do him dien."

And in Scripture (2 Cor. viii. 1.):

By this reading a very perfect and intelligible meaning is obtained, and that too by the slightest deviation from the original yet proposed.

By throwing the action of offering doubt upon "the noble substance," it becomes the natural reference to "his own scandal" in the third line.

Hamlet is moralising upon the tendency of the "noblest virtues," "be they as pure as grace, as infinite as man may undergo," to take, from "the stamp of one defect," "corruption in the general censure" (a very close definition of scandal); and he illustrates it by the metaphor:

A. E. B.

Leeds.

NATIONAL DEFENCES.

Collet, in his Relics of Literature, has furnished some curious notices of a work on national defences, which perhaps ought to be consulted at the present time, now that this matter is again exciting such general interest among all classes. It was compiled when the gigantic power of France, under Buonaparte, had enabled him to overrun and humble every continental state, and even to threaten Great Britain; and when the spirit of this country was roused to exertion by a sense of the danger, and by the fervour of patriotism. The government of that day neglected no means to keep this spirit alive in the nation; and George III. conceiving the situation of his dominions to resemble, in many respects, that which terminated so fortunately for England in the days of Queen Elizabeth, directed proper researches to be made for ascertaining the principles and preparations adopted at that eventful period. The records of the Tower were accordingly consulted; and a selection of papers, apparently of the greatest consequence, was formed and printed, but not published. This work, which contained 420 pages in octavo, was entitled, A Report of the Arrangements which were made for the Internal Defence of these Kingdoms, when Spain, by its Armada, projected the Invasion and Conquest of England; and Application of the Wise Proceedings of our Ancestors to the Present Crisis of Public Safety. The papers in this work are classed in the order of external alliance, internal defence, military arrangements, and naval equipments. They are preceded by a statement of facts, in the history of Europe, at the period of the Spanish Armada; and a sketch of events, showing the effects of the Queen's measures at home and abroad. As a collection of historical documents, narrating an important event in British history, this work is invaluable; and, as showing the relative strength of this country in population and other resources in the sixteenth century, it is curious and interesting.

J. Y.

NOTES ON HOMER, NO. II.
(Continued from Vol. v., p. 100.)

The Wolfian Theory.

The most important consideration concerning Homer is the hypothesis of Wolf, which has been contested so hotly; but before entering on the consideration of this revolution, as it may be called, I shall lay before your readers the following quotation from the introduction of Fauriel to the old Provençal poem, "Histoire de la Croisade contre les Albigeois," in the Collection des Documens Inédits sur l'Histoire de France. He observes:—

"The romances collectively designated by the title of Carlovingian, are, it would seem, the most ancient of all in the Provençal literature. They were not, originally, more than very short and simple poems, popular songs destined to be recited with more or less musical intonation, and susceptible, consequently on their shortness, of preservation without the aid of writing, and simply by oral tradition among the jongleurs, whose profession it was to sing them. Almost insensibly these songs developed themselves, and assumed a complex character; they attained a fixed length, and their re-composition required more invention and more design. In another point of view, they had increased in number in the same ratio as they had acquired greater extent and complexity; and things naturally attained such a position, that it became impossible to chant them from beginning to end by the aid of memory alone, nor could they be preserved any longer without the assistance of a written medium. They might be still occasionally sung in detached portions; but there exists scarcely a doubt, that from that period they began to be read; and it was only necessary to read them, in order to seize and appreciate their contents."[1]

[1] P. xxx., quoted in Thirlwall's History of Greece (Appendix I.), vol. i. p. 506., where it is given in French.

These remarks, though applied to another literature, contain the essentials of the theory developed by Wolf in regard to Homer. Before the time of Wolf, the popularly accepted opinion on this subject was as follows: That Homer, a poet of ancient date, wrote the Iliad and Odyssea in their present form; and that the rhapsodists having corrupted and interpolated the poems, Peisistratos, and Hipparchos, his son, corrected, revised, and restored these poems to their original condition.

Such was the general opinion, when at the end of the seventeenth century doubts began to be thrown upon it, and the question began to be placed in a new light. The critics of the time were Casaubon, Perizon, Bentley, Hédelin, and Perrault, who, more or less, rejected the established opinion. Giambattista Vico made the first attempt to embody their speculations into one methodical work. His Principi di Scienza nuova contain the germ of the theory reproduced by Wolf with so much scholarship. Wolf, founding his theory on the investigations of Vico and Wood, extended or modified their views, and assumed that the poems were never written down at all until the time of Peisistratos, their arranger. In 1778, the famous Venetian Scholia were discovered by Villoison, throwing open to the world the investigations of the Alexandrian critics; and by showing what the ideas of the Chorizontes were (on whom it were madness to write after Mure), strengthening the views of Wolf. In 1795, then, were published his famous Prolegomena, containing the theory—

"That the Iliad and Odyssey were not two complete poems, but small, separate, independent epic songs, celebrating single exploits of the heroes; and that these lays were, for the first time, written down and united as the Iliad and Odyssey by Peisistratus, tyrant of Athens."[2]

[2] Smith, ii. p. 501.

The former critics (Hédelin and Perrault) had been overruled, derided, and quashed by the force of public opinion; but Wolf brought so many arguments to support his views,—collected so formidable a mass of authorities, both