while Grote, Professor Geddes, Professor Mahaffy and others of
note adopt it, so far at least as to believe that Homer was not
the sole author of the poems.] We cannot here enter into the
details of the controversy to which this theory has given rise,
nor can we undertake to say on which side the weight of authority
is to be found. The following extracts well express the views
of those who adhere to the common theory on the subject. PROFESSOR
FELTON thus remarks, in the preface to his edition of the Iliad:
"For my own part I prefer to consider it, as we have received it
from ancient editors, as one poem--the work of one author, and
that author Homer, the first and greatest of minstrels. As I
understand the Iliad, there is a unity of plan, a harmony of
parts, a consistency among the different situations of the same
character, which mark it as the production of one mind; but of
a mind as versatile as the forms of nature, the aspects of life,
and the combinations of powers, propensities, and passions in
man are various."

On the same subject, the English author and critic, THOMAS NOON
TALFOURD, makes these interesting observations: "The hypothesis
to which the antagonists of Homer's personality must resort,
implies something far more wonderful than the theory which they
impugn. They profess to cherish the deepest veneration for the
genius displayed in the poems. They agree, also, in the antiquity
usually assigned to them, and they make this genius and this
antiquity the arguments to prove that one man could not have
composed them. They suppose, then, that in a barbarous age,
instead of one being marvelously gifted, there were many: a
mighty race of bards, such as the world has never since seen--a
number of miracles instead of one. All experience is against this