...have been referred to time. The Pythagorean scale of numbers was at once discovered to be perfect; but the poems of Homer we yet know not to transcend the common limits of buman intelligence, but by remarking, that nation after nation, and century after century, has been...

...Johnson said, truly, in speaking of Homer, " that nation after nation, and century after century, had been able to do little more than transpose his incidents,...name his characters, and paraphrase his sentiments." — Preface to Shakespeare, The usurer was attacked without mercy in the popular ballads of the time....