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"PRESERVATION OF THE NATIONAL CHARACTER.81Those who were not Greeks, were described even by Homer,1as "men of other tongues;" and yet Homer had no generalname for the nation. But though the bond of a commonlanguage may be a natural and an indissoluble one, someto make it serve as the bond ofthing more is requirednational union. The language must be not merely the instrument of communicating thoughts ;for it is that to everysavage ; something must exist in it, which may be regardedas the common property of the nation, because it is preciousand dear to them the works of poets, and next to them, ofprose writers, which are admired, listened to, and read byall. It is such productions which make a language peculiarly valuable to a nation. The national spiritand mannerof thinking and feeling, are expressed in them ;the nationbeholds in them its own portrait jand sees the continuanceof its spirit among future generations secured. They formnot onlyits common property,in which, according to thefullest meaning of the phrase, each tribe has its undisputedshare ; they form its most sublime, its noblest,perishable property. 2its leastIn what a light, therefore, do Homerand those who trod in his footsteps appear,when they areconsidered from this pointof view. Their poems, listened toand admired by all who used the Greek language, remindedthe inhabitants of Hellas, of Ionia 5and of Sicily, in thewere brothers. When we conliveliest manner, that theysider the long series of ages, during which the poems ofHomer and the Homeridse were the only common possessionof the Hellenes,itmay even be made a question, whetherwithout them they would have remained a nation. 3Nationalpoetry was therefore the bond, which held them together;but this bond was strengthened by another, by that ofreligion.Unlike the religionsof the East, the religionof theHellenes was supported by no sacred books, was connectedwith no peculiar doctrines; it could not therefore serve, likethe former, to unite a nation bymeans of a common religious creed ;but it was fitted for gaining that end,in so1II. ii.Bap/3apo0wi/oi. 86?.2 See Heeren's Essay on the means of preserving the nationality of a conquered people. Historische "Werke, B. ii. 1. 1, etc.8And how would the Greeks constitute a nation but for their poetry andliterature ?o