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Giving then to Pope his praise as a poet, in whose original works he found every species of poetical merit, he proceeded to account for the faults of his translation. "Fame," he said, "had not been his principal motive, otherwise, with his abilities, he would never have condescended to let others participate in the undertaking. His connexions were many, his avocations were frequent; he was obliged to have recourse to assistance; sometimes to write hastily and rather carelessly himself; and often, no doubt, either through delicacy or precipitance, to admit such lines of his coadjutors, as not only dishonoured Homer, but his translator also." The main cause, however, lay in the measure which he had chosen. "Pope was a most excellent rhymist; that is to say, he had the happiest talent at accommodating his sense to his rhyming occasions. To discover homotonous words in a language abounding with them like ours, is a task that would puzzle no man competently acquainted with it. But for such accommodation as I have mentioned, when an author is to be translated, there is little room; the sense is already determined; rhyme, therefore, must, in many cases, occasion, even to the most expert in the art, an almost unavoidable necessity to depart from the meaning of the original; for Butler's remark is as true as it is ludicrous, that

Rhyme the rudder is of verses,

With which, like ships, they steer their courses.

Accordingly, in numberless instances, we may observe in Pope a violation of Homer's sense, of which he certainly had never been guilty, had not the chains with which he had bound himself constrained him.'

The letter-writer treated next upon the barbarous effect of shortening proper names; "blank verse," he observed, “being of loftier construction, would have afforded sufficient room for Idomeneus and Meriones, with several others, to have stood upright, instead of being shortened by the foot. But rhyme has another unhappy effect upon a poem of such length; it admits not of a sufficient variety in the pause and cadence. The ear is fatigued with the sameness of the numbers, and satiated with a tune, musical indeed, but for ever repeated. Here then was an error at the outset. It is to be lamented, but not to be wondered at. For who can wonder, since all men are naturally fond of that in which they excel, that Pope, who managed the

bells of rhyme with more dexterity than any man, should have tied them about Homer's neck? Yet Pope, when he composed an epic poem himself, wrote it in blank verse, aware, no doubt, of its greater suitableness, both in point of dignity and variety, to the grandeur of such a work. And though Atterbury advised him to burn it, and it was burned accordingly, I will venture to say that it did not incur that doom by the want of rhyme. It is hardly necessary for me to add, after what I have said on this part of the subject, that Homer must have suffered infinitely in the English representation that we have of him. Sometimes his sense is suppressed, sometimes other sense is obtruded upon him; rhyme gives the word, a miserable transformation ensues; instead of Homer in the graceful habit of his age and nation, we have Homer in a strait waistcoat.

"The spirit and the manner of an author are terms that may I think, be used conversely. The spirit gives birth to the manner, and the manner is an indication of the spirit. Homer's spirit was manly, bold, sublime. Superior to the practice of those little arts by which a genius like Ovid's seeks to amuse his readers, he contented himself with speaking the thing as it was, deriving a dignity from its plainness, to which writers more studious of ornament can never attain. If you meet with a metaphorical expression in Homer, you meet with a rarity indeed. I do not say that he has none, but I assert that he has very few. Scriptural poetry excepted, I believe that there is not to be found in the world poetry so simple as his. Is it thus with his translator? I answer, no; but exactly the reverse. Pope is no where more figurative in his own pieces than in his translation of Homer. I do not deny that his flowers are beautiful, at least they are often such; but they are modern discoveries, and of English growth. The Iliad and the Odyssey, in his hands, have no more of the air of antiquity than if he had himself invented them. Their simplicity is overwhelmed with a profusion of fine things, which, however they may strike the eye at first sight, make no amends for the greater beauties which they conceal. The venerable Grecian is as much the worse for his acquisitions of this kind, as a statue by Phidias or Praxiteles would be for the painter's brush. The man might give to it the fashionable colours of the day, the colour of the emperor's eye, or of the hair of the Queen of France, but he

would fill up those fine strokes of the artist which he designed should be the admiration of all future ages."

He then adduced instances in which Pope had injured the original by loading it with false ornaments, or weakened it by false delicacy, occasioning thereby "a flatness in the English Homer, that never occurs in the Greek. Homer's heroes," said he, "respected their gods just as much as the Papists respect their idols. While their own cause prospered, they were a very good sort of gods; but a reverse of fortune taking place, they treated them with a familiarity nothing short of blasphemy. These outrages Pope has diluted with such a proportion of good christian meekness, that all the spirit of the old bard is quenched entirely. In like manner the invective of his heroes is often soothed and tamed away so effectually, that, instead of the smartness and acrimony of the original, we find nothing but the milkiness of the best good manners. In nice discrimination of character Homer is excelled by none; but his translator makes the persons of his poems speak all one language; they are all alike stately, pompous, stiff. In Homer we find accuracy without littleness, ease without negligence, grandeur without ostentation, sublimity without labour. I do not find them in Pope. He is often turgid, often tame, often careless, and— to what cause it was owing I will not even surmise-upon many occasions has given an interpretation of whole passages utterly beside their meaning..

