Note 47 — THE WORKS AND DAYS.

To Troy’s far shore.] Dr. Clarke in his travels in Greece, Egypt, and the Holy-land, has noticed that the existence of Troy, and the facts relative to the Trojan war, are supported by a variety of evidence independent of Homer: as has been abundantly shown in the course of the controversy between Mr. Bryant and his able antagonist, Mr. Morritt. This passage of Hesiod seems to me decisive testimony. If Hesiod be older than Homer, as is computed by the chronicler of the Parian Marbles, it is self-evident that the Trojan war is not of Homeric invention: and if they were contemporary, or even if Hesiod, according to the vulgar chronology, were really junior by a century, it is not at all probable that he should have copied the fiction of another bard, while tracing the primitive history of mankind. He manifestly used the ancient traditions of his nation, of which the war of Troy was one.