The Odyssey, which describes the travels and sufferings of an individual, has, of course, more numerous sketches of private life than the Iliad, the actors in which seem, as it were, to be upon a public stage, and to stalk in the tragic buskin from one end of the poem to the other. But we cannot help wondering at the manner in which the poet has so frequently interwoven in his most gorgeous descriptions some allusion to the commerce or the arts of his countrymen; his similes, in particular, are perpetually borrowed from the works of the farmer or the mechanic. Some have found fault with Homer upon this head, arguing that the images which he introduces are, in some instances, too mean for the dignity of the epic style. He has been defended from the charge by abler pens than ours; and therefore we shall only observe, at present, that, allowing these passages to be blemishes, they are blemishes more valuable to us than the greatest beauties could have been if his descriptions of rustic manners are faults, Homer, like his own Achilles, would be less interesting were he less faulty.

The first observation which occurs to us (for we intend to write, like sentimental ladies, quite at random,) is, that the besiegers of Ilium were ignorant of one of the fiercest pests of modern times, coined money.

Ἐνθεν αρ' οἰνιζοντο καρηκομόωντες Αχαιοι,

'Αλλοι μεν χαλκῳ, άλλοι δ' αίθωνι σιδηρῳ,
Αλλοι δε οίνοις, άλλοι δ' 'αυτοισι βοεσσιν,
Αλλοι δ' ανδραποδεσσι·

"Each, in exchange, proportioned treasures gave;
Some brass, or iron; some an ox, or slave.

"

Not a word in the bargain of pounds, shillings, and pence! If these noxious ideas had then existed, we should have had the sellers of the wine exclaiming, in the style of one of our old ballad writers,

And we should have had the buyers replying, in all the lengthy insolence of Homeric compounds,

"I have gold to discharge all that I call;
If it be forty pence, I will pay all."

Again, when Agamemnon endeavours to appease the anger of Achilles by the offer of sumptuous presents, he presents him with

a magnificent list of the cities in his gift; and, in order to describe the value of them, is obliged to have recourse to the vague epithets of “ ἐν ναιομενα — ποιήεσσαν

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βαθυλειμον σε αμπελοεσσαν. Now, if Homer's heroes had understood any thing of coinage, the Poet would have avoided all this circumlocution, and presented us at once with a clear statement of the yearly revenues, in the style of the above-quoted songster :— "For Plumpton Park I will give thee, With tenements fair beside;

'Tis worth three hundred markes by the yeare,
To maintain thy good cow-hide."

This, however, is mere jesting. The next consideration we shall offer will be a more serious one. How happy were the men of that age! They had no such crime as forgery; no discussions about stocks; no apprehensions of a paper currency. There was no liability to imposition; no necessity for pamphlets. At the present crisis, when the increase of forgery, and the dread of national bankruptcy, occupy so large a portion of public attention, we, in common with other more practised quacks, come humbly forward with our nostrum. Is it not a consummation devoutly to be wished," that Britain would consent to forego the use of these horrible mischief-workers, these bits of silver, or of silver paper, and return contentedly to the original method of traffic, making her payments in oxen or in sheep? The veriest bungler may forge a shilling, but the veriest adept would find it plaguy difficult to forge an ox.

If it be true that the ancient Greeks were thus ignorant of stamped money (for we are only repeating what has been observed upon the subject before us) it cannot but surprise us that they had made so great a proficiency in other arts, without the use of what appears in modern times absolutely indispensible to social intercourse. From the descriptions of Homer, they should seem to have been, in a great measure, in possession of our arts, our ideas of policy, our customs, our superstitions. Although living at so remote a period, they enjoyed many of our luxuries; although corrupted and debased by the grossest of religious codes, they entertained many of our notions of morality: the most skilful artisan, and the most enlightened sage, may, even in our days, find in the Poems of Homer always an incitement to curiosity, and frequently a source of instruction.

Many a lady of ton (if ladies of ton were in the habit of studying Homer) would be astonished at learning that her last new lustres would sink into insignificance by the side of the candelabras of Alcinous.

Χρυσειοι δ' ἄρα κεροι ἐΰδμητων ἐπι βωμων,
Εςασαν, αίθομενας δαίδας μετα χερσιν έχοντες,
Φαίνοντες νυκτας κατα δώματα δαιτυμόνεσσιν.

"Refulgent pedestals the walls surround,

Which boys of gold with flaming torches crown'd;
The polished ore, reflecting every ray,

Blaz'd on the banquets with a double day."

Nor would she be less amazed, upon turning from these inanimate attendants, and learning the number and duties of the housemaids.

Πεντηκοντα δε οἱ δμωαι κατα δωμα γυναίκες, κ.τ.λ.

"Full fifty handmaids form the household train ;
Some turn the mill, or sift the golden grain;
Some ply the loom; their busy fingers move,
Like poplar trees when Zephyr fans the grove."

Indeed, throughout his whole description of the palace and gardens of Alcinous, the Poet seems to have expended all his ideas of luxury and magnificence. The colouring of the picture must of course be supposed to be much heightened by the graces of fiction and ornament; but nevertheless the objects of it must certainly have been sketched from the manners and usages which were before the eyes of the designer. Upon the first of these passages it is to be observed, that the Greeks of those days were ignorant of any contrivance in the way of lamps; they banquetted or deliberated by the light of fires, or the blaze of torches ;—rude even in their refinements, and barbarous in their most surpassing splendor. As to the fifty housemaids, we must recollect that it was necessary to retain a great number of female attendants, where the women had the charge of almost every menial employment, and the males seemed to live for little else but pleasure and war.

