states and races, as having moulded up the countless local traditions and national legends into something like a general system; as having collected all the scattered divinities of the whole region into one Olympus. So likewise, all beyond the geographical boundaries of Grecian knowledge would be the realm, we say not of acknowledged fiction, but of imagination, which might mythicise any report of a wandering voyager, or greedily catch at any monstrous yet stirring tale of Anthropophagi, and men whose heads It is curious that the few circumstances which had reached Homer relating to the Eastern and civilised part of the ultraGrecian world are mainly correct-the hundred gates of Thebes, the manufactures of Sidon; but the western coast of Africa, and the yet scarcely discovered Sicily,-everything indeed west of Ithaca,-is peopled with lotus-eaters, Cyclopes, with half-divine nymphs, and dim swarms of departed spirits. In which world then does Ithaca lie-in the realm of Greek familiar knowledge, or in the wide and undiscovered ocean? When the poet of the Odyssey described the bays, the havens, the landing-places, the city of this island, did he draw directly from nature, or remotely from imagination? Were his hearers as ignorant, generally, of the situation of these islands, and of their outline and character, as of the coasts of Sicily or Italy? If either the one or the other had ever visited this region, the general features will be found consistent with truth. If they are utterly and inexplicably wrong both as to its situation and its permanent outline, the author of the Odyssey may have been a Peloponnesian, or at least have repeated his poems at the courts of the Peloponnesian kings; but the commerce with these islands must have been precarious and unfrequent-they must have lain beyond the usual coasting adventure of the young navigators of the mainland. But there can be no reasonable doubt that the modern Theaki is the Ithaca of Homer. Let us hear the opinion of Mr. Mure, the latest, and certainly not the least intelligent and impartial, writer who has brought his personal observation to bear upon this question: The impression which a personal visit to this island can hardly fail to leave on the mind of the impartial student of Homer is, that, so great is the general resemblance between its natural features and those of the one described in the Odyssey, the difficulty is, not so much to discover in each case a bay, rock, cavern, or mountain answering to his description, as to decide, among the many that present themselves, on the precise one which he may happen to have had in view. In estimating the the amount or value of this correspondence, he will also bear in mind how unreasonable it were to exact from the poet of any age, although possessed of the closest personal familiarity with the district selected for his scene of action, the rigid accuracy of the land-surveyor, or to deny him the privilege of his profession, even in his description of real objects, to depart a little from the truth, where a slight variation of site. or appearance was necessary to their full effect. To pronounce, therefore, as some have done, in the face of so great a mass of general evidence to the contrary, that Homer had no personal knowledge of Ithaca, because the more fastidious commentator may find difficulty in arranging on his classical atlas, consistently with existing appearances, the hut of Eumæus, the fountain of Arethusa, or the port of Phorcys, were almost as unreasonable as to deny the "Author of Waverley any personal knowledge of Scotland, because of an equal difficulty of identifying the bay of Ellangowan or the castle of Tillietudlem. Equally unwarrantable, on the other side, are the attempts of the more orthodox school of Homeric interpreters to force on existing objects or localities a closeness of harmony with his descriptions, such as was, doubtless, as little congenial to his own taste as conducive to the interest of his poem; and this over-subtilty, as displayed in the elegant but not very critical work of Gell, the patriarch of modern Ithacan topographers, is among the chief causes that have led some of his successors into the opposite extreme. For my own part, I confess that, while nothing can be more delightful than to recognise a strong general resemblance between the descriptions of scenery contained in any poetical work of deep interest, and the real localities to which they refer, it would tend but little to enhance this pleasure could I be convinced of the accuracy of all their minutest details, even to the back-door, kitchenoffices, and draw-well of the hero's dwelling.'