does Homer liken her? To a lion wounded by the hunters? No. But he likens her thoughts to the thoughts of a lion wounded by the hunters; and no other man that ever lived would have done so, excepting Shakespeare.

"Numerous as are the lion's thoughts who sees,

Not without fear, a multitude of toils
Encircling him around."

People always sleep sound for some hours the night before they are hanged-dreaming either not at all, or of a reprieve, or of themselves on the scaffold asking for water. Penelope was doomed to die-of grief for Telemachus. The sorrow of twenty years may be a profound, but it is a still sorrow. One's life may not unpainfully float down it as on a gloomy but not roaring river-and there are gleams of beauty on its banks. So felt Penelope, sorrowing for Ulysses. But all at once she missed "my son-my son." She then knew what is anguish; yet, her body, her senses-not her spirit, not herself slept. Minerva saw her, the childless widow-for so Penelope was in her mind, soul, heart—and sent a comforter.

"There then did the blue-eyed Minerva devise another plan : She form'd a representation, (which) in person resembled the lady

Iphthime-daughter of the great-hearted Icarius:

Her Eumelus, dwelling in a house in Pheræ, had married.
Her did (Minerva) send to the house of the godlike Ulysses,

If by any means Penelope, wailing and lamenting,

She might restrain from weeping, and tearful mourning.
And she enter'd her chamber by the bolt of the lock,

And stood over her head, and address'd her in these words;
'Sleepest thou, Penelope, vex'd in thy heart?

The gods who live in ease permit thee not

To weep, nor to be sorrowful,-since about to return is
Your son for to the gods he is sinless.'

Her then answer'd the discreet Penelope,

Most sweetly slumbering in the gates of dreams!

'Why, sister, comest thou hither? by no means formerly indeed Wert-thou-wont-to-come, since thou dwellest in a house very

remote:

And thou orderest me to stop from sorrowing and lamentations Numerous, which provoke me throughout my mind and my heart: (Me) who first lost my brave, lion-hearted husband,

Adorned with every kind of virtue among the Greeks,

(My) brave (lord) whose glory was wide throughout Hellas, and the midst of Argos.

And now again hath my beloved son gone in a hollow ship,

A child, neither acquainted with labours, nor commerce.

On his account I the more lament, than on his (the father's):

For him I tremble and fear, lest anything suffer

Should he among the people among whom he hath gone, or on the

sea:

For many enraged foes plot against him,

Longing to slay him, before he come to his fatherland.'

Her the pale shade answering address'd :

'Be-of-good-cheer, and not at all fear too much in thy mind : For such an attendant goes along with (him), as other

Men would choose to go alone with (them)—for powerful (is she) (Namely) Pallas Minerva: thee she pities in thy lamentations : And me hath she sent forward to tell thee so.'

Her address'd the discreet Penelope :

'If thou art indeed a goddess, and hast heard the voice of a goddess,

If so, come, tell to me with respect to that hapless one,

If anywhere he live, and look on the light of the sun,
Or if he be dead, and in the dwellings of Ades.'

Her the pale shade answering address'd :

'With respect to him I will not answer thee directly

Whether he be alive, or dead: for it is a bad thing to answer the things that may-be-borne-away-by-the-wind.'

(The shade), thus having spoken through the lock of the door, withdrew

Into a breath of wind: but from sleep roused-herself-up

The daughter of Icarius, and her heart was delighted

That a manifest dream had come upon her in the hours of midnight."

Is this an IDEA of the First Four Books of the Odyssey? And would you wish them all away? If you would, then it would surely be by gently disengaging them from the Twenty, and giving them an asylum in some secret and sacred cell in your heart. But what to you would be the Twenty, were these four buried in dust! They would be much; for a deep human interest overflows one and all, among the wonderful and wild that seem to belong but to imagination's sphere. You would sympathise with Ulysses longing for rugged Ithaca even in Ogygia's enchanted isle; for home-sickness is the

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malady of a noble heart, and conjugal affection its most endearing virtue. But on the first sight you now have of Ulysses weeping to the waves, you know, better far than he does, a thousand reasons in nature for his tears. The Muse has told you far more than Minerva told him-and all your love and admiration of his Penelope and his Telemachus, insensibly changed into a profound pity, are poured on the majestic mourner's head. Your heart burns within you to think that he will return to that home, to redress, to vindicate, to avenge, and to enjoy. Here is "the sea-mark of his utmost sail." Happiness enough here-by his presence made to emerge from misery-to compensate all the woes of the much-enduring man, and leave him deep in debt to Heaven.

