Of the very small number of passages in the poems which contain a reference to events later than the action, there are two, both relating to the same subject, for which at first sight it appears difficult to account. Why does Neptune obtrude upon the Olympian Court his insignificant and rather absurd jealousy, lest the work of defence, hastily thrown up by the Achæan army, should eclipse the wall built around Troy by Apollo and himself? Evidently in order to obtain from Jupiter the suggestion, that he should subsequently himself efface all traces of it. But why does Homer show this anxiety to account for its non-appearance? Why does he return subsequently to the subject, and most carefully relate how Jupiter by raining, and Apollo by turning the mouths of eight rivers, and Neptune with his trident, all cooperated to destroy the work, and make the shore smooth and even again? Had Homer lived many generations after the Trojan war, these passages would have been entirely without purpose, for he need not then have given reasons to show, why ages had left no trace still visible of the labour of a day. But if he lived near the period of the war, the case is very different. He might then be challenged by his maritime hearers, who, if they frequented the passage into the Sea of Marmora, would have had clear views of the camp of Agamemnon, and who would naturally require him to assign a cause for the disappearance even of such a work as a day’s labour of the army could produce, and as the Trojan soldiery could make practicable for their chariots to drive over[42]. These particular indications appear to be worth considering: but the great reasons for placing the date of Homer very near to that of the War are, his visible identity with the age, the altering but not yet vanished age, of which he sings, and the broad interval in tone and feeling between himself, and the very nearest of all that follows him. FOOTNOTES: [29] Il. ii. 486. [30] Il. xx. 308. [31] Hist. i. 5. [32] Il. v. 304; xii. 383, 449; xx. 287. [33] Exc. iii. ad Il. xxiv., vol. viii. p. 828. [34] Il. i. 262-272. [35] Hist. Greece, chap. iii. App.; vol. i. 169-74, 4to. [36] Heyne, Exc. iii. ad Il. xxiv.; vol. viii. p. 226. [37] Granville Penn on the Primary Arguments of the Iliad, p. 314. [38] Il. ii. 740. [39] Il. iv. 51. [40] Il. ii. 660. [41] Il. ix. 593. SECT. 5.--_The Probable Trustworthiness of the Text of Homer._ Let us now proceed to consider the question, what assumption is it, on the whole, safest to make, or what rule can we most judiciously follow, as our guide in Homeric studies, with reference to the text of the Poems? Shall we adopt a given form of completely reconstructed text, like that of Mr. Payne Knight?