Homer and His Age

n the narrative, of which no one poet, it is supposed, could have been guilty. The critics repose, I venture to think, mainly on a fallacy. We may style it the fa

ly reminded his countrymen, Homer is put to a test which Goethe could not

, or for modern minute and reflective inquirers, but for warriors and ladies. He certainly satisfied them; but if

cribes is examined, and an effort is made to prove that he depicts the life of a single brief age of culture. The investigation is compelled to a tedious minu

sober, logical, and self-consistent. When these qualities are absent, Homeric criticism may be de

not reply, being convinced in their own minds. But the number and perseverance of the separatists make on “the general reader” the impression that Homeric unity is chose jugée, that scientia locuta est, and

he statement that Science has decided against them. The certainties of the exact sciences are one thing: the opinions of Homeric commentators are other and very different things. Among all the branches of knowledge which the Homeric criti

ions. There is no certain scientific decision, but there is the possibility of working in the scientific spirit, with br

than the dogmatic assumption that the h

primers, and lectures of popular science. To-day its place knows it no more. The separatist theories of

. Gardner says that Dasent’s plan of the Scandinavian Hall “offers in most respects not likeness, but a striking contrast to the early Greek hall.” Mr. Monro, who was not aware of

af has also obliged me by mentioning some points as to which I had not completely understood his position, and I have tried as far as possible to represent his ideas correct

rchéologique for April 1905, and the editor, Monsieur Salomon Reinach, oblige

Catalogue of Scottish Society of Antiquaries. Thanks for the two ships with men under shield are offered to the Rev. Mr. Browne, S.J., author of Handbook of Homeric Studies (Longmans). For the Mycenaean g