The Iliad of Homer - Get a Free Blog

nobling impulses of the soul; and to forget
the ocean in the contemplation of a
polypus. There is a catholicity, so to
speak, in the very name of Homer. Our
faith in the author of the Iliad may be
a mistaken one, but as yet nobody has
taught us a better.
While, however, I look upon the belief
in Homer as one that has nature herself
for its mainspring; while I can join with
old Ennius in believing in Homer as the
ghost, who, like some patron saint, hovers
round the bed of the poet, and even
bestows rare gifts from that wealth of
imagination which a host of imitators
could not exhaust,—still I am far from
wishing to deny that the author of these
great poems found a rich fund of tradition,
a well-stocked mythical storehouse
[pg from whence he might derive both sub-
xxvii]
ject and embellishment. But it is one
thing to use existing romances in the em-