If, then, it be said that the proceedings of Pisistratus or of Solon, bear testimony not to the soundness but to the incessant corruption of the text, my answer is, they bear witness to its corruption, just as the records of the repairs of Westminster Abbey might be said, and truly said, to bear testimony to its disrepair. That partial and local faults, and dislocations, would creep in, is as certain as that wind and weather act upon the stoutest fabric: but when we read of the repairs of a building, we infer that pains were taken to make it habitable; and when we read of the restorations of Homer, we perceive that it was an object of public solicitude to keep the poems in a state of soundness. As, indeed, the building most used will _cæteris paribus_ require the most frequent repairs, so the elementary causes of corruption, by carelessness, might operate most powerfully in a case where the poet might be recited by every strolling minstrel at a local festivity: but it is also clear that in these very cases there would be the greatest anxiety to detect and to eliminate the destructive elements, when once they were seen to be making head. But, in truth, the analogy of a building does not represent the case. Edifices are sometimes disfigured by the parsimony of after-times: but there was no time, so far as we know, when Greece did not rate the value of Homer more highly than the cost of taking care of him. Again, the architects of degenerate ages think, as Bernini did of Michael Angelo, that they can improve upon their designs: but the name of no Greek has been recorded who thought he could improve upon Homer, and the vanity of the nameless was likely to be checked by their companions and competitors. We have principally had in view the question, whether Homer was, in a peculiar degree, guarded against any profound and radical corruption which might grow out of unchecked carelessness; but the result will be not more unfavourable, if we ask how did he stand in regard to the other great fountain-head of evil, namely, falsification with a purpose? Now, the fact, that in any given case provision is made for jealous custody against any attack from without, affords no proof, or even presumption, against the subsistence of destroying causes within. But the Greeks, as a nation, had no motive to corrupt, and had every motive to preserve the text of Homer. His national office and position have been admirably expressed by Statius, in verses on the Trojan expedition:-- Tum primùm Græcia vires Contemplata suas: tum sparsa ac dissona moles, In corpus vultumque coït[92].