Even here, Achilles feels that he dares hardly trust himself, so strong is the wild beast of passion within him. So consistent, so delicate, so strong a delineation of character, I cannot conceive to be the work of more hands than one, it is the work of the hand of Homer. Throughout the whole poem every person is drawn with equal firmness, delicacy, and consistency. The study of Agamemnon is the most complex (see _Homer and his Age,_ pp. 50-81). The foil to Agamemnon, the good Menelaus, the kindest and most chivalrously honourable of men, always conscious of his debt to the Achaeans, always eager to dare beyond his strength, is a worthy pendant. Odysseus throughout the poem is the poet's most admired hero; the wisest and most steadfast, here as in the _Odyssey_. It is so with the rest, with all of them; and this with the unity of _ethos_, of temper, of thought on human destinies, is the great argument for the unity and single authorship of the _Iliad_ in the main. To others, probably, as to Wolf, this consistency is apparent when they read the _Iliad_, as alone it was meant to be read or heard, "for human pleasure," without constantly dwelling on "oppositions of science falsely so called," and hunting for discrepancies which often are not discrepant. It is not an article of my faith that there is no non-original matter in the _Iliad_. In another book, _Homer and the Epic_, I mentioned the passages which, to me, seem probably alien, for one reason or another. About the authorship of the Catalogue I do not know enough to be able to form an opinion. In the dream of Agamemnon and what follows, in Book ii., I might guess that two or three lines have been omitted, though on the whole the waverings of Agamemnon are thoroughly consistent with his character, and are meant to throw into light the steadfastness of Odysseus. I think that Phoenix is not properly introduced in Book ix., but there he is a necessary character; his warning to Achilles, not to fight before receiving atonement, has an influence throughout, backed as it is later by the counsels of Odysseus. The battles between Troy and the Ships, in Books xii.-xv., might be more lucid; but so might Napier's account of the battle of Salamanca, and Lord Roberts's of the Siege of Delhi. I understand Homer better than I do either of these military historians; but I have taken more pains to understand him. I would rather believe the _Aristeia_ of Idomeneus to be by another hand; it is perfunctory; and the proceedings of Poseidon are perplexing, like the doings of Ares and Athene in the first fifty lines of Book v. The Gods always, by the infinite inconsistencies of mythology, cause confusion, but the text itself has an air of dislocation. The arming of Agamemnon in the opening of Book xi., seems to me non-authentic, as far as our knowledge of Homeric armature goes. The whole passage about the destruction of the Achaean wall by the Gods, in the after time, reads