[9] Grote, _History of Greece_, vol. ii., 1869, pp. 179-183. [10] _Iliad_, i. 409, 410. [11] i. 240 ff. [12] _Iliad_, viii. 473-475. [13] xviii. 73-80. [14] _Iliad_, ix. 380-387. [15] The words of Zeus in Book viii. will be explained as a late insertion, to harmonise old and new. If so, why did the harmoniser leave the flagrant discrepancy uncorrected? [16] _Iliad_, ix. 315-343. [17] ix. 434 ff. [18] ix. 345, 375. 376. [19] ix. 6502. [20] _Iliad_, ix. 323. [21] Cf. Book ix. 650-655. [22] Book xvi. 60-65. [23] Grote, vol. ii. p. 179, note I on p. 180. [24] Grote, vol. ii. pp. 179, 180. [25] Grote, vol. ii. p. 202. [26] _Quarterly Review_, July 1908, pp. 64-66. CHAPTER XX CONCLUSIONS As much of this treatise is occupied with criticism of the views of the most modern representatives of the Wolfian school, I ought, in fairness, to state my own general conclusions. I am led to suppose that the _Iliad_ is a work of one brief period, because, as has been shown, it bears all the notes of one age; and is absolutely free from the most marked traits of religion, rites, society, and superstition that characterise the preceding Aegean, and the later "Dipylon," Ionian, Archaic, and historic periods in Greek life and art. Again, I believe that the _Iliad_ is, in the main, the work of a single poet. To that conclusion I am led partly by the unity of the thought, temper, character, and _ethos_ of both epics; partly by the perfect consistency in the drawing, throughout, of multitudes of characters, all conceived with as much delicacy as firmness. It is to me inconceivable that a number of poets should have developed, with such perfect consistency and with such fine _nuances_, the character, for example, of Achilles, who has been called "a splendid savage!" If our critics studied him as Shakespearian students examine Hamlet or Macbeth, it is improbable that they could think the wrath of Achilles "a second-rate subject." It does not appear to me that his wrath about "a personal slight"--the loss of Briseis, is a fit of the sulks; that Achilles, as was said of Byron in one of his portraits, looks like "a great sulky schoolboy whom somebody has deprived of a plum-cake." Consider what Achilles is; the son of a goddess: himself, in extreme youth, the recognised hero and _nonpareil_ of the whole Achaean array. His one over-mastering passion is desire of renown: "One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name." He might live long, happy, and honoured at home with the father whom he so tenderly loves and pities, but he sets forth to Ilios, knowing surely that there he must inevitably perish in the flower of his youth. He chooses to pay with his life for immortal renown. In Hades he says that he would liefer be on earth the hind of a landless man, than king over the Dead, so fast is the hold of this earth upon his heart. But he could not love his life so much "Loved he not honour more."