TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 10058, 9 June 1898, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

There was a time when the Homer in world was content to believe Petticoats. Homer a man. Then came a

brief interval in which we called him a solar myth. Then the joint stock craze turned him into a syndicate; and now adoration of the "new woman " has led to the attempt to prove him a lady. Mr Samuel Butler, in "The Authoress of the Odyssey," essays this audacious task. Why not? Mr Doneliy convinced some fools that Shakespeare was Bacon, Horace Walpole threw " Historic Doubts " upon the villainy of Richard HI., and Sir Henry Irring's eldest son has recently written a notable book to demonstrate that Judge Jeffreys ■' was a perfect gentleman." No theory so

wild but some will be found to believe it. Those of his old Christennrch friends who remember Mr Butler as the author of the amusing and fanciful Utopia which he called

" Erewhon" will be ready to suspect his latest work an elaborate hoax intended to satirise the learned commentators. But the critics at Home, at any rate, seem to believe him in earnest; and if the book is really a hoax its intention is at least laboriously concealed. The writer of the Odyssey, he maintains, was a woman—a young and beautiful woman—who lived and worked in a Sicilian town; that she was at the Court of Alcinous, and finally that she was—who but Nausicaa herself? And having come to this conclusion he boldly produces a portrait of Nausicaa as the frontispiece of his book, and then proceeds to find facts to fit his theory. He insists that the authoress was a single woman, by which lie intends not to assert that she was a spinster but to deny that she was a syndicate. The proofs of this are many and various. Here is a typical argument : —'" When Helen mixes nepenthe with the wine we learn its virtues to be so powerful that a man could not weep during all the day on which he had drunk it, not even though he had lost both his father and his mother > or had seen a brother or son cut to pieces before his eyes. From the ordei in which these relationships present themselves to the writer's mind," comments Mr Butler, " I opine that hei father and her mother were the most important persons in hex world, and hence that she was still young and unmarried."

Mr Butler's strong Traces of point, however, rests on a the details of dress and Feminine Hand, cookery, and "domestic economy" generally to be found in the Odyssey. "None but a woman could have known so much of millinery." Shades of Mantalini and Woi'th! We have heard it proved to a demonstration that "no one but a man" could have written "Adam Bede.' It is the good old fallacy "who drives fat oxen should himself be fat." Mr Butler is unkind enough to endeavour to drag the learned Bently in and make him responsible for* tliis heresy. For Bently, it appears, once gave it on his "ipse dixit" that the Iliad was written for men and the Odyssey for women. Ergo, says Mr Butler, "by a woman." Lord Macaulay, it will be remembered, once declared that he meant to write hi? history for schoolgirls. We may, therefore, expect the critics of next century to prove the austere and learned Lord Macaulay was a frivolous boarding-school Miss in disguise. Mr Butler reminds one of the famous "bricks" argument in Shakespeare's "Henry VI." Jack Cade, though a bricklayer, declared he was a King's son, deny it who can. "Yes," says .the smith, "he made a chimney in my father's house, and the bricks are alive to this day to testify it." Apparently, in all seriousness the ingenious author complains that "the leading Iliadic and Odyasean scholars in England and on the Continent" have refused to notice his work, or even refute his arguments, and he oddly enough attributes this apathetic reception of his magnum opus to "the commercial interests vested in wellknown schoolbooks and so-called education." Mr Butler is not the first daring tlieorist who has declared himself martyred by "vested interests," but it is certainly a new idea to find the booksellers banded together against* the subversion of Homeric authorship. We shall not be in the least surprised if, in the course of a year or two, Mr Butler comes forward to tell the world that it has mistaken his joke for earnest, and to declare he had no more serious intention of proving Homer a woman than Archbishop Whately had of convincing us that Napoleon was a myth. In the meanwhile, we hasten to assure our readers that though Mr Butler was at one time a valued contributor- to this paper, lie was then sound on the Homer question; and that; this monstrous heresy was not conceived within these editorial precincts, where the views prevailing on Homer and Shakespeare are, and always have been, strictly orthodox. •