-vol. i. pp. 60, 61. We are, perhaps, inclined to allow less latitude to the actual fiction of which a poet, like Homer, might claim the privilege; but we think that, especially in the more distant and, as it were, outlying parts of his picture, he might content himself with appearances, and these appearances as surveyed by a poetic vision, disposed to find what might suit the exigencies of the story. So, with regard to the main difficulty, the island of Asteris, where the suitors concealed their galley as they lay in ambush for Telemachus in the strait between Cefalonia and Ithaca. There is, it seems, a rock called Dyscallio, but it is small and low; and, instead of having a port on each side, has no harbour whatever. Now we can perfectly understand that Homer, however familiar with Ithaca, may never actually have sailed round Dyscallio; and, even if his songs were recited in Ithaca, may have surmised that the Ithacans in general, though constantly in sight of the island, might have known no more of its actual conformation. It is perhaps no violent liberty-(less so we think than to make Asteris, from A and ΣTEP=unsteady-a floating island, created by Homer Homer for the occasion, as Mr. Mure proposes)-to conjecture that Dyscallio in the bard's days may have been somewhat larger and better suited to his description. This is Strabo's opinion, who would rather have recourse to this kind of natural change than to the ignorance or the licence of poetic fiction, κατάψευσιν τῶν τόπων naтà To μvtädes. But if this be inadmissible, the hollowing out, as it were, of a port with two entrances, or a kind of open roadstead, the λιμένες ναύλοχοι, ἀμφίδυμοι, under the lee of that small rocky island, as it is described by the poet, πετρήεσσα—οὐ μεγάλη-would be no unpardonable deception of the poetic eyesight, a stretch of the fancy which would hardly be detected by the hearer best experienced in the navigation of these straits. We admit that Dyscallio actually lies rather too far to the north; but even this, if we consider the manner in which these small rocky islands loom upon the sight, when seen from different points; and perhaps allowing for the clearness of the atmosphere, which would enable the ambushed suitors to descry the bark of Telemachus immediately that it put forth from the shore,-this, with but a little voluntary or involuntary ignorance in the poet, a little intentional or unintentional self-deception by the fancy, would account fully for the slight inexactitude, without seriously impeaching either the general knowledge or the fidelity of the historical poet. With regard to the mountains of Ithaca-the Neritos and the Neios-there is little difficulty in their identification. Even Mr. Mure's more sober judgment was struck with the singular coincidence of the spot assigned by Sir W. Gell for the residence of the swineherd Eumæus. 'On the summit of the cliff is a small rocky plain, interspersed with olive-groves and straggling "kalyvia," or farm-cottages. As a site for the dwelling of Eumæus, the spot corresponds well with the Belvedere, or "place of open prospect," which Homer assigns to that establishment. The face of the cliff is also hollowed out at its summit in various places, partly by nature, partly perhaps by art, into open cavities or sheltered terraces, where we might figure the swineherd reposing as the poet describes him : - "Encircled by his cloven-footed flock, From Boreas safe beneath the hollow rock." The proposal to place the residence of Eumæus on the little plain above the precipice also realizes in a very lively manner to the apprehension the spirit of Ulysses' protestation to the old man, that, if his tale turned out to be false, he might punish him by throwing him from the top of the neighbouring cliff. Gell's account of the exact correspondence of the present generation of rustic dwellings to the poet's description of that of the swineherd is probably itself a little poetical. Yet even those I saw presented, it must be allowed, some curious points of resemblance. They consist of one, or at the most two, oblong cottages, sometimes with a "circular a "circular court" contiguous, surrounded by a fence, which, although neither "lofty," "large," nor "beautiful," corresponds closely in other respects to that described by Homer; being a rude wall, "built with loose stones," and "crowned" with a chevaux de frise of “dead thorns," or other prickly plants. The same style of fence is still very generally used both in Greece and Italy: in the latter country, for example, it is common round the vineyards in the retired parts of the interior of Rome.'