nsisted.

4.

In the country which has been the fountain head of intellectual gifts, in
the age which preceded or introduced the first formations of Human
Society, in an era scarcely historical, we may dimly discern an almost
mythical personage, who, putting out of consideration the actors in Old
Testament history, may be called the first Apostle of Civilization. Like
an Apostle in a higher order of things, he was poor and a wanderer, and
feeble in the flesh, though he was to do such great things, and to live in
the mouths of a hundred generations and a thousand tribes. A blind old
man; whose wanderings were such that, when he became famous, his
birth-place could not be ascertained, so that it was said,--

"Seven famous towns contend for Homer dead,
Through which the living Homer begged his bread."

Yet he had a name in his day; and, little guessing in what vast measures
his wish would be answered, he supplicated, with a tender human sentiment,
as he wandered over the islands of the AEgean and the Asian coasts, that
those who had known and loved him would cherish his memory when he was
away. Unlike the proud boast of the Roman poet, if he spoke it in earnest,
"Exegi monumentum aere perennius," he did but indulge the hope that one,
whose coming had been expected with pleasure, might excite regret when he
had departed, and be rewarded by the sympathy and praise of his friends
even in the presence of other minstrels. A set of verses remains, which is
ascribed to him, in which he addresses the Delian women in the tone of
feeling which I have described. "Farewell to you all," he says, "and
remember me in time to come, and when any one of men on earth, a stranger
from far, shall inquire of you, O maidens, who is the sweetest of
minstrels here about, and in whom do you most delight? then make answer
modestly, It is a blind man, and he lives in steep Chios."

The great poet remained unknown for some centuries,--that is, unknown to
what we call fame. His verses were cherished by his countrymen, they might
be the secret delight of thousands, but they were not collected into a
volume, nor viewed as a whole, nor made a subject of criticism. At length
an Athenian Prince took upon him the task of gathering together the
scattered fragments of a genius which had not aspired to immortality, of
reducing them to writing, and of fitting them to be the text-book of
ancient education. Henceforth the vagrant ballad-singer, as he mig