by the flame before the rough particles of sand disappeared in that cloudless surface of beauty, through which the minutest fibre of the leaf, or the purple streak upon the tulip, is conspicuous. It is the same with language. The harsh ingredients have been blended and fused by the ardent flame of an excited imagination, before it brightens into that surface of mild beauty upon which the physiognomy of the faintest emotion may be distinctly traced. Pope has not omitted to notice this peculiarity in the Homeric poems, and to attribute it to this cause.

In whatever particulars, whether of sentiment, of delineation, or of taste, we may differ from Schlegel, we shall constantly re-echo one of his remarks: "It is at all times my wish to confine myself to inventors, and I shall not scruple to pass, with the utmost rapidity, over whole centuries of imitation." There is no common charm in wandering along the by-paths of literature, and catching little hasty views of small nooks, green and still, in the landscape of thought; but ours is a bolder journey. It is only now and then, in surveying the majestic ramparts of old castles, that you can stoop to breathe the wild bloom of the flowers upon the wall. Nor is this lingering minuteness essential to the instruction of the reader. "La chronologie contentieuse," was the remark of Bossuet to the French prince, when accounting for his incompleteness in dates, qui s'arrête scrupuleusement à ces minuties a son usage sans doute; mais elle n'est pas votre objet et s'est peu à éclairer l'esprit d'un grand prince." It may not always be safe to travel by so royal a road of knowledge; but it suits our present expedition, which leads us into the great thoroughfares of intellectual life, and where the PAGEANT OF LITERATURE, in all its sumptuous array, is to be seen passing by.

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Many are the images by which we might shadow forth our design in these papers. And a scenical illustration would not be the least forcible or expressive. We might ask the reader to recollect the evening when he ascended Snowdon to see the sun rise. He passed the night in the mist and vapour that kept driving down the sides of the mountain. At

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length his toil and patience were rewarded; the vision broke; the sun appeared. If a painter, he probably compared its ascending and brightening motion to some angel climbing the cloudy stairs into Paradise. As the misty curtains were drawn back from the theatre of nature, what a scene burst upon his eye! castles, verdant woods, dim villages, flashing spires of remote cities, a haze of golden light wavering over all. And yet, in the very flush and brilliancy of the vision, it would become dark; the curtains would be let down again upon the stage, while castle, and wood, and pinnacle, glimmered away into uncertainty and cloud. Thus, when he came to study the perfect spectacle of Nature's magnificence, he saw nothing but a glittering vanishing, glimpse of her Pageant.

And this traveller, ascending Snowdon, might exemplify the sensations of the student, when, after toiling up the difficult paths of meditative research, he beholds, from some clear altitude of thought, the sun of civilisation and learning rising over the scenery of intellect. Many a dismal vigil had he kept, many a dark vapour had drifted past him, before the gorgeous scene unclosed its wonders to his eye. For a little while the vision would be splendid, - rich gardens of imagery; still waters of philosophy; sumptuous palaces of fancy; delicious shades of contemplation; all starting majestically out of the vapour. In the midst of his enjoyment, however, he could not fail to perceive that the mist, though scattered, was not dispersed; that it gathered into black masses along the horizon, ever drifting back as the wind blew, or the rays of the sun were intercepted. He would also observe that, as the cloud rolled away from one hill or valley, or splendid edifice, it settled upon another; that the illumination of one spot was always accompanied by the obscuration of one lying near it; that, in order to obtain an uninterrupted view of the landscape, it was necessary to follow the track of the animating light. And, at intervals, the shade would sweep over the entire face of the country before him, enveloping it in all its original melancholy and gloom. And thus,

however protracted his abode upon those high places of speculation to which he had climbed, he would descend, at last, with a feeling of delight mingled with disappointment, since, instead of one vast and unbroken spectacle of grandeur in the civilisation and refinement of the world, he had only seen Glimpses of a Pageant.

