X.

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE.

1.-A Popular History of the United States. Vols. I. and II. By WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT and SIDNEY HOWARD GAY. York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1876–78.

New

THESE are very handsome volumes. In typography, paper, binding, and especially in pictorial illustration, they are all that the public can desire.

The style in which the work is got up, together with the title, "A Popular History," would lead one to suppose at first that it is no more than a compilation similar to many compends, of which the matter is borrowed from existing histories; for example, that pictorial history of the United States which came about twentyfive years ago from the pen of the late Mr. S. G. Goodrich, who had gained respect and popularity under the nom de plume of Peter Parley. It would be a great mistake, however, to rank the present history with such popular publications. Mr. Bryant, in his preface to the first volume, informs us that "it is not the authors' design to treat their subject as is done in these compends. Unlike these, their work is not a compilation from histories already written, but in its narrative of events, and its representation of the state of the country at different epochs, it has derived its materials, through independent research, from original sources." And Mr. Gay, in his preface to the second volume, which has appeared two years after the first, repeats the assurance that "it was not meant, by the use of the term popular, to imply, as is so often the case, that this was to be a merely superficial work-a compilation of other general histories. Its purpose is to commend it, by its method, its treatment, the historical aspects to be presented, to the popular reader-that large class in this country who seek repose and recreation in general literary culture, but with whom literature is not the business of life. But by no means is it intended to sacrifice to that purpose either accuracy or comprehensiveness; nor to

disregard the approbation of the few, who are learned in history, and whose judgment upon a work of this sort is the test of real value, in the attempt to write an entertaining narrative." most willingly acknowledge that these promises have been fairly fulfilled. The narrative is entertaining and the style attractive. What share Mr. Bryant had in the writing of the history, we can only infer from the work and its prefaces. It would appear that he revised the proof-sheets, which, considering his long experience in such work, was no small advantage; but there is no evidence that he actually wrote more than the preface to the whole historyan instructive essay on the abolition of slavery. This, however, with his general superintendence of the work, may justify the appearance of his very attractive name on the title-pages and the backs of the volumes. Perhaps Mr. Bryant's collaborator depended a little too much on his trained critical eye, for, along with general excellence, the books present instances of carelessness which ought to be amended in a second edition. Mr. Gay will forgive us, even if he is not thankful to us, for noting a few errors in statement, mistakes in grammar, and obscurities in expression, which will show him the necessity of greater care in the production of the first reprint. The work is too valuable to remain dormant. Many a reissue will undoubtedly be demanded.

At page 33, vol. i., line nine, it is said that, "early in 1623, Gorges for the first time got a special grant for himself from the company, of which he was so indefatigable a member." The date of Gorges's patent was August 10, 1622 (see Bancroft, vol. i., page 328). At page 336, vol. i., line ten, we find, "In 1631, when the settlements in Laconia on the Piscataqua were eight years old, Mason and Gorges divided their grant," etc. This partition was made in 1629 (see Hildreth, vol. i., page 200). At page 490, vol. i., line two, it is said that the whole number of assembled emigrants, including servants and laborers, was nearly or not quite three hundred. The number should be two hundred (see Bancroft, vol. i., page 245). So much for examples of error in statement; are they the result of independent investigation? For instances of mistakes in grammar the following will suffice. Vol. i., page 502, line four: "The chief of the surviving Virginians seem to have been held by the Maryland officers for trial; the captured boat [seem] to have been carried to St. Mary's." Vol. i., page 431, line three: "No man or woman, son or daughter, man-servant or maid-servant, could leave a patroon's service during

the time they had agreed to remain; " reminding us of such speeches as this: "Every passenger must show their tickets as they go ashore!" Obscurity or inelegance of expression occurs on page 458, vol. i., at the top: "Even at the outposts of Fort Amsterdam men were wounded by the shots of the lurking savages, who might, had they known their own power, have exterminated the whites, who, in the universal terror, were almost incapable of resistance." On page 7 of Mr. Gay's preface, at the top: "We have received still further and constant aid from the latter gentleman, in help in the selection and arrangement of illustrations," etc.; on page 2, vol. ii., line twenty-five: "The problem was simplified, for a time at least, to how these heathen could be most easily and most effectually killed;" on page 10, vol. ii., second line from bottom: "Some of the Puritans held that, as certainly as they were the special care of Heaven, so, as unquestionably, the Indians were the children of the devil;" and on page 575, vol. ii., line three: "On this plate he inscribed, he asserted the right of Queen Elizabeth and her successors to that kingdom," etc. But these cases of carelessness are enough for illustration. We have marked many more. Our allotted space, however, is exhausted, and we must conclude with the hope that, when the future volumes of this handsome work shall appear, no such strictures as we have now ventured on will be necessary. Let us add in a word the question, "Have the authors in the first volume, at pages 273, 275, 279, and 287, done justice to Captain John Smith ?

