a great
poetical genius in the decline of power which comes with old age
naturally leans towards the fabulous. For it is evident that this work
was composed after the _Iliad_, in proof of which we may mention, among
many other indications, the introduction in the _Odyssey_ of the sequel
to the story of his heroes' adventures at Troy, as so many additional
episodes in the Trojan war, and especially the tribute of sorrow and
mourning which is paid in that poem to departed heroes, as if in
fulfilment of some previous design. The _Odyssey_ is, in fact, a sort of
epilogue to the _Iliad_--

"There warrior Ajax lies, Achilles there,
And there Patroclus, godlike counsellor;
There lies my own dear son."[8]

[Footnote 8: _Od._ iii. 109.]

13
And for the same reason, I imagine, whereas in the _Iliad_, which was
written when his genius was in its prime, the whole structure of the
poem is founded on action and struggle, in the _Odyssey_ he generally
prefers the narrative style, which is proper to old age. Hence Homer in
his _Odyssey_ may be compared to the setting sun: he is still as great
as ever, but he has lost his fervent heat. The strain is now pitched to
a lower key than in the "Tale of Troy divine": we begin to miss that
high and equable sublimity which never flags or sinks, that continuous
current of moving incidents, those rapid transitions, that force of
eloquence, that opulence of imagery which is ever true to Nature. Like
the sea when it retires upon itself and leaves its shores waste and
bare, henceforth the tide of sublimity begins to ebb, and draws us away
into the dim region of myth and legend.

14
In saying this I am not forgetting the fine storm-pieces in the
_Odyssey_, the story of the Cyclops,[9] and other striking passages. It
is Homer grown old I am discussing, but still it is Homer. Yet in every
one of these passages the mythical predominates over the real.

My purpose in making this digression was, as I said, to point out into
what trifles the second childhood of genius is too apt to be betrayed;
such, I mean, as the bag in which the winds are confined,[10] the
tale of Odysseus's comrades being changed by Circe into swine[11]
("whimpering porkers" Zoilus called them), and how Zeus was fed like
a nestling by the doves,[12] and how Odysseus passed ten nights on the
shipwreck without food,[13] and the improbable incidents in the slaying
of the suitors.[14] When Homer nods like this, we must be