haughty philosophy, he descends in his subsequent
speculations to the refractory Athenian as he really
existed in the generation of Pericles. And this fact
gives a great value to the more abstract work ; since
no inferences against Greek sentiment or Greek prin-
ciples could have been drawn from a work applying
itself to Grecian habits as he found them, which it
would not be easy to evade. c This,' it would have
been said, 'is not what Plato approved but what
Plato conceived to be the best compromise with the
difficulties of the case under the given civilization.'
Now, on the contrary, we have Plato's view of abso-
lute optimism, the true maximum perfectionis for
social man, in a condition openly assumed to be
modelled after a philosopher's ideal. There is no
work, therefore, from which profounder draughts can
be derived of human frailty and degradation, under
its highest intellectual expansion, previously to the
rise of Christianity. Just one century dated from
the birth of Plato, which, by the most plausible
chronology, very little preceded the death of Pericles,
the great Macedonian expedition under Alexander
was proceeding against Persia. By that time the
bloom of Greek civility had suffered. That war,
taken in connection with the bloody feuds that sue-

PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 179

ceeded it amongst the great captains of Alexander,
gave a shock to the civilization of Greece ; so that
upon the whole, until the dawn of the Christian era,
more than four centuries later, it would not be possi-
ble to fix on any epoch more illustrative of Greek
intellect, or Greek refinement, than precisely that
youth of Plato, which united itself by immediate
consecutive succession to the most brilliant section
in the administration of Pericles. It was, in fact,
throughout the course of the Peloponnesian war
the one sole war that divided the whole household of
Greece against itself, giving motive to efforts, and
dignity to personal competitions contemporary with
Xenophon and the younger Cyrus, during the man-
hood of Alcibiades, and the declining years of So-
crates amongst such coevals and such circumstan-
ces of war and revolutionary truce that Plato passed
his fervent youth. The bright sunset of Pericles still
burned in the Athenian heavens ; the gorgeous trage-
dy and the luxuriant comedy, so recently created,
were now in full possession of the Athenian stage ;
the city was yet fresh from the hands of its creators
Pericles and Phidias ; the fine arts were towering
into their meridian altitude ; and about the period
when Plato might be considered an adult sui juris^
that is, just four hundred and ten years before the
birth of Christ, the Grecian intellect might be said to
culminate in Athens. Any more favorable era for
estimating the Greek character, cannot, we presume,
be suggested. For, although personally there might
be a brighter constellation gathered about Pericles, at
a date twenty-five years antecedent to this era of

180 PLATO'S REPUBLIC.

Plato's maturity, still, as regarded the results upon
the collective populace of Athens, that must have
been become most conspicuous and palpable in the
generation immediately succeeding. The thoughtful-
ness impressed by the new theatre, the patriotic fervor
generated by the administration of Pericles, must
have revealed themselves most effectually after both
causes had been operating through one entire genera-
tion. And Plato, who might have been kissed as an
infant by Pericles, but never could have looked at
that great man with an eye of intelligent admiration

to whose ear the name of Pericles must have
sounded with the same effect as that of Pitt to the
young men of our British Reform Bill could yet
better appreciate the elevation which he had im-
pressed upon the Athenian character, than those who,
as direct coevals of Pericles, could not gain a suffi-
cient ' elongation ' from his beams to appreciate his
lustre. Our inference is that Plato, more even
than Pericles, saw the consummation of the Athenian
intellect, and witnessed more than Pericles himself
the civilization effected by Pericles.

This consideration gives a value to every sentiment
expressed by Plato. The Greek mind was then more
intensely Greek than at any subsequent period. After
the period of Alexander, it fell under exotic influences

alien and Asiatic in some cases, regal and despotic
in others. One hundred and fifty years more brought
the country under the Roman yoke ; after which the
true Grecian intellect never spoke a natural or genial
language again. The originality of the Athenian
mind had exhaled under the sense of constraint. But

PLATO'S KEPUBLIC. 181

as yet, and throughout the life of Plato, Greece was
essentially Grecian, and Athens radically Athenian.

With respect to those particular works of Plato
which concern the constitution of governments, there
is this special reason for building upon them any
inferences as to the culture of Athenian society
that probably these are the most direct emanations
from the Platonic intellect, the most purely represen-
tative of Plato individually, and the most prolonged
or sustained effort of his peculiar mind. It is cus-
tomary to talk of a Platonic philosophy as a coherent
whole, that may be gathered by concentration from,
his disjointed dialogues. Our belief is, that no such
systematic whole exists, Fragmentary notices are all
that remain in his works. The four minds, from
whom we have received the nearest approximation to
an orbicular system, or total body of, philosophy, are
those of Aristotle, of Des Cartes, of Leibnitz, and
lastly, of Imrnanuel Kant. All these men have mani-
fested an ambition to complete the cycle of their
philosophic speculations ; but, for all that, not one of
them has come near to his object. How much less
can any such cycle or systematic whole be ascribed
to Plato ! His dialogues are a succession of insulated
essays, upon problems just then engaging the atten-
tion of thoughtful men in Greece. But we know not
how much of these speculations may really belong to
Socrates, into whose mouth so large a proportion is
thrown ; nor have we any means of discriminating
between such doctrines as were put forward occa-
sionally by way of tentative explorations, or trials of
dialectic address, and on the other hand, such as Plato

182 PLATO'S REPUBLIC.

adopted in sincerity of heart, whether originated by
his master or by himself. There is, besides, a very
awkward argument for suspending our faith in any
one doctrine as rigorously Platonic. We are assured
beforehand, that the intolerance of the Athenian peo-
ple in the affair of Socrates, must have damped the
speculating spirit in all philosophers who were not
prepared to fly from Athens. It is no time to be
prating as a philosophical free-thinker, when bigotry
takes the shape of judicial persecution. That one
cup of poison administered to Socrates, must have
stifled the bold spirit of philosophy for a century to
come. This is a reasonable presumption. But the
same argument takes another and a more self-con-
fessing form in another feature of Plato's writings ;
viz., in his affectation of a double doctrine esoteric,
the private and confidential form authorized by his
final ratification and exoteric, which was but another
name for impostures with which he duped those who
might else have been calumniators. But what a world
of falsehoods is wrapped up in this pretence ! First
of all, what unreflecting levity to talk of this twofold
doctrine as at all open to the human mind on ques-
tions taken generally ! How many problems of a
philosophic nature can be mentioned, in which it
would be at all possible to maintain this double cur-
rent, flowing collaterally, of truth absolute and truth
plausible ? No such double view would be often
available under any possible sacrifice of truth. Sec-
ondly, if it were, how thoroughly would that be to
adopt and renew those theatrical pretences of the
itinerant Sophist^ or encyclopaedic hawkers of know-

PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 183

ledge, whom elsewhere and so repeatedly, Plato, in
the assumed person of Socrates, had contemptuously
exposed. Thirdly, in a philosophy by no means
remarkable for its opulence in ideas, which moves at
all only by its cumbrous superfluity of words, (partly
in disguise of which, under the forms of conversation,
we believe the mode of dialogue to have been first
adopted,) how was this double expenditure to be
maintained ? What tenfold contempt it impresses
upon a man's poverty, where he himself forces it
into public exposure by insisting on keeping up a
double establishment in the town and in the country,
at the very moment that his utmost means are below
the decent maintenance of one very humble house-
hold ! Or let the reader represent to himself the
miserable charlatanerie of a gasconading secretary
affecting to place himself upon a level with Caesar,
by dictating to three amanuenses at once, when the
slender result makes it painfully evident, that to have
kept one moving in any respectable manner, would
have bankrupted his resources. But, lastly, when this
affectation is maintained of a double doctrine, by what
test is the future student to distinguish the one from
another? Never was there an instance in which
vanity was more short-sighted. It would not be pos-
sible by any art or invention more effectually to
extinguish our interest in a scheme of philosophy
by summarily extinguishing all hope of our separating
the true from the false, the authentic from the spuri-
ous than by sending down to posterity this claim to
a secret meaning lurking behind a mask. If the key
to the distinction between true and false is sent down

184 PLATO'S REPUBLIC.

with the philosophy, then what purpose of conceal-
ment is attained ? Who is it that is duped ? On the
other hand, if it is not sent down, what purpose of
truth is attained ? Who is it then that is not duped ?
And if Plato relied upon a confidential successor as
the oral expounder of his secret meaning, how hlind
must he have been to the course of human contingen-
cies, who should not see that this tradition of explana-
tion could not flow onwards through four successive
generations without inevitably suffering some fatal in-
terruption ; after which, once let the chain be dropped,
the links would never be recoverable, as, in effect, we
now see to be the result. No man can venture to say,
amidst many blank contradictions and startling incon-
sistencies, which it is that represents the genuine
opinion of Plato ; which the ostensible opinion for
evading a momentary objection, or for provoking
opposition, or perhaps simply for prolonging the con-
versation. And upon the whole, this one explosion
of vanity, of hunger bitter penury affecting the
riotous superfluity of wealth has done more to
check the interest in Plato's opinions than all his
mysticism and all his vagueness of purpose. In other
philosophers, even in him who professedly adopted
the rule of 4 axoncovS c darken your meaning^ there
is some chance of arriving at the real doctrine, be-
cause, though hidden, it is one. But with a man who
avows a purpose of double-dealing, to understand is,
after all, the smallest part of your task. Having
perhaps with difficulty framed a coherent construction
for the passage, having with much pains entitled
yourself to say. 'Now I comprehend,' next comes

PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 185

the question, What is it you comprehend ? Why,
perhaps a doctrine which the author secretly abjured ;
in which he was misleading the world ; in which he
put forward a false opinion for the benefit of other
passages, and for the sake of securing safety to those
in which he revealed what he supposed to be the
truth.

There is, however, in the following political hypo-
thesis of Plato, less real danger from this conflict of
two meanings, than in those cases where he treated a
great pre-existing problem of speculation. Here,
from the practical nature of the problem, and its more
ad libitum choice of topics, he was not forced upon
those questions, which, in a more formal theorem, he
could not uniformly evade. But one difficulty will
always remain for the perplexity of the student viz.
in what point it was that Socrates had found it danger-
ous to tamper with the religion of Greece, if Plato
could safely publish the free-thinking objections which
are here avowed. In other respects, the Ideal Republic
of Plato will surprise those who have connected with
the very name of Plato a sort of starry elevation, and
a visionary dedication to what is pure. Of purity, in
any relation, there will be found no traces : of vision-
ariness, more than enough.

The First book of the Polity, or general form of
Commonwealths, is occupied with a natural, but very
immethodical discussion of justice. Justice as one
of those original problems unattainable in solitary life,
which drove men into social union, that by a common
application of their forces that might be obtained which
else was at the mercy of accident should naturally

186

occupy the preliminary place in a speculation upon
the possible varieties of government. Accordingly,
some later authors, like Mr. Godwin in his Political
Justice, have transmuted the whole question as to forms
of social organization into a transcendent question of
Justice ; and how it can be fairly distributed in recon-
cilement with the necessities of a practical adminis-
tration or the general prejudices of men. A state, a
commonwealth, for example, is not simply a head or
supremacy in relation to the other members of a polit-
ical union ; it is also itself a body amongst other co-
equal bodies one republic amongst other co-ordinate
republics. War may happen to arise ; taxation; and
many other burdens. How are these to be distributed
so as not to wound the fundamental principle of justice ?
They may be apportioned unequally. That would be
injustice without a question. There may be scruples
of conscience as to war, or contributions to war.
That would be a more questionable case ; but it
would demand a consideration, and must be brought
into harmony with the general theory of justice. For
the supreme problem in such a speculation seems to
be this how to draw the greatest amount of strength
from civil union ; how to carry the powers of man to
the greatest height of improvement, or to place him in
the way of such improvement ; and lastly, to do all
this in reconciliation with the least possible infringe-
ment or suspension of man's individual rights. Under
any view, therefore, of a commonwealth, nobody will
object to the investigation of justice as a proper
basis for the whole edifice. But the student is dissat-
isfied with this Platonic introduction 1st, as being

PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 187

too casual and occasional, consequently as not pre-
figuring in its course the order of those speculations
which are to follow; 2dly, as too verbal and hair-
splitting ; 3dly, that it does not connect itself with
what follows. It stands inertly and uselessly before
the main disquisition as a sort of vestibule, but we are
not made to see any transition from one to the other.

Meantime, the outline of this nominal introduction
is what follows : Socrates has received an invitation
to a dinner party [3unvoi] from the son of Cephalus, a
respectable citizen of Athens. This citizen, whose
sons are grown up, is naturally himself advanced in
years ; and is led, therefore, reasonably to speak of old
age. This he does in the tone of Cicero's Cato ; con-
tending that, upon the whole, it is made burdensome
only by men's vices. But the value of his testimony
is somewhat lowered by the fact, that he is moderately
wealthy ; and secondly, (which is more important,)
that he is constitutionally moderate in his desires.
Towards the close of his remarks, he says something
on the use of riches in protecting us from injurious
treatment whether of our own towards others, or of
others towards us.

This calls up Socrates, who takes occasion to put a
general question as to the nature and definition of injus-
tice. Cephalus declines the further prosecution of the
dialogue for himself, but devolves it on his son. Some
of the usual Attic word-sparring follows of which
this may be taken as a specimen : a definition hav-
ing been given of justice in a tentative way by Socrates
himself, as though it might be that quality which re-
stores to every one what we know to be his own ; and

188 PLATO'S REPUBLIC.

the eldest son having adopted this definition as true,
Socrates then opposes the cases in which, having bor-
rowed a sword from a man, we should be required
deliberately to replace it in the hands of the owner,
knowing him to be mad. An angry interruption takes
place from one of the company called Thrasymachus.
This is appeased by the obliging behavior of Socrates.
But it produces this effect upon what follows, that in
fact from one illustration adduced by this Thrasy-
machus, the whole subsequent discipline arises. He,
amongst other arts which he alleges in evidence of his
views, cites that of government ; and by a confusion
between mere municipal law and the moral law of
universal obligation, he contends that in every land
that is just which promotes the interest or wishes of
the governing power be it king, nobles, or people as
a body. Socrates opposes him hy illustrations, such
as Xenophon's Memorabilia, here made familiar to all
the world, drawn from the arts of cooks, shepherds,
pilots, &c. ; and the book closes with a general de-
fence of justice as requisite to the very existence of
political states ; since without some trust reposed in
each other, wars would be endless, it is also presuma-
ble, that man, if generally unjust, would be less pros-
perous as enjoying less of favor from the gods ; and
finally, that the mind in a temper of injustice, may be
regarded as diseased; that it is less qualified for dis-
charging its natural functions ; and that thus, whether
looking at bodies politic or individuals, the sum of
happiness would be greatly diminished, if injustice
were allowed to prevail.

PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 189

BOOK THE SECOND.

In the beginning of this Book, two brothers, Glauco
and Adeimantus, undertake the defence of injustice ;
but upon such arguments as have not even a colorable
plausibility. They suppose the case that a man were
possessed of the ring which conferred the privilege of
invisibility ; a fiction so multiplied in modern fairy
tales, but which in the barren legends of the Pagan
world was confined to the ring of Gyges. Armed with
this advantage, they contend that every man would be
unjust. But this is change only of fact. Next, how-
ever, they suppose a case still more monstrous ; viz.
that moral distinctions should be so far confounded, as
that a man practising all injustice, should pass for a
man exquisitely just, and that a corresponding transfer
of reputation should take place with regard to the just
man : under such circumstances, they contend that
every man would hasten to be unjust ; and that the
unjust would reap all the honors together with all the
advantages of life. From all which they infer two
things First, that injustice is not valued for anything
in its own nature or essence, but for its consequences ;
and secondly, that it is a combination of the weak many
against the few who happen to be strong, which has
invested justice with so much splendor by means of
written laws. It seems strange that even for a mo-
mentary effect in conversation, such trivial sophistry
as this could avail. Because, if in order to represent
justice and injustice as masquerading amongst men,
and losing their customary effects, or losing their
corresponding impressions upon men's feelings, it is

190 PLATO'S REPUBLIC.

necessary first of all to suppose the whole realities
of life confounded, and fantastic impossibilities estab-
lished, no result at all from such premises could be
worthy of attention ; and, after all, the particular result
supposed does not militate in any respect against the
received notions as to moral distinctions. Injustice
might certainly pass for justice ; and as a second case,
injustice having a bribe attached to it, might blind the
moral sense to its true proportions of evil. But that
will not prove that injustice can ever fascinate as in-
justice, or again, that it will ever prosper as regards its
effects in that undisguised manifestation. If, to win
upon men's esteem, it must privately wear the mask of
justice ; or if, to win upon men's practice, it must pre-
viously connect itself with artificial bounties of honor
and preferment all this is but another way of pro-
nouncing an eulogy on justice. It is agreeable, how-
ever, to find, that these barren speculations are soon
made to lead into questions more directly pertinent to
the constitution of bodies politic. Socrates observes
that large models are best fitted to exhibit the course
of any action or process ; and therefore he shifts the
field of obstruction from the individual man, armed
or not with the ring of Gyges, to regular common-
wealths ; in which it is, and in their relations to other
commonwealths or to their own internal parts, that he
proposes to answer these wild sophisms on the subject
of justice as a moral obligation.

Socrates lays the original foundation of all political
states in want or reciprocal necessity. And of human
necessity the very primal shape is that which regards
our livelihood. Here it is interesting to notice what

PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 191

is the minimum which Plato assumes for the c outfit '
(according to our parliamentary term) of social life.
We moderns, for the mounting a colony or other social
establishment, are obliged to assume at least five heads
of expenditure; viz., 1, food; 2, shelter, or housing ;
3, clothing ; 4, warmth (or fuel) ; 5, light. But the
two last we owe to our colder climate, and (which is a
consequence of that) to our far more unequal distribu-
tion of daylight. As the ancients knew nothing of our
very short days, so on the other hand they knew noth-
ing, it is true, of our very long ones ; and at first sight
it might seem as if the one balanced the other. But
it is not so ; sunrise and sunset were far more nearly
for the ancients, than they ever can be for nations in
higher latitudes, coincident with the periods of retiring
to rest and rising ; and thus it was that they obtained
another advantage that of evading much call for
fuel. Neither artificial light, nor artificial heat, were
much needed in ancient times. Hot climates, often
more than cold ones, require (it is true) artificial heat
after sunset But the ancient Greeks and Romans, a
fortiori all nations less refined, were in bed by that
time during the periods of their early simplicity, that
is, during the periods of their poverty, The total
expense in fuel amongst the Greeks, was upon a scale
suited to ages in which fossil coal was an unknown staff
of life : it was no more than met the simple demands
of cookery, and of severe winters ; these, it is true,
even in Spain, nay in Syria, are sometimes accompa-
nied with heavy storms of snow.* But, on the other

* Storms of snow. For an instance of a very critical fall of
snow near Jerusalem not long before our Saviour's time, see
Josephus.

192 PLATO'S EEPUBLIC.

hand, the winters are short ; and even so far north in
Italy as Milan, the season of genial spring, and of
luxuriant flowers, often commences in February. In
contrast with our five requisitions of northern latitudes,
which, as implying a higher (because a more provi-
dent) scale of existence, have a philosophic value, it is
interesting to find Plato, under the person of Socrates,
requiring only three ; viz. food, clothes, and lodging.
The arts, therefore, which he presumes requisite for
establishing a city, are four : one occupied with the
culture of the ground ; one with the building of habita-
tions ; and two, ministerial to the adorning, or at least
to the protecting of the person. The ploughman
before all others for our food in the second rank,
the mason for raising dwelling-houses and in the
last place, the weaver combined with the shoemaker
for the manufacturing our dress ; these four artists,
says Plato, are the -very minimum establishment on
which a city or a colony can begin to move. But a
very few steps will bring us, he remarks, to a call for
further arts ; in particular, it will soon be found that it
is a sad waste of time for any of the four already
mentioned to be interrupted by the necessity of making
their several tools and implements. A fifth artist will
therefore be found necessary, in the character of tool-
maker, in common with all the rest. A sixth and a
seventh will be soon called for, in the character of
shepherds and herdsmen ; for if sheep 'and oxen are
not indispensable as food, they are so as furnishing the
leather required by the shoemaker. And lastly, mer-
chants, for the purpose of exporting the surplus pro-
ducts, and of importing such as are defective, together

PLATO'S EEPUBLIC. 193

with resident dealers in all articles of household use,
are contemplated as completing the establishment. The
gradual accession of luxuries in every class is next
presumed as what would follow in general, but would
not be allowed in Plato's republic ; and, as the increase
of population will require additional territory, (though
it is an oversight not to have assigned from the first
the quantity of soil occupied, and the circumstances of
position in regard to neighbors,) this will make an
opening for war ; and that again for a regular class of
men dedicated to the arts of attack and defence. It is
singular that Plato should thus arbitrarily lay his
ground of war in aggressive principles because, if
he assumed his territory spacious enough, and the
expansion of population as slow as it really was in
Greece, the case in which he finally plants his neces-
sity for war might not occur until the new state should
be rich enough to find, in the difficulty supposed, a case
for throwing off colonies, rather than for unprovoked
attacks on neighboring states. It is remarkable, how-
ever, that Plato, a pagan writer, makes war a subse-
quent and ministerial phenomenon in civil societies ;
whereas Hobbes, nominally a Christian, makes the
belligerent condition to be that transcendent and origi-
nal condition of man, out of which society itself arose.

War, however, has begun ; and soldiers, as a merce-
nary class, are henceforwards required. Upon which
Plato unfolds his ideas as to the proper qualifications
of a soldier. Of course he insists upon courage,
athletic powers of body in general, (qualifications so
pre-eminently required before the invention of fire-

VOL. i. 13

194 PLATO'S KEPUBLIC.

arms,*) and especially upon the power of speed and
agility. But it is singular that in describing the tem-
perament likely to argue courage, he insists upon
irascibility ; whereas, with far more truth of philoso-
phy, his pupil Aristotle, in after years, speaks con-
temptuously of all courage founded upon anger, as
generally spurious in its nature, and liable to the same
suspicion as that which is founded upon intoxication.

It is upon this occasion, and in connection with the
education of this state soldiery, as a professional class
needing to be trained expressly for a life of adventur-
ous service and of hardship, that Plato introduces his
celebrated doctrine imputing mischievous falsehood to
the poets. The mythology of paganism, it is needless
to say, represented the gods under characters the most
hideous and disgusting. But the main circumstances
in these representations, according to Plato, are mere
fictions of Hesiod and of Homer. Strange indeed
that Plato should ascribe to any poets whatever, so
prodigious a power as that of having created a national
religion. For the religion of paganism was not some-
thing independent of the mythology. It was wholly
Involved in the mythology. Take away the mytho-
logic legends, and you take away all the objects of

* ' Fire-arms. 1 It is very true that the essential principle dis-
tinguishing fire-arms, viz., their application to distant warfare
making men. independent of personal strength, was found in
slingers and archers. But these arms of the martial service
were always in some disrepute in Greece ; even Hercules (in
the Here. Furens) is described by Euripides as subject to
ridicule and reproach from Lyeus, Ms enemy, on account of
Ms having resorted to archery .

PLATO'S UEPTTBLIC. 195

worship. The characteristics by which Latona is dis-
tinguished from Ceres, Apollo from Mercury, Diana
from Minerva, Hebe from Aurora, all vanish, and
leave mere nonentities, if the traditional circumstance
of their theogony and history is laid aside as fabulous.
Besides, if this could be surmounted, and if Plato
could account for all the tribes of Hellas having adopt-
ed what he supposes to be the reveries of two solitary
poets, how could he account for the general argument
in these traditions of other distant nations, who never
heard so much as the names of the two Greek poets,
nor could have read them if they had ? The whole
speculation is like too many in Plato without a
shadow of coherency; and at every angle presenting
some fresh incongruity. The fact really was, that the
human intellect had been for some time outgrowing its
foul religions ; clamorously it began to demand some
change ; but how little it was able to effect that change
for itself, is evident from no example more than that of
Plato ; for he, whilst dismissing as fables some of the
grosser monstrosities which the Pagan pantheon offered,
loaded in effect that deity, whom he made a concurrent
party to his own schemes for man, with vile qualities,
quite as degrading as any which he removed ; and in
effect so much the worse, as regarded the result, be-
cause, wanting the childish monstrosities of the mytho-
logic legends, they had no benefit from any allegoric
interpretations in the background. Thus cruelty and
sensuality, if they happen to fall in with a pagan phi-
losopher's notions of state utility, instantly assume a
place in his theories ; and thence is transferred upon
the deities, who are supposed to sanction this system,

196 PLATO'S REPUBLIC.

a far deeper taint of moral pollution than that which,
being connected with extravagant or ludicrous tales,
might provoke an enlightened mind to reject it with
incredulity, or receive it as symbolic. Meantime, it is
remarkable that Plato should connect this reform in
education specially with his soldiers ; and still more so,
when we understand his reason. It was apparently on
two grounds that he fancied the pagan superstitions
injurious to a class of men whom it was important to
keep clear of panics. First, on an argument derived
from the Hades of the poets, Plato believed the modes
of punishment exhibited by these poets to be too alarm-
ing, and likely to check by intimidation that career of
violence which apparently he thinks requisite in a
soldier. Surely he might have spared his anxiety ; for
if, in any quarter of its barren superstitions, paganism
betrayed its impoverished fancy, it was in its pictures
of Tartarus, where, besides that the several cases are,
1st, so scanty, and applied only to monstrous offences ;
and 2d, so ludicrous, they are, 3d, all of them ineffec-
tual for terror, were it only by the general impression
conveyed that they are allegoric, and meant to be
allegoric. Secondly, Plato seems to have had in his
thoughts those panic terrors which sometimes arose
from the belief that superior beings suddenly revealed
themselves in strange shapes ; both in Roman and
Grecian experience, these fancied revelations had pro-
duced unexpected victories, but also unexpected flights.
He argues, accordingly, against the possibility of a
god adopting any metamorphosis ; but upon the weak
scholastic argument, weaker than a cobweb to any
superstitious heart, that a celestial being would not

PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 197

leave a better state for a worse. How visionary to
suppose that any mind previously inclined to shadowy
terrors, and under the operation of solitude, of awful
silence, and of wild grotesque scenery in forests or
mountains, would be charmed into sudden courage by
an d priori little conundrum of the logic school ! Oh I
philosopher, laid by the side of a simple-hearted primi-
tive Christian, what a fool dost thou appear ! And
after all, if such evils arose from familiarity with the
poets, and on that account the soldiery was to be se-
cluded from all such reading how were they to be
preserved from contagion of genera! conversation with
their fellow-citizens ? Or, again, on foreign expedi-
tions, how were they to be sequestered from such tra-
ditions as were generally current, and were everywhere
made the subject of dinner recitations, or prelections,
or of national music ?

In the midst of these impracticable solicitudes for
the welfare of his soldiers, Plato does not overlook the
probability that men trained to violence may mutiny,
and (being consciously the sole depositaries of the
public weapons and skill, as well as originally selected
for superior promise of strength) may happen to
combine, and to turn their arms against their fellow-
citizens. It is painful to see so grave a danger dis-
missed so carelessly tantomne rem tarn ne glig enter ?
The sole provision which Plato makes against the for-
midable danger, is by moral precepts, impressing on
the soldier kindness and affability to those whom it
was his professional mission to protect. But such
mere sanctions of decorum or usage how weak
must they be found to protect any institution merely

198 PLATO'S KEPTTBLIC.

human, against a strong interest moving in an adverse
direction! The institutions of Romulus, in a simple
and credulous age, had the consecration (perhaps not
imaginary, but, beyond a doubt, universally believed)
of heaven itself a real sanctity guarded the insti-
tutions of Rome, which yet rocked and quaked for
centuries under the conflicting interests of the citizens.
But a philosopher's republic, in an age of philosophy
and free-thinking, must repose upon human securities.
Show any order of men a strong change setting in
upon the current of their civil interests, and they will
soon be led to see a corresponding change in their
duties. Not to mention that the sense of duty must
be weak at all times amongst men whom Plato sup-
poses expressly trained to acts of violence, whom he
seeks to wean from the compunction of religion, and
whose very service and profession had its first origin
in acknowledged rapacity. Thus, by express insti-
tution of Plato, and by his own forecasting, had the
soldiery arisen. Thus had the storm been called up ;
and it would be too late to bid it wheel this way or
that, after its power had been consciously developed,
and the principles which should control this power
were found to be nothing more than the ancient inten-
tions of a theoretic founder, or the particular interests
of a favored class. Besides, it will be seen further on,
that the soldiers are placed under peculiar disadvan-
tages they are to possess nothing ; and thus, in
addition to the strong temptation of conscious power,
they are furnished with a second temptation in their
painful poverty, contrasted with the comparative
wealth of the cowardly citizens whom they protect;

PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 199

and finally, with a third, (which also furnished an ex-
cuse,) in the feeling that they are an injured class.

BOOK THE THIRD.

Plato is neither methodic nor systematic ; he has
neither that sort of order which respects the connec-
tion of what he teaches as a thing to be understood,
nor that which respects its connection as a thing which
is to be realized neither that which concerns the
ratio cognoscendi, (to adopt a great distinction revived
by Leibnitz from the schoolmen,) nor that, on the
other hand, which regards the ratio essendi. This
last neglect he could not have designed ; the other
perhaps he did. And the very form of dialogue or
conversations was probably adopted to intimate as
much. Be that as it may, we look in vain for any
such distribution of the subject as should justify the
modern division into separate books. The loose order
of colloquial discussion, sometimes going back, some-
times leaping forward with impatient anticipation, and
then again thoughtfully resuming a topic insufficiently
examined such is the law of succession by which
the general theme is slowly advanced, and its particu-
lar heads are casually unfolded.