Or we might suggest a different similitude, and, instead of carrying the reader up the vapory sides of Snowdon, place him in some sheltered valley running among the hills, or upon the mossy plank thrown over a torrent, and tell him to look upward at a sumptuous train of knights winding down the rocky paths in the splendid array of victory and spoil. They might have been absent for many years in the remote regions of the East, fighting for riches and renown. Even their return would, probably, have in it some circumstances of sorrow. Much they had suffered, much they had lost. Many of their companions in arms slumbered beneath the palms of the desert; and of the joyous band, who set forth in the morning of life, only a few returned in the evening to their home among the English trees. And this similitude would not be inapt or inexpressive if transferred to literature. What are the poets, philosophers, and scholars, of all time but bands of knights the chivalry of genius-setting_out in the morning of their strength to fight the battles of truth, or rescue the sepulchre of virtue, or gather riches of thought, and bring back splendour of renown? The remote land of learning and fancy would be Much the object of their search.

they suffer, much they lose-the warfare of genius is full of perils. High the emotion of their hearts, setting out in the costly armour of imagination and faith. What a line of march! Fame in the van,—

Μετα δε σφισιν Οσσα δεδῄει, ὀτρυνουσ' ἶεναι, Διος άγγελος. But, when we look upon them descending from the summits of their distant wanderings in the eveningtime, there is a shade over the brightest countenance. Many set out, few return. Of that band, once so dazzling in its array, some of the bravest

sank down, wounded and faint, in the wilderness of life. Some died within sight of the fountains. And thus the spectator might easily recognise the presence of sadness even amid the exultation of conquest; and behold the Banner of Victory drooping its solemn folds over the passing Pageant of Literature.

Or, yet once more, we might change altogether the shape of our comparison, and substitute, for the mountain-top and the still valleys, the august cathedral, in the blaze and wonder of a coronation. We might turn the spectator's eye to the company of courtiers and all the gorgeous apparatus of religion and history, and point out, emerging as it were from the enveloping cloud of retainers, the king himself, in the vestments of empire, passing over the sepulchres of the dead to take his crown. And this would not be the least striking or expressive representation of the three. It would have in it some of the majestic pathos of truth. If we could really enter within the bright gates of that visionary temple which we consecrate to Fame, and behold the coronation of the kings of literature, we should see them slowly emerging from the encircling cloud of companions and followers, and ever passing over the sepulchres of their departed ancestors to take their crown. Hence it happens, that the history of genius has always been the history of toil; that the teacher of wisdom has fitted himself to converse with future ages, by having already conversed with the past. Ben Jonson numbers imitation among the requisites of the poet. He must be able to convert the substance and riches of other poets to his own use; to make choice of an excellent man above the rest, and so to follow him till he grow very he, and so like him, as the copy may be mistaken for the original.' In a greater or less degree, the suggestion of Jonson seems to have been anticipated or followed by eminent writers in all ages. And we feel that a book professedly on the history and progress of imitation, not only in poetry, but in literature, "written by a man of perspicuity, and an adept in the art of discerning likenesses, even when minute, with examples properly selected and

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gradations duly marked," would make a valuable accession to the stores of our knowledge.

Now, of the three ways in which we have suggested the possibility of presenting the Pageant of Literature to the eye of the reader, we shall not so much make a selection as a combination. Instead of fixing him in one position, we shall be continually varying it. We shall lead him up the steep solitudes of the early history of the mind; and that will be our mountain view. We shall shew him the bravery, the hardihood, the patience, the victories, and the sorrows of genius; and that will be our representation of knights returning home with their glory and spoils. And we shall exhibit to him the profound and reverent meditation and humility of the true scholar, enriching himself from the treasured wisdom of the past; and that will be our interior of the cathedral during the coronation of a king. Nor will the prospect be so wide as to bewilder the attention :

"How little, mark! that portion of the ball,

Where faint, at best, the beams of science fall."

Our intercourse will be only with the illustrious in the annals of learning. Our Pageant, while it displays in its front the sovereigns of intellectual kingdoms, will embrace in its train only those who encircle the throne. There will be no door-keepers in our palaces, nor camp-followers in our army. It is only of the Pageant of Literature in its magnificence and glory that we shall give a glimpse as it passes by.

There may be a moral for the critic wrapped in the allegorical eagle which conveyed Chaucer to his House of Fame. We shall pass upon the swifter wings of thought from epoch to epoch in the golden ages of literature, descending, through the brightened atmosphere of the Homeric poetry, into the cultivated gardens of Greek history, philosophy, and the drama. A period of little more than eighty years will comprise the history of the most famous literature in the world. So in Rome, we shall find ourselves with Virgil at Mantua, or Horace in his Sabine farm, or Cicero in his

Tusculum, or with Livy at Padua, beholding the glittering array wind along those delicious valleys, until it melts from our sight in the gathering gloom of barbarism, and, before the gates of the Mistress of the World, we hear nothing but

"Alaric's stern port; the martial frame Of Genseric, and Attila's dread name."

