[6] Granville Penn, On the primary Arrangement of the Iliad; and Appendix B to Mure, vol. i.
Cicero (de Oratore, III. 34.) says:
"Who is traditionally reported to have had more learning at that time, or whose eloquence received greater ornaments from polite literature than that of Peisistratos? who is said to have been the first that arranged the books of Homer, from their confused state, into that order in which we at present enjoy them."
This also is produced as a proof by Wolf, though, for the same reason, it is doubtful. But see Wolf's principal inaccuracies ably enumerated and exposed by Clinton (F.H., i. p. 370.).
Such is the far-famed theory of Wolf, which, as most modern scholars agree, is only calculated "to conduct us to most preposterous conclusions."[7] And this last dictum of Othello's, Mr. Editor, reminds me, that here it would not be preposterous to come to a conclusion for the present, and to close my observations in another paper, where I shall a theory "unfold," which, after the most patient consideration and reconsideration, I am inclined to think the most approximative to the truth.
[7] Othello, Act I. Sc. 3.
KENNETH R. H. MACKENZIE.
Feb. 16. 1852.