traditional, internal, and written, that the classical world was obliged to meet him with fresh arguments, as ridicule would not again succeed. Thus arose the formidable Wolfian controversy, which "scotched," though not "killed," the belief of the critical world in Homer. The principal arguments he adduces are from the poems themselves, in his attempt to establish the non-being of writing at the time of their composition.

Thus, in the Odyssea,[3] a master of a vessel has to remember his cargo, not having a list of his goods; in the Iliad,[4] Bellerophon carries a folded tablet containing writing or signs to Prætos in Lycia. This Wolf interprets to signify conventional marks, like the picture writing of the otherwise civilised Mexicans.[5] Again, in the Iliad (VII. 175.), the chiefs are represented as throwing lots in a helmet, and the herald afterwards handing the lots round for recognition, as each of the lots bore a mark known only to the person who made it. From this Wolf argues that writing was unknown at the time, or the herald would have immediately read the names aloud. But do we not even now make use of such marks without confounding them with writing? This is nothing at all; and it must be remembered, firstly, that this does not apply to the Homeric time, but to the period of Troy; secondly, that if it had applied to that time, it would be absurd to expect from illiterate warrior chiefs, education superior to the mediæval crusaders, their counterparts at a later period of the world's progress. These are the principal arguments that Wolf adduces to prove the non-existence of writing at the Homeric period; whereas, far from proving anything, they are self-contradictory and incorrect.

[3] Lib. viii. 163.

[4] Lib. vi. 168.

[5] See Mure, vol. iii., Appendix L., p. 507. foll.; and Appendix M. vol. iii. p. 512. foll.; and see chap. vii. book III. vol. iii. p. 397. passim.

To prove that the Peisistratidæ first wrote down the poems of Homer, he cites Josephus (Orat. contr. Apion., I. 2.), who observes that—

"No writing, the authenticity of which is acknowledged, is found among the Greeks earlier than the poetry of Homer; and, it is said, that even he did not commit his works to writing, but that, having been preserved in the memory of men, the songs were afterwards connected."

Josephus had merely heard this reported, as is evident from his use of the words "it is said." Pausanias, in the Tour in Greece (vii. 26. 6.), has the following observation:—

"A village called Donussa, between Ægira and Pellene, belonging to the Sicyonians, was destroyed by that people. Homer, say they, remembered this town in his epic, in the enumeration of the people of Agamemnon, 'Hyperesia then, and Donoessa, rocky town' (Ιλ. β. 573.); but when Peisistratos collected the torn and widely scattered songs of Homer, either he himself, or one of his friends, altered the name through ignorance."

Wolf also makes use of this report, liable to the same objections as the above, as one of his proofs. It is even doubtful whether Peisistratos did edit Homer at all; but, under any circumstances, it was not the first edition;[6] for is not Solon represented as the reviser of the Homeric poems?

[6] Granville Penn, On the primary Arrangement of the Iliad; and Appendix B to Mure, vol. i.

Cicero (de Oratore, III. 34.) says:

"Who is traditionally reported to have had more learning at that time, or whose eloquence received greater ornaments from polite literature than that of Peisistratos? who is said to have been the first that arranged the books of Homer, from their confused state, into that order in which we at present enjoy them."

This also is produced as a proof by Wolf, though, for the same reason, it is doubtful. But see Wolf's principal inaccuracies ably enumerated and exposed by Clinton (F.H., i. p. 370.).

Such is the far-famed theory of Wolf, which, as most modern scholars agree, is only calculated "to conduct us to most preposterous conclusions."[7] And this last dictum of Othello's, Mr. Editor, reminds me, that here it would not be preposterous to come to a conclusion for the present, and to close my observations in another paper, where I shall a theory "unfold," which, after the most patient consideration and reconsideration, I am inclined to think the most approximative to the truth.

[7] Othello, Act I. Sc. 3.

KENNETH R. H. MACKENZIE.

Feb. 16. 1852.

FOLK LORE.

Fernseed.

—I find in Dr. Jackson's works allusions to a superstition which may interest some of your readers:

"It was my hap," he writes, "since I undertook the ministery, to question an ignorant soul (whom by undoubted report I had known to have been seduced by a teacher of unhallowed arts, to make a dangerous experiment) what he saw or heard, when he watcht the falling of the Fernseed at an unseasonable and suspicious hour. Why (quoth he), fearing (as his brief reply occasioned me to conjecture) lest I should press him to tell before company, what he had voluntarily confessed unto a friend in secret some fourteen years before, do you think that the devil hath aught to do with that good seed? No; it is in the keeping of the king of Fayries, and he, I know, will do me no harm, although I should watch it again; yet had he utterly forgotten this king's name, upon whose kindness he so presumed, until I remembered it unto him out of my reading in