And do you grudge Telemachus his visit to Nestor and to Menelaus,

"In life's morning march, when his spirit is young"? Joy tempers his grief, till it smiles-as sunshine will seek out and not suffer a flower to be sad in mists and storms. And how pure those courts of kings! The manners there how virtuous in their simplicity-the morning air how bright-and the evening air how still, in religious service duly done to the Gods! The whole life we see-the whole life of which we hear-heroic; and Poetry shedding over it, generally, a gentle lustre-sometimes, as in the narration of the adventures of Menelaus by himself, a gloomy light that seems strangely to darken and illumine a hardly human world.

You have been made to feel that Penelope is worthy of the love of Ulysses-and you long for the REALISATION OF HER DREAM.

HOMER AND HIS TRANSLATORS.

CRITIQUE VII. THE ODYSSEY.

[FEBRUARY 1834.]

WERE not the first Four Books of the Odyssey felt to be in themselves a Poem? Perhaps you might liken them to the porch of a palace. We would rather liken them to the arms of a tree. Part only of the green umbrage is visible, but sufficient to show that it belongs to a noble bole; and ere long we shall behold the whole Wonder, proportioned in the perfect symmetry of nature, with broad crown familiar with storms, yet a pavilion for the sunshine, and in its magnificence rooted among rocks.

A tender and profound interest has been breathed into our hearts in all that concerns Ithaca; it is invested with the hallowed charm of Home; we love the rocky yet not unfruitful isle as if it were our own birthplace, and the smoke seems to ascend from our own hearth. In the midst of all that trouble, we are conscious of a coming calm. 'Tis a stormy day, but not a cloud, we are assured, will disturb the serenity of sunset. We believe the Seer and the Eagles. Penelope is no object of pity now-not even when seen sitting on the stairs, stupified into stone by the voice telling her that her Telemachus has left her alone in her widowhood among all those lawless men. For that doleful and delusive trance is succeeded by a delightful and faithful Dream; her Ulysses is not dead-her Ulysses will return; and what matters transient misery to any mortal, when it purchases steadfast bliss ?

Homer is fond of Dreams. And not one of them all is more apparently heart-born than the Dream that appears to Penelope in the shape of her sister. Iphthime tells her that the Gods will restore her son. "But what canst thou tell me of Ulysses?" Of his fate the phantom will make no revelation.

Eustathius says that if she had, the poem would have been at an end. But that was not the reason of her silence. Iphthime was Penelope. Telemachus had left her, and her soul was troubled; but she had seen the young hero in his pride, unappalled by the Suitors, and knew that he had gone on a holy quest to Pylos and Lacedemon-to Nestor and Menelaus. Her heart, cheered by the thought in sleep, felt her brave boy would escape the ambush. But Ulysses! he had been away from her for twenty years. Hope was almost dead in her waking-as now in her sleeping dreams. Her heart asked her heart, "Oh! tell me of my lord?" But in her despair there was no response-and she awoke. But she awoke to joy, and in that joy no doubt the wife was comforted as well as the mother; nor could she believe, as she did, in the return of her son, without some hope stealing with the morning light of the return of her husband! The Philosophy of Dreams in Homer's poetry is the Religion of Nature.

That Dream made the widow's heart sing aloud for joy. There is light in her eyes, though still broken and dashed with tears. Her son's heroic piety comforts her-the seer's prophecy comforts her-and comforts her beyond all else her own faithful heart. Yet how blind, though visited by glimpses, are the eyes of sorrow! How idle often all our holiest tears! What if Penelope could see Ulysses sitting on an enchanted shore, and, forgetful of heavenly charms, weeping for her sake! For her sake struggling with the tempest that drives him-homewards! Swimming towards an unknown shore-day and night-all for her sake-and saved from sinking by a talisman given him by a compassionate Spirit of the Sea! What if she could see the Falcon of Alcinous wafting to her embrace her lord the King? But love knows noteither in its joy or its grief-what a day may bring forth; and beautiful is the poetry that sings of the uncertainties of human life heaving like the world of waves-all settling down into peace at last—a gracious lull descending from Heaven at the command of Providence.

There is much to mourn over in the Greek Mythology; but now we see but Love and Mercy; and the Deities assembled on Olympus are like