NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

No. CLXXXIX.

OCTOBER, 1860.

ART. I. Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age. By the RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, D. C. L., M. P. for the University of Oxford. 3 vols. Oxford: University Press. 1858.

THESE Volumes, which carry us back among the heroes and gods of an age that can never be forgotten, and which serve to guide us in the study of the two greatest productions of the human mind, possess an interest and attraction quite unusual in critical treatises on the Greek classics. The author appears not only as a careful student, but also as an ardent admirer of the works he has undertaken to elucidate, and has infused a life and vigor into the discussions of those topics, which, having usually fallen into the hands of mere scholars, are by general readers considered as little better than the offal of literature, and left for these greedy vultures to prey upon undisturbed. That such a work as Mr. Gladstone has here presented to us has long been needed, no admirer of Homer will deny, and it will be generally conceded that the work has been executed with rare ability.

In his Introductory Chapter the author considers the position which ought to be assigned to the Homeric poems in a classical education; and he finds reason to lament the neglect shown them in the English Universities. The reasons he advances for a more extended study of these poems are mainly such as relate to the information they afford regarding the VOL. XCI.NO. 189.

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Greek language, history, and progress. Of course there are other reasons which will naturally occur to every one, and which render their study of far greater importance than these incidental advantages. They furnish the reader with ideas which will remain fresh and well defined long after his thorough knowledge of the early variations and the different dialects of the Greek tongue shall have grown vague, and his intimate acquaintance with the rise and progress of the tribes shall have become too general to be exact. It seems clear that what is most wanted is a thorough understanding of the poetry, rather than of the age, of Homer; a knowledge of the design and plot of his epics, rather than of the ethnology of the Greeks; a familiarity with the personages and mythology, rather than with the geography or political movements, of the time. To this part of the work, therefore, we turn with the greatest interest, and cannot but regret to find these topics so briefly treated. The religion of the poems is, indeed, thoroughly discussed, but the remaining subjects we have mentioned are rather hastily passed over.

Another branch of inquiry is suggested in this connection. These poems, produced as they were in the infancy of Grecian civilization, and first systematizing the national religion as well as celebrating the national heroes, exerted a powerful influence upon the Greeks themselves. Considered merely in reference to language, Homer's verse holds nearly the place in the history of Greece which King James's Bible translation holds in that of England. Nor is this the only point of resemblance between the two. Both modelled the religious belief, and hence in a great degree determined the manners and civilization, of their respective countries; both have furnished an inexhaustible supply of subjects for literature and art; and both have shaped the minds and directed the councils of those men of each country who have most powerfully influenced the national character. On the one hand we might mention, as an instance in point, the Puritans, in whom an excessive adherence to the manners of the Old Testament, and to the strict austerity of life which they supposed to be taught in the New, arose from the deepest reverence and the most sincere love of their sacred Scriptures; while on the other we might name the

Spartans, in their national passion for Homer, and Alexander of Macedon, who is said to have kept his copy of Aristotle's Homer always with him, to have carried it in a golden casket set with jewels, and every night to have placed it beside him with his faithful sword. Who shall tell how great an influence upon the nation these poems had, when an interpolated line turned the decision of the Lacedemonian umpires, and gave Salamis to Athens? That it was great- very great-cannot be denied, and, commencing to exert itself at the very dawn of civilization, it must have directed and controlled the expanding powers of the growing people.

Now the importance of the Greeks in the development of modern society is by no means insignificant. At the time of the introduction of Christianity, we find three nationalities gathered upon the shores of the Mediterranean, and destined to perform an important, but for each a separate and peculiar part, in the promulgation of the new religion. After this work is finished, they all disappear from history. First, we have the Jews, who are the religious element in the admixture of nations, and among whom the new belief took its rise. Their mission closed shortly after its introduction, and they are soon removed from the stage. The second of these nationalities is that of the Romans, who represent the element of power. Their extended empire affords a ready means for the spread of the new faith throughout the known world. What they bequeath to modern society is law and a system of government, organically complete, yet needing to have its despotic tendencies modified by the inbreathing of the spirit of freedom. The third of these nationalities is that of the Greeks. Their language is to be the vehicle of the new religion. The element they introduce is learning and literature, and into their province none others intrude. The Jews can claim nothing but their sacred writings; and all that Horace can plead for the Romans is that Satire is wholly theirs. Here, then, in the province of philosophy and literature, Greece is unrivalled; and it is precisely here that the influence of Homer is the most powerfully felt. The question thus arises, What, and how great, an effect have his works had upon the formation and development of modern society? Will it be too

much to say, that it is greater than that of any other uninspired writings? There may be others who can justly compete with him as poets, but who can claim an equal sway over the destinies of the race?

