that it is almost a pity to find that it is obviously a copy from the Odyssey. See the fourteenth book. In fact, whoever was the author of this fictitious biography, he showed some tact in identifying Homer with certain events described in his poems, and in eliciting from them the germs of something like a personal narrative. 10 Dia logon estionto. A common metaphor. So Plato calls the parties conversing daitumones, or estiatores. Tim. i. p. 522 A. Cf. Themist. Orat. vi. p. 168, and xvi. p. 374, ed. Petav So diaegaemasi sophois omou kai terpnois aedio taen Thoinaen tois hestiomenois epoiei, Choricius in Fabric. Bibl. Gr. T. viii. P. 851. logois gar estia, Athenaeus vii p 275, A 11 It was at Bolissus, and in the house of this Chian citizen, that Homer is said to have written the Batrachomyomachia, or Battle of the Frogs and Mice, the Epicichlidia, and some other minor works. 12 Chandler, Travels, vol. i. p. 61, referred to in the Voyage Pittoresque dans la Grece, vol. i. P. 92, where a view of the spot is given of which the author candidly says,-- "Je ne puis repondre d'une exactitude scrupuleuse dans la vue generale que j'en donne, car etant alle seul pour l'examiner je perdis mon crayon, et je fus oblige de m'en fier a ma memoire. Je ne crois cependant pas avoir trop a me plaindre d'elle en cette occasion." 13 A more probable reason for this companionship, and for the character of Mentor itself, is given by the allegorists, viz.: the assumption of Mentor's form by the guardian deity of the wise Ulysses, Minerva. The classical reader may compare Plutarch, Opp. t. ii. p. 880; _Xyland._ Heraclid. Pont. Alleg. Hom. p. 531-5, of Gale's Opusc. Mythol. Dionys. Halic. de Hom. Poes. c. 15; Apul. de Deo Socrat. s. f. 14 Vit. Hom. Section 28. 15 The riddle is given in Section 35. Compare Mackenzie's note, p.