DISSERTATION VI.

THE UNITY OF THE ILIAD--THE WOLFIAN THEORY.

" 1

66

THE great literary question which falls to be discussed in the present chapter has been declared by Mr. Gladstone to have been 'bolted to the bran." For us, at least," he goes on to say, "the controversies that rose out of the Wolfian theory are all but dead, and to me it seems little better than lost time to revive them,' I should be most happy, if it were in my power to agree with this dictum of so able and eloquent a writer, with whose general foundation of Homeric studies, as set forth in his introductory chapter, the previous discussions will have shown that I in the main agree. The scholar who can content himself with this dictum will save himself from the task of sweating severely through many quarries of harsh erudition, and keep the wings of his intellect unentangled by many subtle tissues of ingenious but unsubstantial criticism; but he will not have done his duty thoroughly either to the venerable Hellenic records which he desires to appreciate, or to the spirit of the age in which he lives. The name of Wolf in connexion with Greek literature, and of Niebuhr in reference to Roman history, wear a significance that extends far beyond the particular spheres where their gigantic critical excavations were con

1 Vol. i. p. 4.

ducted. If the Wolfian theory with regard to the origin and composition of the Homeric poems be looked at beyond the surface, it will be found to underlie a great number of the most important literary, historical, and theological questions that stir the mind of England at the present hour. Like a great earthquake, the idea started in those masterly Prolegomena' is working potently even now in many far distant places, where no fair cities, and no old crazy dwellings have fallen to attest its force. So far, therefore, from considering the discussion of the Wolfian theory at the present day as little better than lost time, I should say rather that whoever has not gone over with some serious care the great critical campaigns of Niebuhr and Wolf, does not know properly in what position the grand army of European scholars now stands, nor has he any means of estimating by what strategical move the next effective blow shall be delivered. I myself,

The following extract from the Prolegomena, p. 156, will show how clearly Wolf foresaw the wide application to which his theory was destined; and those who are most intimately acquainted with the literary activity of the present day in the most cultivated countries of Europe, will be best able to testify how far the spirit of the Wolfian theory can be truly said to be dead for us now, or for any thinking man" Hæc quum ita sint, sub imperio Pisistratidarum Græcia primum vetera Carmina vatum mansuris monumentis consignari vidit. Talemque ætatem sub incunabula litterarum et majoris cultus civilis apud se viderunt plures nationes, quarum comparatio accurate instituta iis, quæ hic disputamus, multum lucis afferre possit. Nam, ut duas obiter tangam, et inter se et Græcis omni parte dissimillimas,

constat inter doctos, in Germania nostra, quæ domestica bella et principum ducumque suorum gesta jam ante Tacitum Carminibus celebraverat, has primitias rudis ingenii a Carolo M. tandem collectas esse et libris mandatas; itemque Arabes non ante vii. sæc. inconditam poësin priorum ætatum memoria propagatam collectionibus (Divanis) comprehendere cœpisse, ipsumque Coranum diversitate primorum textuum similem Homero fortunam fateri. Præter hos et alios populos comparandi erunt Hebræi, apud quos litterarum et scribendorum librorum usus mihi quidem haud paullo recentior videtur, quam vulgo putatur, et minus adeo genuinum corpus scriptorum, præsertim antiquiorum. Se de his et Arabicis illis collectionibus viderint homines eruditi litteris Orientis."

THE WOLFIAN THEORY.

185

after having conscientiously turned over this subject in my mind for more than twenty years, and read all that I could lay my hands on, remain firmly convinced that whatever defects are to be found in the works of Mure and Gladstone, as the most notable representatives of British opinion on Homeric matters, may be attributed to their ignoring, or not sufficiently appreciating, the truth that lies at the bottom of the Wolfian theory. For in all questions of this kind we must carefully distinguish between the root out of which an opinion grows, and the ramifications into which it spreads. A principle may be perfectly true, while its growth runs wild in unpruned license and tyrannous excess. And with

regard to all ideas that have exercised a wide sovereignty for a season over thinking men, this will generally be found to be the case. It is not in the power of mere nonsense, however brilliant, to influence the world seriously even for a day. Where any extreme and paradoxical opinion-and all extreme opinions are paradoxes when strongly stated--has triumphed for a considerable period over well-educated intellects, the error lies not in the child whose beauty has been admired, but in the idol-worship which has been paid to it, and in the fond training by which it has been spoiled. I direct attention, therefore, specially to this famous doctrine, partly because the history of the rise and growth of every great intellectual agitation is interesting and instructive; partly because I consider that Wolf, in his 'Prolegomena,' ushered into the world, with the full authority of a master, some true ideas, without which the poetry of Homer can never be properly appreciated; and partly because I consider that those speculations can never be treated lightly by an English scholar, which at the present moment are exercising a strong influence on the intellect of Europe, both generally,

