The question respecting unity of authorship is different, and more difficult to determine, than that respecting consistency of parts, and sequence in the narrative. A poem conceived on a comparatively narrow scale may be enlarged afterwards by its original author, with greater or less coherence and success: the Faust of Goethe affords an example even in our own generation. On the other hand, a systematic poem may well have been conceived and executed by prearranged concert between several poets; among whom probably one will be the governing mind, though the rest may be effective, and perhaps equally effective, in respect to execution of the parts. And the age of the early Grecian epic was favorable to such fraternization of poets, of which the Gens called Homerids probably exhibited many specimens. In the recital or singing of a long unwritten poem, many bards must have conspired together, and in the earliest times the composer and the singer were one and the same person.[302] Now the individuals comprised in the Homerid Gens, though doubtless very different among themselves in respect of mental capacity, were yet homogeneous in respect of training, means of observation and instruction, social experience, religious feelings and theories, etc., to a degree much greater than individuals in modern times. Fallible as our inferences are on this point, where we have only internal evidence to guide us, without any contemporary points of comparison, or any species of collateral information respecting the age, the society, the poets, the hearers, or the language,—we must nevertheless, in the present case, take coherence of structure, together with consistency in the tone of thought, feeling, language, customs, etc., as presumptions of one author; and the contrary as presumptions of severalty; allowing, as well as we can, for that inequality of excellence which the same author may at different times present. [302] The remarks of Boeckh, upon the possibility of such coöperation of poets towards one and the same scheme are perfectly just:— “Atqui quomodo componi a variis auctoribus successu temporum rhapsodiæ potuerint, quæ post prima initia directæ jam ad idem consilium et quam vocant unitatem carminis sint ... missis istorum declamationibus qui populi universi opus Homerum esse jactant ... tum potissimum intelligetur, ubi gentis civilis Homeridarum propriam et peculiarem Homericam poesin fuisse, veteribus ipsis si non testibus, at certe ducibus, concedetur.... Quæ quum ita sint, non erit adeo difficile ad intelligendum, quomodo, post prima initia ab egregio vate facta, in gente sacrorum et artis communione sociatâ, multæ rhapsodiæ ad unum potuerint consilium dirigi.” (Index Lection. 1834, p. 12.) I transcribe this passage from Giese (Ueber den Æolischen Dialekt, p. 157), not having been able to see the essay of which it forms a part.