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Agamemnon, the Choephora, and the Furies are all inftances of it. Sophocles, with every poet of the time, alludes to the hiftories of this period. Herodotus, the father of history; Thucydides the most accurate of historians, both give it a formal fanction. But as Herodotus is brought forward in evidence against me, I will beg the reader to attend particularly to Mr. Bryant's argument here, and to confult with the original, which I believe will not be found very favourable to his hypothefis. Herodotus was of. opinion that the expedition had taken place, but infifts that Helen was not there. Having long argued against this fact and against the authenticity of fome Cyprian verses which mention it; having endeavoured as much as he could to illuftrate Homer, revert-ing to his history, he says, * adieu now to Homer and the Cyprian verfes. These words I will just observe are tranflated by Mr. Bryant. "Away with them together, a long farewell to each, both to Homer and the Cyprian verfes." This fpecimen will put the reader on his guard against Mr. Bryant's tranflations, and will shew him what was in reality the great and contemptuous disdain in which Herodotus held Homer. The paffage from which Mr. Bryant

NOTES.

Herodotus, 1. ii. c. 118. p. 157. Sungos for vor тa Kungia ETTEX xaigerw. Bryant, p. 90. The elegant and judicious criticifm which precedes thefe words, is furely a very strange mode of testifying contempt, and it is not ufual for an author to elucidate fo elaborately a work he despises, or to be the biographer of the Poet whom he treats with difdain.

The Stranger Venus, to whom a Chapel is dedicated in the temple of Proteus in Egypt, I conceive to be Helen, the daughter of Tyndarus, both becaufe I am informed that Helen was hofpitably entertained for some time by Proteus, and also because that the Stranger is a name by which Venus was never called in any other place; but, more than all, in answer to my inquiries concerning Helen, the Priefts informed me that Alexander having carried her off from her hufband in Sparta, was on his return home, driven by a violent and contrary wind into the Canobic Mouth of the Nile; that there he was accused by his own Slaves, who related the whole tranfaction of Helen's rape, and the injury inflicted upon Menelaus, to Thonis, the chief officer of the district; and that Thonis, immediately by the following meffage, reported their informa

tion

Bryant quotes; tranflated as far as it belongs to this question, the reader will find in the note below; and thence learn to estimate the

NOTE.

stion to Proteus, the King at Memphis: "A Stranger, by birth a Teucrian, who has done an unhallowed deed in Greece, has arrived here, he has feduced the Wife of his Hoft, and with her and abundant wealth he has been driven on your coafts by a ftorm. Shall we then dismiss him with impunity, or make a feizure of fuch articles as are in his poffeffion " to which Proteus returned an order to this effect: "Of whatsoever nation the perpetrator of fuch an impious breach of hofpitality may be, feize and fend him to me, that I may know what he can say in his own defence." Thonis accordingly fecured the perfon of Alexander, and detained his fhips, and fent him and Helen, with their effects, and alfo the Slaves to Memphis, where, being examined by Proteus, Alexander both freely acknowledged the family from which he sprung, told the name of his country, and related alfo the courfe of his voyage; but prevaricating in his answer to the King's inquiry, whence he had taken Helen, the evidence of the Slaves was received to all the circumstances of that criminal transaction, and Alexander was accordingly convicted. Proteus then pronounced this fentence: "Did I not hold facred the life of a stranger, I would now, by taking your's, avenge the injury you have done to the Grecian. O meaneft, basest of mankind, who, not content with the facrilegious violation of hospitality in feducing the wife of your hoft, have proceeded still farther, to bear her away from him, and with her the effects of her plundered Lord, your life is fafe, for you are a stranger, and I am now your hoft; but the woman and her wealth I will not permit you to remove, but referve them for your Grecian hoft till he shall please to claim them. For yourself and the affociates of your voyage, I command you within three days to leave my realm, on pain of being else confidered as enemies."-Such according to the Egyptian Priefts was the arrival of Helen at the Court of Proteus, and Homer, though he has not adopted it, (for it was not to his purpose) has nevertheless by fome allufions perfuaded me that he had received the fame account; he evidently refers to the circuitous voyage of Alexander, and intimates his having touched at Sidon in Phoenicia along with Helen.-Hecuba, in the Iliad, takes from her wardrobe

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And Helen in the Odyffey, medicates the wine of Menelaus, and his guests with herbs of Arange potency.

