But
Methley, abounding in Homer, really loved him (as I believe) in all
truth, without whim or fancy; moreover, he had a good deal of the
practical sagacity
"Of a Yorkshireman hippodamoio,"
and this enabled him to apply his knowledge with much more tact
than is usually shown by people so learned as he.
I, too, loved Homer, but not with a scholar's love. The most
humble and pious among women was yet so proud a mother that she
could teach her firstborn son no Watts' hymns, no collects for the
day; she could teach him in earliest childhood no less than this,
to find a home in his saddle, and to love old Homer, and all that
old Homer sung. True it is, that the Greek was ingeniously
rendered into English, the English of Pope even, but not even a
mesh like that can screen an earnest child from the fire of Homer's
battles.
I pored over the Odyssey as over a story-book, hoping and fearing
for the hero whom yet I partly scorned.