gean Sea, not on the Hellefpont, but the great Phrygia in the centre of Afia Minor, and furrounded on all fides by the maritime provinces. Peffinus, from whence the Mater Berecynthia was brought to Rome, is not fo little as 400 miles from Troy; and the city Cybele, fuppofed to be the fame as Celænæ, is in its neighbourhood. If the provinces on the coaft worshipped this deity, it was not a native, but imported fuperftition; and that, long after the age of Homer, when the olians and Ionians had admitted many of the Afiatic ceremonics into their worship. The Diana of Ephefus was not the Greek Diana, but the Dea Multimamma, originally from Egypt. It was our intention to clofe what we had to fay at prefent with this particular; but as our enquiry in the following number will be wholly confined to the geographical part of the controverfy, we fhall here fubjoin a few remarks on the country of Homer. Mr. B. is decidedly of opinion, that Homer was of an Egyptian family; or, at leaft, of an Ionian or Milefian family fettled in Egypt; and that he was born in Ithaca, but travelled himself alfo in Egypt, and there collected the Hiftory of his Iliad, from the Egyptian Troy (Differt. p. 144); and first, he was of an Egyptian family, because he was defcended from Melanopus of Cyme (Herod. vit. Hom. in initio.) and Melanopus fignifies a black or fwarthy countenance. Afking pardon for the levity of the remark, this is not a better proof, than if we were to apply it in a parallel manner, to prove that Edward the Black Prince was an Ethiopian; and little more do we think of Mr. B.'s Ægyptius Heros from the Odyfley, as a proof that there were Egyptians in Ithaca, than if it were said that all the family of the Frenches in England, are Frenchmen, or all the l'Anglois in France, Englishmen. After all that Mr. B. has faid himself, and all that he has caught from others, it will not be poffible to fhow from Homer himself, that he had any connection with Egypt, or that he ever was in the country. Reafons for an opinion directly the reverfe, are numerous; for Homer himself proves his ignorance of Egypt, when he tells us, that a bird could not fly in a whole yeart to the extent of Menelaus's wanderings in that country; an hyperbole doubtlefs, but ftill an hyperbole that befpeaks more ignorance than amplification. The Egyptian Thebes was doublefs known to Homer by report; but he has carried Menelaus thither, without giving his courfe, in the fame manner as he conveys Ulyf See Strabo, cited by Mr. P. p. 2. + Od. г. 322. fes fes from the Æolian Islands to Ithaca and back again, without noticing the track that he purfued*. It is a trite obfervation, that Homer was ignorant of the name of the river; and that he calls the Nile, Ægyptus. But even in this there is fomething extraordinary; for whether the name be derived from the Hebrew, Neel, a river, or from the Ethiopic, Nil, blue, it is probably coeval with the inhabitants of the country. If Homer evér vifited Thebes, he must have paffed by the Pyramids, and if the Egyptian Troy had been the real fcene of his action, fuppofing it to be Babylon, or any place in the neighbourhood of Babylon, that city ftood on the fame rock where Cairo is now built; and the whole war must have paffed in fight of the Pyramids. Is this poffible, without any allufion to thefe maffes? Or will it be argued, on the contrary, that Homer is prior to the Pyramids. The difficulties into which Mr. B. voluntarily plunges, in this part of his argument, are inexplicable; and if, as he fays, there was no Troy in Afia, but Ilium only, does it not follow, that he muft annihilate Simois, Scamander, Tenedos, Samos Lefbos, and all the places in the vicinity, as well as Troy itself? But Homer, if not an Egyptian, was of an Egyptian family, and a native of Ithaca. Surely not. If Ithaca fpoke the language of the continent to which it was attached, the language of Epirus was Doric; the Graii from whom the Latins received their language and the name of it, with the name of the people, were inhabitants of Epirus; and the Latin language ftill preferves the Doric forms of inflexion without knowing any thing of the Ionic. But if Ithaca ufed the dialect of Epirus, that must be Doric alfo; and the dialect of Homer is as diftinct from the Doric, as the Patois of Navarre is from the French of Paris. If then Homer is neither an Egyptian nor a native of Ithaca, let us revert to Afia Minor, where the general stream of tradition fixes his birth, and let us examine the circumflances that tend to confirm this opinion. Smyrna, Chios, and Colophon all put in their claim; and Mr. Wood has, with great acutenefs, obferved, that the winds noticed by Homer and their effects, all confpire to prove that he defcribes what he faw; and that the characters of these winds all belong to the coaft of Afia, and to no other. Ως δ' ἄνεμοι δύο πόντον ὀρίνετον ἰχθυόεντα A. 126. A. 365. 1. 5. It is the north-weft wind from Thrace that raises the ftorm on the coast of Afia; and it is the weft, however it appears to be a rainy wind, in general, even in Homer, that is his freezing wind, and the Eaft wind that thaws. See Od. T. 205. And the effect of this wind on the coast of Afia is ftill the fame, according to the evidence of Mr. Wood and other travellers who have obferved it on the spot. If then this be the country of Homer, let us next enquire for his city. The life of the poet, attributed to Herodotus, mentions Cyme as the place where his family lived, Smyrna as the place of his birth, and Chios of his refidence; all thefe circumftances are agreeable to the internal evidence of his works, and we are therefore rather difpofed to establish than to controvert them. It is from the fame authority also we learn that he was an Æolian. The grand internal evidence to confirm this, is the dialect of the poems; now almost univer- ́ fally acknowledged to be a mixture of the Eolic and Ionic, and fuch a mixture as the intercourse of the tribes in their emigration might naturally produce. The Eolian colony began to move about 60 years after the fall of Troy; Penthilus the