Accordingly, in this third book the subject of the
soldiery is resumed ; and the proper education for that
main column of the state, on which its very existence
is openly founded, engages the more circumstantial
attention of Plato. The leading object kept in view,
as regards the mental discipline, is to brace the mind
against fear. And here, again, Plato comes back
upon the poets, whom he taxes with arts of emascula-

'200 PLATO'S REPUBLIC.

tion, in reference to the hardy courage which his
system demands. He distributes the poets into the
two great classes of narrative and dramatic ; those
who speak directly in their own person, like Homer;
and those who utter their sentiments as ventriloquists,
throwing their voice first upon this character of a
drama, next upon that. It is difficult to see what pur-
pose Plato had in this distribution ; but it is highly
interesting to us of this day, because we might other-
wise have supposed that, upon a point of delicacy,
Plato had forborne to involve in his censure of the
poets that body of great dramatists, so recently drawn
into existence, and of whom two at least (Euripides
and Aristophanes) were in part of their lives contem-
porary with himself. He does, however, expressly
notice them ; and, what is more to the purpose, he
applies to them his heaviest censure ; though on what
principle, is somewhat obscure. The nominal rea-
son for his anger is that they proceed by means
of imitation ; and that even mimetically to represent
woman has the effect of transfusing effeminacy, by
some unexplained process, into the manners of the
imitator. Now, really, this at the best would be too
fantastic. But when we reflect on the great tragic
poets of Greece, and consider that in the midst of
pagan darkness the only rays of moral light are
to be found in THEM, and that Milton, almost a
bigot, as being a Puritan, yet with that exalted stand-
ard of scriptural truth which he carried for ever in his
mind, refers to these poets, and the great theatre which
they founded, for the next best thing to Christian teach-
ing we feel our hearts alienated from Plato, But

PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 201

when we also contrast with this Greek scenical moral-
ity and its occasional elevation, the brutal, sensual,
and cruel principles which we sometimes find in Plato
himself, (more frequently indeed, and more outra-
geously, than in any other pagan author of eminence,)

it cannot be thought unreasonable that our aliena-
tion should amount to disgust. Euripides was truly a
great man, struggling for a higher light than he could
find. Plato was a thorough Greek, satisfied, so far as
ethics were concerned, with the light which existed,
nor dreaming of anything higher. And, with respect
to the Greek religion, Euripides forestalled, by twenty
years, all that Plato has said ; we have his words to
this day, and they are much more impressive than
Plato's ; and probably these very words of Euripedes
first suggested to Plato the doctrine which he so mali-
ciously directs in this place against the very poets as a
body, who, through one of their number, first gave
currency to such a bold speculation, and first tried as
enfans perdus, (or the leaders of a forlorn hope,)
whether the timid superstition of the Athenians, and
the fanaticism founded on their fear, would tolerate
such innovations.

After this second sentence of exile against the poets

which we cannot but secretly trace to the jealousy
of Plato, armed against that section of the Athenian
literati most in the public favor we are carried
forward to the music of the Greeks. The soldiery
are excluded from all acquaintance with any but the
austerer modes. But as this is a subject still mysteri-
ous even to those who come armed with the knowledge
of music as a science, and as no more than a general

202 PLATO'S REPUBLIC,

caution is given, this topic is not one of those which
we are called on to discuss.

So slight was the Grecian circuit of education,
and especially where mathematics happened to be
excluded, that poetry and music apparently bound
the practical encyclopaedia of Plato. From the mind,
therefore, he passes to the physical education. And
here we find two leading cautions, of which one, at
least, is built on more accurate observation of medical
truths than we should have expected in the age of
Plato. The first will, perhaps, not much strike the
reader, for it expresses only the stern injunction upon
every soldier of that temperance as to strong liquors,
which in our days has descended (with what perma-
nence we fear to ask) amongst the very lowest and
most suffering of human beings. It is, however,
creditable to Plato, that he should have perceived the
mischievous operation of inebriation upon the health
and strength; for in his age, the evil of such a
practice was chiefly thrown upon its moral effects,
the indecorums which it caused, the quarrels, the
murderous contests, the lasting alienations, and the
perilous breaches of confidence. There was little
general sense of any evil in wine as a relaxer of the
bodily system ; as, on the other hand, neither then
nor in our days is there any just appreciation of the
subsidiary benefits which sometimes arise from strong
liquors, or at least the clamorous call for such liquors
in cold climates where the diet is cold and watery.
Edmund Burke, as we remember, in his enlarged
wisdom did not overlook this case ; we individually
have seen too large a series of cases to doubt the fact

PLATO'S EEPUBLIC. 203

that in vast cities, wherever the diet of poor families
happens to be thrown too much upon mere watery
broths, it is a pure instinct of nature, and often a very
salutary instinct, which forces them into a compen-
satory stimulus of alcohol. The same natural instinct
for strong liquor as a partial relief, is said to be
prompted by scrofula. In a Grecian climate, and
with a limited population, this anomalous use of wine
was not requisite ; and for the soldiery, enjoying a
select diet, it could least of all be needful. Plato shows
his good sense, therefore, as well as the accuracy
of his obvervation, in forbidding it. For he notices
one effect which invariably follows from the addiction
to strong liquors, even where as yet they have not
mastered the constitutional vigor ; viz. their tendency
to produce a morbid sensibility to cold. We ourselves
have seen a large party of stout men travelling on a
morning of intense seventy. Amongst the whole
number, nine or ten, there were two only who did
not occasionally shiver, or express some unpleasant
feeling connected with the cold ; and these two were
the sole water-drinkers of the party. The other
caution of Plato shows even more accuracy of at-
tention ; and it is completely verified by modern
experience. He is naturally anxious that the diet of
the soldiery should be simple and wholesome. Now
it was almost certain that those who reflected on the
final object he had in view, would at once interpret
his meaning as pointing to the diet of professional
athletes. These men for Greece were the forerunners
of the Roman gladiators; as the Greek hippodrome
bisected itself into the Koman circus and amphitheatre.

204 PLATO'S REPUBLIC.

And as Plato's object was to secure the means of
unusual strength, what more natural than to consult
the experience of those who, having long had the very
same end, must by this time have accumulated a large
science of the appropriate means ? Now, on closer
examination, Plato perceived that the end was not the
same. The gladiatorial schools had before them some
day, well known and immutable, of public festivities
and games, against which they were to prepare their
maximum of bodily power. By the modern and by
the ancient system of training, it is notorious that this
preparatory discipline can be calculated to a nicety.
When the 'fancy' was in favor amongst ourselves,
the pugilist, after entering into any legal engagement,
under strong penalties, to fight on a day assigned,
went into training about six weeks previously ; and by
the appointed time he had, through diet, exercise,
sleep, all nicely adjusted to the rules of this discipline,
brought up his muscular strength and his wind to the
summit of what his constitution allowed. Now, cer-
tainly, in a general view, the purpose of the Platonic
soldier was the same, but with this important differ-
ence that his fighting condition was needed not on
one or two days consecutively, but on many days, and
not against a day punctually assignable, but against a
season or period perhaps of months, quite indeter-
minate as to its beginning, end, or duration. This one
difference made the whole difference ; for both ancient
and modern training concur in these two remarkable
facts 1st. That a condition of physical power thus
preternaturally produced cannot be maintained, but
that uniformly a very rapid relapso follows to a con-

PLATO'S EEPUBLIC. 205

dition of debility. Like the stone of Sisyphus, the
more painfully and with unnatural effort a resisting
object has been rolled up to a high summit, with so
much the more thundering violence does it run back.
The state was too intense not to be succeeded by
sudden recoil. 2dly. It has been found that these
spasms of preternatural tension are not without dan-
ger : apoplexes, ruptures of large blood-vessels, and
other modes of sudden death, are apt to follow from
the perilous tampering with the exquisite machinery of
nature. This also had been the experience of Greece.
Time, as a great element in all powerful changes,
must be allowed in order to secure their safety.
Plato, therefore, lays down as a great law for the
physical discipline, that in no part of its elements,
whether diet, exercise, abstinence, or gymnastic feats
of strength and address, shall the ritual for the soldiers
borrow anything from the schools of the athletce.

In the remaining part of this Book, we have some
organic arrangements proposed. First, as to the local
situation a strong military position is requisite for
the soldiery, and ground must therefore be selected
originally which offers this advantage. The position
is to be such as may at once resist a foreign enemy
and command the other orders in the state. Upon this
ground, a body of lodgings is to be built ; and in these
lodgings a single regard is prescribed to the purpose
in view. Direct utility and convenience, without osten-
tation, are to preside in the distribution of the parts
and in the architectural style ; the buildings are, in
fact, to unite at once the uses of a barrack and a
fortress.

203 PLATO'S REPUBLIC.

Next, as this fortress, distinct from the other parts
of the city, when connected with arms, and the use of
arms, and regular discipline, and select qualities of
body, cannot but throw vast power into the hands of
the soldiery, so that from being guardians of the city,
(as by direct title they are,) they might easily become
its oppressors and pillagers, universally the soldiers
are to be incapable by law of holding any property
whatever, without regard to quality, without regard to
tenure. They can inherit nothing ; they can possess
nothing; neither gold nor silver, metals which must
not even find an entrance into their dwellings under
pretence of custody ; nor land ; nor any other article ;
nor, finally, must they exercise a trade.

Thirdly, the administration of affairs, the executive
power, and the supreme rank, are vested in the persons
of the highest military officers those who rise to that
station by seniority and by extraordinary merit. This
is very vaguely developed ; but enough exists to show
that the form of polity would be a martial aristocracy,
a qualified ' stratocracy? In this state, it is not so
much true that an opening or a temptation is offered
to a martial tyranny, as that, in fact, such a tyranny is
planted and rooted from the first with all the organs of
administration at its disposal.

Lastly, in what way is the succession to be regulated
through the several ranks and functions of the state ?
Not exactly, or under positive settlement, by castes, or
an Egyptian succession of a son to his father's trade,
&c. This is denounced in the sense of an uncon-
ditional or unbending system ; for it is admitted that
fathers of talent may have incompetent sons, and stupid

PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 207

fathers may have sons of brilliant promise. But, on
the whole, it seems to be assumed that, amongst the
highest, or martial order, the care dedicated to the
selection of the parents will ensure children of similar
excellence,

' Eortes creantur fortibus et bonis/

and that amongst the artisans one average level of
mediocrity will usually prevail ; in which case, the
advantage of personal training to the art, under a
domestic tutor who never leaves him, must give such
a bias to the children of the citizens for their several
pursuits, as will justify the principle of hereditary suc-
cession. Still, in any case where this expectation fails,
a door is constantly kept open for meeting any unusual
indication of nature, by corresponding changes in the
destiny of the young people. Nature, therefore, in
the last resort, will regulate the succession, since the
law interposes no further than in confirmation of that
order in the succession which it is presumed that nature
will have settled by clear expressions of fitness. But
in whatever case nature indicates determinately some
different predisposition in the individual, then the law
gives way ; for, says Plato, with emphasis, c the para-
mount object in my commonwealth is that every
human creature should find his proper level, and every
man settle into that place for which his natural quali-
ties have fitted him.'

BOOK THE FOURTH.

These last words are not a mere flourish of rhetoric.
It is, according to Plato's view, the very distinguishing

208 PLATO'S REPUBLIC.

feature in his polity, that each man occupies his own
natural place. Accordingly, it is the business of this
Book to favor that view by a sort of fanciful analogy
between what we in modern times call the four cardinal
virtues, and the four capital varieties of state polity, and
also between these virtues and the constituent order in
a community. This, however, may be looked upon as
no step in advance towards the development of his own
Republic, but rather as a halt for the purpose of look-
ing back upon what has been already developed.

The cardinal virtues, as we see them adopted nearly
four hundred years after Plato by Cicero, are prudence,
fortitude, temperance and justice. The first will find
its illustration according to Plato, in the governing part
of a state ; the second in the defending part, or the
military ; the third in the relation between all the parts ;
but the fourth has its essence in assigning to every
individual, and to every order, the appropriate right,
whether that be property, duty, function, or rank.
Other states, therefore, present some analogy to the
three first virtues, according to the predominant object
which they pursue. But his own, as Plato contends,
is a model analogous to the very highest of the virtues,
or justice ; for that in this state only the object is kept
up, as a transcendent object, of suffering no man to
assume functions by mere inheritance, but to every
individual assigning that office and station for which
nature seems to have prepared his qualifications.

This principle, so broadly expressed, would seem to
require more frequent disturbances in the series of
hereditary employments than Plato had contemplated
in his last Book. Accordingly, he again acknowledges

PLATO'S EEPUBLIC. 209

the importance of vigilantly reviewing the several
qualifications of the citizens. The rest of the book is
chiefly occupied with a psychological inquiry into a
problem sometimes discussed in modern times, (but
thoroughly alien to the political problem of Plato ;) viz.
whether, upon dividing the internal constitution of man
into three elements the irascible passions, the appe-
tites of desire, and the rational principle we are
warranted in supposing three separate substances or
hypostases in the human system, or merely three
separate offices of some common substance : whether,
in short, these differences are organic, or simply func-
tional. But, besides that the discussion is both obscure
and conducted by scholastic hair-splitting, it has too
slight a relation to the main theme before us, to justify
our digressing for what is so little interesting.

BOOK THE FIFTH.

At this point of the conversation, Adeimantus, at the
suggestion of another person, recalls Socrates to the
consideration of that foul blot upon his theory which
concerns the matrimonial connections of the army.
Not only were these to commence in a principle of
"unmitigated sensuality selection of wives by public,
not by individual choice, and with a single reference
to physical qualities of strength, size, agility but,
which riveted the brutal tendencies of such a law, the
wives, if wives they could be called, and the children
that might arise from such promiscuous connections,
were to be held the common property of the order.
Ties of any separate kindness, or affection for this
woman or for that child, were forbidden as a species

VOL. I. 14

210 PLATO'S REPUBLIC.

of treason ; and if (as in rare cases might happen)
after all they should arise, the parties to such holy,
but, Platonically speaking, such criminal feelings, must
conceal them from all the world must cherish them
as a secret cancer at the heart, or as a martyrdom re-
peated in every hour. We represent marriages under
the beautiful idea of unions. But these Platonic mar-
riages would be the foulest dispersions of the nuptual
sanctities. We call them self-dedications of one
human creature to another, through the one sole means
by which nature has made it possible for any exclusive
dedication to be effected. But these Platonic marriages

o

would be a daily renovation of disloyalty, revolt, and
mutual abjuration. We, from human society, transfer
a reflex of human charities upon inferior natures, when
we see the roe-deer, for instance, gathering not into
herds and communities like their larger brethren, the
fallow-deer or the gigantic red-deer, but into families
' two parents everywhere followed by their own
fawns, loving and beloved. Plato, from the brutal
world, and from that aspect of the brutal world in
which it is most brutal, transfers a feature of savage
gregariousness which would ultimately disorganize as
jnuch as it would immediately degrade. In fact, the
mere feuds of jealousy, frantic hatred, and competi-
tions of authority, growing out of such an institution,
would break up the cohesion of Plato's republic within
seven years. We all know of such institutions as
actually realized ; one case of former ages is recorded
by Csesar, Strabo, dec. ; another of the present day
exists amongst the ranges of the Himalaya, and has
been brought by the course of our growing empire

PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 211

within British control. But they are, and have been,
connected with the most ahject condition in other
respects ; and probably it would be found, if such
societies were not merely traversed by the glasses of
philosophers in one stage of their existence, but steadily
watched through a succession of generations, that it is
their very necessity rapidly to decay, either by absorp-
tion into more powerful societies, built on sounder
principles, or by inevitable self-extinction. Certain it
is, that a society so constituted through all its orders,
could breed no conservative or renovating impulses,
since all motives of shame, glory, emulation, would
operate upon a system untuned, or pitched in a far
lower key, wherever sexual love and the tenderness of
exclusive preferences were forbidden by law.

Adeimantus, by thus calling for a revision of a prin-
ciple so revolting, impersonates to the reader his own
feelings. He, like the young Athenian, is anxious to
find himself in sympathy with one reputed to be so
great a philosopher ; or at least, he is unwilling to
suppose himself so immeasurably removed from sym-
pathy. Still less can he concede, or even suspend, his
own principles in a point which does not concern
taste, or refinement of feeling, or transitory modes of
decorum, or even the deduction of logic; in all these
points, however rudely shocked, he would, in modest
submission to \ great name, have consented to suppose
himself wrong. But this scruple belongs to no such
faculty of taste, or judgment, or reasoning ; it belongs
to the primary conscience. It belongs to a region in
which no hypothetic assumptions for the sake of argu-
ment, no provisional concessions, no neutralizing com-

212 PLATO'S EEPCJBLIC.

promises, are ever possible. By two tests is man
raised above the brutes ; 1st, As a being capable of
religion, (which presupposes him a being endowed
with reason ;) 2dly, As a being capable of marriage.
And effectually both capacities are thus far defeated
by Plato that both have a worm, a principle of cor-
rosion, introduced into their several tenures. He does
not, indeed, formally destroy religion ; he supposes
himself even to purify it ; but by tearing away as
impostures those legends in which, for a pagan, the
effectual truth of the pagan mythology, as a revelation
of power, had its origin and its residence, he would
have shattered it as an agency or a sanction operating
on men's oaths, &c. He does not absolutely abolish
marriage, but by limiting its possibility, (and how ?
Under two restrictions, the most insidious that can be
imagined, totally abolishing it for the most honored
order of his citizens, viz. the military order; and
abolishing it for those men and women whom nature
had previously most adorned with her external gifts,)
he does his utmost to degrade marriage, even so far as
it is tolerated. Whether he designed it or not, mar-
riage is now no longer a privilege, a reward, a decora-
tion. On the contrary, not to be married, is a silent
proclamation that you are amongst the select children
of the state honored by your fellow-citizens as one
of their defenders admired by the fejnale half of the
society as dedicated to a service of danger marked
out universally by the public zeal as one who possesses
a physical superiority to other men lastly, pointed
out to foreigners for distinction, as belonging to a
privileged class. Are you married ? would be a

PLATO'S EEPUBLIC. 213

question from which every man travelling abroad would
shrink, unless he could say No. It would be asking,
in effect Are you of the inferior classes, a subaltern
commanded by others, or a noble ? And the result
would be, that, like poverty (not pauperism, but indi-
gence or scanty means) at this day, marriage would
still have its true, peculiar and secret blessings, but, like
poverty again, it would not flourish in the world's
esteem ; and, like that, it would prompt a system of
efforts and of opinions tending universally in the very
opposite direction.

Feeling but, as a pagan, feeling not very pro-
foundly these truths, Adeimantus calls for explana-
tions (secretly expecting modifications) of this offen-
sive doctrine. Socrates, however, (that is, Plato,)
offers none but such as are re-affirmations of the
doctrine in other words, and with some little expan-
sion of its details. The women selected as wives in
these military marriages, are to be partners with the
men in martial labors. This unsexual distinction will
require an unsexual training. It is, therefore, one
derivative law in Plato's Republic, that a certain
proportion of the young girls are to receive a mascu-
line education, not merely assimilated to that of the
men, but by personal association of both sexes in the
same palastra, identical with that, and going on con-
currently.

To this there are two objections anticipated.

1st. That, as the gymnastic exercises of the an-
cients were performed in a state of nudity, (to which
fact, combined with the vast variety of marbles easily

214 PLATO'S KEPUBLIC.

worked by Grecian tools, some people have ascribed
the premature excellence in Greece of the plastic
arts,) such a personal exposure would be very trying
to female modesty, and revolting to masculine sensi-
bilities. Perhaps no one passage in the whole works
of Plato so powerfully reveals his visionary state of
disregard to the actual in human nature, and his con-
tempt of human instincts, as this horrible transition
(so abrupt and so total) from the superstitious reserve*
of Grecian society, combined, as in this place it is,
with levity so perfect. Plato repudiates this scruple
with something like contempt. He contends that it
is all custom and use which regulate such feelings,
and that a new training made operative, will soon
generate a new standard of propriety. Now, with
our better views on such points, a plain man would

* ' Superstitious reserve of Greece.' The possibility, however,
of this Platonic reverie as an idealism, together with the known,
practice of Sparta as a reality, are interesting as a commentary
on the real tendencies of that Oriental seclusion and spurious
delicacy imposed upon women, which finally died away in the
Eoman system of manners j by what steps, it would be very
instructive to trace. Meantime, this much is evident that
precisely in a land where this morbid delicacy was enforced
upon women, precisely in that land (the only one in such cir-
cumstances that ever reached an intellectual civilization) where
women were abridged in their liberty, men in their social re-
finement, the human race in its dignity, by the false requisi-
tions as to seclusion, and by a delicacy spurious, hollow, and
sensual, precisely there the other extreme was possible, of
forcing upon women the most profligate exposure, and compel-
ling them, amidst tears and shame, to trample on the very in-
stincts of female dignity. So reconcilable are extremes, when
the earliest extreme is laid in the unnatural.

PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 215

tell the philosopher, that although use, no doubt, will
reconcile us to much, still, after all, a better and a
worse in such things does exist, previously to any
use at all, one way or the other ; and that it is the
business of philosophy to ascertain this better and
worse, per se, so as afterwards to apply the best
gravitation of this moral agency, called custom, in a
way to uphold a known benefit, not to waste it upon a
doubtful one, still less upon one which, to the first
guiding sensibilities of man, appears dangerous and
shocking. If, hereafter, in these martial women,
Plato should, under any dilemma, have to rely upon
feminine qualities of delicacy or tenderness, he might
happen to find that, with the characteristic and sexual
qualities of his women, he had uprooted all the rest of
their distinguishing graces ; that for a single purpose,
arbitrary even in his system, he had sacrificed a power
that could not be replaced. All this, however, is dis-
missed as a trivial scruple.

2dly. There is another scruple, however, which
weighs more heavily with Plato, and receives a more
pointed answer. The objection to a female soldier or
a gladiatrix might be applied on a far different prin-
ciple not to what seems, but to what actually is
not by moral sentiment, but by physiology. Habit
might make us callous to the spectacle of unfeminine
exposures ; but habit cannot create qualities of mus-
cular strength, hardihood, or patient endurance, where
nature has denied them. These qualities may be
improved, certainly, in women, as they may in men ;
but still, as the improved woman in her athletic char-
acter must still be compared with the improved man,

216 PLATO'S REPUBLIC.

the scale, the proportions of difference, will be kept
at the old level. And thus the old prejudice that
women are not meant (because not fitted by nature)
for warlike tasks will revolve upon us in the shape
of a philosophic truth.

To a certain extent, Plato indirectly admits this, for
(as will be seen) practically he allows for it in his
subsequent institutions. But he restricts the principle
of female inaptitude for war by the following sugges-
tion : The present broad distribution of the human
species, according to which courage and the want of
courage muscular strength and weakness arc
made to coincide with mere sexual distinctions, he
rejects as false not groundless for there is a
perceptible tendency to that difference but still false
for ordinary purposes. It may have a popular truth.
But here, when the question is about philosophic pos-
sibilities and extreme ideals, he insists upon sub-
stituting for this popular generality a more severe
valuation of the known facts. He proposes, there-
fore, to divide the human race upon another principle.
Men, though it is the characteristic tendency of their
sex to be courageous, are not all courageous ; men,
though sexually it is their tendency to be strong, arc
not all strong : many are so ; but some, in the other
extreme, are both timid and feeble : others, again,
present us with a compromise between both extremes.
By a parity of logic, women, though sexually and
constitutionally unwarlike, pass through the same
graduated range ; upon which scale, the middle quali-
ties in Ihem may answer to the lower qualities in the
other sex the higher to the middle. It is possible,

PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 217

therefore, to make a selection amongst the entire
female population, of such as are fitted to take their
share in garrison duty, in the duty of military posts
or of sentries, and even, to a certain extent, in the
extreme labors of the field. Plato countenances the
belief that, allowing for the difference in muscular
power of women, considered as animals, (a mere
difFerence of degree,) there is no essential difference,
as to power and capacities, between the human male
and the female. Considering the splendor of his
name, (weighty we cannot call a man's authority
whom so few profess to have read, but imposing at the
least,) it is astonishing that in the agitation stirred by
the modern brawlers, from Mary Wollstonecraft down-
wards, in behalf of female r pretensions to power, no
more use should have been drawn from the disinter-
ested sanction of Plato to these wild innovations.
However, it will strike many, that even out of that
one inferiority conceded by Plato, taken in connection
with the frequent dependencies of wives and mothers
upon human forbearance and human aids, in a way
irreconcilable with war, those inferences might be
forced one after one, which would soon restore (as a
direct logical consequence) that state of female de-
pendency, which at present nature and providence so
beautifully accomplish through the gentlest of human
feelings. Even Plato is obliged in practice to allow
rather more on account of his one sole concession
than his promises would have warranted ; for he
stipulates that this young gladiatriccs and other figu-
rantes in the palastra, shall not be put upon difficult
or dangerous trials ; living in our day, he would have

218 PLATO'S KEPUBLIC.

introduced into H. M.'s navy a class of midship-
women ; but would have exempted them, we presume,
from all the night watches, and from going aloft.
This, however, might have been mere consideration
for the tenderness of youth. But again, in mature
life, though he orders that the wives and the children
shall march with the armed force to the seat of the
campaign, and on the day of battle shall make their
appearance in the rear, (an unpleasant arrangement
in our day of flying artillery and rocket brigade,) he
does not insist on their mixing in the melee. Their
influence with the fighting division of the army, is to
lie in their visible presence. But surely at this point,
Plato overlooked the elaborate depression of that influ-
ence which his own system had been nursing. Per-
sonal presence of near female relations, whether in
storms at sea, or in battles, has always been supposed
to work more mischief by distracting the commander's
attention, than good by reminding him of his domestic
ties. And since the loss of an East Indiaman, (the
Halsewell,) about sixty years ago, in part ascribed to
the presence of the captain's daughter, the rules of
the British service, we believe, have circumscribed the
possibility of such very doubtful influences. But, in
Plato's Republic, the influences must have been much
more equivocal. A number of women and a number
of children are supposed to be ranged on an eminence
in the background. The women were undoubtedly,
or had been, mothers : but to which of the children
individually, and whether to any living child, was
beyond their power to guess. Giving the fact that
any child to which, in former years, they might give

PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 219

birth, were still in existence, then probably that child
would be found amongst the young column of battle-
gazers on the ground. But, as to the men, even this
conditional knowledge is impossible. Multiplied pre-
cautions have been taken, that it may be impossible.
From the moment of birth the child has been removed
to an establishment where the sternest measures are
enforced to confound it beyond all power of recogni-
tion with the crowd of previous children. The object
is to place a bar between this recognition and every-
body ; the mother and all others alike. Can a cup of
water be recovered when poured off into the Danube ?
Equally impossible, if Plato's intentions are fulfilled,
to recover traces of identification with respect to any
one of the public children. The public family, there-
fore, of wives and children are present, but with what
probable result upon the sensibilities of the men, we
leave the reader to determine, when we have put him
in possession of Plato's motive to all this unnatural
interference with human affections. Why had he
from the first applied so large a body of power
(wasted power, if not requisite) to the suppression of
what most legislators would look to for their highest
resources ? It seems bad mechanics to convert
that into a resistance, requiring vast expense of engi-
neering to overcome it, which might obviously have
been treated as a power of the first magnitude for
overcoming other and inevitable resistance. Strong
reasons must be brought for such an inversion of the
ordinary procedure. What are they in Plato's sys-
tem ? Simply this that from individual marriages
and separate children, not only many feuds arise

220 PLATO'S REPUBLIC.

between man and man, family and family ; a private
interest is established as against other private inter-
ests ; but also a private parental interest is established
in another sense, namely, against the public ; a paren-
tal or family interest, differing from the public state
interest, and often enough in mortal hostility to that
interest.

Be it so : a danger, a pressure, is exposed by Plato
in one direction confronted by what we Christians
should think a far heavier in another ; or, to express it
more strictly, a gain is sought in one direction which
gain seems to us fatally compensated by loss in an-
other. But that is part of Plato's theory that he
confronts with his eyes open and we are not to op-
pose them in mere logic, because it is one of the pos-
tulates in effect on which his system rests. But we
have a right to demand consistency : and, when Plato
brings the wives and children on the field of battle in
order to sustain the general sentiment of patriotism, he
is virtually depending upon that power which he had
previously renounced ; he is throwing the weight of his
reliance upon a providential arrangement which lie had
tossed aside not as useless merely, but as vicious ; he
is clinging in his distress to those sanctities, conjugal
and parental, of which he had said in his self-confi-
dence c Behold ! I will give you something better.'
And tolerably sure we are, that, had Plato prosecuted
the details of his theory into more of their circumstan-
tialities, or had he been placed under the torture of a
close polemic review, he would have been found reviv-
ing for its uses, and for its solution of many perplexi-
ties in practice, that very basis of female honor and

PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 221

modesty, which by his practice and by his professions
he has so labored earnestly to destroy.

