Page:On translating Homer. Last words. A lecture given at Oxford.djvu/20

Rh am fresh from leading Mr. Newman’s reply to my lectures; a reply full of that erudition in which (as I am so often and so good-naturedly reminded, but indeed I know it without being reminded), Mr. Newman is immeasurably my superior. Well, the demon that pushes us all to our ruin is even now prompting me to follow Mr. Newman into a discussion about the digamma, and I know not what providence holds me back. And some day, I have no doubt, I shall lecture on the language of the Berbers, and give him his entire revenge.

But Mr. Newman does not confine himself to complaints on his own behalf, he complains on Homer’s behalf too. He says that my ‘statements about Greek literature are against the most notorious and elementary fact’; that I ‘do a public wrong to literature by publishing them;’ and that the Professors to whom I appealed in my three Lectures, ‘would only lose credit if they sanctioned the use I make of their names.’ He does these eminent men the kindness of adding, however, that ‘whether they are pleased with this parading of their names in behalf of paradoxical error, he may well doubt,’ and that ‘until they endorse it themselves, he shall treat my process as a piece of forgery.’ He proceeds to discuss my statements at great length, and with an erudition and ingenuity which nobody can admire more than I do. And he ends by saying that my ignorance is great.