We left Agamemnon (though the Dream bade him summon the host to arms) dressed in _civil costume_. His ancestral sceptre in his hand, he is going to hold a deliberative assembly of the unarmed host. His attire proves that fact ([Greek: _prepodaes de ae stolae to epi Boulaen exionti_], says the scholiast). Then if we skip, as advised, to II. 443-483 he bids the heralds call the host not to peaceful council, for which his costume is appropriate, but to _war_! The host gathers, "and in their midst the lord Agamemnon,"--still in civil costume, with his sceptre (he has not changed his attire as far as we are told)--"in face and eyes like Zeus; in waist like Ares" (god of war); "in breast like Poseidon,"--yet, for all that we are told, entirely unarmed! The host, however, were dressed "in innumerable bronze," "war was sweeter to them than to depart in their ships to their dear native land,"--so much did Athene encourage them. But nobody had been speaking of flight, in THE KERNEL B: THAT proposal was originally made by Thersites, in kernel A, and was attributed to Agamemnon in the part of Book II. where the editor blends A and B. This part, at present, Mr. Leaf throws aside as a very late piece of compilation. Turning next, as directed, to XI. 56, we find the Trojans deploying in arms, and the hosts encounter with fury--Agamemnon still, for all that appears, in the raiment of peace, and with the sceptre of constitutional monarchy. "In he rushed, first of all, and slew Bienor," and many other gentlemen of Troy, not with his sceptre! Clearly all this is the reverse of "a narrative masterly in conception and smooth in execution:" it is an impossible narrative. Mr. Leaf has attempted to disengage one of two forms of the old original poem from the parasitic later growths; he has promised to show us a smooth and masterly narrative, and the result is a narrative on which no Achasan poet could have ventured. In II. 50 the heralds are bidden [Greek: _kurussein_], that is to summon the host--to _what_? To a peaceful assembly, as Agamemnon's costume proves, says the next line (II. 51), but that is excised by Mr. Leaf, and we go on to II. 443, and the reunited passage now reads, "Agamemnon bade the loud heralds" (II. 50) "call the Achaeans to battle" (II. 443), and they came, in harness, but their leader--when did he exchange chiton, cloak, and sceptre for helmet, shield, and spear? A host appears in arms; a king who set out with sceptre and doublet is found with a spear, in bronze armour: and not another word is said about the Dream of Agamemnon.