Again, in Italy, we shall look for the first gleam of Dante's shield, when, springing forth in complete equipment of arms, he drove back the follies and the ignorance of the age, and out of the miserable materials of madrigals, sonnets, and allegories, taught his countrymen to compose a structure which should probably outlive the country where it was erected. In like manner, we shall speak of our own fathers in science, and wisdom, and imagination. And it may be expected, that in this view of the progress of literature, however faintly indicated by us in its triumphant course, we should begin our journey in that country where all knowledge commenced,―

"Where the morning gilds the palmy shore,

The soil that arts and infant letters bore."

But we turn to Greece, as to the mother from whose breast European literature has drawn that milk which cherished its growth into vigour and beauty; as the land from which that Pageant first set out whose splendour still continues to dazzle and to guide the pilgrimage of curiosity and taste. And the form that immediately rivets our eye is that of Homer, wearing upon his head the crown which antiquity bestowed, and later ages have constantly enriched with new jewels of admiration and love. Perhaps the liveliest and justest picture of Homer, thus appearing at the head of the Pageant, is furnished by the description of his own favourite heroes Agamemnon or Achilles.

romance.

The story of his life has the charm and the mystery of a Schlegel denied the blindness, and Coleridge the existence, of Homer. One gives him sight, which he wanted; and the other deprives him of life, which he had. Coleridge looked upon Homer as a mere concrete name for the rhapsodies of th

Iliad. "Of course there was a Homer, and twenty besides." A Homer, not the Homer. He undertook to compile twelve books, with characters just as distinct and consistent as those of the Iliad, from the metrical ballads and other chronicles of England, about Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. "I say nothing about moral dignity, but the mere consistency of character. The different qualities were traditional. Tristram is always courteous, Lancelot invincible, and so on. The same might be done with the Spanish romances of the CID." Now, if Coleridge intended to assert the presence of the same uniformity in the Homeric heroes which we find in English or Spanish tradition, he was wrong in fact. There is, indeed, as there ought to be, an individuality in his characters, of which Pope happily observed, that every one has something so singularly his own, that no painter could have distinguished them more by their features than the poet has by their manners. What we deny is, that there is any predominant and unyielding supremacy of the heroic over the natural disposition. His chieftains are mighty in stature, but they sometimes stoop. What revelation of weakness more complete than the almost childish anger and mortification of Achilles? Doubtless the old ballads, so to say, of Greek tradition, supplied the poet with thoughts and resemblances; rude though they were, they may have retained the outlines of departed heroes who had been embedded in the national memory; but he clothed these skeletons with the muscle and nerve of existence. The great drama of life is acted in his poem; the life of a nobler and sterner race, yet manifesting in every feature the common endowments and infirmities of humanity. But, even though we should admit that all this machinery had been furnished to the poet in full completeness, still a presiding intelligence would be required to connect, adapt, and govern it. But Coleridge returns to the charge. "I have the firmest conviction that Homer is a mere traditional synonyme with, or figure for, the Iliad." It is often found in our daily experience that men with the strongest convictions have the most unhappy

way of imparting them to others. The late Nelson Coleridge, who wrote about Homer, ought to have run a pen through this absurd theory or extravagance of his relative. If one thing be more visible than another throughout the Homeric poetry, it is the unity and entireness of the design. It is as much built upon a plan as St. Paul's; and it would be as just to call Wren a mere concrete name for the bricklayers of the cathedral, as Homer for the magnificent descriptions of the Iliad. It was an opinion, not only never heard of, but indirectly refuted by the consentient voice of antiquity. It was precisely in the disposition of the work that the most celebrated of critics, Quintilian, proclaimed him to excel every author in the world. If a whisper has ever been breathed against this perfection of artistical skill, some tongue of authority has immediately suppressed it. For example, Pope, in his most ingenious and sparkling preface, compared the Iliad to a copious nursery abounding in every variety of plants and seed. Warton considered the comparison objectionable, as implying a want of regularity and conduct in the fable, which he said was transcendant in coherence, consistency, simplicity, and perspicuity of plan.

