Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1851-09-06
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER:
NOTES ON NEW BOOKS.

t,lre of .4ncicnf Greece: BY WILLIAM MURE,
Caldwell: vols, London.
Some of our readers may remember that we too
occasion to allude incidentally TO the above-name
work in some remarks, offered not long since, upo
Mr.. GRoTE's History Of Greece. As the subject
however, so ably and fully discussed by Col. MURl
in these volumes, which constitute the first install
ment Of his proposed history of the entire eralur
of ancient Greece, is one of surprising interest 4
every liberal scholar, we hope il will not be deem
ed " wasteful and ridiculous excess" if we Presen
briefly the conclusions at which the distinguished
Hellenst arrives upon the q4esfio rerafa whicl
has been so long and zealously mooted by modern
classical scholars. We alude to the controversy
respecting the genuineness OF the Homeric Poems
Col. Mure is Scotchman-a native, therefore, o
the country in which Dr. Johnson said. with more
of his natural rudeness than classic elegance, tina
every body had moulhful OF Greek, but nobody .
bellyiul. Ignorant, of course, as we must be re-
speeding the method by which the "immortal doc.
tor was wont to gauge the stomachc capacity for
Greek of his trans-Tweedian countrymen, we can
not presume to decide whether or not Col. Mure
would have been considered by the erudite doctor
an exception to the famished condition of the gene
raty Of Calcdonian Hellensts. We are, however,
disposed to believe that our author is a vertable
gourn,and of Greek, and, what is better, that he
digests all of which he partakes. To the patient
yet enthusiastic study of the closest student he has
added the enlivenng influence Of observations made
in travel through the territory Of Greece. The
groves Of Academus the Ilissus the hoary plain Of
Marathon, the pass of Thermopyle, the straits Of
Salamis, and "Scio's rocky isle" are to him some
thing more than names to be garnered in the memo
nv. They have " local habitation" in his mind.
He feels somewhat as Cicero felt when he describes
his "reminiscences Of residence at Athens, in pas
sage familiar to every scholar.
II is known by all that the earliest literature of
Greece is that embraced in what is called the epic
cycle" being connected series of fabulous and
heroic narratives in hexameter verse, extending
from the Origin of Things" to the death Of Te-
Tenacious or, historically speaking, to the period
Immediately anterior to the Heraclid conquest OF
Peloponnesus. The number Of these epic poems is
stated by Welcker to be sixteen, commencing with
the NiU,omdchia, and ending with the Ielegonia.
Of these popular and continuous ballads, the lliad
and the Odyssey are the two that attained among
the Greeks the greatest celebrity, from their supe-
rior excellence and national interest Pisstratus,
that most elegant of despots, is said to have been
the first that reduced them to the order which they
have since preserved, and fixed the standard text
for his countrymen, in which he was aided by four
of the mos, eminent critics of his day. The re-
puted author Of both these poems was named Ho-
mer, respecting whose birthplace, age, and profess
sion there are almost endless coniecures still ex-
tant in the writings of the ancient grammarians.
That such man once lived, and sang the " tale Of
Troy divine," was never doubted by Greek critics
or Alexandrian schoiasts but it has been reserved
for modern scholars to take appeal from the uni
versal decision of antiquity and to subject the pre-
tensions of the blind old poet to the rigid scruti
ny and skeptical spirit of modern criticism The
FIRST who gave shape and consistence to the vague
and conjectural surmises respecting the genuine.
ness Of the authorship assigned to the Homeric
poems, is believed to be the Italian Vco, in his
treatise del Zero Onero, contained in his Scienz;
Nuova."
Homericcriticism, however, had previously under
gone an intermediate phase, which was impressed b,
that system of allegorical exposition which becam
prevalent among certain religious mystics, about thu
time of the revival Of letters in Italy and through
out modern Europe. Starting from the admitted
fact that heather mythology evinces numerous anc
unmis.akeable vesiiges Of that revealed religion
which prevailed in the Patriarchal Church and
Jewish ,heocracy, these mystical religionists pro
fessed to discover in the Hellenic mysteries and in
the exploits and adventures that compose the lilac
and Odyssey, analogies the most evident to certain
leading doctrines, and types the most distinct 0
certain prominent personages of the Old and New
Testaments. Gerard Croesius, Hollander, hal
been styled the Aristarchus of this cabastic anC
esoterc school of criticism, and has expounded BIZ
principles in rare book entitled Homerua He
braus. He proves to his entire satisfaction, if o
nobody else, that Troy represents Jericho; Aga
memnon is the Grecan Joshua Helen the harlo
Rahab; Nestor the ancient is type Of patriarcha
Abraham; and Alcinous in his gardens is the repre-
sentative of Adam in the bowers of Eden. Joshu
Barnes, critic of the English school, and who's
authority is still quoted arrived at the concusio
that Homer is identical with Solomon for, by reat
ing the Gresian Omeros backwards, after the mar
ner of the Hebrews, we have S0remo, or, by mets
lepsis, Solemo-solomo. We know of nothing bette
than this, unless it is 10 be found in the " Dive
sions' Of Dean Swift, in which he contends tn;
certain worthless of Greek and Roman fame wer
veritable Brtons; that Alexander the Great for II
stance, was nothing more than truant schoolboy
much addicted to the robbing of birds nests, whic
he secreted in the fireplace, and who, to prever
their discovery, was accustomed to warn his CON
rades Of the tutors approach by the wa.chwor
Of .Al-eggs-under-,he CRATE whence, of cours'
his dtular epithet!
was in the spirit Of this allegorcal school III;
Pelagius, a Roman nobleman of the fifth century,
said to have compiled his Cenfones Homerici, b,
ing life Of Christ composed of verses extracte
from The Had and Odyssey, and dovetailed togethe
Leaving, however, the allegorical dsquisilions
men fond Of dotng about questions more FOOLS
than any that are satirized by Erasmus in hi
Praise oil Folly" we approach the considerable
Of the more serious and substantial vaqaries ift
as such we regard theml Of scholars like w olr He