The reader will arrive probably at a pretty fixed
opinion as to the service for state purposes likely to
arise from this exhibition of a clamorous nursery, chil-
dren and nurses, upon the field of battle. As a flag,
banner, or ensign, if Plato could in any way contrive
that the army should regard the nursery militant as the
sacred depository of their martial honor, then it is
probable that men would fight desperately for lliat
considered as a trophy, which they regarded but lightly
as a household memorial. But this would be unattain-
able. Even with us, and our profounder Christian
feelings, the women attendant upon an army (who, in
the Thirty Years' War, on the Catholic side often
amounted to another army) have never been elevated
into a ' pignus sanctum militias.' The privates and
subaltern officers might readily have come into such a
view ; but the commander-in-chief with his staff would
have set their faces against so dangerous a principle
it would have fettered the movements of an army too
much ; and in most cases would defeat any sudden
manoeuvres in the presence of an enemy. Merc jus-
tice to human powers demands that the point of honor
for armies, or for sections of armies, (such as regi-
ments, &c.) should be placed in that which can move
concurrently with the main body, no matter for roads,
weather, want of provisions, or any other circum-
stances. Even artillery, therefore, though a subject of
martial jealousy, is not made absolutely coincident with
the point of martial honor. And another consideration,
is this that not only no object ever can be raised

222 PLATO'S REPUBLIC.

into that mode of dignity when all members of the
army are not parties to the consecration, but even the
enemy must be a party to this act. Accordingly, the
sanctity of the flag, as the national honor in a sym-
bolic form confided to a particular regiment, is an
inheritance transmitted downwards through many
generations of every nation in Christendom. Now,
if Plato's republic were even able to translate the point
of honor (which for the Greeks consisted in a ritual
celebration of the battle by sacrifices, together with a
choral chant, and also in the right to erect a frail me-
morial of the victory*) to the capture or preservation
of the women and children, still this change could
not be accomplished ; for the neighboring states would
not be persuaded to terms of l reciprocity,' as the
modern economists phrase it. What ! not if they also
were Platonic states ? Ay, but that is impossible ; for
Plato himself lays the foundation of hope, and the
prospects of conquest, for his own state, in the weak-
ness (growing out of luxury, together with the conju-
gal and parental relations) presumable throughout the
neighboring states.

These ambulatory nurseries, therefore, never could
be made to interest the honor even of a Platonic army,

* 'FrailJ not from any indisposition to gasconade : but there
was a dark superstition which frightened the Greeks from
raising any durable monuments to a triumph over Greeks:
judicial calamities would descend upon the victors, Nemesis
would be upon their haunches, if they exulted too loudly.
Stone, therefore, marble, and brass, were forbidden materials
for the tropasa ! they were always made of wood. If not, look
out for squalls ahead !

PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 223

since no man would consent to embark his own honor
upon a stake to which the enemy afforded no corres-
ponding stake : always to expose your own honor to
loss with no reversionary gain under any contingency ;
always to suffer anxiety in your own person with no
possibility of retaliating this anxiety upon the enemy
would have been too much for the temper of Socra-
tes ; and we fear that he would have left even Xan-
tippe herself, with all her utensils of every kind, as a
derelict for the benefit of the enemy in dry weather,
when a deluge from upper windows might not have
been unwelcome. But if no honor were pledged upon
the nursery in the rear, the next step would certainly
be, that under difficult circumstances, stress of weather,
short provisions, or active light cavalry in the rear, the
nursery would become the capital nuisance of the
army. Ambulatory hospitals, though so evidently
a personal interest of the nearest kind, are trying
to soldiers when overworked ; but ambulatory nurse-
ries, with no intelligible motive for their presence,
continual detachments and extra guards on their
account, with an enemy laughing at the nursery up-
roars, would cause a mutiny if Plato were there in
person. Sentiment but ill accords with the gross real-
ities of business, as Charles Lamb illustrated (rather
beyond the truth in that case) with regard to Lord
Camelford's corpse, when clearing the custom-house
for interment under an aged tree in Switzerland ; and
to hawk along with an army a menagerie of spectators,
against a day of battle, would be an arrangement so
little applicable to any but select expeditions, that the
general overturn of caravans once a day, and the con-

224

tinual fracture of skulls, would be the least tragical
issue within reasonable expectation. Not being
'sacred,' as the depositaries of honor, they would soon
become ' profane.' And speaking gravely, when we
reflect on the frequency, even in Christian lands, with
which, under the trials of extreme poverty, the parental
tie gives way what other result than open insubordi-
nation could be expected from a plan which was
adapted to a mere melodramatic effect, at the price of
universal comfort for months ? Not being associated
with patriotic honor, as we have endeavored to show,
and the parental tie being so aerial in any case where
neither mother nor child belonged to the individual,
but also so exceedingly questionable in the case of
Plato's artifices for concealment having succeeded to
the letter what visionary statesmanship would it
prove to build for so much as a day's service, or for
an extra effort, upon the presence of those who could
have little other value in the soldier's eye than that
they were natives of the same city with himself!

Even this, however, is not the worst : pursuing to
the last the regulations of Plato, the reader is more and
more surprised by the unconscious inconsistency which
emerges : for whilst recollecting the weight of service
the stress which Plato has thrown upon the parental
affection in this case he finds still farther proof of
the excessive degradation to which Plato has reduced
the rank of that affection as a moral principle : in
short, he finds him loading it with responsibility as a
duty, whilst he is destroying it as an honor, and pol-
luting it as an elevated enjoyment. Let us follow the
regulations to their end : The guardians of the state,

PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 225

as they are called in their civil relation, the soldiers,
as they are called with respect to foreign states and to
enemies in general, have been originally selected for
their superior qualities of body. Thus the most natural
(because the most obvious) grounds of personal vanity,
are here at once consecrated by state preference and
peculiar rank. In civilized states, these advantages
being met and thwarted at every turning by so many
higher modes of personal distinction knowledge,
special accomplishments applicable to special difficul-
ties, intellect generally, experience large and com-
prehensive, or local and peculiar riches, popular
influence, high birth, splendid connections ; the con-
sequence is, that mere physical advantages rank as the
lowest class of pretensions, and practically are not of
much avail, except as regards beauty when eminent
in women, though even for that the sphere is narrow ;
since what woman, by mere beauty, ever drew after
her such a train of admirers as a few of our modern
female writers in verse ? Consequently the arrogance
in these soldiers of Plato, finding themselves at once
acknowledged as the best models of physical excel-
lence in the state, and also, in the second place, raised
to the rank of an aristocracy on account of this excel-
lence, would be unlimited. It would be crossed by no
other mode of excellence since no other would be
recognised and countenanced by the state.

With this view of their own vast superiority, natur-
ally and excusably in a state conformed to that
mode of thinking looking upon their own rank as a
mere concession of justice to their claims of birth, the
soldiers would review their condition in other respects.

VOL. i. 15

226

They would then find that, under the Platonic laws,
they enjoyed two advantages : viz. first, a harem fur-
nished with the select females of the state, having pre-
cisely the sort of personal pre-eminence corresponding
to their own ; a modern Mahometan polygamy, in fact,
but without the appropriation which constitutes the
luxury of Mahometan principles ; secondly, a general
precedency. On the other hand, to balance these privi-
leges, and even with the most dissolute men greatly to
outweigh them, they would find

1. That they had, and could have, no property ; not
a fragment : even their arms 1 would be the property of
the state ; even the dress of mail, in which the o'/r A/rat,
or men-at-arms, (heavy-armed cuirassiers, or cata-
phractoi,) must be arrayed, would return to the
ojiiofaw, or arsenal, in time of peace : not a chattel,
article of furniture, or personal ornament, but would
have a public stamp, as it were, upon it, making it fel-
ony to sell, or give, or exchange it. It is true that, to
reconcile the honorable men, the worshipful paupers,
to this austere system, Plato tell us that the other
orders of citizens will not be rich : nobody, in fact, will
be allowed to possess any great wealth. But there is
still a difference between something and nothing. And
then, as to this supposed maximum of riches which is to
be adopted, no specific arrangements are shown, by
which, in consistency with any freedom of action,
further accumulation can be intercepted, or actual pos-
session ascertained.

2. ' But,' says Plato, ' what would the fellows want
with property ? Food, is it ? Have they not that food
at the public cost; and better for their health than any

PLATO'S EEPTTBLIC. 227

which they would choose ? Drink is there not the
river? And if by ill luck it should happen to be a
xsipaQQovs, rather dependent upon winter floods and
upon snows melting in early summer, is there not the
rain at all times in cisterns and tanks, for those who
prefer it? Shoemakers and weavers (if it is shoes
and tunics they want) are they not working through-
out the year for their benefit ? ' All this is true : but
still they are aware that their own labors and hardships
would earn food and clothes upon regular wages : and
that, on the general scale g>f remuneration for merce-
nary soldiership in Greece, adding their dangers to
their daily work, they might obtain enough to purchase
even such immoral superfluities as wine.

3. At present, again, this honored class have many
wives; none of their fellow-citizens more than one.
But here, again, what a mockery of the truth ! that
one is really and exclusively the wife of him whom
she has married ; dedicates her love and attentions and
her confidential secrecy to that man only ; knows and
retains her own children in her own keeping ; and
these children regard their own parents as their own
sole benefactors. How gladly would the majority of
the guardians, after two years' experience of the disso-
lute barrack, accept in exchange the quiet privacy of
the artisan's cottage !

4. The soldiers again, it is urged, enjoy something
of that which sweetens a sailor's life, and keeps it
from homely insipidity viz. the prospect of adven-
ture, and of foreign excursions : even danger is a
mode of stimulation. But how ? Under what restric-
tion do they enjoy these prospects of peril and adven-

228 PLATO'S REPUBLIC.

ture ? Never but on a service of peculiar hardship.
For it is a badge of their slavery to public uses, that
for them only there exists no liberty of foreign travel.
All the rest, throughout the city, may visit foreign
lands : the honorable class only is confined to the
heartless tumult of its dissolute barracks.

Plato evidently felt these bitter limitations of free
agency to be, at the same time, oppressive and de-
grading. Still he did not think himself at liberty to
relax them. His theory he conceived to be a sort of
watch-work, which would keep moving if all the parts
were kept in their places, but would stop on any dis-
turbance of their relations. Not being able to give
any relief, the next thing was to find compensation.
And accordingly, in addition to the sensual bait of
polygamy already introduced as the basis of his plan,
he now proceeds to give a still wider license to appe-
tite. It takes the shape of a dispensation in practice,
from a previous special restriction in one particular
direction : the whole body of guardians and their fe-
male associates, or 6 wives,' are excluded from conju-
gal intercourse except within strict limits as to age ;
from the age of twenty to forty for the women, of
thirty to fifty for the men, is the range within which
they are supposed to be capable of producing a healthy
race of children. Within those limits they are li-
censed : not further. But, by way of compensation,
unlimited concubinage is tolerated for the seniors ;
with this one dreadful proviso that any children born
from such connections, as presumably not possessing
the physical stamina, or other personal advantages
looked for from more carefully selected parents, must

PLATO'S REPUBLIC. 229

bo exposed. Born of fathers who possess no personal
property, these children could have no patrimony ; nor
succeed to any place as a tradesman, artisan, or la-
borer. Succeeding to a state father, they succeed to
nothing; they are thrown as waifs or strays on the
state bounty : and for that they are not eligible, as not
having been born within the privilege of the state reg-
ulations. No party, therefore, known to the state
being responsible for their maintenance, they must die.
And because the ancients had a scruple, (no scruple of
mercy, but of selfish superstition,) as to taking the life
by violence from any creature not condemned under
some law, the mode of death must be by exposure on
the open hills ; when either the night air, or the fangs
of a wolf, oftentimes of the great dogs, still preserved
in many parts of Greece, usually put an end to the
unoffending creature's life.

Now, with this sensual bounty on infanticide, and
this regular machinery for calling into existence such
ill-fated blossoms on the tree of life, and for immedi-
ately strewing them on the ground by the icy wind of
death, cutting adrift the little boat to go down the
Niagara of violent death, in the very next night after
its launching on its unknown river of life could
Plato misconceive the result ? could he wish to mis-
conceive it, as regarded the pieties of parental love ?
To make human life cheaper and more valueless than
that of the brutes is that the way to cherish the sanc-
tity of parental affection ; upon which affection, how-
ever, elsewhere, Plato throws so heavy a burden of
duty ?

Plato would have been surprised, had he anticipated

230 PLATO'S REPUBLIC.

the discoveries of modern experience as to the effect
of marriages so assorted in point of age as he has sup-
posed. This one arrangement, by mere disproportion
of the sexes, would have introduced strange disturb-
ances into his system. But for general purpose, it is
more important to remark that the very indulgences
of Plato are sensual : from a system in itself sensual
in the most cruel degree, Plato grants a dispensation
only to effect a Otaheitian carnival of licentious appe-
tite, connected with a contempt of human life, which
is excessive even for paganism ; since in that the ex-
posure of children is allowed as a relief from supposed
evils of nature ; but here the evil was self-created.

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJ1.

HOMER, the general patriarch of Occidental litera-
ture, reminds us oftentimes and powerfully, of the
river Nile. If you, reader, should (as easily you may)
be seated on the banks of that river in the months of
February or March, 1842, you may count on two lux-
uries for a poetic eye first, on a lovely cloudless
morning ; secondly, on a gorgeous flora. For it has
been remarked, that nowhere, out of tropical regions,
is the vernal equipage of nature so rich, so pompously
variegated, in buds, and bells, and blossoms, as pre-
cisely in this unhappy Egypt c a house of bondage'
undeniably, in all ages, to its own working population ;
and yet, as if to mock the misery it witnesses, the
gayest of all lands in its spontaneous flora. Now, sup-
posing yourself to be seated, together with a child or
two, on some flowery carpet of the Delta ; and sup-
posing the Nile c that ancient river ' within sight ;
happy infancy on the one side, the everlasting pomp
of waters on the other ; and the thought still intruding,
that on some quarter of your position, perhaps fifty
miles out of sight, stand pointing to the heavens the
mysterious pyramids. These circumstances presup-

232 HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE.

posed, it is inevitable that your thoughts should wander
upwards to the dark fountains of origination. The
pyramids, why and when did they arise ? This in-
fancy, so lovely and innocent, whence does it come,
whither does it go ? This creative river, what are its
ultimate well-heads ? That last question was viewed
by antiquity as charmed against solution. It was not
permitted, they fancied, to dishonor the river Nile by
stealing upon his solitude in a state of weakness and
childhood

'Nee licuit populis parvum te, Nile, videre.'

So said Lucan. And in those days no image that the
earth suggested could so powerfully express a myste-
rious secrecy, as the coy fountains of the Nile. At
length came Abyssinian Bruce ; and that superstition
seemed to vanish. Yet now again the mystery has
revolved upon us. You have drunk, you say, from
the fountains of the Nile. Good; but, my friend,
from which fountains ? ' Which king, Bczonian ? '
Understand that there is another branch of the Nile
another mighty arm, whose fountains lie in far other
regions. The great letter Y, that Pythagorean marvel,
is still covered with shades in one half of its bifurca-
tion. And the darkness which, from the eldest of
days, has invested Father Nile with fabulous awe, still
broods over his most ancient fountains, defies our cu-
rious impertinence, and will not suffer us to behold the
survivor of Memphis, and of Thebes the hundred-
gated other than in his grandeur as a benefactor of
nations.
Such thoughts, a world of meditations pointing in

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJB. 233

the same direction, settle also upon Homer. Eight-
and-twenty hundred years, according to the improved
views of chronology, have men drunk from the waters
of this earliest among poets. Himself, under one of
his denominations, the son of a river [Melesigenes],
or the grandson of a river [Masonides], he has been
the parent of fertilizing streams carried off derivatively
into every land. Not the fountains of the Nile have
been so diffusive, or so creative, as those of Homer

f a quo, ceu fonte perenni,

Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis.'

There is the same gaiety of atmosphere, the same
1 blue rejoicing sky,' the same absence of the austere
and the gloomy sublime, investing the Grecian Homer
as invests the Nile of the Delta. And again, if you
would go upwards to the fountains of this ancient Nile,
or of this ancient Homer, you would find the same
mysterious repulsion. In both cases you find their
fountains shyly retreating before you ; and like the
sacred peaks of Ararat, where the framework of
Noah's ark reposes, never less surmounted than when
a man fancies himself within arm's reach of their
central recesses.*

A great poet appearing in early ages, and a great

* Seven or eight Europeans some Russian, some English
have not only taken possession of the topmost crag on Ararat
by means of the broadest disc which their own persons offered,
but have left flags flying, to mark out for those below, the
exact station which they had reached. All to no purpose !
The bigoted Armenian still replied these are mere illusions
worked by demons,

234 HOMER AND THE

river, bear something of the same relation to human
civility and culture. In this view, with a peculiar sub-
limity, the Hindoos consider a mighty fertilizing river,
when bursting away with torrent rapture from its
mountain cradle, and billowing onwards through two
thousand miles of realms made rich by itself, as in
some special meaning ' the Son of God.' The word
Burrampooter is said to bear that sublime sense.
Hence arose the profound interest about the Nile :
what cause could produce its annual swelling ? Even
as a phenomenon that was awful, but much more so as
a creative agency ; for it was felt that Egypt, which is
but the valley of the Nile, had been the mere creation
of the river annually depositing its rich layers of slime.
Hence arose the corresponding interest about Homer ;
for Greece and the Grecian Isles were in many moral
respects as much the creation of Homer as Egypt of
the Nile. And if, on the one hand, it is unavoidable
to assume some degree of civilization before a Homer
could exist, on the other, it is certain that Homer, by
the picture of unity which he held aloft to the Greeks,
in making them co-operate to a common enterprise
against Asia, and by the intellectual pleasure which ho
first engrafted upon the innumerable festivals of Hellas,
did more than lawgivers to propagate this early civili-
zation, and to protect it against those barbarizing feucls
or migrations which through some centuries menaced
its existence.

Having, therefore, the same motive of curiosity
having the same awe, connected first, with secrecy ;
secondly, with remoteness; and thirdly, with benefi-
cent power, which turn our inquiries to the infant

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE. 235

Nile, let us pursue a parallel investigation with regard
to the infant Homer. How was Homer possible ? how
could such a poet as Homer how could such a poem
as the Iliad arise in days so illiterate ? Or rather,
and first of all, loas Homer possible ? If the Iliad
could and did arise, not as a long series of separate
phenomena, but as one solitary birth of revolutionary
power, how was it preserved ? how passed onwards
from generation to generation ? how propagated over
Greece during centuries, when our modern facilities
for copying on paper, and the general art of reading,
were too probably unknown ?

We presume every man of letters to be aware, that,
since the time of the great German philologer, Fred.
Augustus Wolf, (for whose life and services to literature,
see Wilhelm Koerte's ^Leben und Studien Friedr. Aug.
WolfsJ 1833,) a great shock has been given to the
slumbering credulity of men on these Homeric sub-
jects ; a galvanic resuscitation to the ancient scepticism
on the mere possibility of an Iliad, such as we now
have it, issuing sound and complete, in the tenth or
eleventh century before Christ, from the brain of a
blind man, who had not (they say) so much as chalk
towards the scoring down of his thoughts. The doubts
moved by Wolf in 1795, propagated a controversy in
Germany which has subsisted down to the present
time. This controversy concerns Homer himself, and
his first-born child, the Iliad ; for as to the Odyssey,
sometimes reputed the child of his old age, and as to
the minor poems, which never could have been as-
cribed to him by philosophic critics, these are univer-
sally given up as having no more connection with

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJ2.

Homer personally than any other of the many epic
and cyclical poems which arose during Post-Homeric
ages, in a spirit of imitation, more or less diverging
from the primitive Homeric model.

Fred. Wolf raised the question soon after the time
of the French Revolution. Afterwards he pursued it
[1797] in his letters to Heyne. But it is remarkable
that a man so powerful in scholarship, witnessing the
universal fermentation he had caused, should not have
responded to the general call upon himself to come
forward and close the dispute with a comprehensive
valuation of all that had been said, and all that yet
remained to be said, upon this difficult problem. Voss,
the celebrated translator of Homer into German dactylic
hexameters, was naturally interested by a kind of per-
sonal stake in the controversy. He wrote to Wolf
warmly, perhaps, and in a tone almost of moral remon-
strance; but without losing his temper, or forgetting
the urbanity of a scholar. ' I believe,' said he in his
later correspondence of the year 1796, c I believe in
one Iliad, in one Odyssey, and in one Homer as the
sole father of both. Grant that Homer could not write
his own name and so much I will concede that your
acute arguments have almost demonstrated still to
my thinking that only enhances the glory of the poet.
The unity of this poet, and the unity of his works, are
as yet to me unshaken ideas. But what then ? I am
no bigot in my creed, so as to close my ears against
all hostile arguments. And these arguments, let me
say plainly, you now owe to us all ; arguments drawn
from the internal structure of the Homeric poems.
You have wounded us, Mr. Wolf, in our affections ;

HOMEE AND THE HOMEBIDJE. 237

you have affronted us, Mr. Wolf, in our tenderest sen-
sibilities. But still we are just men ; ready to listen,
willing to bear and to forbear. Meantime the matter
cannot rest here. You owe it, Mr. Wolf, to the dignity
of the subject, not to keep back those proofs which
doubtless you possess ; proofs, observe, conclusive
proofs. For hitherto, permit me to say, you have
merely played with the surface of the question. True,
even that play has led to some important results ; and
for these no man is more grateful than myself. But
the main battle is still in arrear.'

Wolf, however, hearkened not to such appeals. He
had called up spirits, by his evocation, more formi-
dable than he looked for or could lay. Perhaps, like
the goddess Eris at the wedding feast, he had merely
sought to amuse himself by throwing a ball of conten-
tion amongst the literati : a little mischief was all he
contemplated, and a little learned Billingsgate. Things
'had taken a wider circuit. Wolfs acuteness in raising
objections to all the received opinions had fallen upon
a kindly soil : the public mind had reacted powerfully ;
for the German mind is but too naturally disposed to
scepticism ; and Wolf found himself at length in this
dilemma viz. that either by writing a very inade-
quate sequel, he must forfeit the reputation he had
acquired ; or that he must prepare himself for a com-
pass of research to which his spirits were not equal,
and to which his studies had not latterly been directed.
A man of high celebrity may be willing to come for-
ward in undress, and to throw out such casual thoughts
as the occasion may prompt, provided he can preserve
his incognito ; but if he sees a vast public waiting to

238 HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE.

receive him with theatric honors, and a flourish of
trumpets announcing his approach, reasonably he may
shrink from facing expectations so highly raised, and
may perhaps truly plead an absolute impossibility of
pursuing further any question under such original
sterility of materials, and after so elaborate a cultiva-
tion by other laborers.

Wolf, therefore, is not to be blamed for having
declined, in its mature stages, to patronize his own
question. His oivn we call it, because ho first pressed
its strongest points ; because he first kindled it into a
public feud ; and because, by his matchless revisal of
the Homeric text, he gave to the world, simultaneously
with his doubts, the very strongest credentials of his
own right to utter doubts. And the public, during the
forty-six years' interval which has succeeded to his first
opening of the case, have viewed the question as so
exclusively his that it is generally known under the
name of the Wolfian hypothesis. All this is fair and
natural ; that rebel who heads the mob of insurgents is
rightly viewed as the father of the insurrection. Yet
still, in the rigor of justice, we must not overlook the
earlier conspirators. Not to speak here of more ancient
sceptics, it is certain that in modern times Bentley,
something more than one hundred and fifty years back,
with his usual divinity of eye, saw the opening for
doubts. Already in the year 1689, when he was a
young man fresh from college, Bentley gave utterance
to several of the Wolfian scruples. And, indeed, had
he done nothing more than call attention to the cligain-
ma, as applied to the text of Homer, he could not have
escaped feeling and communicating these scruples. To

HOMEK AND THE HOMEEIDJE. 239

a man who was one day speaking of some supposed
hiatus in the Iliad, Bentley, from whom courtesy flowed
as naturally as ' milk from a male tiger,' called out
c Hiatus, man ! Hiatus in your throat ! There is no
such thing in Homer.' And, when the other had
timidly submitted to him such cases as ,/ snmn> or
xaia soya, oi fiEJinjdsa on or, Bentley showed him that,
unless where the final syllabic of the prior word hap-
pened to be in am, (as suppose in Tzv/^iafow ^f^;.7/og,)
universally the hiatus had not existed to the cars of
Homer. And why ? Because it was cured by the
interposition of the digamma : 'Apud Homerum scepe
mdetur hiatus esse, ubi prisca littera digamma ex-
plebat inter medium spatium.' Thus ^a^Ssa oirov
in Homer's age was ^i^dsa Fotrov (from which JEolic
form is derived our modern word for wine in all the
western and central languages of Christendom ; F is
V, and V is W all the world over whence vin, wine,
vino, wein, wiin, and so on ; all originally depending
upon that J3oliac letter F, which is so necessary to the
metrical integrity of Homer.) Now, when once a
man of Bentley's sagacity had made that step forc-
ing him to perceive that here had been people of old
time tampering with Homer's text, (else how had the
digamma dropped out of the place which once it must
have occupied,) he could not but go a little further.
If you see one or two of the indorsements on a bill
misspelt, you begin to suspect general forgery. When
the text of Homer had once become frozen and settled,
no man could take liberties with it at the risk of being
tripped up himself on its glassy surface, and landed
in a lugubrious sedentary posture, to the derision of all

240 HOMER AND THE HOMERID.ZE.

critics, compositors, pressmen, devils, and dcvillets.
But whilst the text was yet piping hot, or lukewarm,
or in the transitional state of cooling, every man who
had a private purpose to serve might impress upon its
plastic wax whatever alterations he pleased, whether
by direct addition or by substitution, provided only he
had skill to evade any ugly seam or cicatrice. It is
true he could run this adulterated Homer only on that
particular road to which he happened to have access.
But then, in after generations, when all the Homers
were called in by authority for general collation, his
would go up with the rest ; his forgery would be ac-
cepted for a various reading, and would thus have a
fair chance of coming down to posterity which word
means, at this moment, you, reader, and ourselves.
We are posterity. Yes, even we have been humbug-
ged by this Pagan rascal ; and have doubtless drunk
off much of his swipes, under the firm faith that we
were drinking the pure fragrant wine (the ^s^Ssa
'Fotvov) of Homer.

Bentley having thus warned the public, by one gene-
ral caveat, that tricks upon travellers might be looked
for on this road, was succeeded by Wood, who, in his
Essay on the Genius of Homer, occasionally threw up
rockets in the same direction. This essay first crept
out in the year 1769, but only to the extent of seven
copies ; and it was not until the year 1775,* that a

* It is a proof, however, of the interest, even at that time,
taken by Germany in English literature, as well as of the in-
terest taken in this Homeric question, that one of the seven
copies published in 1769 must have found its way to some
German scholar ; for already, in 1773, a German translation of
Wood had been published at Frankfort.

HOMEK AND THE HOMERIDJE. 241

second edition diffused the new views freely amongst
the worlxi. The next memorable era for this question
occurred in 1788, during which year it was that Vil-
loison published his Iliad ; and, as part of its appara-
tus, he printed the famous Venetian Scholia, hitherto
known only to inspectors of MSS. These Scholia
gave strength to the modern doubts, by showing that
many of them were but ancient doubts in a new form.
Still, as the worshipful Scholiasts do not offer the pleas-
antest reading in the world, most of them being rather
drowsy or so truly respectable men, but somewhat
apoplectic it could not be expected that any explosion
of sympathy should follow : the clouds thickened ; but
the man who was to draw forth the lightnings from
their surcharged volumes, had not yet come forward.
In the mean time, Herder, not so much by learning as
by the sagacity of his genius, threw out some pregnant
hints of the disputable points. And finally, in 1795,
Wolf marched forth in complete mail, a sheaf of
sceptical arrows rattling on his harness, all of which he
pointed and feathered, giving by his learning, or by
masculine sense, buoyancy to their flight, so as to carry
them into every corner of literary Europe. Then
began the c row ' then the steam was mounted which
has never since subsided and then opened upon
Germany a career of scepticism, which from the very
first promised to be contagious. It was a mode of
revolutionary disease, which could not by its very
nature confine itself to Homer. The religious reader
has since had occasion to see, with pain, the same
principles of audacious scepticism applied to books and
questions far more important ; but, as might be shown
VOL. i. 16

242 HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE.

upon a fitting occasion, with no reason whatever for
serious anxiety as to any popular effect. Meantime,
for those numerous persons who do not read Latin or
German with fluency, but are familiar with French, the
best comprehensive view of Wolf's arguments, (as
given in his Homeric Prolegomena, or subsequently in
his Brief e an Heyne,) is to be found in Franceson's
Essai sur la question Si Homere a connu Vusage de
Vecriture: Berlin, 1818.