"If my fair countrywomen," he concluded, "will give a stranger credit for so much intelligence, novel at least to them, they will know hereafter whom they have to thank for the weariness with which many of them have toiled through Homer; they may rest assured that the learned, the judicious, the polite scholars of all nations have not been, to a man, mistaken and deceived; but that Homer, whatever figure he may make in English, is in himself entitled to the highest praise that his most sanguine admirers have bestowed upon him."

The letter was signed Alethes 13. In the next number of the Magazine the editor introduced a citation from Say's Essays, wherein Pope's version of the passage describing in a simile a moonlight night, was critically examined,.. a passage which being one of the very worst in the whole translation, as equally 13 Gentleman's Magazine, Aug. 1785. It is printed also among the Selections from that Magazine, vol. ii. pp. 273-8.

false to the original and to nature, is that which has been most praised. "I may, therefore, reasonably conclude," says Cowper", "that Nichols, who makes the quotation, is on my side also. I do not know that Pope's work was ever more roughly handled than by myself, upon this occasion; yet, although the Magazine be a field in which disputants upon all questions contend, no one has hitherto enlisted himself in Pope's behalf against me. The truth is, that in those points where I touched him he is indefensible. Readers of the original know it; and all others must be conscious that whether he deserves my censure, or deserves it not, the matter is not for them to meddle with."

But though Cowper delivered his opinion thus freely in his letters, and under a fictitious signature in the Magazine, he was prudent enough not to provoke hostility in his Proposals. "I did," said he to Hill 15, " as you suppose, bestow all possible consideration on the subject of an apology for my Homerican undertaking. I turned the matter about in my mind a hundred different ways, and in every way in which it would present itself found it an impracticable business. It is impossible for me, with what delicacy soever I may manage it, to state the objections that lie against Pope's translation, without incurring odium and the imputation of arrogance; foreseeing this danger, I choose to say nothing."

Upon imparting his intention to Johnson, and asking his advice and information on the subject of proposals for a subscription, the bookseller in reply 16 disapproved of the intended mode, and offered to treat with him, adding that he could make offers which he thought would be approved. Cowper, however, persisted in his intention. "A subscription," said he, "is surely on every account the most eligible mode of publication. When I shall have emptied the purses of my friends, and of their friends, into my own, I am still free to levy contributions upon the world at large, and I shall then have a fund to defray the

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14 To Mr. Unwin, Oct. 22, 1786. 15 April 5. 1786. 16 Dr. Johnson would have agreed in opinion with his namesake. He," said he," that asks subscription soon finds that he has enemies. All who do not encourage him, defame him. He that wants money will rather be thought angry than poor and he that wishes to save his money conceals his avarice by his malice."-Life of Pope.

This is looking at the dark side,—and in a matter wherein enmity can do little, and good will may effect much.

expenses of a new edition "." He had already received great encouragement at his outset. "At Westminster," said he to Lady Hesketh 18, "I was much intimate with Walter Bagot, a brother of Lord Bagot. In the course as I suppose of more than twenty years after we left school, I saw him but twice; once when I called on him at Oxford, and once when he called on me in the Temple. He has a brother who lives about four miles from hence, a man of large estate. It happened that soon after the publication of my first volume, he came into this country on a visit to his brother. Having read my book, and liking it, he took that opportunity to renew his acquaintance with me. I felt much affection for him; and the more, because it was plain, that after so long a time he still retained his for me. He is now at his brother's; twice he visited me in the course of last week, and this morning he brought Mrs. Bagot with him. He is a good and amiable man, and she is a most agreeable woman. At this second visit I made him acquainted with my translation of Homer; he was highly pleased to find me so occupied, and with all that glow of friendship that would make it criminal in me to doubt his sincerity for a moment, insisted upon being employed in promoting the subscription, and engaged himself and all his connexions, which are extensive, and many of them of high rank, in my service. His chariot put up at an inn in the town while he was here, and I rather wondered that at his departure he chose to walk to his chariot, and not to be taken up at the door. But when he had been gone about a quarter of an hour, his servant came with a letter, which his master had written at the inn, and which, he said, required no answer. I opened it, and found as follows:

MY GOOD FRIEND,

Olney, Nov. 30, 1785.

You will oblige me by accepting this early subscription to your Homer, even before you have fixed your plan and price; which, when you have done, if you will send me a parcel of your subscription papers, I will endeavour to circulate them among my friends and acquaintance as far as I can. Health and happiness attend you. Yours ever, WALTER BAGOT.

It contained a draft for 201.

17 To Lady Hesketh, Jan. 10, 1786. S. C.-1.

18 Nov. 30, 1785.

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