disappeared under the Dorian Heraclids, it is a singular record of a backward step in a nation's history; and the Homeric poems become especially valuable as preserving the memorials of a state of society which would otherwise have passed altogether into oblivion. There is less difficulty in believing the possible existence of an ante-historical civilisation which afterwards became extinct, if we remember the splendours of Solomon's court, as to which the widespread traditions of the East only corroborate the records of Scripture, and all which passed away almost entirely with its founder. It is remarkable that in the ancient Welsh poem, 'Y Gododin,' by Aneurin Owen, of which the supposed date is A.D. 570, there are very similar properties and scenery: knights in "armour of gold" and "purple plumes," mounted on "thick-maned chargers," with "golden spurs," who must—if ever they rode the Cambrian mountains—have been a very different race from the wild Welsh who held Edward Longshanks at bay. Are we to look upon this as merely the common language of all poets? and, if so, how comes it to be common to all? Were the Welsh who fought in the half-mythical battle of Cattraeth as far superior, in the scale of civilisation, to their successors who fell at Conway, as the Spartans under Menelaus (if Homer's picture of them is to be trusted) were to the Spartans under Leonidas? or was there some remote original, Oriental or other, whence this ornate military imagery passed into the poetry of such very different nations?
So, too, when Helen—now restored to her place in Menelaus's household—comes forth to greet the