—vol. i. pp. 68-70. We are indebted to Mr. Mure for the more distinct and satisfactory solution of the most important of the Homeric geographical problems as relates to Ithaca-the situation of the city of Ulysses. On which side of the island was it to be placed? There are strong arguments for the east and for the west. It was, in fact, quietly observes Mr. Mure, on both :— 'The ruins of the city of Ulysses are spread over the face of a precipitous conical hill, called Aetó, or the "eagle's cliff," occupying the whole breadth of the narrow isthmus which connects the two main subdivisions of the island, and which is here not more than half a mile across. The walls stretch from N.W. to S.E.; their form is that of an irregular triangle, the apex of which is the acropolis, or castle of Ulysses, by pre-eminence, crowning the extreme summit or peak of the mountain, and about as bleak and dreary a spot as can well be imagined for a princely residence. There can, therefore, be little doubt that this is the place to which Cicero so emphatically alludes as the city of Ithaca, in eulogising the patriotism of the hero :-"Ut Ithacam illam, in asperrimis saxis tanquam nidulum affixam, sapientissimus vir immortalitati anteponeret,"-" That wisest of men, who preferred his own Ithaca, perched like a bird's-nest among the most rugged of precipices, even to immortality." 'On each side of the isthmus is a port. That of Opíso Aetó, towards Cefalonía, is the best which the channel shore of the island supplies. The hill of Aetó is separated by two small valleys, connected by a narrow neck at their upper extremities, from the ridge of Stefano, already noticed as the highest of the southern division of the island, and identified by Gell with the ancient Neïus. Admitting the accuracy of this view, nothing can be more appropriate than the epithet "Under-Neïus" (novior), applied by Telemachus to his residence; for the mountain, in fact, covers Aetó to the south and east, which consequently may said to "lie under it," both as regards shade and shelter. be In this way, too, a singular degree of reality attaches to a fine scene of the Odyssey, where, during the debate in the agora, a pair of eagles suddenly descend from the mountain, and, after hovering with ominous cries and gestures above the assembly, rush screaming through the air, over the habitations of the city to the right. The right hand, in the primitive language of Hellenic divination, is synonymous with the east or south-east. Supposing, therefore, the agora to have been situated in the centre of the city, the course of the eagles over the houses to the right would have lain directly towards their native mountain, whither, after after executing their divine commission, they might naturally be expected to return. The walls are in many places well preserved, especially those of the citadel, which remain to a considerable height in almost their whole circumference. They are chiefly of polygonal masonry, with a tendency here and there to the ruder Tirynthian or Cyclopian style. In several portions of the area both of the city and acropolis, the line of the streets, and the form of the buildings, are also distinclty traceable, in rows of contiguous square compartments, chiefly of the last-mentioned ruder style of structure. The peculiarities of this situation seem to mark it out by nature as the spot which the lord of the Cefalonian isles, if he preferred Ithaca as his place of residence, would have selected as, in a military point of view at least, the most appropriate for his seat of government. On a narrow isthmus, connecting, or rather separating, the two subdivisions of the island, it commands the channel, together with a prospect of the whole east coast of Cefalonía, and possesses a tolerable port on each side, giving ready and speedy communication with both the eastern and western portions of his little empire.'-pp. 71-74. We must not, however, linger upon Ithaca, though we have not yet exhausted Mr. Mure's Homeric illustrations. It was certainly a happy adventure for a genuine worshipper of the old bard to find himself, in these days of steam-boat rapidity, or at least of bold British seamanship, navigating, as Mr. Mure did at a later period of his travels, a part of the Grecian seas, with all the delay, the timidity, of old Ulysses himself, vainly struggling with baffling or adverse winds, making some way, then driven back, coming to an anchor every night, and disembarking on every shore. We trust that our traveller at the time derived as much amusement and consolation from his poetic reminiscences as he imparts to his reader, and that his parallel of Homeric and modern Greek navigation compensated for the severe trial of his patience. The whole passage (vol. ii. p. 33) is full of interest to the classical student. There are, however, one or two more minute illustrations of the Homeric poetry which we are unwilling to withhold from our readers. The following extract contains one of these, which we select the more willingly because it relates to a passage in the Iliad. It is well known that all the scepticism with regard to the unity and the authorship of these two great poems rests on the subtile observation of minute points, betraying either that discrepancy of design, of opinions, of manners, and of age, which separates each poem into discordant fragments of different bards and different times; or, according to the view of more modest doubters, assigns different though individual authors to each poem, and considers one, perhaps, an Ionian or an Eolo-Thessalian, the other |