I will only farther remark with respect to the ninth book, that the speech of Agamemnôn (17-28), the theme for the rebuke of Diomêdês and the obscure commonplace of Nestor, is taken verbatim from his speech in the second book, in which place the proposition, of leaving the place and flying, is made, not seriously, but as a stratagem (ii. 110, 118, 140). The length of this note can only be excused by its direct bearing upon the structure of the Iliad. To show that the books from the eleventh downwards are composed by a poet who has no knowledge of the ninth book, is, in my judgment, a very important point of evidence in aiding us to understand what the original Achillêis was. The books from the second to the seventh inclusive are insertions into the Achillêis, and lie apart from its plot, but do not violently contradict it, except in regard to the agora of the gods at the beginning of the fourth book, and the almost mortal wound of Sarpêdon in his battle with Tlepolemus. But the ninth book overthrows the fundamental scheme of the poem. [290] Helbig (Sittl. Zustände des Heldenalters, p. 30) says, “The consciousness in the bosom of Agamemnôn that he has offered atonement to Achilles strengthens his confidence and valor,” &c. This is the idea of the critic, not of the poet. It does not occur in the Iliad, though the critic not unnaturally imagines that it _must_ occur. Agamemnôn never says, “I was wrong in provoking Achilles, but you see I have done everything which man could do to beg his pardon.” Assuming the ninth book to be a part of the original conception, this feeling is so natural, that we could hardly fail to find it, at the beginning of the eleventh book, numbered among the motives of Agamemnôn. [291] Iliad, xi. 659; xiv. 128; xvi. 25. It is with the Grecian agora, in the beginning of the second book, that the Iliad (as distinguished from the Achillêis) commences,—continued through the Catalogue, the muster of the two armies, the single combat between Menelaus and Paris, the renewed promiscuous battle caused by the arrow of Pandarus, the (Epipôlêsis, or) personal circuit of Agamemnôn round the army, the Aristeia, or brilliant exploits of Diomêdês, the visit of Hector to Troy for the purposes of sacrifice, his interview with Andromachê, and his combat with Ajax,—down to the seventh book. All these are beautiful poetry, presenting to us the general Trojan war, and its conspicuous individuals under different points of view, but leaving no room in the reader’s mind for the thought of Achilles. Now, the difficulty for an enlarging poet, was, to pass from the Achillêis in the first book, to the Iliad in the second, and it will accordingly be found that here is an awkwardness in the structure of the poem, which counsel on the poet’s behalf (ancient or modern) do not satisfactorily explain.