etymological, as is Hesiod. Like Hesiod (and Mr. Max Muller), _origines
rerum ex nominibus explicat_. Finally, the second poet (and here every
one must agree) is a much worse poet than the first. As for the
prophetic word of warning to the Crisaeans and its fulfilment, Baumeister
urges that the people of Cirrha, the seaport, not of Crisa, were
punished, in Olympiad 47 (Grote, ii. 374).

Turning to Gemoll, we find him maintaining that the two parts were in
ancient times regarded as one hymn in the age of Aristophanes. {18} If
so, we can only reply, if we agree with Baumeister, that in the age of
Aristophanes, or earlier, there was a plentiful lack of critical
discrimination. As to Baumeister's theory that the second part is
Hesiodic, Gemoll finds a Hesiodic reminiscence in the first part (line
121), while there are Homeric reminiscences in the second part.

Thus do the learned differ among themselves, and an ordinary reader feels
tempted to rely on his own literary taste.

According to that criterion, I think we probably have in the Hymn the
work of a good poet, in the early part; and in the latter part, or second
Hymn, the work of a bad poet, selecting unmanageable passages of myth,
and handling them pedantically and ill. At all events we have here work
visibly third rate, which cannot be said, in my poor opinion, about the
immense mass of the Iliad and Odyssey. The great Alexandrian critics did
not use the Hymns as illustrative material in their discussion of Homer.
Their instinct was correct, and we must not start the consideration of
the Homeric question from these much neglected pieces. We must not study
_obscurum per obscurius_. The genius of the Epic soars high above such
myths as those about Pytho, Typhaon, and the Apollo who is alternately a
dolphin and a meteor: soars high above pedantry and bad etymology. In