Passing over this and numerous other questions, as well as the discussions on the Homeric Age, we come, in the latter part of the third volume, to Mr. Gladstone's delineation of some of the principal characters in the poems. We cannot regard his success here as equal to that which has followed him in other departments. A critic of characters has a threefold duty to perform. If he merely places himself in the chair of the author, he cannot be an impartial judge of the productions; if he sympathizes entirely with the character he would sketch, he becomes an advocate; nor can he have a full and earnest appreciation of all the conflicting circumstances which combine to bring out certain traits and dispositions, if he keeps himself aloof, and affects the sternness of the critic. It is by placing himself successively in all these positions, and then happily combining the results to which he is led in each, that he will attain to complete success.

Now we cannot but feel that Mr. Gladstone too often contents himself with the part of the advocate. We see this in his estimation of the character of Achilles, which he offers in answer to Mr. Grote's division of the Iliad into two distinct poems. The answer itself, aside from this point, seems quite conclusive; but when he attributes the reply of Achilles to the ambassadors of Agamemnon, in the ninth book, to a sense of injured justice, which could not be appeased by mere restitution, but must have repentance for the fault, who does not perceive that he has strained the poet's design? We have Achilles always presented to us as comparatively a youth, with all the faults of youth,-hot-headed, fiery, strong in his attachments as well as his anger, and exceedingly sensitive as to a point of honor. Now it was just here that Agamemnon had offended him, and what he wishes is not retribution nor repentance, but revenge; and he seeks it in the humiliation of the "King of men." He does not demand repentance, nor does Agamemnon, at the final reconciliation, show any signs of it; but, on the contrary, distinctly says, as to the quarrel,

"I am not to blame, but Jupiter and Fate." The reconciliation is the result of a conflict of passions on the part of Achilles. His nature is indeed frank, open, and generous, but completely under the sway of impulse. Anger toward Agamemnon is replaced by a fiercer rage against the Trojans, and an unconquerable grief for the death of Patroclus. The introduction of the books which, according to Mr. Grote, belonged not to the original Achillêis, seems to be sufficiently explained, first, by the time that might naturally elapse before the Greeks felt keenly enough the loss of their hero, and, secondly, by the poet's desire to celebrate the virtues of the other chiefs, associates of Achilles, who must yet be kept subordinate to him.

Leaving the other personages of the poems, we come now to consider the condition and character of the women, as Homer has sketched them for us.

That the position assigned to the women in the Iliad and Odyssey is a highly respectable one, and that their influence over the men is by no means inconsiderable, cannot fail to be apparent to the most careless reader of the two poems. In the Iliad, we are ushered at once into the midst of the Grecian camp around the ill-fated city of Ilion. We behold the ranks of the besiegers smitten with a deadly pestilence, sent upon them by the divine archer, because the leader has refused to surrender the fair Chryseïs to her father, who had sought her with a noble ransom, and borne with him the sacred ensigns of Apollo. As the safety of his host requires Agamemnon to deliver up his captive, moved by anger and disappointment, he seizes Briseïs, and brings down upon himself the wrath of her captor, the great Achilles. This wrath is the subject of the poem. To go still further back, the Trojan war itself, probably by far the grandest enterprise of the age, is undertaken to rescue the fair but fickle Helen from the power of her seducer. After the siege, Ulysses, detained upon the island of Calypso, dwelling with a goddess to whom he is indebted for preserving his life, and who promises to bestow upon him the gift of immortality if he will remain with her, willingly abandons all these hopes, and braves the toils and sufferings which she prophesies are in store for him, if he may behold his native