that poem into a number of separate and originally independent ballads. And with regard to the Iliad, though the plan of this poem admits of the practice of critical exsection to a large extent, without essential damage to the main action, yet, on the whole, it must be admitted that the proofs of its organic unity and coherence are far more striking than any occasional indications of a heterogeneous origin. In fact the believer in a personal Homer, and in a great positive product of his genius, may at once admit to the fullest extent the previous existence of a great amount of floating ballad poetry among the early Greeks, which it was reserved for Homer to work up into a grand epic completeness, just as Shakspeare used freely the materials of Roman and British history, and Walter Scott the rich ballad inheritance of the Scottish border. Homer, therefore, was a real man—a wonderful human minstrel in the youthful days of the wonderful Hellenic people, for whose amusement and instruction he organized into musical harmony that body of rich historical and mythological traditions which was their peculiar boast. The period of his appearance is placed by Herodotus four hundred years before his own time, that is, about eight hundred and fifty years before Christ; but other authors of weight place the age of the minstrel a century or more further back, so that the date of the father of history can be accepted only as the nearest limit of a probable chronology of an epoch to which no exact arithmetic can be applied. The exact place of his birth is equally enveloped in obscurity; but there is the strongest evidence, both internal and external, to prove that he was a native of the west coast of Asia Minor; and among other Lydian cities that contended for the honour of his birth, Smyrna is by general consent allowed to have the strongest claim. This is merely a part of a great general fact, that the early culture of Greece came, as might have been expected, from the East; for, with the single exception of Hesiod and his Bœotian school, all the notable poets that preceded the strictly Athenian age of Greek culture, belonged to the coast of Asia Minor, or the adjacent isles of the Ægean. Born in this sunny region, the cheerful muse of Homer, at a period long before books and literary culture were known, elevated the historical ballads of the district where he lived into the dignity of the organic epos; and his great merit consists not so much in the originality of his materials, as in the high tone with which he inspires, and the admirable tact with which he handles them It is the singular excellence of his poetry to combine the spirit of the popular ballad with the artistic form of the accomplished epos, in a way and to a degree of which literary history presents no similar example. In tone and style Homer is essentially an ἀοιδὸς, or minstrel, who sang to be heard, not a ποιητὴς, like Milton or Tennyson, who wrote to be read. This generic character is broadly indicated by the extreme simplicity of his style—by the fluent breadth of his narrative—by his careful avoidance of all subtlety, whether in thought or expression—by the fresh and vivid objectiveness of his pictures—and by the presence everywhere of popular sentiment and feeling, instead of personal thought and individual genius. The author of the Iliad and Odyssey does not appear in his works as Dante, Tasso, and Milton do in theirs: he is only the potentiated expression of Greece and the Greeks. No wonder, therefore, that he has from the earliest times been looked upon by the whole Greek race as their great national spokesman and prophet: he was indeed not only their great popular minstrel, but, along with Hesiod, their doctor of theology and their master of all sorts of knowledge. Hence the zeal with which he was attacked by Plato, who excluded him from his Republic, not because he was a bad poet, but because he was a very equivocal theologian; not because he did not sing a grand song, but because his admiring countrymen insisted on using that song as a decalogue and a bible. In modern times Homer has fully maintained the character, as the prince of epic poets, which he so easily asserted in his native country. After the Bible, no work has been so universally read as Homer's Iliad. The works of Homer indeed are, next to the books of Moses, the earliest written records of human thought and feeling and action extant. Only the oldest Vedas are supposed to have possessed an equal antiquity. It is unfortunate, however, that with so many claims to the attention of the philosophic thinker, they have so seldom been presented to the modern reader in the characteristic and attractive garb of the original. The Germans indeed, happy in the use of the classical hexameter, and a finely vocal language rich in compound words, possess almost a facsimile of the Greek in the German translation of Voss; but in English, Chapman, Pope, Cowper, and others, have successively failed in producing a translation faithful both in spirit and style to the great original. Of these three great English translators Pope gives the fine rhythmical fullness, Cowper the simplicity, and Chapman the vigour of the Greek; but they have all marred their work by peculiarities either of the individual translator, or of the age to which he belonged; and none of them exhibits that wonderful combination of simplicity, grandeur, luxuriance, and rapidity, which marks the original. The best editions of the original are by Clarke, Heyne, Wolf, Bekker, Spitzner, and Baümlein.—J. S. B.