But hear Coleridge again, for he has another reason why Homer did not write the Iliad: "There is no subjectivity whatever in the Homeric poems; there is a subjectivity of the poet, as in Milton, who is himself before us in every thing he writes; and there is a subjectivity of the persona, or dramatic character, as in Hamlet," &c. Gibbon has a reference to the concise clearness of Juvenal contrasted with the affectation of writers who shew in a few absurd words the fourth part of an idea. This criticism of Coleridge may be included in the definition. It is German mysticism, and though it says much it means nothing. The statement is this-there is no subjectivity in the Iliad, therefore the Iliad had no author. We were sorry to find Hallam introducing this grotesque phraseology into his History of Literature. However, let us endeavour to see what this word means. Subjective, then (we believe there is no such word as subjectivity), means any

thing relating to the subject as ope posed to the object. Perhaps Watts, in his familiar style ofillustration, may help us. "Certainty, according to the schools, is distinguished into objective and subjective. Objective certainty is when the proposition is true in itself; and subjective, when we are certain of the truth of it. The one is in things; the other is in our own minds." This explanation will not make the matter any clearer. But we shall presently shew that the quality which Coleridge supposed to be wanting is, in truth, abundantly present, and that the author of the Homeric poems, instead of being nowhere, is every where in his verses.

We assume, then-and the assumption is founded upon the strongest internal evidence that the Iliad and Odyssey were written by one person. We lay this down positively, because it has been proved, and because that proof proceeds upon an appeal to the understanding and to experience. But, while fixing the authorship, we abstain from entering upon any examination of the time. Blackwell, whose ingenious researches are highly recommended by Warton, though now forgotten, attributes the excellence of the work to the united influence of the happiest climate to ripen, the most natural manners to delineate, the boldest and amplest language to use, and the richest subject to labour upon. That the poetry which bears the name of Homer could have been composed in a period of barbarism will be credited by no person who has read it. It is possible to conceive a condition of society so abject as not to be susceptible of the feeblest mental pleasure; as among the frozen Esquimaux, or the dwarf tribes of Central Africa. In this fearful heaviness of the atmosphere, intellectual life cannot exist. It was one of the wonderful anticipations of Da Vinci, that animal life becomes extinct in an element where a flame dies. It is so with the nobler life of the understanding. It cannot move, have a being, or draw its breath in an ele ment where the flame of knowledge would die the moment it was lighted. A progressive purification can alone adapt it for the reception of fire. Homer never lived amid such debasement of the popular mind. The atmosphere, indeed, was not warm

and luminous as it became when his own light had continued for so many years above the horizon, but with some elasticity and brightness it must have been endued.

There is another question, of a personal interest, in connexion with the Homeric poems-Was the author blind when he wrote them? Two lead.

ing opinions may be produced upon this question. One affirmative, one negative: one supported by the testimony of antiquity; the other by a school of modern writers, of whom Schlegel may be regarded as the leader. The evidence, therefore, on this side is direct and positive; on that, indirect and circumstantial. It will be expedient to glance at both. And, 1, with regard to the opinion of antiquity, Thucydides, in a famous passage of his history (the third book), takes occasion to refer to the institution by the Athenians of games to be solemnised at Delos upon every fifth year. This circumstance leads him to mention the earlier celebration of festivals in that island, to which the neighbouring Ionians were accustomed to resort. He illustrates and confirms his remark from Homer, who, in the second passage quoted by the historian, speaks of himself as the blind poet living among the rocks of Chios. This evidence has all the authority that can be claimed by any witness not contemporary. The Homer of the Hymn to Apollo, here alluded to, is identified with the Homer of the Iliad. This fact alone proves that the story of the poet's loss of sight had, in the time of Thucydides, assumed the sacredness of a national tradition. Let us look at the comparative ages of these two celebrated persons. Taking the date given by the Arundelian marbles, we shall place Homer in the beginning of the tenth century, or 907 years B.C. The birth of Thucydides is fixed at 469 of the same era. The interval between the poet and the historian will accordingly be 488 years, or little more than the probable duration of six lives. Is it credible that the torch of truth would have entirely gone out in passing through so few hands? Nay, to account for such ignorance and error, not only the flame must have been extinguished, but even the glimmering embers trampled under foot. It was a much shorter period than