This French work we mention, as meeting the wants
of those who simply wish to know how the feud began.
But, as that represents only the early stages of the en-
tire speculation, it will be more satisfactory for all who
are seriously interested in Homer, and without parti-
sanship seek to know the plain unvarnished truth
' Is Homer a hum, and the Iliad a hoax ? ' to consult
the various papers on this subject which have be'en con-
tributed by Nitzsch to the great Allgemeine Encyclo-
padie of modern Germany. Nitzsch's name is against
him ; it is intolerable to see such a thicket of conso-
nants with but one little bit of a vowel amongst them ;
it is like the proportions between FalstafF's bread and
his sack. However, after all, the man did not make
his own name, and the name looks worse than it sounds,
for it is but our own word niche, barbarously written.
This man's essays are certainly the most full and rep-
resentative pleadings which this extensive question has
produced. On the other hand, they labor in excess
with the prevailing vices of German speculation ; viz.
1st, vague indeterminate conception ; 2dly, total want
of power to methodize or combine the parts, and in-
deed generally a barbarian inaptitude for composition.

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE. 243

But, waiving our quarrel with Nitzsch and with
Nitzsch's name, no work of his can be considered as
generally accessible ; his body is not in court, and, if
it were, it talks German, So, in his chair we shall
seat ourselves ; and now, with one advantage over
him viz. that we shall never leave the reader to
muse for an hour over our meaning we propose to
state the outline of the controversy ; to report the de-
cisions upon the several issues sent down for trial upon
this complex suit ; and the apparent tendencies, so far
as they are yet discoverable, towards that kind of gen-
eral judgment which must be delivered by the Chan-
cery of European criticism, before this dispute will
subside into repose.

The great sectional or subordinate points into which
the Homeric controversy breaks up, are these :

I. Homer that is, the poet as distinct from his
works.

II. The Iliad and the Odyssey that is, the poems
as distinct from their author.

III. The RJiapsodoi, or poetic chanters of Greece ;
these, and their predecessors or their contemporaries
the Aoidoi, the Citharo&di^ the Homeridai.

IV. Lycitrgus.

V. Solon and the Pisistratidra.

VI. The DiascenastcB.

We hardly know at what point to take up this ravel-
led tissue ; but, by way of tracing the whole theme
ab ovQ) suppose we begin by stating the chronological
bearings of the principal objects (things as well as
persons) connected with the Iliad.

Itium was that city of Asia Minor, whose memorable

244 HOMER AND THE HOMERID.E.

fortunes and catastrophe furnished the subject of the
Iliad. At what period of human history may we rea-
sonably suppose this catastrophe to have occurred ?
Never did a great man err so profoundly as Sir Isaac
Newton on this very question, in deducing the early
chronology of Greece. The semi-fabulous section of
Grecian annals he crowded into so narrow a space,
and he depressed the whole into such close proximity
to the regular opening of history, (that is, to the Olym-
piads,) that we are perfectly at a loss to imagine with
what sort of men, events, and epochs, Sir Isaac would
have peopled that particular interval of a thousand
years in Grecian chronology, which corresponds to the
scriptural interval between the patriarch Abraham and
Solomon the Jewish king. This interval commences
with the year 2000 before Christ, and terminates with
the year 1000 before Christ. But such is the fury
of Sir Isaac for depressing all events not absolute-
ly fabulous below this latter terminus, that he has
really left himself without counters to mark the pro-
gress of man, or to fill the cells of history, through a
millennium of Grecian life. The whole thousand years,
as respects Hellas, is a mere desert upon Sir Isaac's
map of time. As one instance of Sir Isaac's modern-
izing propensities, we never could sufficiently marvel
at his supposing the map of the heavens, including
those constellations which are derived from the Argo-
nautic enterprise, to have been completed about the
very time of that enterprise ; as if it were possible that
a coarse clumsy hulk like the ship Argo, at which no
possible Newcastle collier but would have sneezed, or
that any of the men who navigated her, could take a

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE. 245

consecrated place in men's imagination, or could obtain
an everlasting memorial in the starry heavens, until
time, by removing gross features, and by blending all
the circumstances with the solemnities of vast distance,
had reconciled the feelings to a sanctity which must
have been shocking, as applied to things local and
familiar.

Far different from Sir Isaac's is the present chrono-
logical theory. Almost universally it is now agreed,
that the siege of Troy occurred about 1300, or, at the
lowest calculation, more than 1200 years before Christ.
What, then, is the chronological relation of Homer to
Troy ? It is generally agreed, that the period of his
flourishing was from two to three centuries after Troy.
By some it was imagined that Homer himself had been
a Trojan ; and therefore contemporary with the very
heroes whom he exhibits. Others, like our Jacob Bry-
ant, have fancied that he was not merely coeval with
those heroes, but actually was one of those heroes
viz. Ulysses ; and that the Odyssey rehearses the per-
sonal adventures, the voyages, the calamities of Ho-
mer. It is our old friend the poet, but with a new
face ; he is now a soldier, a sailor, a king, and, in case
of necessity, a very fair boxer, or c fistic artist,' for the
abatement of masterful beggars, c sorners, 1 or other
nuisances. But these wild fancies have found no suc-
cess. All scholars have agreed in placing a deep gulf
of years between Homer and the Ilium which he sang.
Aristarchus fixes the era of Homer at 140 years after
the Trojan war ; Philochorus at 180 years ; Apollodo-
rus at 240 ; the Arundcl Marbles at 302 ; and Herodo-
tus, who places Homer about 400 years before his own

246 H03MEK AND THE HOMERIDJE.

time, (i. e. about 850 before Christ,) ought, therefore,
to be interpreted as assuming 350 years at least be-
tween Homer and Troy. So that the earliest series of
events connected from before and from behind with
the Grecian bard, may be thus arranged :

Years bef. Christ.

1220 Trojan expedition.

1000 Homer a young man, and contemporary with
the building of the first temple at Jeru-
salem.

820 Lycurgus brings into the Peloponnesus from
Crete, (or else from Ionia,) the Homeric
poems, hitherto unknown upon the Grecian
continent,

Up to this epoch, (the epoch of transplanting the
Iliad from Greece insular and Greece colonial to
Greece continental,) the Homeric poems had been left
to the custody of two schools, or professional orders,
interested in the text of these poems : liow interested,
or in what way their duties connected them with Ho-
mer, we will not at this point inquire. Suffice it, that
these two separate orders of men did confessedly ex-
ist ; one being elder, perhaps, than Homer himself, or
even than Troy viz. the Aoidoi and Citharc&di.
These, no doubt, had originally no more relation to
Homer than to any other narrative poet ; their duty of
musical recitation had brought them connected with
Homer, as it would have done with any other popular
poet ; and it was only the increasing current of Ho-
mer's predominance over all rival poets, which grad-
ually gave such a bias and inflection to these rnea's
professional art, as at length to suck them within the

HOMEK AND THE HOMERID^E. 247

great Homeric tide; they became, but were not origin-
ally, a sort of Homeric choir and orchestra a chop el
of priests having a ministerial duty in the vast Ho-
meric cathedral. Through them exclusively, perhaps,
certainly through them chiefly, the two great objects
were secured first, that to each separate generation
of men Homer was published with all the advantages
of a musical accompaniment ; secondly, that for dis-
tant generations Homer was preserved. We do not
thus beg the question as to the existence of alphabetic
writing in the days of Homer ; on the contrary, we go
along with Nitzsch and others in opposing Wolf upon
that point. We believe that a laborious art of writing
did exist ; but with such disadvantages as to writing
materials, that Homer (we arc satisfied) would have
fared ill as regards his chance of reaching the polished
ages of Pericles, had he relied on written memorials,
or upon any mode of publication less impassioned than
the orchestral chanting of the Rhapsodoi. The other
order of men dedicated to some Homeric interest,
whatever that might be, were those technically known
as the Homcrida. The functions of these men have
never been satisfactorily ascertained, or so as to dis-
criminate them broadly and firmly from the Citharo&di
and Rhapsodoi, But in two features it is evident that
they differed essentially first, that the Homeridcz
constituted a more local and domestic college of Ho-
meric ministers, confined originally to a single island,
not diffused (as were the Rhapsodoi) over all Greece ;
secondly, that by their very name, which refers them
back to Homer as a mere product from his influence,
this class of followers is barred from pretending in the

248 HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE.

Homeric equipage, (like the- Citliarcedi) to any inde-
pendent existence, still less to any anterior existence.
The musical reciters had been a general class of public
ministers, gradually sequestered into the particular
service of Homer ;' but the Homeridce were, in some
way or other, either by blood, or by fiction of love and
veneration, Homer's direct personal representatives.

Thus far, however, though there is evidence of two
separate colleges or incorporations who charged them-
selves with the general custody, transmission, and
publication of the Homeric poems, we hear of no
care applied to the periodical review of the Homeric
text ; we hear of no man taking pains to qualify
himself for that office by collecting copies from all
quarters, or by applying the supreme political author-
ity to the conservation and the authentication of the
Homeric poems. The text of no book can become
an object of anxiety, until by numerous corruptions it
has become an object of doubt. Lycurgus, it is true,
the Spartan lawgiver, did apply his own authority, in
a very early age, to the general purpose of importing
the Iliad and Odyssey. But there his office termi-
nated. Critical skill, applied to the investigation of an
author's text, was a function of the human mind as
unknown in the Greece of Lycurgus as in the Ger-
many of Tacitus, or the Tongataboo of Captain Cook.
And of all places in Greece, such delicate reactions of
the intellect upon its own creations were least likely
to arise amongst the illiterate Dorian tribes of the
Southern Peloponnesus wretches that hugged their
own barbarizing institutions as the very jewels of their
birthright, and would most certainly have degenerated

HOMER AND THE HOMEEIDJ2. 249

rapidly into African brutality, had they not been held
steady, and forcibly shouldered into social progress,
by the press of surrounding tribes more intellectual
than themselves.

Thus continued matters through about four centuries
from Homer. And by that time we begin to feel
anxious about the probable state of the Homeric text.
Not that we suppose any interregnum in Homer's
influence not that we believe in any possible defect
of links in that vast series of traditional transmitters;
the integrity of that succession was guarantied by
its intcrwreathing itself with human pleasures, with
religious ceremonies, with household and national
festivals. It is not that Homer would have become
apocryphal or obscure for want of public repetition ;
on the contrary, too constant and too fervent a repe-
tition would have been the main source of corruptions
in the text. Sympathy in the audience must always
have been a primary demand with the Rhapsodoi ;
and, to perfect sympathy, it is a previous condition to
be perfectly understood. Hence, when allusions were
no longer intelligible or effectual, it might sometimes
happen that they would be dropped from the text ; and
when any Homeric family or city had become extinct,
the temptation might be powerful for substituting the
names of others who could delight the chanter by
fervid gratitude for a distinction which had been
merited, or could reward him with gifts for one
which had not. But it is not necessary to go over
the many causes in preparation, after a course of
four centuries, for gradually sapping the integrity of
Homer's text. Everybody will agree, that it was at

250 HOMER AND THE HOMETUDJE.

length high time to have some edition ' by authority ;'
and that, had the Iliad and Odyssey received no
freezing arrest in their licentious tendency towards
a general interfusion of their substance with modern
ideas, most certainly by the time of Alexander, i. e.
about seven centuries from Homer, either poern would
have existed only in fragments. The connecting parts
between the several books would have dropped out;
and all the aQiaretat, or episodes dedicated to the honor
of a particular hero, might, with regard to names less
hallowed in the imagination of Greece, or where no
representatives of the house remained, have perished
utterly. It was a real providential care for the civili-
zation of Greece, which caused the era of state
editions to supersede the ad libitum text of the care-
less or the interested, just at that precise period when
the rapidly rising tide of Athenian refinement would
soon have swept away all the landmarks of primitive
Greece, and when the altered character of the public
reciters would have co-operated with the other diffi-
culties of the case to make a true Homeric text
irrecoverable. For the Rhapsodoi were in a regular
course of degradation to the rank of mere mercenary
artists, from that of sacred minstrels, who connected
the past with the present, and who sang precisely
because their burthen of truth was too solemn for
unimpassioned speech. This was the station they had
occupied ; but it remains in evidence against them,
that they were rapidly sinking under the changes of
the times were open to tribes, and, as one con-
sequence (whilst partly it was one cause) of this
degradation, that they had ceased to command the

HOMER AND THE HOMEKIDJE. 251

public respect. The very same changes, and through
the very same steps, and under the very same agen-
cies, have been since exhibited to Europe in the
parallel history of the minstrels. The pig-headed
Ritson, in mad pursuit of that single idea which
might vex Bishop Percy, made it his business, in one
essay, to prove, out of the statutes at large, and out of
local court records, that the minstrels, so far from
being that honored guest in the courts of princes
whom the bishop had described, was, in fact, a rogue
and a vagabond by act of Parliament, standing in awe
of that great man, the parish beadle, and liable to be
kicked out of any hundred or tithing where he should
be found trespassing. But what nonsense ! the min-
strel was, and he was not, all that the bishop and
others had affirmed. The contradiction lay in the
time ; Percy and Ritson spoke of different periods ;
the bishop of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth
centuries the attorney of the sixteenth and seven-
teenth. Now the Grecian Rhapsodoi passed through
corresponding stages of declension. Having minis-
tered through many centuries to advancing civilization,
finally they themselves fell before a higher civiliza-
tion ; and the particular aspect of the new civilization,
which proved fatal to lliem, was the general diffusion
of reading as an art of liberal education. In the
age of Pericles, every well-educated man could read ;
and one result from his skill, as no doubt it had also
been one amongst its exciting causes, was that he
had a fine copy at home, beautifully adorned, of the
Iliad and Odyssey, Paper and vellum, for the last
six centuries B. C., (that is, from the era of the

252 HOMER AND THE HOMERID.ZE.

Egyptian king, Psarnmetichus,) were much less scarce
in Greece than during the ages immediately con-
secutive to Homer. This fact has been elaborately
proved in recent German essays.

How providential, therefore and with the recol-
lection of that great part played by Greece in propa-
gating Christianity through the previous propagation of
her own literature and language, what is there in
such an interference unworthy of Providence ? how
providential, that precisely in that interval of one
hundred and eleven years, between the year 555
B. C. 5 the locus of Pisistratus, and 444 B. C., the
locus of Pericles, whilst as yet the traditional text
of Homer was retrievable, though rapidly ncaring
to the time when it would be strangled with weeds,
and whilst as yet the arts of reading and writing had
not weakened the popular devotion to Homer by
dividing it amongst multiplied books ; just then in
that critical isthmus of time, did two or three
Athenians of rank, first Solon, next Pisistratus, and
lastly, (if Plato is right,) Hipparchus, step forward to
make a public, solemn, and legally operative review of
the Homeric poems. They drew the old vessel into
dock ; laid bare its timbers ; and stopped the further
progress of decay. What they did more than this, and
by what characteristic services each connected his
name with a separate province in this memorable res-
toration of the Iliad and Odyssey we shall inquire
further on.

One century after Pisistratus we come to Pericles ;
or, counting from the locus of each, (555 B. C., and
444 B. C.,) exactly one hundred and eleven years divide

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE. 253

them. One century after Pericles we come to Alex-
ander the Great ; or, counting from the locus of each,
(444 B. C., and 333 B. C.,) exactly one hundred and
eleven years divide them. During the period of two
hundred and twenty two years Homer had rest. No-
body was allowed to torment his text any more. And
it is singular enough that this period of two hundred
and twenty-two years, during which Homer reigned in
the luxury of repose, having nothing to do but to let
himself be read and admired, was precisely that ring-
fence of years within which lies true Grecian history ;
for, if any man wishes to master the Grecian history,
he needs not to ascend above Pisistratus, nor to come
down below Alexander. Before Pisistratus all is rnist
and fable ; after Alexander, all is dependency and ser-
vitude. And remarkable it is that, soon after Alex-
ander, and indirectly through changes caused by him,
Homer was again held out for the pleasure of the tor-
mentors. Among the dynasties founded by Alexan-
der's lieutenants, was one memorably devoted to
literature. The Macedonian house of the Ptolemies,
when seated on the throne of Egypt, had founded the
very first public library and the first learned public.
Alexander died in the year 320 B. C. ; and already in
the year 280 B. C., (that is, not more than forty years
after,) the learned Jews of Alexandria and Palestine
had commenced, under the royal patronage, that trans-
lation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, which,
from the supposed number of the translators, has ob-
tained the name of the Septuagint. This was a ser-
vice to posterity. But the earliest Grecian service to
which this Alexandrian library ministers, was Homeric ;

254 HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE.

and strikes us as singular, when we contrast it with the
known idolatry towards Homer of that royal soldier,
from whom the city itself, with all its novelties, drew
its name and foundation. Had Alexander survived
forty years longer, as very easily he might if he had
insisted upon leaving his heel-taps at Babylon, how
angry it would have made him that the very first trial
of this new and powerful galvanic battery should be
upon the body of the Iliad !

From 280 B. C. to 160 B. C., there was a constant
succession of Homeric critics, The immense material
found in the public library towards a direct history of
Homer and his fortunes, would alone have sufficed to
evoke a school of critics. But there was, besides,
another invitation to Homeric criticism, more oblique,
and eventually more effective. The Alexandrian
library contained vast collections towards the study of
the Greek language through all its dialects, and through
all its chronological stages. This study led back by
many avenues to Homer. A verse or a passage which
hitherto had passed for genuine, and which otherwise,
perhaps, yielded no internal argument for suspicion,
was now found to be veined by some phrase, dialect,
terminal form, or mode of using words, that might be
too modern for Homer's age, or too far removed in
space from Homer's Ionian country. We moderns,
from our vast superiority to the Greeks themselves in
Greek metrical science, have had an extra resource
laid open to us for detecting the spurious in Greek
poetry ; and many are the condemned passages in our
modern editions of Greek books, against which no
jealousy would ever have arisen amongst unmotrical

HOMER AND THE HOMERID2E. 255

scholars. Here, however, the Alexandrian critics,
with all their slashing insolence, showed themselves
sons of the feeble ; they groped about in twilight. But,
even without that resource, they contrived to riddle
Homer through and through with desperate gashes.
In fact, after being 'treated' and 'handled' by three
generations of critics, Homer came forth, (just as we
may suppose one of Lucan's legionary soldiers, from
the rencontre with the amphisbocna, the dipsas, and
the water-snake of the African wilderness,) one vast
wound, one huge system of confluent ulcers* Often
in reviewing the labors of three particularly amongst
these Alexandrine scorpions, we think of the .ZEsopian
fable, in which an old man with two wives, one aged
as befitted him, and the other young, submits his head
alternately to the Alexandrine revision of each. The
old lady goes to work at first ; and upon c moral prin-
ciple' she indignantly extirpates all the black hairs
which could ever have inspired him with the absurd
fancy of being young. Next comes the young critic :
she is disgusted with age ; and upon system eliminates,
(or, to speak with Aristarchus, l obelizes, 1 ) all the grey
hairs. And thus between the two ladies and their sep-
arate editions of the old gentleman, he, poor Homeric
creature, comes forth as bald as the back of one's
hand. Aristarchus might well boast that he had cured
Homer of the dry-rot : he has ; and by leaving hardly
one whole spar of his ancient framework. Nor can
we, with our share of persimmon, comprehend what
sort of abortion it is which Aristarchus would have us
to accept and entertain in the room of our old original
Iliad and Odyssey. To cure a man radically of the

256 HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE.

toothache, by knocking all his teeth down his throat,
seems a suspicious recommendation for ' dental sur-
gery.' And, with respect to the Homer of Aristarchus,
it is to be considered, that besides the lines, sentences,
and long passages, to which that Herod of critics
affixed his obelus (t) or stiletto, there were entire books
which he found no use in assassinating piecemeal ;
because it was not this line or that line into which he*
wished to thrust his dagger, but the whole rabble of
lines 4 tag, rag, and bobtail.' Which reminds us of
Paul Richter, who suggests to some author anxiously
revising the table of his own errata that perhaps he
might think it advisable, on second thoughts, to put his
whole book into the list of errata ; requesting of the
reader kindly to erase the total work as an oversight,
or general blunder, from page one down to the word
Jinis. In such cases, as Martial observes, no plurality
of cancellings or erasures will answer the critic's pur-
pose : but, c una litura potest.' One mighty bucket of
ink thrown over the whole will do the business ; but,
as to obelizing, it is no better than snapping pocket-
pistols in a sea-fight, or throwing crackers amongst
the petticoats of a female mob.

With the Alexandrine tormentors, we may say that
Homer's pre-Christian martyrdom came to an end.
His post-Christian sufferings have been due chiefly to
the Germans, who have renewed the warfare not only
of Alexandrine critics, but of the ancient Chorizontes.
These people we have not mentioned separately, be-
cause, in fact, nothing remains of their labors, and the
general spirit of their warfare may be best understood
from that of modern Germany. They acquired their

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE. 257

name of Clwrizontes, (or separators,) from their prin-
ciple of breaking up the Iliad into multiform groups
of little tadpole Iliads ; as also of splitting the one
old hazy but golden Homer, that looms upon us so
venerably through a mist of centuries, into a vast
reverberation of little silver Homers, that twinkled up
and down the world, and lived when they found it
convenient.

Now, let us combine the separate points of this
chronological deduction into one focus, after which we
will examine apart, each for itself, the main questions
which we have already numbered as making up the
elements of the controversy.

Years bef. Christian era.

1220 Troy.

1000 Solomon the king of Jewry, and Homer the
Grecian poet.

800 Lycurgus the lawgiver, imports the Iliad into
Sparta, and thus first introduces Homer to
Continental Greece.

555 Solon, the Athenian lawgiver, Pisistratus, the
ruler of Athens, and Hipparchus, his son,
do something as yet undetermined for the
better ascertaining and maintaining of the
original Homeric text.

444 From the text thus settled, are cited the
numerous Homeric passages which we find
in Plato, and all the other wits belonging to
this period, the noontide of Greek literature,
viz, the period of Pericles ; and these pas-
sages generally coincide with our present
text, so that we have no reason to doubt
VOL. i. 17

258 HOMEK AND THE HOMERIDJS.

Years bef. Christian Era.

about our present Iliad being essentially the
same as that which was used and read in
the family of Pisistratus.

333 This is the main year of Alexander's Persian
expedition, and probably the year in which
his tutor Aristotle published those notions
about the tragic and epic * unities ,' which
have since had so remarkable an effect upon
the arrangement of thq Iliad. In particular,
the notion of c episodes,' or digressional nar-
ratives, interwoven with the principal narra-
tive, was entirely Aristotelian ; and under
that notion, people submitted easily to inter-
polations which would else have betrayed
themselves for what they are.
320 Alexander the Great dies.
280 "] The Alexandrian library is applied to for
down ! the searching revision of Homer; and a
to | school of Alexandrine critics (in which
160 j school, through three consecutive genera-
tions, flourished as its leaders Zenodotus,
Aristophanes, and Aristarchus) dedicated
themselves to Homer. They arc usually
called the Alexandrine * grammatici ' or
litterateurs.

After the era of 160 B. C., by which time the
second Punic war had liberated Eome from her great
African rival, the Grecian or eastern states of the
Mediterranean began rapidly to fall under Eoman
conquest. Henceforwards the text of Homer suffered
no further disturbance or inquisition, until it reached

HOMEK AND THE HOMERIDJE. 259

the little wicked generation (ourselves and our imme-
diate fathers) which we have the honor to address.
Now, let us turn from the Iliad , viewed in its chrono-
logical series of fortunes, to the Iliad viewed in itself
and in its personal relations ; i, e. in reference to its
author, to its Grecian propagators or philosophers, and
to its reformers or restorers, its re-casters or interpola-
tors, and its critical explorers.

A. HOMER.

About the year 1797, Messrs. Pitt and Dundas
labored under the scandal of sometimes appearing
drunk in the House of Commons ; and on one par-
ticular evening, this impression was so strong against
them, that the morning papers of the following three
days fired off exactly one hundred and one epigrams
on the occasion. One was this :

PITT. I cannot see the Speaker, Hal, can you ?
D. Not see the Speaker ! D m'e, I see two.

Thus it has happened to Homer. Some say, ' There
never was such a person as Homer.' c No such person
as Homer. On the contrary,' says othe-rs, there were
scores.' This latter hypothesis has much more to plead
for itself than the other. Numerous Homers were pos-
tulated with some apparent reason, by way of account-
ing for the numerous Homeric poems, and numerous
Homeric birthplaces. One man it was felt, never
could be equal to so many claims. Ten camel-loads
of poems you may sec ascribed to Homer in Fabri-
cius ; and more states than seven claimed the man.

260 HOMER AND THE HOMEKIDJE.

These claims, it is true, would generally have van-
ished, if there had been the means of critically
probing them ; but still there was a primd facie case
made out for believing in a plurality of Homers ;
whilst on the other hand, for denying Homer, there
never was any but a verbal reason. The polytheism
of the case was natural ; the atheism was monstrous.
Ilgen, in the preface to his edition of the Homeric
Hymns, says, ' Homeri nomen, si recte video, deri-
vandum est ex 6pov et o^w.' And so, because the
name (like many names) can be made to yield a
fanciful emblematic meaning, Homer must be a myth.
But in fact, Mr. Ilgen has made little advance with
his o,ue KQU. For next comes the question, What do
those two little Greek words mean ? -^w is to join,
to fit, to adapt 6,us is together, or in harmony. But
such a mere outline or schematism of an idea may bo
exhibited under many different constructions. One
critic, for instance, understands it in the sense of
dove-tailing, or metaphorical cabinet-making, as if it
applied chiefly to the art of uniting words into metri-
cal combinations. Another, Mr. Ilgen himself, takes
it quite differently ; it describes, not the poetical com-
position, or any labor whatever of the poet as a
poet, but the skill of the musical accompaniment and
adaptations. By accident the poet may chance to be
also the musical reciter of the poem; and in that
character he may have an interest in this name of
'OftyQog, but not as a poet. 'opijQetv and oiajQevsiv, says
Hesychius, mean avuyweiv, (to harmonize in point of
sound ;) the latter of the two is used in this sense by
Hesiod ; and more nicely, says Mr. Ilgen, it means

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE. 261

accinere, to sing an accompaniment to another voice
or to an instrument ; and it means also succinere, to
sing such an accompaniment in an under-key, or
to sing what we moderns call a second i. e. an
arrangement of notes corresponding, but subordinated
to the other or leading part. So says Ilgen in mixed
Latin, German, and Greek. Now, we also have our
pocket theory. We maintain that 6 t ua aQta is Greek for
packing up ; and very pretty Greek, considering the
hot weather. And our view of the case is this
' Homer' was a sort of Delphic or prophetic name
given to the poet, under a knowledge of that fate
which awaited him in Crete, where, if he did not
pack up any trunk that has yet been discovered, he
was, however, himself packed up in the portmanteau
of Lycurgus. Such, at least, is the coloring which
the credulous Plutarch, nine hundred years after Ly-
curgus, gives to the story. ' Man alive ! ' says a Ger-
man, apostrophizing this thoughtless Plutarch, ; Man
alive ! how could Lycurgus make a shipment of
Homer's poems in the shape of a parcel for importa-
tion, unless there were written copies in Crete at a
time when nobody could write ? Or, how, why, for
what intelligible purpose, could he have consigned
this bale to a house in the Peloponnesus, where
nobody could read ? ' Homer, he thinks, could be
imported at that period only in the shape of an
orchestra, as a band of Homeric chanters. But,
returning seriously to the name 'O^QOS, we say that,
were the name absolutely bursting with hieroglyphic
life, this would be no proof that the man Homer,
instead of writing a considerable number of octavo

262 HOMER AND THE HOMERID.E.

volumes, was (to use Mr. Ilgen's uncivil language)
c an abstract idea/ Honest people's children arc not
to be treated as 4 abstract ideas, 1 because their names
may chance to look symbolical. Bunyan's ' Mr.
Ready-to-sink ' might seem suspicious ; but Mr.
Strong-i'-th'-arm, who would have been a desirable
companion for such an exhausted gentleman, is no
abstract idea at all, but a dense broarl-shoulclered
reality in a known street of London, liable to bills,
duns, and other affections of our common humanity.
Suppose, therefore, that Homer, in some one of his
names, really had borne a designation glancing at
symbolical meaning, what of that ? this should rather
be looked upon as a reflex name, artificially construct-
ed for reverberating his glory after it had gathered,
than as any predestinating (and so far marvellous)
name.