HOMER, Henry, was the son of the rector of Birdinbury in Warwickshire, where he was born in 1752. He was sent to Rugby, and subsequently to a school at Birmingham, and on the completion of the elementary branches of his education he proceeded to Emanuel college, Cambridge, where he pursued his studies under Dr. Richard Farmer, of Shakspearian celebrity, and Dr. Samuel Parr; and graduated in due course B.D. He obtained his fellowship in 1778, but lost it ten years later by his refusal to take orders; and he then applied himself to the prosecution of philosophical inquiries. In the year before his deprivation he assisted Dr. Parr in producing an edition of Bellenden De Statu, &c., 1787, of which the Præfatio again appeared separately in 1788. Mr. Homer died in 1791, leaving incomplete his share in a Variorum Horace, in which he had been engaged as a co-editor. He also left unfinished editions of Livy and Quintilian. Of the former, the 1st, 25th, and 31st books had been published with dissertations some time before. The classics, however—Cæsar, Ovid, Persius, Pliny, and Tacitus—with which his name is connected, and which he enriched with learned annotations, suffice to establish his reputation as an elegant scholar and accomplished Latinist.—W. C H.
HONDEKOETER, Melchior de, a celebrated Dutch bird and animal painter, was born at Utrecht in 1636, and having acquired the first instructions in his art from his father, became the pupil of his uncle, J. B. Weeninx, in whose manner he painted. Hondekoeter was equally skilful in painting the living and the dead. He painted peacocks, pheasants, &c., with remarkable skill; there is a noble specimen of his genius in the National gallery, London. He died at his native place on April the 3rd, 1695.—(Houbraken.)—R. N. W.
HONDIUS, Heinrich: there are two engravers of this name, both skilful artists, who flourished at the same time, and whom, especially as both practised for a while in London, care must be taken not to confound.—Heinrich Hondius, known as the Elder, was born at Duffell in Brabant in 1573, and was a pupil of Johann Wierix. He visited and worked in both Paris and London, but settled at the Hague, where he engraved a great many portraits, including the leading reformers from Wycliffe to Calvin; a series of eminent painters; some religious pieces, landscapes, &c. He was a very good engraver, and the founder of a school which numbered some distinguished names. He was also a proficient in the art of perspective, which he learnt from De Vries, and on which he wrote a work "Institutio Artis Perspectivæ," published after his death, Haag., 1622; Amsterdam, 1697. He died in 1610.—Heinrich Hondius, the Younger, was born about 1588 in London, where his father, Jost Hondius—born in 1563; died in 1611—was settled as an engraver and a maker of mathematical instruments: Speed's maps and several of those of Mercator, as well as many portraits, were engraved by him. The younger Hondius, besides finishing various plates begun by his father, engraved portraits of Elizabeth, James I., Charles I., Archbishop Cranmer, Sir Ralph Winwood, and other eminent Englishmen; some scripture subjects from Dutch and Flemish painters; and a few landscapes. He died about 1648.—J. T—e.
HONE, Nathaniel, born at Dublin in 1730, was a portrait and miniature painter of some ability, and also drew in crayons and executed several works in enamel, and two or three mezzotints; but he acquired more notoriety by his quarrels and caricatures than fame by his pictures. He was one of the original members of the Royal Academy, but soon got involved in disputes with his colleagues. Envying the success of Reynolds he, in 1755, sent a large picture to the academy for exhibition, which he called "The Conjurer," and in which a magician was seen pointing with his wand to various engravings from the old masters, under which were sketches of pictures by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the composition or positions of which, it was suggested, were