fon of Oreftes conducted it to Thrace; his fon Archelaus carried it over the Hellefpont to Cyzicum and Dafcyleon. Graus *, fon of Archelaus, advanced to the Granicus and Lefbos, while Clenast and Malaus, at the head of another party, built Cyme on the continent, between Lefbos and the gulf of Smyrna. Smyrna itself also was built by the Eolians 18 years after Cyme; and, as Cyme was the capital of Eolia, Smyrna was its boundary on the fouth. But it is very remarkable that Smyrna was within the Iolian limit, lying fouth of the Hermus; and what is still more remarkable, the Ionians from Colophon and Ephefus took Smyrna from the Eolians, and admitted it into the rights of their own league, and the Panionian affembly. This is a fact above all others which should induce us to allow the pretenfions of Smyrna as the place which gave birth to Homer; the dialect of that city, more than any other which can be named, must be a mixture of the Eolic with the Ionic, * Graus, fon of Echelates, grandfon of Penthilus. Paufan. 82. + See Strabo, xiii. in initio. Paufanias, 210. There was a change in the fite of Smyrna, noticed by the ancients, and marked by Pocock, vol. ii. book ji. p. 34. The new Smyrna was placed by Alexander, (Paufan. 210) and for the honour of his fagacity, it is almost the only harbour on the coaft which is not choked. and and the Ionic as belonging to the prevailing power ought to be the prevailing idiom. This is the actual dialect of Homer, and this is what all the circumftances connected imperiously require. But when we mention the Ionic dialect, it is not that of Herodotus, who wrote after the refolution of the vowels had taken place, by which it is peculiarly diftinguished from the later Attic; but that ancient Ionic, which was the fame as the Attic, and which was the prevailing language of the Greeks, foftened, perhaps, originally from the Doric, and ftill preferving fome of its peculiar forms. Next to the dialect of Homer, we may notice those expreffions, which the author of his life fays are Æolic. The To, he informs us, are peculiar to the Eolians; the omiffion of mentioning the 'Oagus in the facrifice is agreeable alfo to their manners; and the term 'Aσns, the title of the chief magiftrate in that country, is peculiar to Homer, or thofe who have taken it from him. Thefe fingularities, accompanied with the affertion, that the lians poffeffed the whole province of Troast, will, perhaps, raife our conjecture to a certainty, when we fay that Homer was a native of Smyrna, and that the fubject of his poem was naturally fuggefted by the fire of Troy forming part of the poffeffions of his countrymen. It does not from hence follow, that we affert the life of Homer to be genuine, or that it is the work of Herodotus; but we believe it to beve y an ient, and to contain the current traditions concerning the poet. We can likewife fay, that there is no anachron Im in it, when it places his age 622 years previous to the expedition of Xerxes, as the Eolian emigration is ftill prior to hat date. The marbles indeed fix the age of Homer 195 ars later; and the fyftem we have adopted would make it pofterior to the Ionian colony; but in all that has been faid on this point, we have not the prefumption to talk of proofs. We with only to reconcile difficulties, and compare the internal evidence with the traditions: in the performance of this tafk, we truft that we have been employed in the caufe of literature, and given teftimony of our veneration of the poet. Τὰ Ομήρε γὰρ ὠφέλιμα ἐγένετο ἐς ἅπαντα ἀνθρώποις. Paul. Mel. 139. and we will now for the prefent conclude with a fentiment, to which we hope Mr. Bryant himself will fubfcribe. * τὴν μὲν Ιαδα τῇ παλαιᾷ Ατθίδι τὴν αὐτὴν φαμὲν. Strabo. viii. 333. + See Apollonius in voce. Etym. Mag. Bentley Hom, from ArifPauf. totle. † Αιολέων δι Ιλιον ἐφ' ἡμῶν ἔχονίες. In an age when it is the fashion to destroy every thing and build nothing, if half the talents and erudition which are applied to fupport the dreams of fcepticifm, were employed in confirming the received opinions of mankind, the fcience of criticism, as well as politics, would be benefitted by the exchange. (To be concluded in our next.) ART. XIV. Narrative of the Sufferings and Escape of Charles Jackfon, late Refident at Wexford in Ireland; including an Account, by way of Journal, of feveral barbarous Atrocities committed in June, 198, by the Irish Rebels in that Twn. while it was in their Poffeffion. To the greater Part of which he was an Eye-Witness. 12mo. 82 pp. 25. Wright, Rivingtons, &c. as our feelings must be on reading this plain unPAINFUL varnished tale, there is perhaps no fpecies of publication more ufeful at the prefent crifis. We have already feen the confequences produced by revolutions, on the French system, It remained to view the in different parts of the continent. effects of fimilar measures in a part of the British dominions, and to judge from thence what extenfive defolation and mifery have been prevented by the vigorous exertions of government. The writer of this narrative, an induftrious Englith mechanic, had fettled at Wexford carly in the year 1797, and, having remained there till June, 1798, was a witnefs to all the horrors which took place while that town was in the poffeffion of the Irish rebels. Being a loyal fubject, and a Proteftant, he was feized by the rebellious crew, and continued for three weeks in their power, in a conftant fla e of fuffering, and in hourly dread of tortures and death. On one occafion he was compelled, on pain of inftant death, to be the executioner of one of their victims. Twice he was led out to execution, and escaped by the moft providential occurrences. His account of the last of thefe tragedies we will extract, as a good fpecimen of the work, and as an awful warning to all who may still favour the principles by which this rebellion was produced. "On Wednesday, June 20, about eight o'clock in the morning, we heard the drums beat to arms and the town-bell ring, which was a fure fign to us of our friends being near; but, at the fame time, we ex pected |