were sure to be so perpetually conversant, the young might learn only those parts which might do them good. His language was as familiar to Sophocles, we may be quite sure, as the language of the Bible is to us.
Nay, more. Homer's language was not, of course, in the time of Sophocles, the spoken or written language of ordinary life, any more than the language of the Bible, any more than the language of poetry, is with us; but for one great species of composition, epic poetry, it was still the current language; it was the language in which everyone who made that sort of poetry composed. Everyone at Athens who dabbled in epic poetry, not only understood Homer's language, he possessed it. He possessed it as everyone who dabbles in poetry with us, possesses what may be called the poetical vocabulary, as distinguished from the vocabulary of common speech and of modern prose: I mean, such expressions as perchance for perhaps, spake for spoke, aye for ever, don for put on, charméd for charm'd, and thousands of others.
I might go to Burns and Chaucer, and, taking words and passages from them, ask if they afforded any parallel to a language so familiar and so possessed. But this I will not do, for Mr Newman himself supplies me with what he thinks a fair parallel, in its effect upon us, to the language of Homer
