These gentlemen, whose object was not to disgrace Homer by their puling compositions, but only to practically observe the maxims subsequently instilled by Iago into Roderigo's mind (viz., to "put money in their purse"), were the precursors of another race of writers. In ancient times, we are informed by Tatian[1], there were many writers on Homer, whose works, it is to be lamented, have perished with the nominal exception of a few fragments,--though, perhaps, scholars will once learn to use those as a clue, and find, as Burges did in the case of Thucydides[2], that many valuable passages are lying hid in the pages of the lexicographers, who spared themselves the trouble of writing fresh matter, by merely slightly changing the expressions of their sources, and not "bothering" their lexicographical brains by attempting original composition. It is thus, that even the weaknesses of the human mind benefit after ages!
[Footnote 1: Fabr. _Bibl. Græc._ II. 1. iii.]
[Footnote 2: _Journ. of the Royal Soc. of Literature_, vol, ii., New Series, and afterwards in a pamphlet in 1845.]
The names furnished us by Tatian are these:--Theagenes of Rhegium (the earliest writer of whom we are cognizant, contemporary with Cambyses); Stesimbrotos of Thasos (contemporary with Pericles[3]); Antimachos of Claros; Herodotos, Dionysios of Olynthos, Ephoros of Cyme; Philochoros of Athens, Metacleides, Chamæleon of Heracleia[4]; Zenodotos of Ephesus, (B.C. 280); Aristophanes of Byzantium (B.C. 264); Callimachus, whose poetry, by the way, is dryer and more vapid than his prose, if the little we have left of him allows us to form an opinion; Crates of Malfus (B.C. 157); Eratosthenes of Cyrene; Aristarchos of Samothrace, and Apollodoros of Athens. The minds or pens of these men in Hellas alone, were occupied with this grand subject; and in Rome, that city of translations and "crib," we find the pens of the scribes were at work, and prolific in prolixity. Besides these authors, there are others whose attempts at illustrating the text of the writers of antiquity have been met in a most illiberal manner; I mean the Scholiasts, who have been treated most unjustly. A goodly host of scribblers looks forth from the grave of antiquity. And here, before proceeding to speak of the theories of later times, it may be permitted me to suggest that casual allusions by writers who write not expressly on the subject, and who are sufficiently accurate on those points to which they have directed their attention, are often more valuable than the folios of writers who go on the principle of book-making.