Though O. Müller has glanced at the distinction between the two parts of the poem (an original part, having chief reference to _Achilles and the Greeks_; and a superinduced part, having reference to _the entire war_), he has not conceived it clearly, nor carried it out consistently. If we are to distinguish these two points of view at all, we ought to draw the lines at the end of the first book and at the beginning of the eighth, thus regarding the intermediate six books as belonging to the picture of _the entire war_ (or the Iliad as distinguished from the Achillêis): the point of view of the Achillêis, dropped at the end of the first book, is resumed at the beginning of the eighth. The natural fitting together of these two parts is noticed in the comment of Heyne, ad viii. 1: “Cæterum _nunc_ Jupiter aperte solvit Thetidi promissa, dum reddit causam Trojanorum bello superiorem, ut Achillis desiderium Achivos, et pœnitentia injuriæ ei illatæ Agamemnonem incessat (cf. i. 5). Nam quæ _adhuc_ narrata sunt, partim continebantur in fortunâ belli utrinque tentatâ ... partim valebant ad narrationem variandam,” etc. The first and the eighth books belong to one and the same point of view, while _all_ the intermediate books belong to the other. But O. Müller seeks to prove that a portion of these intermediate books belongs to one common point of view with the first and eighth, though he admits that they have been enlarged by insertions. Here I think he is mistaken. Strike out anything which can be reasonably allowed for enlargement in the books between the first and eighth, and the same difficulty will still remain in respect to the remainder; for _all_ the incidents between those two points are brought out in a spirit altogether indifferent to Achilles or his anger. The Zeus of the fourth book, as contrasted with Zeus in the first or eighth, marks the difference; and this description of Zeus is absolutely indispensable as the connecting link between book iii. on the one side and books iv. and v. on the other. Moreover, the attempt of O. Müller, to force upon the larger portion of what is between the first and eighth books the point of view of the Achillêis, is never successful: the poet does not exhibit in those books “insufficient efforts of other heroes to compensate for the absence of Achilles,” but a general and highly interesting picture of the Trojan war, with prominent reference to the original ground of quarrel. In this picture, the duel between Paris and Menelaus forms naturally the foremost item,—but how far-fetched is the reasoning whereby O. Müller brings that striking recital within the scheme of the Achillêis! “The Greeks and Trojans are for the first time struck by an idea, which might have occurred in the previous nine years, if the Greeks, _when assisted by Achilles_, had not, from _confidence in their