One example we may derive from the rude manners of that age, which it would be well if the more polished society of this would remember, and imitate; we allude to the constant reliance which was placed upon religion in affairs of every kind. No voyage was commenced-no war undertaken-no treaty concluded —without a recurrence of sacrifice and ceremony. Hence the extraordinary sanctity which was always attached to the persons of their priests; hence also the veneration which was paid to their poets; for as the themes of their earliest songs were generally the praise or the actions of some member of their multifarious mythology, the celebrators partook of the honours which were paid to those whom they celebrated; and the verse, which flowed in the name of any of their divinities, was supposed to

proceed from their immediate inspiration. Princes therefore generally retained in their household a Bard, or Sage (for the terms were nearly synonymous), though we are not so wicked as to suppose that the office of Fool, among the ancient Saxons, bore any analogy to that of Bard, among the ancient Greeks. There is an example of this custom in the opening of the Odyssey, which has always pleased us very much. The Poet has been describing the debauchery and insolence of the suitors of Penelope,

"A brutal crowd,

With insolence, and wine, elate and loud."

And when his readers are disgusted by the extravagance and luxury which revels in the property of another, he introduces, by way of relief to the glaring colouring of the rest of the picture, the person of an old man, who still retains the post which he had held under Ulysses, and is compelled reluctantly to sweep the strings of his lyre by the mandate of the dissolute usurpers.

Κηρυξ δ ̓ ἐν χερσιν κιθαριν περικαλλεα θηκε
Φημιῳ, ὃς δ ̓ ἤειδε παρα μνηςήρσιν αναγκ
Ήτοι ὁ Φορμίζων ανεβαλλετο καλον αείδειν
"To Phemius was consigned the chorded lyre,
Whose hand reluctant touched the warbling wire;
Phemius, whose voice divine could sweetest sing
High strains, responsive to the vocal string."

This, however, is a custom by no means peculiar to the Greeks. We know that each of the Highland Clans retained a Bard, expressly for the purpose of celebrating the Clan and its Chief. We imagine we have seen something of the same kind mentioned relative to the American and Indian Tribes.

The subject of the Iliad of course calls forth long and spirited descriptions of the mode of warfare in use among the ancient Greeks. This appears to us to exhibit plainer marks of barbarism than any other part of their character. They had all the untutored ferocity, the dependence on personal strength or courage, which is characteristic of the earliest ages; without the studied manœuvres and the laboured machines which malicious Invention afterwards introduced. The greatest quality inherent in a commander was not skill of head, but strength of limb; few seemed to lay claim to any nobler distinctions than those which were to be found in the space between their shoulders. We know not whether the rude struggling of these uncultivated warriors is not a more interesting spectacle than the cold-blooded massacres of modern days. In the hand-to-hand conflict of two princes there

is passion, and fury, and enthusiasm, for which we look in vain to the cold and calculating tactics of l'art militaire.

The war, indeed, of those times was naturally deficient in every thing technical or scientific. It abounded in instances of individual devotion and of desperate enterprise, but had no means of supplying by art the defect of numbers, or of overcoming an obstinate enemy by a regular siege. It rather resembled the foray of a few pillaging tribes, than the contest between two powerful nations.

We shall see nothing to wonder at in this their undisciplined warfare, when we remember that piracy, which it so nearly resembled, was a mode of life to which they were greatly addicted. They saw in it nothing dishonourable; but on the contrary esteemed it a brave and worthy employment: their greatest heroes exercised it without the smallest scruple. They rather gloried in their robberies; and recounted with a feeling of pride their achievements and their plunder. Here again there is a manifest similarity between their ideas and those of the Highland Clans. We do not know indeed if a very close parallel might not be drawn between the greaved Greek and the plaided Mountaineer. We shall throw out a hint or two upon the subject, and recommend the plan to Mr. Golightly, if he wishes to be witty in No. X.

In the first place, the love of rapine which we have just mentioned is inherent in both the towns which fall beneath the ravages of the Greek are probably little superior in importance to the villages which excite the cupidity of the Scot. Both nations possess the same romantic notions of individual bravery; both value their booty rather from its being the prize of battle, than from the weight of the gold, or the number of the cattle, of which it consists. And to say the truth, when we behold on the one side Achilles retiring from his conquests, with his captives, and his treasures, and his beeves; and when we see on the other the Chieftain of some kilted Clan, returning to his native fastnesses, and driving the fat of the land before him, we hardly know which of the two cuts the more respectable figure. Why do we attach such splendid ideas to the terror of Troy? His rival is a more picturesque object for the design of the painter; he is as muscular a model for the chisel of the sculptor; but the piracies of the Mountaineer will never be celebrated like the piracies of the Myrmidon; for, alas!-Gaelic will never sound so classical as Greek!

Many of the superstitions of the one nation bear a striking resemblance to those of the other. Both of them believe that their Sages have the faculty of foreseeing and predicting future events;