2.-The Problem of the Homeric Poems. By WILLIAM D. Geddes, LL. D., Professor of Greek in the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. London: Macmillan & Co. 1878.-Greek Literature. By R. C. JEBB, M. A., Professor of Greek in the University of Glasgow, Scotland. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1878. -Homer. By the Right Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE, Honorary Student of Christ Church, Oxford. D. Appleton & Co. 1878. It is not more than fifty years since the state of Greek literature in Scotland was such as to reflect no credit on the nation. Latin had always been the favorite study from the days of George Buchanan, who was tutor to King James VI., whose effigy adorns the title-page of Blackwood's Magazine, whose "History of Scotland" rivals the Latinity of Livy, and whose poems, written in Latin, rank him as the first British poet of his age. The parochial schoolmasters were always respectable Latin scholars, and sent up

to the four national universities students as well prepared in that language, with the exception of verse-making, as any that entered the two richer and more famous universities of England. The biographies of our Revolutionary sires show us that many or most of them studied Latin under Scotchmen, and for many generations Ruddiman's Latin rules for genders and flexions, and not those of the Eton grammar, were the vade-mecum of American schoolboys. But in Greek the case was widely different. Dalziel, and his successor, Dunbar, in the University of Edinburgh, prepared with notes some volumes of extracts from the Greek classics, called "Collectanea," which were long used in the United States, where the Scottish influence still predominated; and those collections were the not very high standard of Greek scholarship in North Britain as late as 1825. Nearly one-half of the students of Scotland went to college without knowing the Greek letters; and the Greek professors, such as they were, found themselves condemned to the drudgery of drilling these in the lowest rudiments of the language. Such a state of things was disgraceful. Oxonians and Cantabs twitted the Scotch with knowing no Greek and little Latin; and unless when some celebrated lecturer like Dugald Stewart at Edinburgh, Thomas Reid at Glasgow, and Thomas Chalmers at St. Andrews, attracted students from afar, few Englishmen ever crossed the northern border to be educated. The University of Glasgow was the first to feel the inferiority so far as to attempt a remedy. Sir Daniel Sandford led the way. Under him studied Tait, the present Archbishop of Canterbury, and Halley, who "beat Tait." Sandford was followed by Lushington, and Lushington by Jebb, the present professor. At Edinburgh the Greek chair is now occupied by the renowned scholar and poet, John Stuart Blackie. At St. Andrews the chair of Greek is filled by Lewis Campbell, LL. D., the accomplished editor of "Sophocles ;" and at Aberdeen by Dr. Geddes, whose elaborate treatise on the Homeric question is now under our review, and proves that Aberdeen, in the far northeast, is in Greek not a whit behind the more southern universities of Scotland, and fully up to the mark of any university in Europe.

This retrospect of classical study in Scotland has been suggested by the fact that two of the books whose titles stand rubric to this notice are by Scotch professors, while the third is the work of a Scotchman's son. All three are very able productions. In such brief and elementary treatises as the "Literature Primers," edited by Mr. John Richard Green, M. A., of which series are the little

volumes by Prof. Jebb and Mr. Gladstone, we cannot expect much more than the results of study. Yet these are evidently the results of extensive and profound scholarship; and in many cases the methods of investigation are so clearly indicated as to afford the means of testing their accuracy. Especially on the Homeric problem are detailed the authorities and arguments on which the decision of the question depends.

The Greeks themselves, and indeed all civilized men up to the close of the eighteenth century, were nearly unanimous in believing the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" to be the work of one man, called Homer. Toward the close of the reign of Pisistratus, at Athens (B. c. 537-527), he appointed a commission of learned men, presided over by the poet Onomacritus, to collect the poems of Homer. It is generally supposed that an "Iliad" and an "Odyssey" existed in writing as early as that epoch, but that the text had become deranged, and was mixed up with other poems then popularly ascribed to Homer. The task of the commissioners was to collect and collate all these verses. From this collection our present Greek epics were formed; and not until about 170 B. c. did any doubt arise as to their authenticity and genuineness. At that time a grammarian of Alexandria, called Hellanicus, and one Xenon, asserted that Homer was the author of the "Iliad" only, and not of the "Odyssey." These men and their followers were called Chorizontés— separators—because they separated the two poems in their origin. The adherents of the separators were few; and Aristarchus, an Homeric student, also of Alexandria, wrote against what he called the paradox of Xenon, B. c. 156.

Nearly in this condition the Homeric problem remained till the year 1795 of the Christian era. At that time a German professor, F. A. Wolf, of Halle and Berlin, published his "Prolegomena," or introduction to his edition of Homer. He there maintained that neither the "Iliad" nor the "Odyssey" was originally indited as one poem. Each, he says, was put together from many small unwritten poems that had no common plan. "The Iliad' and the 'Odyssey' were first formed from these, and first written down by the commission of Pisistratus." Mr. Gladstone holds that the poems in all probability had been committed to writing before the time of Pisistratus, and that the commissioners handled them in this shape. He also believes that one and the same poet, called Homer, was the author of them both. The proofs by which he sustains his belief are exceedingly ingenious, and indeed so un