title="[Pg xii]"/> I infer that the authorities of the British Museum are with me in this matter, for on looking out Odysseus in the catalogue of the library I find "See Ulysses."

Moreover the authors of this new nomenclature are not consistent. Why not call Penelope Penelopeia? She is never called anything else in the Odyssey. Why not Achilleus? Why not Bellerophontes? Why Hades, when Ἀίδης has no aspirate? Why Helios instead of Eëlios? Why insist on Achaians and Aitolians, but never on Aithiopians? Why not Athenæans rather than Athenians? Why not Apollon? Why not either Odusseus, or else Odysseys? and why not call him Oduseus or Odyseys whenever the Odyssey does so?

Admitting that the Greek names for gods and heroes may one day become as familiar as the Latin ones, they have not become so yet, nor shall I believe that they have done so, till I have seen Odysseus supplant Ulysses on railway engines, steam tugs, and boats or ships. Jove, Mercury, Minerva, Juno, and Venus convey a sufficiently accurate idea to people who would have no ready made idea in connection with Zeus, Hermes, Athene, Here, and Aphrodite. The personalities of the Latin gods do not differ so much from those of the Greek, as, for example, the Athene of the Iliad does from the Athene of the Odyssey. The personality of every god varies more or less with that of every writer, and what little difference may exist between Greek and Roman ideas of Jove, Juno, &c., is not sufficient to warrant the disturbance of a nomenclature that has long since taken an established place in literature.

Furthermore, the people who are most shocked by the use of Latin names for Greek gods and heroes, and who most insist on the many small innovations which any one who opens a volume of the Classical Review may discover for himself, are the very ones who have done most to foist Wolf and German criticism upon us, and who are most tainted with that affectation of higher critical taste and insight, which men of the world distrust, and which has brought the word "academic" into use as expressive of everything which sensible people will avoid. I dare not, therefore, follow these men till time has shown whether they are faddists or no. Nevertheless, if I find the opinion of those whom I respect goes against me in this matter, I shall adopt the Greek names in any new edition of my book that may be asked for. I need hardly say that I have consulted many excellent scholars as to which course I should take, and have found them generally, though not always, approve of my keeping to the names with which Pope and others have already familiarised the public.

Since Chapter XIV. was beyond reach of modification, I have asked the authorities of the British Museum to accept a copy of the Odyssey with all the Iliadic passages underlined and referred to in M.S. I have every reason to believe that this will very shortly be indexed under my name, and (I regret to say) also under that of Homer. It is my intention within the next few weeks to offer the Museum an Iliad with all passages borrowed by the writer of the Odyssey underlined—reference being given to the Odyssean passage in which they occur.

Lastly, I would express my great obligations to my friend Mr. H. Festing Jones, who in two successive years has verified all topographical details on the ground itself, and to whom I have referred throughout my work whenever I have been in doubt or difficulty.

September 27th, 1897.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION

It may be said that we owe this book, The Authoress of the Odyssey, to Charles Lamb. Butler, in his early days, had read all the usual English classics that young people read--Dickens, Tennyson, Thackeray, Scott, Lamb, and so on; as he grew older, however, he became more absorbed in his own work and had no time for general reading. When people allege want of time as an excuse for not doing something, they are usually trying to conceal their laziness. But laziness was not the reason why Butler refused to read books except for the purpose of whatever he was writing. It was that he was a martyr to self-indulgence, and the sin that did most easily beset him was over-work. He was St. Anthony, and the world of books was his desert, full of charming appearances assumed by demons who were bent on luring him to perdition. His refusal was not the cry of the slothful: "Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep"; it was the "Get thee behind me, Satan!" of one who is seeking salvation. For he knew his weakness and that temptation comes in such unexpected shapes that the only way of escape is by perpetual watching and praying lest we fall. So he watched and prayed, and kept his powder dry by minding his own business. The Devil, how- ever, was on the watch also and had an inspiration; he baited his subtle hook with a combination fly composed partly of the gentle Elia and partly of the Rev. Canon Ainger. He knew that Butler, if he approached either of these authors, would do so without suspicion, because he had looked over his victim's shoulder one morning in the Reading Room of the British Museum while he was making this note:

"Charles Lamb was like Mr. Darwin, 'a master of happy simplicity.' Sometimes, of course, he says very good things, at any rate some very good things have been ascribed to him; but more commonly he is forced, faint, full of false sentiment and prolix. I believe that he and his sister hated one another, as only very near relations can hate. He made capital out of his supposed admirable treatment of her. Aunt Sarah likes him, so do most old maids who were told what they ought to like about 55 yeara ago, but I never find men whom I think well of admire him. As for Ainger's Life, well, my sisters like it."

We need not agree, and I personally disagree, with Butler's view of the relations between Charles and Mary Lamb, for it seems to me that it is not supported by the Letters of Lamb. I do not suppose, however, that Butler intended his words to be taken very seriously; nor are they intended to be taken as direct abuse of Lamb. They are addressed rather to Lamb's admirers, and are conceived in the spirit of the Athenian, whose reason for helping to ostracise Aristides was that he was so bored by hearing him perpetually called "the Just." They are Butler's way of saying: "Don't you go and suppose that I should ever have anything to do with self-sacrifice and devotion." And yet his own life shows that he was himself capable of both; but, like many Englishmen, he was shy of displaying emotion or of admitting that he experienced it. When we remember that he had not read the Letters we can understand his being put off Lamb first by the Essays, and then by the admirers --Aunt Sarah, the old maids, and Canon Ainger. We must also remember that Canon Ainger used to go and stay down at Shrewsbury with a clergyman who, among other dissipations which he organised for his guest, took him to tea with Butler's sisters, where he played on their old piano which had been chosen by Mendelssohn. Nevertheless it might have been better for Butler if he had not made the note, for retribution followed.

In June, 1886, while we were completing the words and music of our cantata Narcissus, which was published in 1888, Butler wrote to Miss Butler:

"The successor of Narcissus is to be called Ulysses; and is this time a serious work dealing with the wanderings of the real Ulysses, and treating the subject much as Hercules or Semele was treated by Handel. We think we could get some sailor choruses, and some Circe and pig choruses, and the sirens, and then Penelope and her loom all afford scope. I made