Voltaibe's cutting cotnTo Encourage ment on the action of the the Others*. British Court - Martial

which, ordered Admiral Byng to be shot for alleged neglect of duty seeme to apply equally as well to the method pursued by the Spanish authorities of Manila toward* Admiral Montiojo and the captain and lieutenant of the Callao. The treatment of the latter seems uncalled for. " The Callao ib a gunboat, of too insignificant size to find a place in the "Naval Annual," and had evidently been cruising about among the islands out of touch with cables. It dropped casually into the harbour of Manila, as it had probably done many a time before, but things had teen happening since its previous call. The *\-ar had broken out, the Spanish fleet in the Philippics nad been destroyed, Manila itself was at the enemy's mercy. > So when the Callao put in its appearance there was good ground for its officers and crew, experiencing the same feeling as Mark Twain's spider—"When the musing spider treads upon a red-hot shovel, he first exhibits a wild surprise and then shrivels up." The surprise of the Callao may, be taken for granted; she shrivelled up by immediately surrendering without fighting. Opinions will naturally differ as to the propriety of this coarse. Some people will say the captain Should have fought against the overwhelming odds. Jn this case his ship might have laßted five minutes, officers and crew would have perished, and the world would have raked up its recollections of the Revenge, and placed him in the same rank as the undoubtedly heroic captain of tJhe Don Antonio de Ulloa.' However, he surrendered, in the hope, no doubt, that he might take a part in future battles after he was exchanged. Unfortunately for himself, he was released at once, and the authorities of Manila promptly conrt-martiailed him on a charge of cowardice, and shot him, repeating the lesson by shooting the lieutenant, on the ground, we piesuine, that he ought to have superseded his commander and fought his ship toiinself. The case of Admiral Montiojo, the commander of the Spanish squadron, is slightly different. He, too, has been courtmartialled on charges of cowardice and incompetence, and has been sentenced to be shefc. Where the cowardice comes in we confess we cannot see. The Admiral was terribly overmatched, from the very start, he had two successive flagships destroyed under him, and fought desperately throughout, as dul his c.iptiins But naval experts agree, we are told, that he showed lack of judgment, and he should never have allowed the American squadron to enter the harbour unopposed. For this he deserved punishment/ but it seems very poor policy on the part of Spain to be shooting- her naval oJSoers so freely just when she needs them most. It may have the effect of -nducing the surrivers :o fight iike raft whenever they- are cornered, but it is just possible'this may not always te the wisest thing to -10. Nelson is said to Ijave gone into action with the words on his lips, "'A peerage or West-r-rinmr -AW.cv.** The alternatives offered to the Spanish Admirals seem to be "Victory or execution."

There appears to be absoA Warning lutely no limit, to the ferto England* tility of Russian resources

■ and enterprise in connection with the advance in the Far East. Step by step she makes its footing firmer and establishes her bold still mow strongly. Recent

political and military events are fresh in I the public's mind, but Russia's latest move v is calculated tc help her a<? much as any one of these. There is about to be established at Vladivostok an Academy of Philology, for the admitted purpose of turning out a body of interpreters, consuls, and business men to servo Russia's interests in the East. -«.u Russian students will be admitted, and the courses of study include besides all the European languages, the principal languages and dialects ot Eastern Asia, such as <-mncse, Mongolian, Japanese and Korean. The history nnd geography of ChinfH. Japan, aond Korea, international law and political economy will also be taught. The Oriental languages, says a St. Petersburg correspondent, will be taught by ' native Chinese, Mongolian, Korean, unfl Japanese processors, and during the summer holidays the students will be taken either to China, Korea, or Japan, as the case may be in order that they may become thoroughly familial with the language, customs, and business methods of these countries. .\n enthusiastic Russian says it is hoped that with the nid of this Academy, in another I quarter of a century Russia will completely * I dominate the Asiatic world. There jg Jl nothing like having a high aim. and no 1 doubt the Academy will be of great value I to Russia in her relations of diplomacy and L trade in Asia., but when it eomcv to talk / about dominating that part of the world, one cannot help thinking that the speaker is not taking till the possibilities of the future into account. There are other ; Powers besides Russia interested in the Par I East. h