Such drugs Jove's daughter owned, with skill prepared,
And of prime virtue, by the wife of Thone,

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It is hence manifeft that Homer was acquainted with the voyage of Alexander into Egypt, for

Syria,

affects to

But what

the literary indifference with which Mr. Bryant confider the truth or falfehood of his hypothesis. is the natural inference from all this ftory? That a feparate tradition of the war of Troy was preferved in the annals of Mr. Bryant's favourite country; that his much refpected Egyptian priests corroborate Homer, fince Thone and Proteus were both known to them; that Menelaus had really arrived there, and we have even a circumftantial narration of his conduct. How will Mr. Bryant controvert the Egyptians on their own ground, or prove against their priests, that the Troy which they themselves. placed in Phrygia, and all the detail of events in which they mistakenly coincide with Greek authors, were really to be referred to the annals of their own country? If in the time of Herodotus their traditions did not reach high enough, is it highly probable, that Mr. Bryant, after an interval of more than 2000 years fhould discover the truth of an Egyptian story, contrary to the concurring evidence of the whole body of Grecian, Egyptian, and Afiatic history, as preferved by the Egyptian † priests at the time of Herodotus. "Of thefe facts,' "Of these facts," fays the hiftorian, "fome were the refult of much diligent enquiry; others they knew for certain as having happened among themselves:" yet fuch is the author, and fuch is the passage, a part of which we here find mifquoted

NOTES.

Syria is on the confines of Egypt, and the Phoenicians, to whom Sidon belongs, inhabit Syria. Thefe paffages, therefore, indifputably prove that the Cyprian verfes, in which Alexander is faid to have failed with a profperous gale in three days from Sparta to Ilium, belong to fome other poet and not to Homer, who thus declares that Alexander when carrying Helen off, returned by a very wide and wandering courfe.-But we now take leave of Helen and the Cyprian verses.

+ Herodotus mentions a tradition prevalent in Afia, and defcribing the Greeks as the aggreffors, to which they attributed the long animofity that involved the nations in perpetual wars, and which terminated only with the Perfian monarchy. This tradition he acquired at Perfepolis. See Herodot. Clio. ch. 1.

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in fupport of Mr. Bryant's hypothefis. The reader will judge whether Mr. Bryant could be ignorant of the inferences which followed from the paffage, and will be either indignant or amufed at the adroit manner in which he has kept back the remainder of this account. Euripides follows Herodotus in fuppofing Helen not to have been at Troy; but fo far from infinuating that the rest of the ftory was fabulous, he founds many of his plays on it as on a well-known fact. His authority on what he pofitively afferts is, therefore, at leaft as good as on the fingle point he denies. When he or Herodotus mention that Helen was not at Troy during the fiege; this certainly implies that there was a Troy, and that there was a fiege; otherwife, I would afk Mr. Bryant whether they would have faid she was absent from a place where no one was prefent. All thefe authorities, therefore, are, unfortunately for Mr. Bryant, in direct oppofition to his hypothefis.But as arguments from Egypt are more immediately conclufive against him on this fubject, it may not be irrelevant from our purpose to ask him here, how the traditions, and early hiftories of Troy in Egypt came to be fo completely deftroyed, as that when nothing relative to this plagiarism of Homer should appear the Ptolemies called together Zenodotus, Ariftophanes, and Ariftarchus, whofe very name is proverbial of feverity. We must confider alfo that these men revised Homer in Egypt, whose traditions were coaval with her priesthood, and whofe library at Alexandria was the wonder of the world. Let every reader alfo recollect that * Callimachus and Apollonius Rhodius were librarians of this very collection, and yet how often do they

NOTE.

Callimachus "Eis Apteμiv. 1. 230.

mention

mention this part of ancient history, without even dreaming of its fuppofed Egyptian origin. The other teftimonies are as follows. Strabo mentions a learned Lady, Heftixa Alexandrina, who wrote concerning Troy, but could not, fays Mr. Bryant, difcover its fituation. Demetrius of Scepfis was in the fame ignorance, and from thefe Strabo gives his account. In one circumstance they all agree, that the fituation of the modern town of Ilium was not that of the ancient Troy: they also agree in reprefenting most of the tombs of the heroes, and many other landmarks mentioned by Homer as ftill exifting in their time: they seem all however to be perfuaded of the existence of Troy, and therefore certainly did not fufpect that fo ftrong an inference as Mr. Bryant's could be drawn from their ignorance of its fituation. That Strabo had not vifited the Troad in perfon, is certain, fince however Mr. Bryant may contend for the contrary, we find him every where quoting Demetrius in this part of his work, and qualifying thofe paffages of which he was in doubt by referring to him, or arguing on the poffibility of his being mistaken. It is after him that * Strabo quotes Heftiæa; after having recorded the controversy refpecting New Ilium, and giving a description of the plain, he fays, † Εμπειρος δ' ων των τοπων ως αν επιχώριος ανης ο Δημήτριος τοτε μεν ουτως λεγει περί αυτών. Demetrius, a man well acquainted with the country, and a native of the place, gives this account of them. Relative to the Rhefus in the next page, he quotes him again. In the pages before this, we find for ever, Trovoεl Anunтgios; Dnoi Δημήτριος ο Σκεπψιος. In another place having argued his account

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NOTES.

* Strabo, 1. 189. p. 599.—† Strabo, 1. xiii. p. 602.—† Strabo, ibid ibid. "Demetrius imagines."§ Strabo, 1. xiii. p. 596. alfo p. 594. "Demetrius of Scepfis fays."

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