grown up round the Oracle at Delphi. In them, and in the Oracle under
their management, the poet shows no interest (Mr. Verrall thinks), none
in the many mystic peculiarities of the shrine. It is quite in
contradiction with Delphian tradition to represent, as the Hymn does,
Trophonius and Agamedes as the _original_ builders.

Many other points are noted--such as the derivation of "Pytho" from a
word meaning _rot_,--to show that the hymnist was rather disparaging than
celebrating the Delphian sanctuary. Taking the Hymn as a whole, more is
done for Delos in three lines, says Mr. Verrall, than for Pytho or Delphi
in three hundred. As a whole, the spirit of the piece is much more
Delian (Ionian) than Delphic. So Mr. Verrall regards the _Cento_ as "a
religious pasquinade against the sanctuary on Parnassus," a pasquinade
emanating from Athens, under the Pisistratidae, who, being Ionian
leaders, had a grudge against "the Dorian Delphi," "a comparatively
modern, unlucky, and from the first unsatisfactory" institution.
Athenians are interested in the "far-seen" altar of the seaman's Dolphin
God on the shore, rather than in his inland Pythian habitation.

All this, with much more, is decidedly ingenious. If accepted it might
lead the way to a general attack on the epics, as _tendenz_ pieces, works
with a political purpose, or doctored for a political purpose. But how
are we to understand the uses of the pasquinade Hymn? Was it published,
so to speak, to amuse and aid the Pisistratidae? Does such remote
antiquity show us any examples of such handling of sacred things in
poetry? Might we not argue that Apollo's threat to the Crisaeans was
meant by the poet as a friendly warning, and is prior to the fall of
Crisa? One is reminded of the futile ingenuity with which German
critics, following their favourite method, have analysed the fatal Casket
Letters of Mary Stuart into letters to her husband, Darnley; or to