Chrysostom, that eloquent father of early Chris-
tianity, had he been baptized by such a name as
golden-mouthed (Chrysostornos), you would have sus-
pected for one of Mr. Ilgen's ' abstract ideas ; ' but,
as it happens, we all know that he existed in the
body, and that the appellation by which he is usually
recognised was a name of honor conferred upon him
by the public in commemoration of his eloquence.
However, we will bring this point to a short issue,
by drawing the reader's attention to the following
case : Any man, who has looked into the body of
Greek rhetoricians, must know that in that lieldomas
idearum, or septenary system of rhetorical forms
which Hermogenes and many others illustrated, two
of the seven (and the foremost two) were the qualities

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJS. 263

called gorgotes and demotes. Now, turn to the list
of early Greek rhetoricians or popular orators ; and
who stands first ? Chronologically the first, and the
very first, is a certain Tisias, perhaps ; hut he is a
mere nominis umlra. The first who made himself
known to the literature of Greece, is G-orgias ; that
Gorgias who visited Athens in the days of Socrates,
(see Athenseus, for a rigorous examination of the
date assigned to that visit by Plato,) the same Gorgias
from whose name Plato has derived a title for one
of his dialogues. Again, amongst the early Greek
orators you will see Deinarchus. Gorgias and Dein-
archus ! Who but would say, were it not that these
men had flourished in the meridian light of Athenian
literature 'Here we behold two ideal or symbolic
orators typifying the qualities of gorgotes and dei-
notes ! ' But a stronger case still is that of Demos-
thenes. Were this great orator not (by comparison
with Homer) a modern person, under the full blaze
of history, and coeval with Alexander the Great 333
years B. C., who is there that would not pronounce
him a mere allegoric man, when he understood that the
name was composed of these two elements Demos,
the 6 people ' in its most democratic expression, and
sthenos, 6 strength ? ' this last word having been noto-
riously used by Homer (mega sthenos Okeanoio) to
express that sort of power which makes itself known
by thundering sound, c the thundering strength of the
people ! ' or, ' tlie people's fulminating might ! '
who would believe that the most potent of Greek
orators had actually brought with him this ominous
and magnificent name, this natural patent of presi-

264 HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE.

dency, to the Athenian hustings ? It startles us to
find, lurking in any man's name, a prophecy of his
after career ; as, for instance, to find a Latin legend
' And his glory shall le from the NileJ (Est honor
a Nilo,) concealing itself in the name Horatio Nel-
son. But there the prophecy lies hidden, and cannot
he extracted without a painful cork-screw process of
anagram. Whereas, in Demosthenes, the handwriting
is plain to every child : it seems witchcraft and a
man is himself alarmed at his own predestinating
name. Yet for all that, with Mr. II gen's permission,
Demosthenes was not an * abstract idea.' Conse-
quently, had Homer brought his name in his waistcoat
pocket to the composition of the Iliad, he would still
not have been half as mythical in appearance as
several well-authenticated men, decent people's sons,
who have kicked up an undeniable dust on the Athe-
nian hustings. Besides, Homer has other significant
or symbolizing senses. It means a hostage ; it means
a blind man, as much as a cabinet-maker, or even
as a packer of trunks. Many of these c significant
names' either express accidents of birth commonly
recurring such as Benoni^ 'The child of sorrow,'
a name frequently given by young women in West-
moreland to any child born under circumstances of
desertion, sudden death, &c. on the part of the
father; or express those qualities which are always
presumable, Honor, Prudence, Patience, &c., as
common female names : or, if they imply anything
special, any peculiar determination of general qualities
that never could have been foreseen, in that case they
must be referred to an admiring posterity that

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE. 265

senior posterity which was such for Homer, but for
us has long ago become a worshipful ancestry.

From the name it is a natural step to the country.
All the world knows, by means of a satirical couplet,
that

' Seven cities claimed the mighty Homer dead,
Through which the living Homer begged his bread.'

What were the names of these seven cities, (and
islands,) we can inform the reader by means of an old
Latin couplet amongst our schoolboy recollections

1 Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Salamis, Rhodes, Argos, Athenae,
Orbis de patria certat, Homere, tua.'

Among these the two first, Smyrna and Chios, have
very superior pretensions. Had Homer been passed
to his parish as a vagrant, or had Colophon (finding a
settlement likely to be obtained by his widow) resolved
upon trying the question, she would certainly have
quashed any attempt to make the family chargeable
upon herself. Smyrna lies under strong suspicion ;
the two rivers from which Homer's immediate progen-
itors were named the Mceon and the Meles bound
the plains near to Smyrna. And Wood insists much
upon the perfect correspondence of the climate in that
region of the Levant with each and all of Homer's
atmospherical indications. We suspect Smyrna our-
selves, and quite as much as Mr. Wood ; but still we
hesitate to charge any local peculiarities upon the
Smyrniote climate that could nail it in an action of
damages. Gay and sunny, pellucid in air and water,
we are sure that Smyrna is ; in short, everything that
could be wished by the public in general, or by

266 HOMER AND THE HOMER1DJE.

currant dealers in particular. But really that any city
whatever, in that genial quarter of the Mediterranean,
should pretend to a sort of patent for sunshine, we
must beg to have stated in a private letter ' to the
Marines : ' us it will not suit.

Meantime these seven places are far from being all
the competitors that have entered their names with the
clerk of the course. Homer has been pronounced a
Syrian, which name in early Greece of course included
the Jew ; and so, after all, the Iliad may have issued
from the synagogue. Babylon, also, dusky Babylon,
has put in her claim to Homer ; so has Egypt.
And thus, if the poet were really derived from an Ori-
ental race, his name (sinking the aspiration) may have
been Omar. But those Oriental pretensions arc mere
bubbles, exhaling from national vanity. The place
which, to our thinking, lies under the heaviest weight
of suspicion as the seat of Homer's connections, and
very often of his own residence, is the island of Crete.
Smyrna, we doubt not, was his birthplace. But in
those summer seas, quiet as lakes, and basking in
everlasting sunshine, it would be inevitable for a
stirring animated rnind to float up and down the
^gean. 'Home-keeping youths had ever homely
wits,' says a great poet of our own; and we doubt
not that Homer had a yacht, in which he visited all the
festivals of the yEgean Islands. Thus he acquired that
learned eye which he manifests for female beauty.
c Rosy-fingered,' ' silver-footed,' c fuli-bosorncti,' ' ox-
eyed,' with a large vocabulary of similar notices, show
how widely Homer had surveyed the different chambers
of Grecian beauty ; for it has happened through acci-

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE. 267

dents of migration and consequent modifications of ori-
gin, combined with varieties of diet and customs, that
the Greek Islands still differ greatly in the style of their
female beauty. Now, the time for seeing the young
women of a Grecian city, all congregated under the
happiest circumstances of display, was in their local
festivals. Many were the fair Phidiacan forms which
Homer had beheld moving like goddesses through the
mazes of religious choral dances. But at the islands
of los, of Chios, and of Crete, in particular, we are sat-
isfied that he had a standing invitation. To this hour,
the Cretan life presents us with the very echo of the
Homeric delineations. Take four several cases:

I. The old Homeric superstition, for instance, which
connects horses by the closest sympathy, and even
by prescience, with their masters that superstition
which Virgil has borrowed from Homer in his beau-
tiful episode of Mezentius still lingers unbroken in
Crete. Horses foresee the fates of riders who are
doomed, and express their prescience by weeping in a
human fashion. With this view of the horse's capa-
city, it is singular, that in Crete this animal by prefer-
ence should be called TO ;.oyov, the brute or irrational
creature. But the word f/r/rog has, by some accident,
been lost in the modern Greek. As an instance both
of the disparaging name, and of the ennobling super-
stition, take the following stanza from a Cretan ballad
of 1825 :

{ vTv sxapaMixsve,

ExZaie t* cdoyo TQZT
JCat TQTtcfa TO syvrnQiGs

Uwg sirai 6 Qavatog rov.*

268 HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE.

* Upon which he mounted, and his horse wept : and
then he saw clearly how this should bode his death.'

Under the same old Cretan faith, Homer, in 11. xvii.
437, says

* Tears, scalding tears, trickled to the ground down
the eyelids of them, (the horses,) fretting through grief
for the loss of their, charioteer.'

II. Another almost decisive record of Homer's
familiarity with Cretan life, lies in his notice of the
agrimij a peculiar wild goat, or ibex, found in no part
of the Mediterranean world, whether island or main-
land, except in Crete. And it is a case almost without
a parallel in literature, that Homer should have sent
down to all posterity, in sounding Greek, the most
minute measurement of this animal's horns, which
measurement corresponds with all those recently ex-
amined by English travellers, and in particular with
three separate pairs of these horns brought to England
about the year 1836, by Mr. Pashley, the learned
Mediterranean traveller of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Mr. Pashley has since published his travels, and from
him we extract the following description of these shy
but powerful animals, furnished by a Cretan moun-
taineer : c The agrimia are so active, that they will
leap up a perpendicular rock of ten to fourteen feet
high. They spring from precipice to precipice ; and
bound along with such speed, that no dog would be
able to keep up with them even on better ground

HOMER AND THE HOMEKIDJ3. 269

than that where they are found. The sportsman must
never be to windward of them, or they will perceive
his approach long before he comes within musket-shot.
They often carry off a ball ; and, unless they fall
immediately on being struck, are mostly lost to the
sportsman, although they may have received a mortal
wound. They are commonly found two, three, or four
together ; sometimes a herd of eight and even nine is
seen. They are always larger than the common goat.
In the winter time, they may be tracked by the sports-
man in the snow. It is common for men to perish in
the chase of them. They are of a reddish color, and
never black or party-colored like the common goat.
The number of prominences on each horn, indicates
the years of the animal's age.'

Now Homer in Iliad iv. 105, on occasion of Panda-
rus drawing out his bow, notices it as an interesting
fact, that this bow, so beautifully polished, was derived
from [the horns of] a wild goat, atyog a-yqiov ; and the
epithet by which he describes this wild creature is i'$ai&
preternaturally agile. In his Homeric manner he
adds a short digressional history of the fortunate shot
from a secret ambush, by which Pandarus had himself
killed the creature. From this it appears that, before
the invention of gunpowder, men did not think of
chasing the Cretan ibex; and from the circumstantiali-
ty of the account, it is evident that some honor attached
to the sportsman who had succeeded in such a capture.
He closes with the measurement of the horns in this
memorable line, (memorable as preserving such a fact
for three thousand years)

' Tov XGQK sx xstpcdyg sxxcenJexa <Ju)>a netpvxst,.'

270 HOMER AND THE HOMEEIDJE.

4 The horns from this creature's head measured
sixteen dora in length. Now what is a doron ? In
the Venetian Scholia, some annotator had hit the truth,
but had inadvertently used a wrong word. This word,
an oversight, was viewed as such by Heyne, who cor-
rected it accordingly, before any scholar had seen the
animal. The doron is now ascertained to be a Ho-
meric expression for a palm, or sixth part of a Grecian
foot 5 and thus the extent of the horns, in that speci-
men which Pandarus had shot, would be two feet eight
inches. Now the casual specimens sent to Cambridge
by Mr. Pashley, (not likely to be quite so select as that
which formed a personal weapon for a man of rank,)
were all two feet seven and a half inches on the outer
margin, and two feet one and a half inches on the
inner. And thus the accuracy of Homer's account,
(which as Heyne observes, had been greatly doubted
in past ages,) was not only remarkably confirmed, but
confirmed in a way which at once identifies, beyond
all question, the Homeric wild-goat (ou x(?<0 with
the present agrimi of Crete ; viz. by the unrivalled
size of the animal's horns, and by the unrivalled power
of the animal's movements, which rendered it neces-
sary to shoot it from an ambush, in days before the
discovery of powder.

But this result becomes still more conclusive for our
present purpose : viz. for identifying Homer himself
as a Cretan by his habits of life, when we mention the
scientific report from Mr. Rothman of Trinity College,
Cambridge, on the classification and lialilat of the
animal : l It is not the louquelinj (of the Alps,) c to
which, however, it bears considerable resemblance, but

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE. 271

the real wild-goat, the capra cegagrus (Pallas), the
supposed origin of all our domestic varieties. The
horns present the anterior trenchant edge characteris-
tic of this species. The discovery of the agagrus in
Crete, is perhaps a fact of some zoological interest ;
as it is the Jirst well-authenticated European locality
of this animalS

Here is about as rigorous a demonstration that the
sporting adventure of Pandarus must have been a
Cretan adventure as would be required by the Queen's
Bench. Whilst the spirited delineation of the capture,
in which every word is emphatic, and picturesquely
true to the very life of 1841, indicates pretty strongly
that Homer had participated in such modes of sporting
himself.

III. Another argument for the Cretan habitudes of
Homer, is derived from his allusion to the Cretan tum-
blers the xv^tgtjri^ss the most whimsical, perhaps,
in the world ; and to this hour the practice continues
unaltered as in the eldest days. The description is
easily understood. Two men place themselves side
by side ; one stands upright in his natural posture ; the
other stands on his head. Of course this latter would
be unable to keep his feet aloft, and in the place be-
longing to his head, were it not that his comrade throws
his arms round his ankles, so as to sustain his legs
inverted in the air. Thus placed, they begin to roll
forward, head over heels, and heels over head : every
tumble inverts their positions : but always there is one
man, after each roll, standing upright on his pins, and
another whose lower extremities are presented to the

272 HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE.

clouds. And thus they go on for hours. The per-
formance obviously requires two associates ; or, if the
number were increased, it must still be by pairs ; and
accordingly Homer describes his tumblers as in the
dual number.

IV. A fourth, and most remarkable, among the Ho-
meric mementos of Cretan life, is the Trjioiufaa or
conversation from a distance. This it is, and must
have been, which suggested to Homer his preternatural
male voices Stentor's, for instance, who spoke as
loud ' as other fifty men ; ' and that of Achilles, whom
Patroclus roused up with a long pole, like a lion from
his lair, to come out and roar at the Trojans ; simply
by which roar he scares the whole Trojan army. Now,
in Crete, and from Colonel Leake, it appears, in Alba-
nia, (where we believe that Cretan emigrants have set-
tled,) shepherds and others are found with voices so
resonant, aided perhaps by the quality of a Grecian
atmosphere, that they are able to challenge a person
c out of sight ; ' and will actually conduct a ceremoni-
ous conversation (for all Cretan mountaineers are as
ceremonious as the Homeric heroes) at distances
which to us seem incredible. What distance? de-
mands a litigious reader. Why, our own countrymen,
modest and veracious, decline to state what they have
not measured, or even had the means of computing.
They content themselves with saying, that sometimes
their guide, from the midst of a solitary valley, would
shout aloud to the public in general taking his chance
of any sti oilers from that great body, though quite out
of sight, chancing to be within mouth-shot. But the

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJS. 273

French are not so scrupulous. M. Zallony, in his
Voyage a FArchipel^ &,c., says, that some of the
Greek islanders * out la voix forte et animee ; -et deux
habitans, a une distance d'une demi-lieue, meme plus,
peuvent tres facile ment s'entendre, et quelquefois
s'entretenir.' Now a royal league is hard upon three
English miles, and a sea league, we believe, is two and
a half; so that half a league, et meme plus, would
bring us near to two miles, which seems a long interval
at which to conduct a courtship. But this reminds us
of an English farmer in the north, who certainly did
regularly call in his son to dinner from a place two
measured miles distant; and the son certainly came.
How far this punctuality, however, might depend on
the father's request, or on the son's watch, was best
known to the interested party. In Crete, meantime,
and again, no doubt, from atmospheric advantages, the
Tijioaxojria, or power of descrying remote objects by the
eye, is carried to an extent that seems incredible, This
faculty also may be called Homeric ; for Homer re-
peatedly alludes to it.

V. But the legends and mythology of Crete are what
most detect the intercourse of Homer with that island.
A volume would be requisite for the full illustration of
this truth. It will be sufficient here to remind the
reader of the early civilization, long anterior to that of
Greece continental, which Crete had received. That
premature refinement furnishes an a priori argument
for supposing that Homer would resort to Crete; and
inversely, the elaborate' Homeric use of Cretan tradi-

VOL. i. 18

274 HOMER AND THE HOMEBIDJ3.

tional fables, furnishes an a posteriori argument that
Homer did seek this island.

It is of great use towards any fall Homeric investi-
gation, that we should fix Homer's locality and trace
his haunts ; for locality, connected with the internal
indications of the Miad^ is the best means of approxi-
mating to Homer's true era ; as, on the other hand,
Homer's era, if otherwise deduced, would assist the
indications of the Iliad to determine his locality. And
if any reader demands in a spirit of mistrust, How it
is that Crete, so harassed by intestine wars from Turk-
ish, Venetian, and recently from Egyptian tyranny,
the bloodiest and most exterminating, has been able,
through three thousand years, to keep up unbroken her
inheritance of traditions ? we reply, That the same
cause has protected the Cretan usages, which (since
the days of our friend Pandarus) has protected the
Cretan ibex ; viz. the physical conformation of the
island mountains; secret passes where one resolute
band of two hundred rnen is equal to an army ; ledges
of rock which a mule cannot tread with safety ; crags
where even infantry must break and lose their cohe-
sion; and the blessedness of rustic poverty, which
offers no temptation to the marauder. These have
"been the Cretan safeguards ; and a brave Sfakian pop-
ulation, by many degrees the finest of all Grecian
races in their persons and their hearts.

The main point about Homer, the man, which now
remains to be settled, amongst the many that might be
useful, and the few that are recoverable, is this
Could lie write? and if he could, did he use that
method for fixing his thoughts and images as they

HOMER AND THE HOMEKIDJE. 275

arose ? or did he trust to his own memory for the
rough sketch, and to the chanters for publishing the
revised copies ?

This question, however, as it will again meet us
under the head Solon and the Pisistratida, we shall
defer to that section ; and we shall close this personal
section on Homer by one remark borrowed from Plato.
The reader will have noticed that, amongst the cities
pretending to Homer as a native child, stands the city
of Argos. Now Plato, by way of putting a summary
end to all such windy pretensions from Dorian cities,
introduces in one of his dialogues a stranger--who re-
marks, as a leading characteristic of Homer that
everywhere he keeps the reader moving amongst scenes,
images and usages, which reflect the forms and color-
ing of Ionian life. This remark is important, and we
shall use it in our summing up.

PART II.

THE ILIAD.

What is the Iliad about? What is the true and
proper subject of the Iliad ? If that could be settled,
it would facilitate our inquiry. Now everybody knows,
that according to the ordinary notion, founded upon
the opening lines of this poem, the subject is the
Wratk of Achilles. Others, however, have thought,
with some, reason, that the idea was not sufficiently
self-diffusive was not all-pervasive : it seemed a lig-
ament that passed through some parts of the poem,
and connected them intimately, but missed others alto-

276 HOMEft AND THE HOMEKIDJE.

gether. It has, therefore, become a serious question
How much of the Iliad is really interveined, or at
all modified, by the son of Peleus, and his fend with
Agamemnon ? To settle which, a German Jew took
a singular method.

We have all heard of that barbarous prince, (the
story is told of several,) who, in order to decide terri-
torial pretensions between himself and a brother po-
tentate, sent for a large map of the world ; and from
this, with a pair of scissors, cutting out the rival stales,
carefully weighed them against each other, in gold
scales. We see no reason for laughing at the prince ;
for, the paper being presumed of equal thickness, the
map accurate, and on a large scale, the result would
exhibit the truth in a palpable shape. Probably on
this hint it was, that the Jew cut out of a Greek Iliad
every line that could be referred to Achilles and his
wrath not omitting even the debates of Olympus,
where they grew out of that. And what was his re-
port? Why, that the wrath of Achilles formed only
< 26 per shcnt ' upon the whole Iliad ; that is, in effect,
one quarter of the poem.

Thus far, therefore, we must concede to the Chori-
zontes, or breakers- up of the Iliad, that the original
stem on which the Iliad grew was probably an Acliil-
leis ; for it is inconceivable that Homer himself could
have expected such a rope of sand as the Iliad now
presents, to preserve its order and succession under
the rough handling of posterity. Watch the fate of
any intricate machine in any private family. AH the
loose or detached parts of such a machine are sure to
be lost, Ask for it at the end of a year, and the more

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDjE. 277

elaborate was the machine, so much the more certain
is the destruction which will have overtaken it. It is
only when any compound whole, whether engine,
poem, or tale, carries its several parts absolutely inter-
locked with its own substance, that it has a chance of
maintaining its integrity.

Now, certainly it cannot be argued by the most idol-
atrous lover of the Iliad^ that the main central books
exhibit that sort of natural intcrcohesion which deter-
mines their place and order. But, says the reader,
here they are : they have held together : no use in
asking whether it was natural for them to hold together.
They have reached us : it is now past asking Could
Homer expect them to reach us ? Yes, they have
reached us ; but since when ? Not, probably, in their
present arrangement, from an earlier period than that
of Pisistratus. When manuscripts had once become
general, it might be easy to preserve even the loosest
succession of parts especially where great venera-
tion for the author, and the general notoriety of the
poems, would secure the fidelity of copies. But what
the sceptics require to be enlightened upon, is the
principle of cohesion which could carry these loose
parts of the Iliad over that gulf of years between
1 Homer and Pisistratus the one a whole millennium
before our Christian era, the other little more than half
a millennium ; and whilst traditionary transmission
through singers and harpers constituted, perhaps, the
sole means of preservation, and therefore of arrange-
ment.

Let not the reader suppose German scepticism to be
the sole reason for jealousy with regard to the present

278 HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE.

canon of the Iliad. On the contrary, some interpola-
tions are confessed by all parties. For instance, it is
certain and even Eustathius records it as a regular
tradition in Greece that the night-adventure of Dio-
med and Ulysses against the Trojan camp, their
capture of the beautiful horses brought by Rhesus,
and of Dolon the Trojan spy, did not originally form a
part of the Iliad. At present this adventure forms the
tenth book, but previously it had been an independent
epos, or epic narrative, perhaps locally circulated
amongst the descendants of Diomed,* and known by
the title of the Doloneia. Now, if one such interca-
lation could pass, why not more ? With respect to this
particular night episode, it has been remarked, that its
place in the series is not asserted by any inter-
nal indication. There is an allusion, indeed, to the
wrath of Achilles; but probably introduced to harmo-
nize it as a part of the Iliad^ by the same authority
which introduced the poem itself: else, the whole
book may be dropped out without any hiatus. The

* Descendants, or, perhaps, amongst the worshippers j for,
though everybody is not aware of that fact, many of the Gre-
cian, heroes at Troy were deified. Ulysses and his wife, Ido-
meneus, &c., assume even a mystical place in the subsequent
superstitions of Greece. But Biomed also became a god : and
the occasion was remarkable. A peerage (i. e. a godship) had
been promised by the gods to his father Tydeus ; but when the
patent came to be enrolled, a flaw was detected it was found
that Tydeus had once eaten part of a man ! What was to be
done ? The objection was fatal ; no cannibal could be a god,
though a god might be a cannibal. Tydeus therefore requested
Jove to settle the reversion on his son Diomed. 'And */*/,'
said Jove, 4 I shall have great pleasure in doing.'

HOMER AND THE HOMETUDJS. 279

battle, suggested by Diomed at tbe end of the ninth
book, takes place in the eleventh; and, as the critics
remark, no allusion is made in that eleventh book, by
any of the Grecian chiefs, to the remarkable plot of
the intervening night.

But of all the incoherences which have been de-
tected in the Iliad, as arising out of arbitrary juxta-
positions between parts not originally related, the most
amusing is that brought to light by the late Wilhelm
Mueller. * It is a fact, 1 says he, c that (as the arrange-
ment now stands) Ulysses is not ashamed to attend
three dinner parties on one evening.' First, he had
a dinner engagement with Agamemnon, which, of
course, he keeps, [B. IX. 90 ;] so prudent a man could
not possibly neglect an invitation from the commander
of the forces. Even in free and independent England,
the sovereign 'does not ask you to dinner, but commands
your attendance. Next he dines with Achilles, [B. IX.
221 ;] and finally, with Diomed, [B. XL 578.] Now,
Diomed was a swell of the first magnitude, and a man
of fashion, as may be seen in the 'Troilus and Cressida'
of Shakspeare, (who took his character from tradition,
and makes him the Greek rival of Troilus.) He
therefore pushes his dinner as far towards 'to-morrow'
as was well possible ; so that it is near morning before
that dinner is over. And the sum of the Ithacan's
enormities is thus truly stated by Mueller: e Deny it
who will, the son of Laertes accepts three distinct
feeds, between the sunset suppose of Monday and the
dawn of Tuesday ! '

' This is intolerable. Yet, perhaps, apologists will
say, (for some people will varnish anything,) c If the

280 HOMER AND THE HOMERIPJE.

man had three dinners in one day, often, perhaps, in
three days he had but one dinner! 5 For ourselves,
we frankly confess, that if there is one man in the
Grecian cam p whom we should have believed capable
of such a thing, it is precisely this cunning Ulysses.
Mueller insists on calling him the 'noble' Ulysses;
but that is only to blacken his conduct about the
dinners. To our thinking, his nearest representative
in modern times is c Sixteen-string Jack, 7 whose life
may be read in the c Newgate Calendar.' What
most amuses ourselves in the business Is Mueller's so
stealthily pursuing Ulysses through two books of the
'Iliad,' in order to watch how many dinner parties he
attended ! And there is a good moral in the whole
discovery ; for it shows all knaves, that, though hidden
for three thousand years, their tricks are sure to be
found out at the last.

In general, it is undeniable that some of the German
objections to the present arrangement, as a possible
Homeric arrangement, are valid. For instance, the
following, against the present position of the duel
between Paris and Menelaus : c This duel, together
with the perfidious shot of Pandarus, and the general
engagement which follows, all belonging to the same
epos, wear the appearance of being perfectly insulated
where they now stand, and betray no sort of connection
with any of the succeeding cantos. In tho s ^^;rm
Jiotnjovg, which forms the fifth canto, the whole inci-
dent is forgotten, and is never revived. The Grecians
make no complaint of the treachery practised ; nor do
the gods (ex officio the avengers of perjury) take any
steps to punish it. Not many hours after the duel.

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE. 281

Hector comes to his brother's residence ; but neither
of them utters one word about the recent duel; and as
little about what had happened since the duel, though
necessarily unknown to Paris. Hector's reproaches,
again, to Paris, for his Idcliete, are in manifest contra-
diction to the single combat which he had so recently
faced. Yet Paris takes no notice whatever of the
energy manifested by himself. And as to his final
evasion, that was no matter of reproach to him, since
it was the work of a goddess. Besides, when he
announces his intention to Hector of going again to
the field of battle, who would not anticipate from him
a proposal for re-establishing the interrupted duel ?
Yet not a syllable of all that. Now, with these broad
indications to direct our eyes upon the truth, can we
doubt that the duel^ in connection with the breach of
truce, and all that now fills the third and fourth books'
[in a foot note Mueller adds ' and also the former
half of the second book'] ' originally composed an
independent epas^ which belonged, very probably, to
an earlier stage of the Trojan war, and was first thrust,
by the authorized arrangers of the "Iliad," into the
unhappy place it now occupies; namely, in the course
of a day already far overcrowded with events ? '

In the notes, where Mueller replies to some ob-
jections, ho again insists upon the impossibility, under
the supposition that Homer had authorized the present
arrangement, of his never afterwards making the
Greeks allude to the infraction of the treaty; especi-
ally when Hector proposes a second duel between
himself and some one of the Grecian chiefs. Yet,
perhaps, as regards this particular feature (namely,

282 HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE.

the treachery) of the duel, we would suggest, that, as
the interposition of Venus is not to be interpreted in
any foolish allegorical way, (for the battle interferences
of the gods are visible and undisguised,) doubtless the
Greeks, not less than the Trojans, understood -the in-
terruption as in effect divine ; after which, the act of
Pandarus is covered by the general apology, no matter
in what light Pandarus might have meant it. Even in
the first * Iliad, 1 it is most childish to understand the
whispering of Minerva to Achilles as an allegorical
way of expressing, that his good sense, or his pru-
dence, arrested his hand. Nonsense ! that is not
Homer's style of thinking, nor the style of Homeric
ages. Where Mars, upon being wounded, howls,
and, instead of licking the man who offered him
this insult, shows the white feather and limps off
in confusion, do these critics imagine an allegory ?
What is an allegoric howl ? or what docs a cur
sneaking from a fight indicate symbolically ? The
Homeric simplicity speaks plainly enough. Venus
finds that her man is likely to be beaten ; which, by
the way, surprises us; for a stout young shepherd,
like Paris, ought to have found no trouble in taking
the conceit out of an elderly diner-out, such as Mono-
laus. And, perhaps, with his mauleys, he would.
Finding, however, how the affair was likely to go,
Venus withdraws her man. Paris does not come to
time; the umpires quarrel; the mob breaks the ring;
and a battle-royal ensues. But the interference of
Venus must have been palpable : and this is one of
the circumstances in the 'Iliad' which satisfies us, that
the age of Troy was removed by several generations

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDjE. 283

from Homer, To elder days, and men fancied more
heroic than those of his own day (a fancy which
Homer expressly acknowledges) he might find him-
self inclined to ascribe a personal intercourse with the
gods ; and he would find everywhere an audience
favoring this belief. A generation of men that often
rose themselves to divine honors, might readily be
conceived to mix personally with the gods. But no
man could think thus of his own contemporaries, of
whom he must know that the very best were liable
to indigestion, and suspected often to have schirrous
livers. Really no : a dyspeptic demigod it makes one
dyspeptic to think of!

Meantime the duel of Paris is simply overlooked
and neglected in the subsequent books of the Iliad : it
is nowhere absolutely contradicted by implication : but
other cases have been noticed in the Iliad, which in-
volve direct contradictions, and therefore argue either
that Homer in those ' naps' which Horace imputes to
him slumbered too profoundly, or that counterfeits got
mixed up with the true bullion of the Iliad. Amongst
other examples pointed out by Heyne or by Trance -
son, the following deserve notice :

1. Pylacmenes the Paphlagonian, is killed by Mcne-
laus, (11. v. 579-590;) but further on (II xni. 643-
658) we find the poor man pretty well in his health, and
chief mourner at the funeral of his son Harpalion.

