The Mosaic books, and the other historical books of the Old Testament, are not intended to present, and do not present, a picture of human society, or of our nature drawn at large. Their aim is to exhibit it in one master-relation, and to do this with effect, they do it, to a great extent, exclusively. The Homeric materials for exhibiting that relation are different in kind as well as in degree: but as they paint, and paint to the very life, the whole range of our nature, and the entire circle of human action and experience, at an epoch much more nearly analogous to the patriarchal time than to any later age, the poems of Homer may be viewed, in the philosophy of human nature, as the complement of the earliest portion of the Sacred Records.
Although the close and systematic study of the Homeric text has begun at a date comparatively recent, yet the marked development of riches from within which it has produced, has already been a real, permanent, and vast addition to the mental wealth of mankind. We can now better understand than formerly much that relates to the fame and authority of this great poet in early times, and that we may formerly have contemplated as fanciful, exaggerated, or unreal. It was, we can now see, with no idle wonder that, while Greek philosophers took texts from him so largely in their schools, the Greek public listened to his strains in places of thronged resort, and in their solemn assemblages, and Greek warriors and statesmen kept him in their cabinets and under their pillows; and, for the first and last time in the history of the world, made the preservation of a poet’s compositions an object of permanent public policy.
Sect. 2.—The Place of Homer in Classical Education.
Now, from these considerations may arise the important question, Does Homer hold in our English education the place which is his due, and which it would be for our advantage to give him? An immense price is paid by the youth of this country for classical acquirement. It is the main effort of the first spring-tide of their intellectual life. It is to be hoped that this price will continue to be paid by all those, who are qualified to profit by the acquisition; and that though of other knowledge much more will hereafter be gained than heretofore, yet of this there shall on no account be less. Still, viewing the greatness of the cost, which consists in the chief energies of so many precious years, it highly concerns us to see that what we get in return is good both in measure and in quality. What, then, are the facts with respect to the study of Homer in England at the present day?
I must here begin with the apology due from one who feels himself to be far from perfectly informed on the case of which it is necessary to give an outline. But even if I understate both the amount of Homeric study, and its efficiency, there will, I am confident, remain, after every due allowance shall have been made for error, ample room for the application of the general propositions that I seek to enforce. They are these: that the study of Homer in our Universities is as yet below the point to which it is desirable that it should be carried, and that the same study, carried on at our public Schools, neither is, nor can be made, a fitting substitute for what is thus wanting at the Universities.
In my own day, at Oxford, now a full quarter of a century ago, the poems of Homer were read chiefly by way of exception, and in obedience to the impulse of individual tastes. They entered rather materially into those examinations by which scholarship was principally to be tested, but they scarcely formed a substantive or recognised part of the main studies of the place, which were directed to the final examination in the Schools for the Bachelor’s degree. I do not recollect to have ever heard at that time of their being used as the subject matter of the ordinary tutorial lectures; and if they were so, the case was certainly a rare one. Although the late Dr. Gaisford, in the estimation of many the first scholar of his age, during his long tenure of the Deanery of Christ Church, gave the whole weight of his authority to the recommendation of Homeric study, it did not avail to bring about any material change. The basis of the Greek classical instruction lay chiefly in the philosophers, historians, and later poets; and when Homer was, in the academical phrase, ‘taken up,’ he was employed ornamentally, and therefore superficially, and was subjected to no such searching and laborious methods of study as, to the great honour and advantage of Oxford, were certainly applied to the authors who held the first rank in her practical system. I am led to believe that the case at Cambridge was not essentially different, although, from the greater relative space occupied there by examinations in pure scholarship, it is probable that Homer may, under that aspect at least, have attracted a greater share of attention.
When, however, the University of Oxford brought to maturity, in the year 1850, a new Statute of examinations, efforts were made to promote an extended study of Homer. Those efforts, it happily appears, have produced a considerable effect. Provision was made by that statute for dividing the study of the poets from the philosophical and historical studies, and for including the former in the intermediate, or, as it is termed, ‘first public’ examination, while both the latter were reserved for the final trial, with which the period of undergraduateship is usually wound up. All candidates for honours in this intermediate examination are now required to present not less than twelve Books of Homer on the list of works in which they are to be examined. And I understand that he has also taken his place among the regular subjects of the tutorial lectures. This is a great sign of progress; and it may confidently be hoped that, under these circumstances, Homer will henceforward hold a much more forward position in the studies of Oxford. There remains something to desire, and that something, I should hope, any further development of the Examination Statute of the University will supply.
It is clear, that the study of this great master should not be confined to preparation for examinations which deal principally with language, or which cannot enter upon either primitive history, or philosophy, or policy, or religion, except by way of secondary illustration. Better far that he should be studied simply among the poets, than that he should not be studied at all. But as long as he is read only among the poets, he cannot, I believe, be read effectively for the higher and more varied purposes of which Homeric study is so largely susceptible.
The grammar, metre, and diction, the tastes, the whole poetic handling and qualities of Homer, do, indeed, offer an assemblage of objects for our consideration at once and alike singular, attractive, extended, and profitable. The extraneous controversies with which his name has so long been associated as to his personality and date, and as to the unity and transmission of his works, although they are for us, I trust, in substance nearly decided, yet are not likely to lose their literary interest, were it only on account of the peculiarly convenient and seductive manner in which they open up many questions of primitive research; presenting these questions to us, as they do, not in the dull garb pieced out of antiquarian scraps, but alive, and in the full movement of vigorous debate. All this is fit for delightful exercise; but much more lies behind.