He has thus given us at once a very pretty poetical invention for expressing approximately the age of Nymphs, who are Jove-born indeed, yet are not immortal, and a remarkable proof of the indefiniteness of numerical conceptions, and of total unacquaintance with the rules of arithmetic[817]. [817] I subjoin the rest of this curious fragment; ἔλαφος δέ τε τετρακόρωνος· τρεῖς δ’ ἐλάφους ὁ κόραξ γηράσκεται· αὐτὰρ ὁ φοίνιξ ἐννέα τοὺς κόρακας· δέκαδ’ ἡμεῖς τοὺς φοίνικας νύμφαι ἐϋπλόκαμοι, κοῦραι Διὸς αἰγιόχοιο. It is noticed by Pliny, (Nat. Hist. vii. 48.) who terms it fabulous; but it is with more propriety, I think, to be called poetical. One consequence of the proposition I have advanced with respect to Homer is, to destroy altogether a supposed discrepancy between the Iliad and the Odyssey, which has often been paraded as a reason, among others, for assigning them to different authors. It is truly alleged that, in the Catalogue[818], Crete is called ἑκατόμπολις; and that in the Nineteenth Odyssey[819] we are told of it, [818] Il. ii. 649. [819] Od. xix. 173. ἐν δ’ ἄνθρωποι πολλοὶ, ἀπειρέσιοι, καὶ ἐννήκοντα πόληες. Each of these words appears to be interpreted as strictly, as it would be if caught by an auditor in the accounts of some delinquent Joint-Stock Company; and thus, forsooth, a diversity of authors for the two poems is to be made good. Now it is not a little odd, if both these poets looked at the subject with the eye of statisticians, that while each found a different number of cities in Crete, yet each found an even, and more or less a round number. But why is ἑκατόμπολις to be more strictly interpreted than ἑκατομβή? And again, if we are to construe ἐννήκοντα statistically, what are we to do with the very word that precedes it, namely, ἀπειρέσιοι? The simple fact of the juxtaposition of that word with the ἐννήκοντα πόληες should surely have sufficed to show, that the whole manner of speech was (what we now call) poetical. So regarding it, I venture even to say that the effect of a comparison with the epithet in the Catalogue is to establish, not a discrepancy in point of fact, but rather a similarity in the measure of figurative conception and expression: so that in consequence, as far as it is worth any thing, it rather tends to prove the identity, than the diversity, of authorship between the two poems. A second consequence, which must be drawn from the foregoing conclusions, is this; that we shall do wrong to search the poems of Homer for any scheme of chronology. The minute enumerations of the Mosaic books have perhaps given the tone to our ordinary historical inquiries: but, at least with respect to Homer, it must appear an erroneous course to use his numerical statements as literal, when they are applied to time, after we have had so much evidence of their generally ornamental and figurative character.