and specially with regard to the important question of literary history out of which they arose. A German scholar of mark and eminence, belonging to the present generation, has declared that the Wolfian theory is the very citadel and stronghold of all Homeric studies; and he himself is so strongly convinced of the truth of Wolf's views, that he publicly declares the belief in the unity of the Iliad, generally held by English scholars, to be a superstition, from the influence of which the European mind has happily now recovered,1 And not only so, but even in sober judicious England, where it is sometimes sufficient to throw discredit on any opinion to say that it is of German origin, we find that one of the most influential historians of ancient Greece has, in his great work, given extensive currency to a theory with regard to the composition of the Iliad, which, however original it may have been in his mind, and however distinctly it may contrast with the extreme ballad treatment of Lachmann, Köchly, and other Germans, is nevertheless only a particular form of the Wolfian theory, probably that very form which Wolf himself would have sketched out as the most legitimate application of his principles. Besides, they who treat this affair as

glish scholar in the North British Review, June 1865, p. 277. "Wolf's views have been continually gaining ground, and as Nitzsch himself before his death became a convert (?), we may safely say that no scholar will again find himself able to embrace the unitarian hypothesis."

2 The following passage, p. 118 of the Prolegomena, distinctly states the principle of Mr. Grote's division of Homer's poems into an Achilleid and an Iliad properly so called: "In Iliade nondum deposita sunt certamina virorum doctorum de rerum capite et argu

ORIGIN OF WOLFIANISM.

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a mere passing outbreak of German extravagance, forget that as neology in religious thinking was originally imported into Germany from the great English freethinkers, so the literary scepticism with regard to Homer, forged into a thunderbolt by Wolf, was first flung out here as a random missile by a man who knew how to put more weight into a pin than other men could into a nail. I mean the great Cambridge critic, Richard Bentley, whom the Germans justly reverence as one of the first and greatest masters of that learned art of estimating ancient records, in which they are now such proficients.1 Nor England only, but Italy also and France, have had their share in the origination of these notions, which evidently must have had their rise in some widely-spread European tendency of thought, and are by no means to be regarded in the light of a purely German crotchet, such as every Leipzig Fair brings forth by the score, for the ephemeral admiration of scholars without sense, and thinkers without substance."

mento primario. De quo utcunque existimabitur, et ut sensus pоekéσews longissime pateat (quippe suffecissent illi aliquot proeliorum absente Achille factorum descriptiones): nunquam tamen certis argumentis docebitur, septem illos versus quidquam ultra promittere quam XVIII. rhapsodias. Reliquæ non iram Achillis in Agamemnonem et Græcos continent, sed novam, a priore longe diversam minimeque illis gravem, id est ejus iræ, quam solam isti versus designant appendicem. Quodsi omnia Græcorum ad Trojam gesta omnesque rhapsodias uni proposito subjicias, ad gloriam quidem Achillis magis quam alius cujusquam Græci aut Trojani herois tota Ilias, ad memorem iram ejus major tantum pars spectat; ut admodum mireris, quod in nullo

1

codice adhuc pro isto exordio hoc vel aliud melius inventum sit :

ΚΥΔΟΣ ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω ̓Αχιλήος, ὅςθ ̓ εἴως βασιλῆϊ κοτεσσάμενος ἐνὶ νηυσὶ κεῖτο, ̓Αχαιοῖσιν τε καὶ αὐτῷ ἄλγε' έδωκεν, αὐτὰρ ἀνιστάμενος Τρωσὶν καὶ Εκτορι δίῳ. Subabsurdum foret, talem diligentiam subtiliorem esse dicere quam pro Homerico sæculo: nec id dicere ausint ii, quibus Tроéкbeσis Odysseæ ab ipso Homero præposita videatur facerent enim illum adeo infantem, ut quam artem primus ingeniosissime quæsivisset, vel prudens certe ex natura et ordine fabulæ cepisset, eam ne agnoscere quidem et verbis exprimere potuerit."

1 Lachmann considered Bentley "the greatest critic of modern times."Herz, Life of Lachmann, p. 190.

2 The curious enunciations of Wol