2. Sarpcdon is wounded in the leg by Tlcpolemus,
(11. v. 628, &c.) and an ugly wound it is, for the bone
is touched, so that an operation might be, looked for.
Operation indeed ! Two days after he is stumping
about upon his pins, and c operating ' upon other

284 HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE.

people, (II. xn. 290, &c.) The contradiction, if it
really is one, was not found out until the approved
chronology of the Iliad was settled. Our reason for
doubting about the contradiction is simply this :
Sarpedon, if we remember, was a son of Jupiter ; and
Jupiter might have a particular salve for wounded legs,
Teucer, however, was an undeniable mortal. Yet
he (1L vni. 324) is wounded desperately in the arm
by Hector. His ncure is smashed, which generally is
taken to mean his bow-string ; but some surgical critics
understand it as the sinew of his arm. At all events
it was no trifle ; his brother, Telamonian Ajax, and
two other men, carry off the patient groaning heartily,
probably upon a shutter, to the hospital. He at lust is
booked for the doctor, you think. Not at all. Next
morning he is abroad on the field of battle, and at his
old trade of thumping respectable men, (11. xn. 387.)

4. The history of Vulcan, and his long day's tumble
from the sky, in II. I. 586, does not harmonize with
the account of the same accident in II. xix. 394.

5. As an inconsistency not in the Iliad internally,
but between the Iliad and the Odyssey, it has often
been noticed, that in the former this same Vulcan is
married to Venus, whilst in the Odyssey his wife is
one of the Graces.

4 As upon earth,' says Mueller, ' so in Olympus,
the fable of the Iliad is but loosely put together ; and
we are not to look for any very severe succession of
motives and results, of promises and performances,
even amongst the gods. In the first Iliad, Thetis
receives a Jovian guarantee (viz., Jove's authentic
nod) on behalf of her offended son Achilles, that he

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJ3. 285

will glorify him in a particular way, and the way was
by making the Trojans victorious, until the Grecians
should see their error, and propitiate the irritated hero.
Mindful of his promise, Jove disposes Agamemnon,
by a delusive dream, to lead out the Grecian host to
battle. At this point, however, Thetis, Achilles, and
the ratifying nod, appear at once to be blown thereby
out of the Jovian remembrance. The duel between
Paris and Mcnclaus takes place, and the abrupt close
of that duel by Venus, apparently with equal indiffer-
ence on Jove's part to either incident. Even at the
general meeting of the gods in the fourth book, there
is no renewal of the proposal for the glorifying of
Achilles. It is true, that Jove, from old attachments,
would willingly deliver the strong-hold of Priam from
ruin, and lead the whole feud to some peaceful issue.
But the passionate female divinities, Juno and Minerva,
triumph over his moderation, and the destruction of
Troy is finally determined. Now, grant that Jove
wanted firmness for meeting the furious demands of
the goddesses, by a candid confession of his previous
promise to Thetis, still we might have looked for some
intimation that this degradation of himself in the eyes
of a confiding suppliant had cost him a struggle. But
no ; nothing of the kind. In the next great battle the
Trojans are severely pressed, and the Greeks are far
enough from feeling any regret for the absence of
Achilles. Nay, as if expressly to show that Achilles
was not wanted, Diomccl turns -out a trump of the first
.magnitude ; and a son of Priam describes him pointedly
as more terrific than Pelides, the goddess-born ! And,
indeed, it was time to retreat before the man who had

286 HOMER AND THE HOMEHTDJE.

wounded Mars, making him yell with pain, and howl
like "ten thousand mortals." This Mars, however
he at least must have given some check to the advanc-
ing Greeks ? True, he had so ; but not as fulfilling
any Jovian counsels, which, on the contrary, tend
rather to the issue of this god's being driven out of the
Trojan ranks. First of all, in the eighth book, Jove
steps forward to guide the course of war, and with
remembrance of his promise to Thetis, he forbids
peremptorily both gods and goddesses to interfere on
either side ; and he seats himself on Mount Ida to over-
look the field of battle, threatening to the Greeks, by
his impartial scales, a preponderance of calamity.
From this review, it appears tolerably certain, that the
third to the seventh book belong to no epos that could
have been dedicated to the glory of Achilles. The
wrath of that hero, his reconciliation, and his return to
battle, having been announced in the opening as the
theme of the poem, are used as a connecting link for
holding together all the cantos about other heroes
which had been intercalated between itself and the
close ; but this tie is far too slack ; and one rude shake
makes all the alien parts tumble out.'

&

TIME OF THE ILIAD. Next let us ask, as a point
very important towards investigating the succession
and possible nexus of the events, what is the duration
the compass of time through which the action of
the poem revolves? This has been of old a disputed
point ; and many are the different c diaries ' which
have been abstracted by able men during the last two
centuries. Bossu made the period of the whole to be

. HOMER AND THE HOMERID-E. 287

forty-seven days Wood (in his earliest edition) forty
and a calculation in the Memoirs de Trevoux (May,
1708) carries it up to forty-nine. But the computus
now finally adopted, amended, and ruled irreversibly,
is that of Heyne, (as given in a separate Excursus,)
countersigned by Wolf; this makes the number to be
fifty-two ; but, with a subsequent correction for an
obvious oversight of Heyne's, fifty-one.

* Book I. Nine days the plague rages, (v, 53.)
On the tenth Achilles calls a meeting of the staff
officers. What occurs in that meeting subsequently
occasions his mother's visit. She tells him, (v. 422,)
that Jove had set off the day before to a festival of the
Ethiopians, and is not expected back in less than twelve
days. From this we gather, that the visit of Thetis to
Jove (v. 493) must be transplanted to the twenty-first
day. With this day terminates the first hook, which
contains, therefore, twenty-one days.

c Book IL, up to v ; 293 of Book VIL, comprehends
a single day viz. the twenty-second.

c Book VIL (v. 381, 421, and 432,) the twenty-third
day.

6 Book VII. (v. 433-465,) the twenty-fourth day.

c Book VIII. up to the close of Book X., the twenty-
fifth day and the succeeding night.

c Book XL up to the close of Book XVIII., the twenty-
sixth day.

'Book XIX. to v. 201 of Book XXIIL, the twenty-
seventh day, with the succeeding night.

' Book XXIIL (v. 109-225,) the twenty-eighth day.
. ' Book XXIIL (v. 226 to the end,) the twenty-ninth
day.

288 HOMER AND THE EOMERIDJE.

6 Book XXIV. Eleven days long Achilles trails
the corpse of Hector round the sepulchre of Patroclus.
On the twelfth day a meeting is called of the gods ;
consequently on the thirty-ninth day of the general
action; for this indignity to the dead body of Fleeter,
must be dated from the day of his death, which is the
twenty-seventh of the entire poem. On the same thirty-
ninth day, towards evening, the body is ransomed by
Priam, and during the night is conveyed to Troy. With
the morning of the following day, viz, the fortieth, the
venerable king returns to Troy ; and the armistice of
eleven days, which had been concluded with Achilles,
is employed in mourning for Hector during nine days,
and in preparing his funeral On the tenth of these days
takes place the burning of the body, and the funeral
banquet. On the eleventh is celebrated the solemn
interment of the remains, and the raising of the sepul-
chral mound. With the twelfth recommences the war.

4 Upon this deduction, the entire Iliad is found to
revolve within the space of fifty-one days. Ilcync's
misreckon ing is obvious : he had summed up the eleven
days of the corpse-trailing, as a clear addition, by just
so much, to the twenty-seven previous days ; whereas
the twenty-seventh of those days coincides with the
first of the trailing, and is thus counted twice over in
effect.' '

This computus, in the circumstantial detail here pre-
sented, is due to Wilhelm Mueller. But substantially,
it is guaranteed by numerous scholars. And, as to
Heync's little blunder, corrected by Wolf, it is nothing,
for we have ourselves known a Quaker, and a celebrated
bank, to make an error of the same amount, in com-

HOMER AND THE HOMEBIDJE. 289

puling the number of days to run upon a bill at six
weeks. But we soon c wolfed ' them into better arith-
metic, upon finding that the error was against ourselves.

NAME OF THE ILIAD. What follows is our own
suggestion. Wo offer it as useful towards our final
judgment, in which we shall pronounce firmly upon
the site of Homer, as not essentially altered ; as being
true and very Homer to this day that same Homer
who was raised into a state property by Pisislratus in
555 B. C. ; who was passionately revered by Pericles
in 444 B. C. ; who was idolized and consecrated by
Alexander in 333 B. C. When first arose the Iliad ?
This we cannot now determine : but so much we
know, that the eldest author now surviving, in whom
that designation occurs as a regular familiar word, is
Herodotus ; and he was contemporary with Pericles.
Herodotus must be considered as the senior author in
that great period of Athenian splendor, as Plato and
Xenophon were the junior. Herodotus, therefore,
might have seen Hipparchus, the son of Pisistratus, if
that prince had not been cut off prematurely by Jaco-
binical daggers. It is, therefore, probable in a high
degree, that the name Iliad was already familiar to
Pisistratus; first, because it is so used by Herodotus
as to imply that it was no novelty at that time ; sec-
ondly, because ho who first gathered the entire series
of Trojan legends into artificial unity, would be the
first to require an expression for that unity. The col-
lector would be the first to want a collective title.
Solon, therefore, or Pisistratus, no matter which, did
(as we finally believe) first gather the whole cycle of

VOL. I. 19

290 HOMER AND THE HOMEKID2E.

Iliac romances into one body. And to this aggregate
whole, he gave the name of Ilias. But why ? in what
sense ? Not for any purpose of deception, small or
great. Were that notion once admitted, then we open
a door to all sorts of licentious conjectures. Con-
sciously authorizing one falsehood, there is no saying
where he would have stopped. But there was no
falsehood. Pisistratus, whose original motive for
stirring in such an affair, could have been only love
and admiration, was not the author, but the sworn foe
of adulteration. It was to prevent changes, not to
sanction them, that he could ever have interposed with
the state authority. And what then did he mean by
calling these collected poems the Iliad ? He meant
precisely what a man would now mean, who should
publish a body of ancient romances relating to the
round table or to Charlemagne, or to the Crusades ;
not implying, by any unity in the title, that these ro-
mances were all one man's work, or several parts of
one individual whole, but that they related to one ter-
minal object The unity implied, would lie not in the
mind conceiving, nor in the nexus of the several divis-
ions, but in the community of subject. As when we
call the five books of Moses by the name of Penta-
teuch, we do not assert any unity running through
these books, as though one took up the subject whore
another left off; for, in reality, some parts are purely
historical, some purely legislative. But we mean that
all, whether record of fact, or record of institution and
precept, bear upon one object the founding a sep-
arate nation as the depository of truth, and elaborately,
therefore, kept from blending with Pagans. On the

HOMEK AND THE HOMERIDJE. 291

one hand, therefore, we concede to the sceptics, that
several independent poems (though still by possibility
from the same author) were united by Pisistratus. But
on the otfyer hand, we deny any fraud in this we
deny that the name Iliad was framed to disguise this
independence. Some had a closer nexus than others.
But what Pisistratus says, is this : Behold a series of
poems, all ancient ; all from Homeric days ; and
(whether Homer's or not) all relating to the great cru-
sade against Ilium.

* SOLON AND PISISTRATUS.

What was it, service or injury, that these men did
to Homer ? No one question, in the whole series of
Homeric questions, is more perplexing. Homer did a
great service to them ; if tradition is right, to loth of
them : viz. by settling a legal dispute for each; so
that it was a knavish return for such national benefits,
if they if these two Athenian statesmen went
about to undermine that text from which they had
reaped such singular fruits in their own administra-
tion. But we are sure they did no such thing : they
were both gentlemen both scholars. Yet something,
certainly, they must have done to Homer: in that
point all are agreed : but what it was remains a mys-
tery to this hour. Every man is entitled to his opin-
ion ; we to ours ; which in some corner or other we
shall whisper into the private ear of the public, and
into the public ear of our private friends.

The first thing which puzzles every man of reflec-
tion, when he hears of this anecdote, is the extra-
ordinary coincidence that two great lawgivers, at

292 HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE.

different eras, should both interest themselves in a
poet ; and not only so, but the particular two who
faced and confronted each other in the same way that
any leader of English civilization (Alfred suppose)
might be imagined as facing and confronting any
leader (Charlemagne suppose) of French civilization.
For Christian Europe, the names France and England
are by analogy what for Greece were the names Sparta
and Athens ; we mean, as respects the two great fea-
tures of permanent rivalship and permanent leadership.
From the moment when they were regularly organized
by law and institutions, Athens and Sparffc became the
two counterforccs of Greece. About 800 B. C., Ly-
curgus draws up a system of laws for Sparta ; more
than two centuries later, Solon draws up a system of
laws for Athens. And most unaccountably, each of
these political leaders takes upon him, not passively
as a private literary citizen, to admire the Homeric
poems that might be natural in men of high birth
enjoying the selectest advantages of education but
actually to privilege Homer, to place him on the matri-
cula of denizens, to consecrate his name, and to set in
motion the whole machinery of government on bchulf
of his poems. Wherefore, and for what purpose ?
On the part of Lycurgus, for a purpose well-known
and appreciated, viz. to use the Iliad as the basis of
public instruction, and thus mediately as the basis of a
warlike morality but on the part of Solon, for no
purpose ever yet ascertained. Strangely enough, from
the literary land, and from the later period, we do not
learn the c how ' and the c why ; ' from the gross illite-
rate land and the short period, we do.

HOMEK AND THE HOMERID.E. 293

What Lycurgus did was rather for an interest of
Greece than for any interest of Homer. The order of
his thoughts was not, as has been supposed ' I love
Homer ; and I will show my love by making Sparta
co-operate in extending his influence ;' no, but this
c I love Sparta ; and I will show my love by making
Homer co-operate with the martial foundations of the
, land ; I will introduce a martial poem like the Iliad,
to operate through public education and through public
festivals.' For Solon, on the other hand, Homer must
have been a final object; no means towards something
else, but an end per se. Doubtless, Solon, as little as
Lycurgus, could be indifferent to the value of this
popular poem for his own professional objects. But,
practically, it is not likely that Solon could find any
opening for Homeric services ia that direction. Pre-
cisely those two causes which would ensure to Solon a
vast superiority to Lycurgus in all modes of intellec-
tual liberality, viz. his chronologic period and his coun-
try, must have also caused that the whole ground would
be pre-occupied. For education, for popular influence,
Athens would have already settled upon Homer all the
dowry of distinction which Solon might risk to settle.
Athens surely in the sixth century B. C., if Sparta in
the ninth.

At this point our suspicions revolve upon us. That
the two vanward potentates of Greece Athens and
Sparta should each severally ascribe to her own
greatest lawgiver separate Homeric* labor, looks too
much like the Papal heraldries of European sovereigns :
all the great ones are presumed to have rendered a
characteristic service to the church. 'Are you the

294 HOMER AND THE HOMBRIDJE.

most Christian ? Be it so ; but I am the most Catholic ;
and my brother here is the most faithful, or Defender
of the Faith.' c Was Homer, do you say, an Ionian ?
And did Athens first settle his text ? With all my
heart : and we Dorians might seem to have no part in
that inheritance ; being rather asinine in our literary
character ; but for all that, Dorian as he was, you can-
not deny that my countryman, Lycurgus, lirst intro-
duced Hamer upon the continent of Greece.' Indeed
the Spartans had a craze about the Iliad, as though it
bore some special relation to themselves : for Plutarch
mentions it as a current saying in Sparta that ITesiod
was the poet for Helots, (and in a lower key perhaps
they added for some other people beside;) since,
according to his poetry, the end of man's existence is
to plough and to harrow ; but Homer, said they, is
the Spartan poet ; since the moral of the Iliad pro-
claims that the whole duty of man lies in fighting.

Meantime, though it cannot be denied that these
repeated attempts in Greek statesmen to connect them-
selves with Homer by some capital service, certainly
do look too much like the consequent attempts of
western nations to connect their ancestries with Troy
still there seems to be good historic authority for
each of the cases separately. Or, if any case were
suspicious, it would be that of Lycurgus. Solon, the
legislatorial founder of Athens the Pisistratidao or
final princes of Athens these great men, it is unde-
niable, did link "their names with Homer : each and
all by specific services. What services ? what could
be the service of Solon ? Or, after Solon, what ser-
vice could remain for Pisistratus ?

JffOMEE AND THE HOMEEID^E, 295

A conceited Frenchman pretended to think that his-
tory, to be read beneficially, ought to be read back-
wards, i. e. in an order inverse to the chronological
succession of events. This absurd rule might, in the
present case, be applied with benefit. Pisistratus and
his son Hipparchus stand last in the order of Homeric
modifiers. Now, if we ascertain what it was that they
did, this may show us what it was that their predeces-
sors did not do ; and to that extent it will narrow the
range from which we have to select the probable func-
tions of those predecessors.

What then was the particular service to Homer by
which Pisistratus and his son made themselves so fa-
mous ? The best account of this is contained in an
obscure grammaticus or litterateur, one Diomedes, no
small fool, who thus tells his tale: 4 The poems of
Homer, in process of time, were it by fire, by flood,
by earthquake, had come near to extinction ; they had
not absolutely perished, but they were continually
coming near to that catastrophe by wide dispersion.
From this dispersion it arose naturally that one place
possessed a hundred Homeric books ; some second
place a thousand ; some third place a couple of hun-
dreds ; and the Homeric poetry was fast tending to
oblivion. In that conjuncture there occurred to Pisis-
tratus, who ruled at Athens about 555 years B. C., the
following scheme : With the double purpose of gain-
ing glory for himself and preservation for Homer, he
dispersed a notification through Greece, that every man
who possessed any Homeric fragments, was to deliver
them into Athenian hands at a fixed rate of compen-
sation. The possessors naturally hastened to. remit

296 HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE.

their quotas, and were honestly paid. Indeed, Pisis-
tratus did not reject even those contributors who pre-
sented verses already sent in by another ; to these also
he paid the stipulated price, without any discount at all.
And by this means it happened that oftentimes he re-
covered, amongst a heap of repetitions, one, two, or
more verses that were new. At length this stage of
the labor was completed ; all the returns from every
quarter had tome in. Then it was that Pisistratus
summoned seventy men of letters, at salaries suitable
to their pretensions, as critical assessors upon those
poems ; giving to each man separately a copy of the
lines collected by himself, with the commission of
arranging them according to his individual judgment.
When the commissioners had closed their labors, PLsis-
tratus reassembled them, and called upon each man
separately to exhibit his own result. This having been
done, the general voice, in mere homage to merit and
the truth, unanimously pronounced the revisions of
Aristarchus and Zenodotus to be the best ; and after a
second collation between these two, the -edition of Aris-
tarchus was found entitled to the palm.'

Now the reader must not allow himself to be re-
pelled by the absurd anachronisms of this account,
which brings Pisistratus of the sixth century B. C., face
to face with Aristarchus of the third; nor must ho
allow too much weight to the obvious plagiarism from
the old marvellous legend of the seventy-two Jewish
translators. That very legend shows him how possi-
ble it is for a heap of falsehoods, and even miracles,
to be embroidered upon a story which, after all, is true
in its main texture. We all know it to be true, in spite

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE. 297

of the fables engrafted upon the truth, that under the
patronage of a Macedonian prince, seventy-two learned
Jews really ivcre assembled at Alexandria, and did
make that Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures,
which, from the number of the translators, we still call
the Septuagint. And so we must suppose this ignorant
Diomedes, though embellishing the story according to
his slender means, still to have built upon old traditions.
Even the rate of payment has been elsewhere recorded ;
by which it appears that 'penny-a-liners' (of whom
we hear so much in our day) existed also for early
Athens.

If this legend were accurate even in its commence-
ment, it would put down Plato's story, that the Homeric
poems were first brought to Athens by Hipparchus, the
son of Pisistratus ; and it would put down the mere
possibility that Solon, thirty or forty years earlier than
either, had ever intermeddled with those poems. But,
if we adopt the tradition about Lycurgus, or even if
we reject it, we must believe that copies of the Iliad
and Odyssey (that is, quoad the substance, not quoad
the present arrangement) existed in Athens long be-
fore the Pisistratidse, or even Solon. Were it only
through the Rkapsodoi, or musical reciters of the
Homeric poems, both Iliad and Odyssey must have
been known many a long year before Pisistratus ; or
else we undertake to say they would never have been
known at all. For, in a maritime city like Athens,
communicating so freely with Ionia and with all insular
Greece, so constitutionally gay besides, how is it pos-
sible to suppose that the fine old poetic romances
chanted to the accompaniment of harps, about the

298 HOMER AND THE EOMERID-E.

paladins of Greece, could be unknown or unwelcomcd,
unless by supposing them non-existent ? If they
lurked anywhere, they would assuredly float across
these sunny seas of the ^Egcan to Athens ; that city
which, in every age, (according to Milton, Par. Reg.)
was equally 'native to famous wits 3 and ''hospitable'*
that is, equally fertile in giving birth to men of
genius itself, and forward to welcome those of foreign
states.

Throughout this story of Diomedes, disfigured as it
is, we may read that the labors of Pisislratus wei'C
applied to written copies. That is a great point in
advance. And instantly it reacts upon Solon, as a
means of approximating to the nature of Ids labors.
If (as one German writer holds) Solon was the very
first person to take down the Eiad in writing, from the
recitations of the Rhapsodoi, then it would seem that
this step had suggested to Pisistratus the further im-
provement of collating Solon's written copy with such
partial copies, or memorials, or recollections of re-
citers, as would be likely to exist in many different
parts of Greece, amongst families or cities tracing
their descent from particular heroes of the Iliad. If,
on the other hand, Pisistratus was the first man who
matured a written copy, what will then remain open to
Solon for his share in the play ? This ; viz. that he
applied -some useful check to the exorbitancies of the
musical rehearsers. The famous Greek words, still
surviving in Plato and Diogenes Laertius, support this
notion. The words must be true, though they may be
obscure. They must involve the fact, though they
may conceal it. What are they ? Let us review

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE. 299

them. To chant * vTro^^Ewg and to chant | vn^o^g
these were the new regulations introduced by Solon
and his successor. Now, what is the meaning of
vTrofoflns? The commonest sense of the word is
opinion. Thus, on the title-page of Lord Shaftes-
bury's Characteristics, stands, as a general motto,
JTctrra f'sro^t/"?} c All things are matters of opinion.'
This, however,- is a sense which will not answer.
Another and rarer sense is succession. And the way
in which the prepositions vno and sub are used by the
ancients to construct the idea of succession, (a problem
which Dr. Parr failed to solve,) is by supposing such a
case as the slated roof of a house. Were the slates
simply contiguous by their edges, the rain would soon
show that their succession was not perfect. But, by
making each to underlap the other, the series is made
virtually perfect. In this way, the word came to be
used for succession. And, applied to the chanters, it
must have meant that, upon some great occasion peri-
odically recurring, they were obliged by the new law
to pursue the entire series of the several rhapsodies
composing the Iliad, and not to pick and choose, as
heretofore, with a view to their own convenience, or
to local purposes. But what was the use of this ?
We presume that it had the same object in view as the
rubric of the English church, (we believe also of the
Jewish synagogue,) in arranging the succession of
lessons appointed for each day's service ; viz. to secure
the certainty that, within a known period of time, the
whole of the canonical books should be read once
through from beginning to end. The particular pur-
pose is of our own suggestion; but the fad itself is

800 HOMES. AND THE HOMERIDJ2.

placed beyond all doubt. Plato says, that the chanters
were obliged, at the great Panathenaic festival, to re-
cite the Iliad *$ vjtolt^jjs^g *</),c ; where the first ex-
pression (^ t'/ro^i/^we) applies to the persons, the second
(tyeS'/s) to the poem.

The popular translation would be that they were
obliged, by relieving each other, or by regular relays
of chanters, to recite the whole poem in its order, by
succession of party, from beginning to end. This very
story is repeated by an orator still extant not long after
Plato. And in his case there is no opening to doubt,
for he does not affirm the story, lie assumes it, and re-
calls it to the people's attention as a thing notorious to
them all. The other expression *5 ^o.^s or V'/fo/M^V
has occasioned some disputing ; but why, we cannot
conjecture. If ever there was a word whose meaning
is certain in a position like this, that word is ruopuMw,
with its derivatives. And we are confounded at hear-
ing that less than a Boeckh would not suiTico to prove
that the | v/ro^^g means, c by way of suggestion^
6 under the condition of being prompted.' The mean-
ing of which is evident : a state copy of the lliatl^
however it was obtained by Solon, a canon of the Ho-
meric text, was confided to a prompter, whose duty
was to check the slightest deviation from this author-
ized -standard, to allow of no shortenings, omissions, or
flattering alterations. In this sense the two regulations
support and check each other. One provides for
quantity, the other for quality. One secures the whole
shall be recited ; the other secures the fidelity of this
whole. And here again comes in the story of Sulumis
to give us the < why ' and the < wherefore ' of these

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE. 301

new regulations. If a legal or international question
about Salamis had just been decided by the mere au-
thority of a passage in the Iliad, it was high time for
statesmen to look about them, and to see that a poem,
which was thus solemnly adjudged to be good evidence
in the supreme courts of law, should have its text au-
thenticated. And in fact, several new cases (see Eu-
stathius on the second Iliad,) were decided not long
after on the very same Homeric evidence.

But does not this prompter's copy presuppose a com-
plete manuscript of the Iliad ? Most certainly it does ;
and the question is left to the reader, whether this in
fact was the service by which Pisistratus followed up
and completed the service of Solon, (as to going
through the whole Iliad ;) or whether both services
were due to Solon ; in which case it will become neces-
sary to look out for some new idea of the service that
could remain open to Pisistratus.

Towards that idea, let us ask universally what ser-
vices could be rendered by a statesman in that age to
a poem situated as the Iliad ? Such a man might
restore ; might authenticate ; might assemble ; might
arrange.

1. Ho might restore as from incipient decay and
corruption.

2. He might authenticate as between readings
that were doubtful.

3. lie might assemble as from local dispersion of
parts.

4. He might arrange; as from an uncertain and
arbitrary succession,

All these services, we have little doubt, were, in
fact, rendered by Pisistratus. The three first are

302 HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJ2.

already involved in the story of our foolish friend Dio-
medes. Pisistratus would do justice to the wise enact-
ment of Solon, by which the Iliad was raised into a
liturgy, periodically rehearsed by law at the greatest
of the Athenian festivals : he would admire the regu-
lation as to the prompter's (or state) copy. But this
latter ordinance was rather the outline of a useful idea,
than one which the first proposer could execute satis-
factorily. Solon probably engrossed upon brazen
tablets such a text as any one man could obtain. But
it would be a work of time, of labor, of collation, and
fine taste, to complete a sound edition. Even the work
of Pisistratus was liable, as we know, to severe mal-
treatment by the Alexandrine critics. And by the way,
those very Alexandrine rcvisals presuppose a received
and orthodox text : for how could Zcnodotus or Aris-
tarchus breathe their mildewing breath upon the re-
ceived readings, how could they pronounce X or JT, for
instance, spurious, unless by reference to some stand-
ard text in which Xor r was adopted for legitimate ?
However, there is one single argument upon which the
reader may safely allow himself to suspect the suspicions
of Aristarchus, and to amend his emendations. It is
this : Valkenaor points out to merited reprobation a cor-
rection applied by Aristarchus to the autobiographical
sketch of himself, which Phoenix gives to Achilles in
1L X. Phoenix, in his old age, goes back to his youthful
errors in a spirit of amiable candor* Out of affection to
his mother, whose unmerited ill-treatment he witnessed
with filial sympathy, he had offered, at her request,
an injury to his father for which he could obtain no
forgiveness. Ty nt6o M r, S ays Phoenix : her I obeyed.
Which passage one villain alters into T$ m&owv, her

HOMER AND THE HOMERJBJE. 303

I did not obey : and thus th6 whole story is ruined.
But Aristarchus goes further : he cancels and stilettoes
the whole passage. Why then ? Upon what conceiv-
able objection ? Simply, in both cases, upon the ridic-
ulous allegation that this confession, so frank, and
even pathetic, was immoral ; and might put bad thoughts
into the minds of ' our young men/ Oh you two old
vagabonds ! And thus, it seems, we have had a Bowd-
ler's Iliad, long before our own Bowdler's Shakspeare.
It is fit, however, that this anecdote should be known,
as it shows the sort of principles that governed the re-
visal of Aristarchus. An editor, who could castrate a
text upon any plea of disliking the sentiment, is not
trustworthy. And for our parts, we should far prefer
the authorized edition of Pisistratus to all the remodelled
copies that were issued from the Alexandrine library.

So far, with reference to the three superior functions
of Pisistratus. As to the fourth, his labor of arrange-
ment, there is an important explanation to be made.
Had the question been simply this given four-and-
twenty cantos of the Iliad , to place them in the most
natural order ; the trouble would have been trivial for
the arranger, and the range of objections narrower for
us. Some books determine their own place in the
series ; and those which leave it doubtful are precisely
the least important. But the case is supposed to have
been very different. The existing distribution of the
poem into twenty-four tolerably equal sections, desig-
nate'd by the twenty-four capitals of the Greek alphabet,
is ascribed to Aristarchus. Though one incomparable
donkey, a Greek scholiast, actually denies this upon
the following ground : Do you know reader, (says he,)

304 HOMER AND THE HOMERIIXZE.

why Homer began the Iliad with the word mcnin,
(,/'"') ? Look this way and I will tell you : it is a
great mystery. What does the little , of the Greek
alphabet signify numerically ? Why, forty. Good :
And what does the j t mean ? Why eight. Now, put
both together, you have a prophecy or a promise on the
part of Homer, that he meant to write forty-eight
books, which proves that the Iliad must have had origi-
nally twenty-four. Take twenty-four from forty-eight,
and there remain just twenty-four books for the Odys-
sey. Quod erat demonstrandum.

