[ 8° ] 



though its meaning in this paflage is by the SchoHafl in his note 

 (which Mr. Cowper gives) pronounced to be fomewhat difFerent 

 in degree from its ordinary one which alone our Englifli term 

 laughed expreflfes. There is not any one Englifh word perhaps 

 wliich can render tt-^As, but furely it would have been better 

 to have ufed a periphrafis than to have tranllated it by the 

 mean and vulgar term' dandled. 



On comparing thefe two tranflacions with the original it does 

 not appear that either of thefe gentlemen, however great their 

 merits, feems to have rightly felt the beauty of this paifage. 

 The mode of motion denoted by l^xlvb-^ is not at all expreffed 

 either by fell back or clung : the one is too fudden and violent, 

 the other defcribes what might perhaps have been the ftate 

 after the movement had taken place. Mr. Pope was never 

 married : he was not a man of domeftic endearment, or family 

 obfervation : and without knowing any thing of the private 

 life of Mr. Cowper (which from many pafTages in his works 

 I am convinced is perfeftly amiable) I think we might ven- 

 ture to aflert that he did not receive Homer's image in the 

 nurfery. The paflage was too natural and fimple for Mr. Pope, 

 and Mr. Cowper has left it mean and profaic *. 



The 



* i TTxiJo: is falfely rendered by Pope lotyely boy. It was not adm'ration of the infant's 

 beauty, but affeftion for his child, with which Hecflor was ftruck. The delicate epithet ti/fM«oi', 

 a word of peculiarly foft found, is not attempted in either verfion. '0\it Cowper renders afpeB, 

 which more ufually denotes the look a perfon affumes than the appearance he exhibits. The 

 fourth line of the original feems to amplify tlie terror by a full eniinierwion of the feveial cir- 

 ftances immediately crowded on each other— XaXxsirs I'Ji WrCat. Mr. Cowper has defiroyed the 



effeft 



I 