But what Aristarchus did was a trifle interesting
rather to the eye or the bookbinder than the under-
standing. There was an earlier and a former im-
portant arrangement, due probably to Pisistrutus.

THE AOIDOI, RIIAPSODOI,

The Germans are exceedingly offended, that any
man in ancient days, should presume to call himself a
rhapsodos, without sending down a scaled letter to pos-
terity, stating all the reasons which had induced him to
take so unaccountable a step. And the uproar is incon-
ceivable which they have raised about the office or
function indicated by the word, as well as about the
word itself considered etymologically. We, for our
parts, honestly confess, that, instead of finding that
perplexity in the rkapsodos which our German brothers
find for us, we are chiefly perplexed in accounting for
tJieir* perplexity. However, we had been seduced into
writing a very long essay on the several classes named
in our title, until we came to this discovery ; that, how-
ever curious in itself, the whole inquiry could not be,

HOMEU AND THE HOMERIDJ3. 305

and was not, by the Germans themselves, connected
with any one point at issue about Homer or the Iliad.
After all the fighting on the question, it remains past
denial, that the one sole proposition by which the rhap-
sodoi have been brought even into any semblance of
connection with Homer, is the following: Every
narrative poem of any length, was called a rhapsodia ;
and hence it is, that the several subordinate narratives
of the Iliad, such as that called the A^n ^y ( u$ ( i o-o^
the prowess of Agamemnon the A^i^ia dtawos, the
prowess of Ajax ji^mara^iog f.ta^^ the battle by the
riverside *onionouu, the fabric of the arms j\ro>v
xaruAo/oc, the muster of the ships Jtaiorsia, the ad-
venture of Dolon and many others, which are now
united into the composite structure called the Iliad,
were always introduced by the chanter with a proemial
address to some divinity. And the Hymns, which we
have now under the name of Homer, are supposed to
have been occasional preludes of that sort. But say
the Germans, these prelusive hymns were often the
composition confessedly of the chanters. Well, and
what then ? Why nothing, reader ; simply nothing.
Only we, out of our benignity and mere grace, not
wishing to see brother literati exposing themselves in
this way, without a rag of logic about them, are re-
solved to suppose them tending to this inference that,
if these fellows forged a beginning, they might also
have forged a middle and an end. Some such hypo-
thetic application of the long feuds about the rhap-
sodoi^ is the one sole discoverable bearing that even
the microscope of criticism will ever detect upon the
Homeric questions. But really for any useful pur-
VOL. i. 20

306 HOMEK AND THE HOMEEID7E.

pose, as well might a man suggest, that by possibility
a great poet arose in Greece 900 years B. C., that his
name was Nothos Kildelos ; that he lived in a hole ;
and that he forged the Iliad. Weil then, if he did,
Nothos is Homer. And that is simply saying that
Homer ought to be spelled by a different arrangement
of letters. We see no possible value in such un-
meaning conjectures. Dean Swift's objection to the
Iliad, to the Greek language, and to all ancient history,
being obviously a modern hoax, inasmuch as Andro-
mache was evidently a corruption of Andrew Mackay,
and Alexander the Great, only the war-cry of a school-
boy, ( c All eggs under the grate ! ') to hide their eggs
on the approach of the schoolmaster, is worth a thou-
sand such dull objections. The single fact which we
know about these preludes is, that they were pure
detached generalities, applicable to all cases indiffer-
ently ; anudovTa, irrelevant as an old Greek author calls
them; and, to prevent any misconstruction of his mean-
ing, as if that musical metaphor were applied by him
to the mere music of the chanter, he adds *. ovdsv
TtQog TO TTQuy/ua fyAoi ,- and they foreshow nothing at all
that relates to the subject. Now, from this little notice
of their character, it is clear, that, like doxologics, or
choral burdens or refrains to songs, they were not
improvised ; not impromptus ; they were stereotyped
forms, ready for all occasions. A Jove principium,
says Horace : with this opening a man could never go
wrong, let the coming narrative point which way it
would. And Pindar observes, that in fact all the Ho-
meric rhapsodoi did draw their openings from Jove,
Or by way of variety, the Muses would bo a good inau-

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE. 307

guration, or Apollo ; and, as some man rightly sug-
gests, in a great city like Athens, or Ephesus, the local
divinity. Having, therefore, this dispensation once and
for ever from caring for the subject of their chants,
the chanters are very little likely to have forged any-
thing, except a bank note. Far more probable it is, that
their preludes were sold, like queen's heads, at so much
a dozen, leaving time to the chanters for clarifying
their voices with summat cool, and to the harpers for
splicing their broken harp-strings.

But the Germans, who will not leave this bone after
all its fruitless mumbling, want to pick a quarrel about
the time when these rliapsodoi began to exist What
does that signify? We will quarrel with no man
'about the age of Sir Archy's great-grandmother;*
and yet, on consideration, we will. If they will
persist in making a row, we shall try to rap their
knuckles. They say that their rliapsodoi were, com-
paratively with Homer, young people. We say that
they were not. And now that our blood is up, we
insist upon it that they were as old as the hills ;
twice as old as Homer ; three times as old, if it will
vex them more. We cannot say that we know this.
' of our own knowledge ; ' but we have better evi-
dence for it than any which they can have against it.
In a certain old scholiast on Aristophanes, there is a
couplet quoted from Hesiod in the following terms:

5 ' Ev dfijyco tors TCQWTQV <yoj y.a

vpvots qonfiavreg ao

4 Then first in Delos did I and Homer, two bards,.,
perform as musical reciters, laying the nexus of our

308 HOMEE AND THE HOMERIDJE.

poetry in original hymns.' He means to tell you
that they were none of your beggarly itinerant rhap-
sodoi, who hired the bellman to write a poetic address
for them. They had higher pretensions ; they killed
their own mutton. And not only were the preluding
hymns their own copyrights, (pirates and tcggs be
off!) but also they had a meaning. They were spe-
cially connected with the epos, or narrative, that fol-
lowed, and not (as usually) irrelevant ; so that they
formed the transitional passages which connected one
epos with another. Plato again, who stood nearer to
Homer than any one of us, by the little difference of
two thousand two hundred and sixty years, swears
that he knows Homer to have been a rhapsodos.

But what does the word mean ? We intend to
write a German quarto upon this question. It will bo
adapted to the use of posterity. Meantime, for the
present flighty generation, whose ear must be power-
fully tweaked to make it listen through a single page,
we shall say thus much. Strabo, in a passage which
deserves closer attention than it has received, explains
why it is that poetry in general was called uonhj or
song. This name having been established, then after-
wards each special kind of poetry bore this appella-
tion, viz., aoide, or ode, or odia, as a common or
generic element in its designation, whilst its difTercn*
tial element was prefixed. Thus goat-song, or irago*
dia, revel-song, or komodia, were designations (derived
from their occasional origins) of tragedy and comedy,
both being chanted. On the same principle, rliap-
sodia shows by its ending that it is poetry, some kind
or other : but what kind ? Why, that secret is con-

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE. 309

fided to the keeping of rhaps. And what may rhaps
mean ? Oh, Sir, you are not to know all for nothing.
Please to subscribe for a copy of our quarto. For
the present, however, understand that rhapto means
to sew with a needle, consequently to connect. But,
say you, all poetry must have some connection inter-
nally at least. True, but this circumstance is more
noticeable and emphatic with regard to long narrative
poems. The more were the parts to be connected,
the more was the connection : more also depended
upon it; and it caught the attention more forcibly.
An ode, a song, a hymn, might contain a single
ebullition of feeling. The connection might lie in
the very rapture and passion, without asking for any
effort on the poet's part. But, in any epos or epic
romance, the several adventures, and parts of adven-
tures, had a connecting link running through them,
such as bespoke design and effort in the composer,
viz., the agency of a single hero, or of a predominant
hero. And thus rhapsodia, or linked song, indicated,
by an inevitable accident of all narrations, that it was
narrative poetry. And a rhapsodos was the personal
correlate of such poetry ; he was the man that chanted
it.

Well, and what is there in all this to craze a man's
brain, to make him smite his forehead in desperation,
or to ball up his huge fist in defiance ? Yet scarcely
is one row over before another commences. Pindar,
it seems, has noticed the rkapsodoi ; and, as if it
were not enough to fight furiously about the explana-
tion of that word, a second course of fights is under-
taken about Pindar's explanation of the explanation.

310 HOMEE AND THE HOMEEID-E.

The Pindaric passages are two ; one in the 3d Isth-
mian, which we confess makes even ourselves (in
Kentnck phrase) * wolfy about the shoulders,' i. e.
prurient for fighting. Speaking of Homer, Pindar
says, that he established (L e. raised into life and
celebrity) all modes of excellence, xara ct(tdov. It is
a poet's way of saying that Homer did this as a
rfaapsodos. RhaMos, therefore, is used as the sym-
bol of a rJiapsodos ; it is, or it may be conceived to
be, his instrument for connecting the narrative poem
which gives him his designation. But what instru-
ment ? Is it a large darning-needle for sewing the
parts together ? If so, Homer will want a thimble.
No, says one big solemn critic, not a needle : none
but an ass would think of such a thing. Well, old
fellow, what is it then? It is, says he, a cane a
wand a rattan. And what is Homer to do with a
cane ? Why, understand, that when his singing robes
were on, (for it is an undoubted fact, that the ancient
rhapsodos not only chanted in full pontificals, but had
two sets of robes, crimson when he chanted the Iliad,
molet^colored when he chanted the Odyssey,) in that
case the rhapsodos held his stick in his right hand.
But what sort of a stick ? Stick is a large genus,
running up from switch to cudgel, from rod to blud-
geon. And our own persuasion is that this stick
or pencil of wood had something to do with the roll
of remembrances, (not perhaps written copies, bat
mechanical suggestions for recovering the main suc-
cession of paragraphs,) which the rhapsodos used as
short-hand notes for aiding his performance. But this
is a subject which we must not pursue.

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE. 311

The other passage of Pindar is in the second Ne-

CCQXOVTUI. Of a certain conqueror at the games, Pindar
says that he took his beginning, his coup (Tessai,
from that point, viz. Jove, whence the Homeridse take
theirs ; alluding to the prelusive hymns. Now, what
seems most remarkable to us in this passage is, the
art with which Pindar identifies the three classes of
1. HomeridcB 2. Aoidoi 3. Rhapsodoi. The
words Qcmruv toetov uoiSot are an ingenious way of ex-
pressing that the aoidoi were the same as the rhapso-
doi. Now, where Pindar saw no essential difference,
except as a species differs from a genus, it is not
likely that we of this day shall detect one. At all
events, it is certain that no discussion connected with
any one of these three classes has thrown any light
upon the main question as to the integrity of the
Iliad. The aoidoi , and perhaps the rhapsodoi^ cer-
tainly existed in the days of Homer. The Homerida
must have arisen after him : but when, or under what
circumstances, no record remains to say. Only the
place of the Homeridce is known : it was Crete : and
this seems to connect them personally with Homer.
But all is too obscure to penetrate ; and in fact has
not been penetrated.

PART III.

VERDICT ON THE HOMERIC QUESTION.

We will now, reader, endeavor to give you the
heads of a judgment, or verdict, on this great ques-
tion, drawn up with extreme care by ourselves.

312 HOMES AND THE HOMERIDJE.

I. Kightly was it said by Yoss, that all arguments
worth a straw in this matter must be derived from the
internal structure of the Iliad. Let us, therefore, hold
an inquest upon the very body of this memorable
poem ; and, first of all, let us consider its outside
characteristics, its style, language, metrical structure.

One of the arguments on which the sceptics rely is
this a thousand years, say they, make a severe trial
of a man's style. What is very good Greek at one end
of that period will probably be unintelligible Greek at
the other. And throughout this period it will have
been the duty of the rhapsodoi, or public reciters, to
court the public interest, to sustain it, to humor it, by
adapting their own forms of delivery to the existing
state of language. Well, what of that ? Why this
that under so many repeated alterations, the Iliad, as
we now have it, must resemble Sir Francis Drake's
ship repaired so often, that not a spar of the original
vessel remained.

In answer to this, we demand why a thousand
years ? Doubtless there was that space between
Homer and the Christian era. But why particularly
connect the Greek language with the Christian era ?
la this artifice, reader, though it sounds natural to
bring forward our Christian era in a question that is
partly chronological, already there is bad faith. The
Greek language had nothing to do with the Chris-
tian era. Mark this, and note well that already, in
the era of Pericles, whose chronological locus is 444
years B. C., the Greek language had reached its con-
summation. And by that word we mean its state of
rigid fixation. Will any man deny that the Greek of

HOMER AND THE HOMERID-2B. 313

Thucydides, Sophocles, Euripides, who were, in the
fullest sense, contemporaries with Pericles, that the
Greek of Plato or Xenophon, who were at least chil-
dren of some growth before Pericles died, continued
through all after ages (in the etymological sense of the
word) standard Greek ? That is, it was standing
Greek ; Greek which stood still, and never after
varied ; so that eighteen hundred and ninety years
after, at the final capture of Constantinople by the
Ottomans, it remained the true familiar Greek of edu-
cated people ; as all educated people talked ; and
removed even from the vulgar Greek of the mob only
as the written language of books always differs from
the spoken dialect of the uneducated. The time,
therefore, for which we have to account, is not a thou-
sand years, but a little more than one half of that
space. The range, therefore, the compass of time
within which Homer had to struggle with the agencies
of change, was about five centuries and a half.

Now the tendency to change is different in different
languages ; both from internal causes, (mechanism,
&c.) and from causes external to the language, laid
in the varying velocities of social progress. Secondly,
besides this varying liability to change, in one lan-
guage as compared with another, there is also a vary-
ing rate of change in the same language compared
with itself. Change in language is not, as in many
natural products, continuous: it is not equable, but
eminently by fits and starts. Probably one hundred
and fifty years at stagnant periods of history do less
to modify a language than forty years atnidst great
struggles of intellect. And one thing we must insist

314 HOMER AND THE HOMEEID-E.

on, which is, that between Homer and Pisistratus, the
changes in Grecian society, likely to affect the lan-
guage, were not to be compared, for power, with those
acting upon English society ever since the Reforma-
tion.

This being premised, we request attention to the
following case. Precisely on this very summer day,
so bright and brilliant, of 1341, are the five hundred
years completed (less by forty-five years than the
Interspace between Homer and Pisistratus) since Chau-
cer was a stout boy, ' alive,' and, probably, ' kicking :'
for he was fined, about 1341, for kicking a Franciscan
friar in Fleet-street ; though Ritson erroneously asserts
that the story was a 'hum,' invented by Chatterton.
Now, what is the character of Chaucer's diction ? A
great delusion exists on that point. Some ninety or
one hundred words that are now obsolete, certainly not
many more, vein the whole surface of Chaucer ; and
thus a primd facie impression is conveyed that Chau-
cer is difficult to understand : whereas a very slight
practice familiarizes his language. The Canterbury
Tales were not made public until 1380 ; but the com-
position was certainly proceeding between 1350 and
1380 ; and before 1360 some considerable parts were
published. Here we have a space greater by thirty-
five years, than that between Homer and Pisistratus.
And observe had Chaucer's Tales the benefit of an
oral recitation, were they assisted to the understanding
by the pauses in one place, the hurrying and crowd-
ing of unimportant words at another, and by the
proper distribution of emphasis everywhere, (all
which, though impracticable in regular singing, is well

HOMER. AND THE HOMERIDJE. 315

enough accomplished in a chant, or loyo? iisusiiautvag,)
there is no man, however unfamiliar with old English,
but might be made to go along with the movement of
his admirable tales, {hough he might still remain at a
loss for the meaning of insulated words.

Not Chaucer himself, however, but that model of
language which Chaucer ridicules and parodies, as be-
coming obsolete in his days, the rhyme of Sir Thopas,
a model which may be safely held to represent the
language of the two centuries previous, is the point
of appeal. Sir Thopas is clearly a parody of the Met-
rical Romances. Some of those hitherto published by
Ritson, &c., are not older than Chaucer ; but some
ascend much higher, and may be referred to 1200, or
perhaps earlier. Date them from 1240, and that
places a period of six centuries complete between our-
selves and them. Notwithstanding which, the greater
part of the Metrical Romances, when aided by the
connection of events narrated, or when impassioned,
remain perfectly intelligible to this hour.

' What for labour, and what for faint,
Sir Bevis was well nigh attaint.'

This is a couplet from Bevis, of Southampton ; and
another we will quote from the romance of Sir Ga-
waine and Sir Ywaine. In a vast forest, Sir G., by
striking a shield suspended to a tree, had caused a
dreadful storm to succeed ; which, subsiding, is fol-
lowed by a gloomy apparition of a mailed knight, who
claims the forest for his own, taxes Sir Gawaine with
having intruded on his domain, and concludes a tissue
of complaints with saying that he had

316 HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJB.

e With weathers waken'd him of rest,
And done him. wrong in his forest.'

Now these two casual recollections well and fairly
represent the general current of the language ; not
certainly what would now be written, but what is per-
fectly luminous from the context. At present, for
instance, faint is an adjective ; but the context and the
corresponding word labour, easily teach the reader that
It here means faintness. So, again, * weather ' is not
now used for storms ; but it is so used by a writer as
late as Lord Bacon, and yet survives in such words as
c weather-beaten,' * weather-stained.'

Now, we say that the interval of time between these
romances and ourselves, is greater than between Ho-
mer and the age of Pericles. We say, also, that the
constant succession of metrical writers connecting the
time of Homer with that of Pericles, such as the au-
thors of the * Nostoi, 7 (or Memorable Returns home-
ward from Troy,) of the ' Cypria,' of the many Cycli-
cal poems, next of the Lyric poets, a list closing with
Pindar, in immediate succession to whom, and through
most of his life strictly a contemporary with Pindar,
comes JEschylus, close upon whose heels follow the
whole cluster of dramatic poets, who glorified the
life of Pericles this apparently continuous series of
verse writers, without the interposition of a single
prose writer, would inevitably have the effect of keep-
ing alive the poetic forms and choice of words, in a
degree not so reasonably to be expected, under any
interrupted succession. Our Chaucer died an old man,
above seventy, in the year 1400 ; that is, in the con-
cluding year of the fourteenth century. The next

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJG. 317

century, that is, the fifteenth, was occupied in much
of its latter half by the civil wars of the two Roses,
which threw back the development of the English
literature, and tended to disturb the fluent transmission
of Chaucer's and Gower's diction. The tumultuous
century which came next, viz. the sixteenth, the former
half of which was filled with the Reformation, caused
a prodigious fermentation and expansion of the English
intellect. But such convulsions are very unfavorable to
the steady conservation of language, and of everything
else depending upon usage. Now, in Grecian history,
there are no corresponding agitations of society ; the
currents of tradition seem to flow downwards, without
meeting anything to ripple their surface. It is true
that the great Persian war did agitate Greece pro-
foundly, and, by combining the Greeks from every
quarter in large masses, this memorable war must
have given a powerful shock to the stagnant ideas
inherited from antiquity. But, as this respects Homer,
observe how thoroughly its operation is defeated : for
the outrageous conflagration of Sard is occurred about
500 B. C. ; and the final events of the war, Salamis,
Platak, &c. occurred in 480 B. C. But already, by Pi-
sistratus, whose locus is fifty years before the affair of
Sard is, Homer had been revised and settled, and (as
one might express it) stereotyped. Consequently, the
chief political revolution affecting Greece collectively,
if you except the Dorian migrations, &c., between
Homer and Pericles, was intercepted from all possi-
bility of affecting the Homeric diction, <fec., by the
seasonable authentication of the entire Homeric text
under the seal and imprimatur of Pisistratus. Here

318 HOMEE AND THE HOMERID^i.

is the old physical guarantee urged by JEsop's lamb
versus wolf, that Homer's text could not have been
reached by any influence, direct or oblique, from
the greatest of post-Homeric political convulsions. It
would be the old miracle of the Greek proverb (*.^o
norautav, &c ) which adopted the reflux of rivers towards
their fountains as the liveliest type of the impossible.

There is also a philosophic reason, why the range
of diction in Chaucer should be much wider, and
liable to greater changes, than that of Homer. Revise
those parts of Chaucer which at this day are most
obscure, and it will uniformly be found that they are
the subjective sections of his poetry ; those, for instance,
in which he is elaborately decomposing a character.
A character is a" sub tie fugacious essence which does,
or does not, exist, according to the capacity of the
eye which is applied to it. In Homer's age, no such
meditative differences were perceived. All is objective
in the descriptions, and external. And in those cases
where the mind or its affections must be noticed,
always it is by the broad distinctions of anger, fear,
love, hatred, without any vestige of a sense for the
more delicate interblendings or nuances of such quali-
ties. But a language built upon these elementary
distinctions is necessarily more durable than another,
which, applying itself to the subtler phenomena of
human nature, exactly in that proportion applies itself
to what is capable of being variously viewed, or
viewed in various combinations, as society shifts its
aspects.

The result from all this is, that, throughout the
four hundred and forty-five years from Homer to

HOMER AND THE EOMERDXE. 319

Pisistratus, the diction even of real life would not
have suffered so much alteration, as in modern times
it would be likely to do within some single centuries.
But with respect to poetry, the result is stronger.

The diction of poetry is everywhere a privileged
diction. The antique or scriptural language is every-
where affected in serious or impassioned poetry. So
that no call would arise for modern adaptations, until
the language had grown unintelligible. Nor would
that avail to raise such a call. The separate non-
intelligibility of a word would cause no difficulty,
whilst it would give the grace of antique coloring.
For a word which is separately obscure is not so
in nexu. Suppose, reader, we were to ask you the
meaning of the English word chode^ you might be a
little puzzled. Yet it is an honest and once an indus-
trious word, though now retired from business; and
it stands in our authorized translation of the Bible :
where, if you had chanced to meet it in Zoco, you
would easily have collected from the context that it
was the past tense of chide. Again, what Southern
reader of Sir Walter Scott ever failed to gather the
full sense of the Scottish dialect ? or what Scotchman
to gather the sense of the Irish dialect so plentifully
strewed in modern tales ? or what landsman to gather
the sense of the marine dialect in our nautical novels ?
In all such cases, the passion, the animation and
movement of the feeling, very often the logic, as they
arise from the context, carry you fluently along with
the meaning.

Equating, therefore, the sleeping state of early
Greece with the stirring progress of modern Christian

320 HOMER AND TEE HOMEEID2B.

lands, we come to this conclusion, that Homer, the
genuine unaltered Homer, would not, by all likelihood,
be more archaic in his coloring of style than the
Froissart of Lord Berners is to ourselves. That is, we
equate four hundred and forty-five early Greek years
with the last three hundred and twenty English years.
But we will concede something more. The common
English translation of the long prose romance, called
Mort & Arthur, was composed, we believe, about the
year 1480. This will therefore be three hundred and
sixty years old. Now, both Lord Berners and the Mort
d j Arthur are as intelligible as this morning's newspaper
In June, 1841. And one proof that they are so is, that
both works have been reprinted verbatim et literatim
in this generation for popular use. Something vene-
rable and solemn there is in both these works, as again
in the Paston Letters^ which are hard upon four hun-
dred years old, but no shadow of difficulty.

B. Homer^s Lexis. Now, reader, having stated,
by practical examples, what effect was to have been
anticipated from age, let us next inquire what effect
has taken place. Observe the monstrous dishonesty of
these German critics. What if a man should argue
thus : c This helmet never can have descended from
Mambrino ; for, if it had, there would have been
weather-stains, cracks, dints of swords,' &c, To
which it Is replied : c Doubtless ; but have you
looked to see if there are not such marks of antiq-
uity ? ' Would you not think the disparager of the
helmet worthy of the treadmill, if it should turn out
that he had never troubled himself to examine it ?
These Germans argue a priori, that, upon certain

HOMER AND THE EOMERID^, 321

natural causes, there would arise a temptation to the
Homeric chanters for adapting the diction to their
audience. Conditionally we grant this that Is, if a
deep night of darkness fell suddenly upon the lan-
guage. But our answer is, that this condition never
would be realized ; and that a solemnizing twilight is
the very utmost which could ever steal over Homer's
diction. Meantime, where is the sense of calculating
a priori what would be likely to happen, when by
simply opening a book, we can see what has hap-
pened ? These Germans talk as if the Homer we
have now, spoke exactly such Greek as Euripides and
Sophocles. Or, if some slight differences are admit-
ted, as though these were really too inconsiderable
to meet the known operation of chance and change
through four and a half centuries. To hear them, you
must suppose that Homer differed little more from the
golden writers of Greece than as Pope's diction differs
from that of 1841. Who now says, writ for wrote
and for written? Who says 'tis and 'twas since
Queen Anne's reign ? There are not twelve consecu-
tive lines in Pope, Swift, Addison, which will not
be found marked by such slight peculiarities of their
age. Yet their general agreement with ourselves is
so striking, that the difficulty is to detect the differ-
ences. Now, if Homer were in that condition relating
to the age of Pericles were it even that he exhibited
no more sombre hues than those which jEschylus
exhibits, as compared with his younger brothers of the
drama, we should grant at once that a case is made
out, calling for some explanation. There has been a
change. There is something to account for. Some-
VOL, i. 21

322 HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE.

body has been 'doctoring' this man, would be the
inference. But how stands the truth ? Why, reader,
the Homeric lexis is so thoroughly peculiar and indi-
vidual, that it requires a separate lexicon ; and if all
men do not use a separate lexicon, it is only because that
particular vocabulary has been digested into the series
of general vocabularies. Pierce Plowman is not half
so unlike in diction to Sir Walter Scott as is Homer to
Euripides. And, instead of simply accounting for the
time elapsed, and fairly answering to the reasonable
attrition of that time, the Homeric diction is sufficient
to account for three such spaces. What would the
infidels have? Homer, they say, is an old old
very old man, whose trembling limbs have borne him to
your door; and, therefore what? Why, he ought
to look very old indeed. Well, good men, he does look
very old indeed. He ought, they say, to be covered
with lichens and ivy. Well, he is covered with lichens
and ivy. And sure we are, that few people will un-
dertake to know how a man looks, when he is five
hundred years old, by comparison with himself at four
hundred. Suffice it here to say, for the benefit of the
unlearned, that not one of our own earliest writers,
hardly Thomas of Ercildoune, has more of peculiar
antique words in his vocabulary than Homer.

C. Homer's Metre. In this case, the Germans
themselves admit the extraordinary character of the
Homeric rhythmus. 'How free, how spirited in its
motion ! ' they all exclaim ; c how characteristically his
own!' Well, now, did the father of sophisms ever
hear of such stuff as this, when you connect it with
what these Germans say elsewhere ? As well might

HOMES AND THE EOMERDXffi. 323

a woman say, that you had broken her china cups, but
that you had artfully contrived to preserve the original
Chinese designs. How could you preserve the form or
surface if you destroy the substance ? And, if these
imaginary adapters of Homer modernized his whole
diction, how could they preserve his metrical effects?
With the peculiar word or idiom would vanish the
peculiar prosody. Even a single word is not easily
replaced by another having the same sense, the same
number of syllables, and in each syllable the same
metrical quantity ; but how immeasurably more diffi-
cult is this, when the requisition is for a whole sentence
or clause having the same sense in the same number
of syllables and the same prosody? Why, a man
would not doctor three lines in a century under such
intolerable conditions. And, at the end of his labor,
like Addison's small poet, who worked for years upon
the name of ' Mary Bohun,' in order to bind its stub-
born letters within the hoop-ring of an anagram, he
would probably fail, and go mad into the bargain. If
the metre is characteristically Homeric, as say these
infidels, then is the present text, (so inextricably co-
adunated with the metre,) upon their own showing, the
good old Homeric text and no mistake.

But, reader, the Homeric metre is not truly describ-
ed by these men. It is certainly kenspeck, to use a
good old English word that is to say, recognisable ;
you challenge it for Homer's whenever you meet it.
Characteristic it is, but not exactly for the reason they
assign. The fact is, though flowing and lively, it
betrays the immaturity of the metrical art. Those
constraints, from which the Germans praise its free-

324 HOMEK AND THE HOMEEID-E.

dom, are the constraints of exquisite art. This is a
difficult subject; for, in our own literature, the true
science of metrical effects has not belonged to our later
poets, but to the elder. Spenser, Shakspeare, Milton,
are the great masters of exquisite versification. And
Waller, who was idly reputed to have refined our
metre, was a mere trickster, having a single tune mov-
ing in his imagination, without compass and without
variety. Chaucer, also, whom Dryden in this point so
thoroughly misunderstood, was undoubtedly a most
elaborate master of metre, as will appear when we
have a really good edition of him. But in the Pagan
literature this was otherwise. We see in the Roman
poets that, precisely as they were antique, they were
careless, or at least very inartificial in the management
of their metre. Thus Lucilius, Ennius, even Lucre-
tius, leave a class of faults in their verse, from which
Virgil would have revolted. And the very same class
of faults is found in Homer. But though faults as
regards severe art, they are in the very spirit of nai-
vete or picturesque naturalness, and wear the stamp of
a primitive age artless and inexperienced.

This article would require a volume. But we will
content ourselves with one illustration. Every scholar
is aware of the miserable effect produced where there
is no c&swr^ in that sense of the word cczsura which
means the interlocking of the several feet into the
several words. Thus, imagine a line like this :

* Urbem Komam primo condit Komnlus anno.'

Here, the six feet of the hexameter are separately
made out by six several words. Each word is a foot ;

HOMER AND THE , HOMEBIDJ3. 325

and no foot interlocks into another. So that there is
no c&mra. Yet even that is not the worst fault of the
line. The other and more destructive is the coinci-
dence of the ictus , or emphasis, with the first syllable
of every foot.

Now in Homer we see both faults repeatedly. Thus,
to express the thundering pace with which a heavy stone
comes trundling back from an eminence, he says :
* Autis epeita peddnde kulindeto la&s anaides.'

Here there is the shocking fault, to any metrical ear,
of making the emphasis fall regularly on the first
syllable, which in effect obliterates all the benefit of
the caesura.

Now, Virgil has not one such line in all his works,
nor could have endured such a line. In that versa
expressing the gallop or the caracoling of a horse, he
also has five dactyles

' Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit tmgula eampum.'

But he takes care to distribute the accents properly, on
which so much even of the ancient versification de-
pended : except in the two last feet, the emphasis of
Virgil's line never coincides with the first syllable of
the foot. Homer, it will be said, wished to express
mimetically the rolling, thundering, leaping motion of
the stone. True, but so did Virgil wish to express the
thundering gallop of the horse, in which the beats of
the hoofs return with regular intervals. Each sought
for a picturesque effect* each adopted a dactylic
structure : but to any man who has studied this sub-
ject, we need not say, that picturesqueness, like any
other effect, must be subordinated to a higher law of

326 HOMEE, AND THE HOMERIDJS.

beauty. Whence, indeed, it is that the very limits of
imitation arise for every art, sculpture, painting, &c.,
indicating what it ought to imitate, and what it ought
not to imitate. And unless regard is had to such higher
restraints, metrical effects become as silly and childish
as the musical effects in Kotzwarra's Battle of Prague^
with its ridiculous attempts to mimic the firing of can-
non, groans of the wounded, &c., instead of involving
the passion of a battle in the agitation of the music.

These rudenesses of art, however, are generally
found in its early stages. And we are satisfied, that as
art advanced, these defects must have been felt for such ;
so that, had any license of improvement existed, they
would have been removed. That they were left un-
touched in the ages of the great lyrical masters, when
metre was so scientifically understood, is a strong
argument that Homer was sacred from all tampering.
Over the whole field of the Homeric versification, both
for its quality of faults and its quality of merits, lies
diffused this capital truth that no opening existed
for the correction, in any age after the perception of
a fault (that is, when the temptation to correct) could
first have arisen.

D, The Homeric Formula. Here is another coun-
tersign for the validity of our present Homeric text.
In our own metrical romances, or wherever a poem is
meant not for readers but for chanters and oral recit-
ers, these formul^ to meet the same recurring cases,
exist by scores. Thus every woman who happens to
be young, is described as ' so bright of ble,' or com-
plexion : always a man goes ' the mountenance of a
mile/ before he overtakes or is overtaken. And so on

HOMEE AND THE HOMERHXE. 327

through a vast bead-roll of cases. In the same spirit

Homer has his eternal rov & ouo* vnofya tdwv, or srtsa. nrtgo-
erra TZQoaijvda, or TOV <T ctnaiiEtfioiwog TTQOGzcptj, &C.

Now these again, under any refining spirit of criti-
cism, at liberty to act freely, are characteristics that
would have disappeared. Not that they are faults :
on the contrary, to a reader of sensibility, such recur-
rences wear an aspect of childlike simplicity, beauti-
fully recalling the features of Homer's primitive age.
But they would have appeared faults to all common-
place critics in literary ages.

We say, therefore, that first, the Diction of the Iliad,
(B ;) secondly, the Metre of the Iliad, (C ;) thirdly, the
Formula and recurring Clauses of the Iliad, (D ;)
all present us with so many separate attestations to the
purity of the Homeric text from any considerable
interference. For every one of these would have
given way to the * Adapters,' had any such people
operated upon Homer.

II. The first class of arguments, therefore, for the
sanity of the existing Homer, is derived from language.
Our second argument we derive from THE IDEALITY
OF ACHILLES. This we owe to a suggestion of Mr.
Wordsworth's. Once, when we observed to him, that
of imagination, in his own sense, we saw no instance
in the Iliad, he replied ; Yes : there is the character
of Achilles ; this is imaginative, in the same sense as
Ariosto's Angelica.' Character is not properly the
word ; nor was it what Mr. Wordsworth meant. It is
an idealized conception. The excessive beauty of
Angelica, for instance, robs the Paladins of their wits ;

328 HOMEK AND THE HOMEKID2E.

draws anchorites into guilt ; tempts the baptized into
mortal feud ; summons the unbaptized to war ; brings
nations together from the ends of the earth. And so,
with different but analogous effects, the very perfection
of courage, beauty, strength, speed, skill of eye, of
voice, and all personal accomplishments, are embodied
in the son of Peleus. He has the same supremacy in
modes of courtesy, and doubtless, according to the
poef s conception, in virtue. In fact, the astonishing
blunder which Horace made in deciphering his Ho-
meric portrait, gives the best memorandum for re-
calling the real points of his most self-commanding
character : ~

'Impiger, iracundus, inezorabilis, aeer,
Jura negat sibi nata, nihil non arrogat armis.'

Was that man c iracundus,' who, in the very opening
of the Iliad, makes his anger bend under the most brutal
insult to the public welfare ? When two people quar-
rel, it is too commonly the unfair award of careless
bystanders, that * one is as bad as the other ; ' whilst
generally it happens that one of the parties is but
the respondent in a quarrel originated by the other.
Homer says of the two chiefs, Staorr^v sgiaavr*, they
stood aloof in feud ; but what was the nature of the
feud ? Agamemnon had inflicted upon Achilles, him-
self a king and the most brilliant chieftain of the
confederate army, the very foulest outrage (matter
and manner) that can be imagined. Because his own
brutality to a priest of Apollo had caused a pestilence,
and he finds that he must resign this priest's daughter,
lie declares that he will indemnify himself by seizing

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJS. 329

a female captive from the tents of Achilles, Why of
Achilles more than of any other man? Color of
right, or any relation between his loss and his redress,
this brutal Agamemnon does not offer by pretence.
But he actually executes his threat. Nor does he
ever atone for it. Since his returning Briseis, without
disavowing his right to have seized her, is wide of the
whole point at issue. Now, under what show of com-
mon sense can that man be called iracundus^ who
calmly submits to such an indignity as this ? Or, is
that man inexorabilis^ who sacrifices to the tears and
grey hairs of Priam, his own meditated revenge,
giving back the body of the enemy who had robbed
him of his dearest friend ? Or is there any gleam of
truth in saying that jura negat siU nata, when of all
the heroes in the Iliad, he is the most punctiliously
courteous, the most ceremonious in his religious ob-
servances, and the one who most cultivated the arts
of peace ? Or is that man the violent defier of all
law and religion, who submits with so pathetic a resig-
nation to the doom of early death ?

* "Enough, I know my fate to die ; to see no more
My muck-loved parents, or my native shore. 5

Charles XII. of Sweden threatened to tickle that
man who had libelled his hero Alexander. But Alex-
ander himself would have tickled master Horace for
.this gross libel on Achilles, if they had happened to
be contemporaries.

The character, in short, of the matchless Pelides,
has an ideal finish and a divinity about it, which
argue, that it never could have been a fiction or a

330 HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE.

gradual accumulation from successive touches. It
was raised by a single flash of creative imagination ;
it was a reality seen through the harmonizing abstrac-
tions of two centuries ; and it is in itself a great
unity, which penetrates every section where it comes
forward, with an identification of these several parts
as the work of one man.

III. Another powerful guarantee of the absolute
integrity which belongs to the Eiad^ lies in the Ionic
forms of language, combined everywhere (as Plato
remarks) with Ionic forms of life. Homer had seen
the modes of Dorian life, as in many cities of Crete.
But his heart turned habitually to the Ionian life of
his infancy. Here the man who builds on pretences
of recasting, &c,, will find himself in this dilemma.
If, in order to account for the poem still retaining its
Ionic dress, which must have been affected by any
serious attempts at modernizing it, he should argue
that the Ionic dialect, though not used on the conti-
nent, continued to be perfectly intelligible ; then, our
good Sir, what call for recasting it ? Nobody sup-
poses that an antique form of language would be
objectionable per se, or that it would be other than
solemn and religious in its effect, so long as it con-
tinued to be intelligible. On the other hand, if he
argues that it must gradually have grown unintelligible
or less intelligible, (for that the Ionic of Herodotus,
in the age of Pericles, was very different from the
Homeric,) in that case, to whom would it be unintel-
ligible ? Why to the Athenians, for example, or to
some people of continental Greece. But on that sup-

HOMER AND THE HOMERIC^. 331

position, it would have been exchanged for some form
of Attic or other continental Greek to be Ionian by
descent, did not imply the use of a dialect formed
in Asia Minor. And not only would heterogeneous
forms of language have thus crept into the Iliad , but
inevitably in making these changes, other hetero-
geneities in the substance would have crept in con-
currently. That purity and sincerity of Ionic life,
which arrested the eye of Plato, would have melted
away under such modern adulterations.

IV. But another argument, against the possibility
of such recasts, is founded upon a known remarkable
fact. It is a fact of history, coming down to us from
several quarters, that the people of Athens were
exceedingly discontented with the slight notice taken
of themselves in the Iliad. Now observe, already
this slight notice is in itself one argument of Homer's
antiquity ; and the Athenians did wrong to murmur
at so many petty towns of the Peloponnesus being
glorified, while in their case Homer 'only gives one
line or so to Menestheus their chief. Let them be
thankful for getting anything. Homer knew what
Athens was in those days much better than any of
us ; and surely Glasgow or Liverpool could not com-
plain of being left out of the play, in a poem on the
Crusades. But there was another case that annoyed
the Athenians equally. Theseus, it is well known,
was a great scamp ; in fact, a very bad fellow indeed.
You need go no further than Ariadne, (who, by most
tradition, hanged herself in her garters, at Naxos,) to
prove that. Now, Homer, who was determined to

332 HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE.

tell no lies in the matter, roundly blurts out the motive
for his base desertion of Ariadne, which had the
double guilt of cruelty and of ingratitude, as in
Jason's conduct towards Medea. It was, says the
honest bard, because he was desperately in love with
jEgle. This line in Homer, was like a coroner's
verdict on Ariadne died ly the villany of Theseus.
It was impossible to hide this conduct in their national
hero, if it were suffered to stand. An 'attempt was,
therefore, made to eject it. Pisistratus is charged, in
this one instance, with having smuggled in a single
forged line. But, even in his own lifetime, it was
dismally suspected ; and, when Pisistratus saw men
looking askance at it, he would say 'Well, Sir,
what's in the wind now? What are you squinting
at ? ' Upon which the man would answer ' Oh,
nothing, Sir, I was only looking at things in general.*
But Pisistratus knew better it was no go that he
saw and the line is obelized to this day. Now,
where Athens failed, is it conceivable that anybody
else would succeed ?

V. A fifth argument, upon which we rely much
is the CIRCUMSTANTIALITY of the Iliad. Let the
reader pause to consider what that means in this
particular case. The invention of little personal cir-
cumstances and details, is now a well known artifice
of novelists. We see even in our oldest metrical
romances, a tendency to this mode of giving a lively
expression to the characters, as well as of giving a
colorable reality to the tale. Yet, even with us, it is
an art that has never but once been successfully

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE. 333

applied to regular history. De Foe is the only author
known, who has so plausibly circumstantiated his false
historical records, as to make them pass for genuine,
even with literary men and critics. In his Memoirs of
a Cavalier, he assumes the character of a soldier who
had fought under Gustavus Adolphus, (1628-31,) and
afterwards ( 1642 - 45) in our own parliamentary war ;
in fact, he corresponds chronologically to Captain
Dalgetty. In other works he personates a sea cap-
tain, a hosier, a runaway apprentice, an officer under
Lord Peterborough in his Catalonian expedition. In
this last character, he imposed upon Dr. Johnson, and
by men better read in history he has actually been
quoted as a regular historical authority. How did he
accomplish so difficult an end ? Simply by inventing
such little circumstantiations of any character or inci-
dent, as seem by their apparent inertness of effect,
to verify themselves ; for, where the reader is told
that such a person was the posthumous son of a
tanner ; that his mother married afterwards a Presby-
terian schoolmaster, who gave him a smattering of
Latin ; but, the schoolmaster dying of the plague,
that he was compelled at sixteen to enlist for bread ;
in all this, as there is nothing at all amusing, we
conclude, that the author could have no reason to
detain us with such particulars, but simply because
they were true. To invent, when nothing at all is
gained by inventing, there seems no imaginable temp-
tation. It never occurs to us, that this very construc-
tion of the case, this very inference from such neutral
details, was precisely the object which De Foe had in
view, and by which he meant to profit He thus

334 HOMER AND THE HOMEKIDJE.

gains the opportunity of impressing upon his tales a
double character ; he makes them so amusing, that
girls read them for novels; and he gives them such
an, air of verisimilitude, that men read them for his-
tories.

Now this is one amongst the many acts by which, In
comparison of the ancients, we have so prodigiously
extended the compass of literature. In Grecian, or
even in Roman literature, no dream ever arose of
interweaving a fictitious interest with a true one. Nor
was the possibility then recognised of any interest
founded in fiction, even though kept apart from his-
toric records. Look at Statius ; look at Virgil ; look
at Valerius Flaccus ; or look at the entire Greek
drama ; not one incident beyond the mere descriptive
circumstances of a battle, or a storm, or a funeral
solemnity, with the ordinary turns of skill or chance
in the games which succeed, can be looked upon as
matter of invention. All rested upon actual tradition :
in the Mneid, for instance, upon ancient Italian
traditions still lingering amongst the people ; in the
Thebaid, where the antiquity of the story is too great
to allow of this explanation, doubtless they were found
in Grecian poems. Four centuries after the Christian
era, if the Salyricon of Petronius Arbiter is excepted,
and a few sketches of Lucian, we find the first feeble
tentative development of the romance interest. The
Cyrop&dia was simply one-sided in its information.
But, in the Iliad, we meet with many of these little
individual circumstances, which can be explained (con-
sistently with the remark here made) upon no princi-
ple whatever except that of downright, notorious truth.

HOMER AND THE EOMERIDJE. 335

Homer could not have wandered so far astray from the
universal sympathies of his country, as ever to think
of fictions so useless ; and if he had, he would soon,
have been recalled to the truth by disagreeable expe-
rie,nces ; for the construction would have been that
he was a person very ill-informed, and not trustworthy
through ignorance.

Thus, in speaking of Polydamas, Homer says (11.
xvni, 250) that he and Hector were old cronies ; which
might strike the reader as odd, since Polydamas was
no fighting man at all, but cultivated the arts of peace.
Partly, therefore, by way of explaining their connec- '
tion partly for the simple reason that doubtless, it
was a fact, Homer adds that they were born in the
same night ; a circumstance which is known to have
had considerable weight upon early friendships in the
houses of Oriental princes.

'ExToot <F r,ev iTaiQog, 117 cP v vvxn ysvovro.
f To Hector now he was a bosom friend,
For in one night they were born.'

Now, we argue, that had Homer not lived within a
reasonable number of generations after Troy, he never
would have learned a little fact of this kind. He must
have heard it from his nurse, good old creature, who
had heard her grandfather talk with emotion of Troy
and its glorious palaces, and of the noble line of
princes that perished in her final catastrophe. A ray
of that great sunset had still lingered in the old man's
youth; and the deep impression of so memorable a
tragedy had carried into popular remembrance vast
numbers of specialties and circumstantial hies, such as

336 HOMER AND THE HOMEEIDJE.

might be picked out of the Iliad, that could have no
attraction for the mind, but simply under the one con-
dition that they were true. An interval as great as
four centuries, when all relation between the house of
Priam and the surrounding population would have been
obliterated, must have caused such petty anecdotes to
lose their entire interest, and, in that case, they would
never have reached Homer. Here, therefore, is a
collateral indication that Homer lived probably within
two centuries of Troy. On the other hand, if the Iliad
had ever become so obsolete in its diction that popular
feeling called for a diaskeue^ or thorough recast, in
that case, we argue that all such trivial circumstances
(interesting only to those who knew them for facts)
would have dropped out of the composition.

VI. That argument is of a nature to yield us an
extensive field, if we had space to pursue it. The
following, which we offer as our argument, is negative :
it lies in the absence of all anachronisms, which would
most certainly have arisen in any modern remodelling,
and which do in fact disfigure all the Greek forgeries
of letters, &c. in Alexandrian ages. How inevitable,
amongst a people so thoroughly uncritical as the
Greeks, would have been the introduction of anachro-
nisms by wholesale, had a more modern hand been
allowed to tamper with the texture of the poem ! But,
on the contrary, all inventions, rights, usages, known
to have been of later origin than the Homeric ages,
are absent from the Iliad. For instance, in any recast
subsequent to the era of 700 B. C., how natural it
would have been to introduce the trumpet! And

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE, 337

cavalry again, how excellent a resource for varying
and inspiriting the battles : whereas Homer introduces
horses only as attached to the chariots ; and the chari-
ots as used only by a few leading heroes, whose heavy
mail made it impossible for them to go on foot, as the
mass of the army did. Why, then, did Homer himself
forbear to introduce cavalry? Was he blind to the
variety he would have gained for his descriptive
scenes ? No ; but simply upon the principle, so
absolute for him of adhering to the facts. But what
caused the fact ? Why was there no cavalry ? Evi-
"dently from the enormous difficulty of carrying any
number of horses by sea, under the universal non-
adaptation to such a purpose of the Greek shipping.
The * horse marines ' had not begun to show out ; and
a proper * troop-ship ' must have been as little known
to Agamemnon, as the right kind of Havana cigars or
as duelling pistols to Menelaus.

VII, A seventh argument for the integrity of our
present Iliad in its main section, lies in the nexus of
its subordinate parts. Every canto in this main sec-
tion implies every other. Thus the funeral of Hector
implies that his body had been ransomed. That fact
implies the whole journey of Priam to the tents of
Achilles. This implies the death and last combat of
Hector. But how should Hector and Achilles have
met in battle, after the wrathful vow of Achilles?
That argues the death of Patroclus as furnishing the
sufficient motive. But the death of Patroclus argues
the death of Sarpedon, the Trojan ally, which it was
that roused the vindictive fury of Hector. These

VOL. i. 22

338 HOMEB AND THE HOMEKIDJE.

events in their turn argue the previous success of the
Trojans, which had moved Patroclus to interfere. And
this success of the Trojans argues the absence of
Achilles, which again argues the feud with Agamem-
non. The whole of this story unfolds like a process of
vegetation. And the close intertexture of the seve-
ral parts is as strong a proof of unity in the design
and execution, as the intense life and consistency in
the conception of Achilles.

VIII. By an eighth argument, we reply to the ob-
jection sometimes made to the transmission of the
Iliad, through the rhapsodoi, from the burden which
so long a poem would have imposed upon the memory.
Some years ago was published, in this journal,* a paper
on the Flight of the Kalmuck Tartars from Russia.
Bergmann, the German from whom that account was
chiefly drawn, resided for a long time amongst the
Kalmucks, and had frequent opportunities of hearing
musical recitations from the Dschangceriade. This is
the great Tartar epic ; and it extends to three hundred
and sixty cantos, each averaging the length of an
Homeric book. Now, it was an ordinary effort for a
minstrel to master a score of these cantos, which
amounts pretty nearly to the length of the Iliad. But
a case more entirely in point is found in a minor work
of Xenophon's. A young man is there introduced as
boasting that he could repeat by heart the whole of the
Iliad and the Odyssey a feat, by the way, which has
been more than once accomplished by English school-

* Blaekwood's Magazine.

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJE. 339

boys. But the answer made to this young man is, that
there is nothing at all extraordinary in that; for that
every common rJiapsodos could do as much. To us,
indeed, the whole objection seems idle. The human
memory is capable of far greater efforts ; and the music
would prodigiously lighten the effort. But, as it is an
objection often started, we may consider it fortunate that
we have such a passage as this in Xenophon, which not
only illustrates the kind of qualification looked for in a
rhapsodos, but shows also that such a class of people
continue to practise in the generation subsequent to
that of Pericles.

.Upon these eight arguments we build. This is our
case. They are amply sufficient for the purpose.
Homer is not a person known to us separately and pre-
viously, concerning whom we are inquiring whether,
in addition to what else we know of him, he did not
also write the Iliad. * Homer ' means nothing else
but the man who wrote the Iliad. Somebody, you
will say, must have written it. True ; but, if that
somebody should appear by any probable argument,
to have been a multitude of persons, there goes to
wreck the unity which is essential to the idea of a
Homer, Now, this unity is sufficiently secured, if it
should appear that a considerable section of the Iliad
and that section by far the most full of motion, of
human interest, of tragical catastrophe, and through
which runs, as the connecting principle, a character
the most brilliant, magnanimous, and noble, that Pagan
morality could conceive was, and must have been,
the work and conception of a single mind. Achilles

340 HOMEB AND THE HOMEEIDJE.

revolves through that section of the Iliad in a series of
phases, each of which looks forward and backward to
all the rest. He travels like the sun through his diurnal
course. We see him first of all rising upon us as a
princely councillor for the welfare of the Grecian host.
We see him atrociously insulted in this office ; yet
still, though a king and unused to opposition, and boil-
ing with youthful blood, nevertheless commanding his
passion, and retiring in clouded majesty. Even thus?
though having now so excellent a plea for leaving the
army, and though aware of the early death that awaited
him if he stayed, he disdains to profit by the evasion.
We see him still living in the tented field, and generous-
ly unable to desert those who had so insultingly deserted
Mm. We see him in a dignified retirement, fulfilling
all the duties of religion, friendship, hospitality ; and,
like an accomplished man of taste, cultivating the arts
of peace. We see him so far surrendering his wrath
to the earnest persuasion of friendship, that he comes
forth at a critical moment for the Greeks to save them
from ruin. What are his arms ? He has none at all.
Simply by his voice he changes the face of the battle.
He shouts, and nations fly from the sound. Never but
once again is such a shout recorded by a poet

* He caTPd so loud, that all the hollow deep
Of hell resounded. 7

Who called ? That shout was the shout of an archangel .
Next we see him reluctantly allowing his dearest friend
to assume his own arms ; the kindness and the modesty
of his nature forbidding him to suggest, that not the
divine weapons but the immortal arm of the wielder

HOMER. AND THE HOB1ERIDJE. 341

had made them invincible. His friend perishes. Then
we see him rise in his noontide wrath, before which no
life could stand. The frenzy of his grief makes him
for a time cruel and implacable. He sweeps the field of
battle like a monsoon. His revenge descends perfect,
sudden, like a curse from heaven. We now recognise
the goddess-born. This is his avatar. Had he moved
to battle under the ordinary motives of Ajax, Diomed,
and the other heroes, we never could have sympathized
or gone along with so withering a course. We should
have viewed him as a c scourge of God/ or fiend, born
for the tears of wives and the maledictions of mothers.
But the poet, before he would let him loose upon men,
creates for him a sufficient, or at least palliating motive.
In the sternest of his acts, we read only the anguish of
his grief. This is surely the perfection of art. At
length the work of destruction is finished ; but, if the
poet leaves him at this point, there would be a want of
repose, and we should be left with a painful impression
of his hero as forgetting the earlier humanities of his
nature, and brought forward only for final exhibition
in his terrific phases. Now, therefore, by machinery
the most natural, we see this great hero travelling back
within our gentler sympathies, and revolving to his rest
Uke the sun disrobed of his blazing terrors. We see
him settling down to that humane and princely character
in which he had been first exhibited we see him
relenting at the sight of Priam's grey hairs, touched
with the sense of human calamity, and once again
mastering his passion grief now, as formerly he had
mastered his wrath. He consents that his feud shall
sleep : he surrenders the corpse of his capital enemy ;

342 EOMEK AND THE HOMERID^i.

and the last solemn chords of the poern rise with a
solemn intonation from the grave of ' Hector, the tamer
of horses' that noble soldier who had so long been
the column of his country, and to whom, in his dying
moments, the stern Achilles had declared bat then
in the middle career of his grief that no honorable
burial should ever be granted.

Such is the outline of an Achilleis, as it might be
gathered from the Hiad : and for the use of schools
we are surprised that such a beautiful whole has not
long since been extracted. A tale, more affecting by
its story and vicissitudes does not exist ; and, after
this, who cares in what order the non-essential parts
of the poem may be arranged, or whether Homer was
tfieir author ? It is sufficient that one mind must have
executed this Achilleis, in consequence of its intense
unity. Every part implies every other part. With
such a model before him as this poem on the wrath of
Achilles, Aristotle could not carry his notions of unity
too high. And the unifying mind which could conceive
and execute this Achilleis that is what we mean by
Homer. As well might it be said, that the parabola
described by a cannon-ball was in one half due to a
first discharge, and in the other half to a second, as
that one poet could lay the preparations for the passion
and sweep of such a poem, whilst another conducted
it to a close. Creation does not proceed by instal-
ments : the steps of its revolution are not successive,
bat simultaneous ; and the last book of the Achilleis
was undoubtedly conceived in the same moment as
the first.

What effect such an Achilleis, abstracted from the

HOMEK AND THE HOMERIDJ3. 343

Iliad) would probably leave upon the mind, it happens
that we can measure by our own childish experience.
In Russell's Ancient Europe, a book much used in the
last century, there is an abstract of the Iliad, which
presents very nearly the outline of an Achilleis, such
as we have supposed. The heroes are made to speak
in a sort of stilted, or at least buskined language, not
unsuited to a youthful taste : and from the close con-
vergement of the separate parts, the interest is con-
densed. This book, in our eighth year, we read. It
was our first introduction to the c Tale of Troy divine;'
and we do not deceive ourselves in saying, that this
memorable experience drew from us the first unselfish
tears that ever we shed ; and by the stings of grief which
it left behind, demonstrated its own natural pathos. f
"Whether the same mind conceived also the Odyssey,
is a separate question. We are certainly inclined to
believe, that the Odyssey belongs to a post-Homeric
generation to the generation of the Nostoi, or home-
ward voyages of the several Grecian chiefs. And
with respect to all the burlesque or satiric poems
ascribed to Homer, such as the Batrachomyomachia,
the Margites, &c., the whole fiction seems to have
arisen out of an uncritical blunder ; they had been
classed as Homeric poems meaning by the word
c Homeric^ simply that they had a relation or reference
to Homer, which they certainly have. At least we
may say this of the Batrachomyomachia, which still
survives, that it undoubtedly points to the Iliad as a
mock-heroic parody upon its majestic forms and diction.
In that sense it is Homeric i. e. it relates to Homer's
poetry ; it presupposes it as the basis of its own fun.

344 HOMEE AND THE

But subsequent generations, careless and uncritical,
understood the word Homeric to mean actually com-
posed by Homer. How impossible this was, the reader
may easily imagine to himself by the parallel case of
our own parodies on Scripture. What opening for a
parody could have arisen in the same age as that
Scriptural translation ? c Howbeit,' ' peradventure,*
'lifted up his voice and wept,' 'found favor in thy
sight,' phrases such as these have, to our modern
feelings, a deep coloring of antiquity ; placed, there-
fore, in juxtaposition with modern words or modern
ideas, they produce a sense of contrast which is
strongly connected with the ludicrous. But nothing
of this result could possibly exist for those who first
used these phrases in translation. The words were
such as, in their own age, ranked as classical and
proper. These were no more liable to associations
of the ludicrous, than the serious style of our own age
is at this moment. And on the same principle, in
order to suppose the language of the Iliad, as, for
example^ the solemn formula which introduce all the
replies and rejoinders, open to the ludicrous, they must,
first of all, have had time to assume the sombre hues
of antiquity. But even that is not enough : the Iliad,
must previously have become so popular, that a man
might count with certainty upon his own ludicrous
travesties, as applying themselves at once to a serious
model, radicated in the universal feeling. Otherwise,
to express the case mechanically , there is no resistance,
and consequently no possibility of a rebound. Hence
it is certain that the burlesques of the Iliad could not
be Homeric, in the sense which an unlearned public

HOMER AND THE EOMERID-E. 345

imagined ; and as to the satiric poem of the Margites,
it is contrary to all the tendencies of human nature,
that a public sensibility to satire should exist, until the
simple age of Homer had been supplanted by an
age of large cities, and a complex state of social
refinement. Thus far we abjure, as monstrous moral
anachronisms, the parodies and lampoons attributed to
Homer. Secondly, upon the Odyssey, as liable to
heavy suspicion, we suspend our judgment, with a
weight of jealousy against it. But finally, as regards
the Iliad, we hold that its noblest section has a perfect
and separate unity ; that it was therefore written by
one man ; that it was also written a thousand years
before our Christian era; and that it has not been
essentially altered. These are the elements which
make up our compound meaning, when we assert the
existence of Homer, in any sense interesting to modern
ages. And for the affirmation of that question in that
interesting sense, we believe ourselves to have offered
more and weighter arguments than all which the
German army of infidels have been able to muster
against it.

VOL. i. 23

Ada Greenwood MacLaughlin
Collection

as a
from

Thomas G. MacLaughlin

and
vJilliam H. MacLaughlin

126211