240 LIBRARY OP OLD AUTHORS, 



sacred Poesy. His task was as holy to him as a version of 

 Scripture; he justifies the tears of Achilles by those of Jesus, 

 and the eloquence of his horse by that of Balaam s less noble 

 animal. He does not always keep close to his original, but he 

 sins no more, even in this, than any of his rivals. He is espe 

 cially great in his similes. Here he rouses himself always, and 

 if his enthusiasm sometimes lead him to heighten a little, or 

 even to add outright, he gives us a picture full of life and action, 

 or of the grandeur and beauty of nature, as stirring to the fancy 

 as his original. Of all who have attempted Homer, he has the 

 topping merit of being inspirited by him. 



In the recent discussions of Homeric translation in England, 

 it has always been taken for granted that we had or could have 

 some adequate conception of Homer s metre. Lord Derby, in 

 his Preface, plainly assumes this. But there can be no greater 

 fallacy. No human ears, much less Greek ones, could have 

 endured what, with our mechanical knowledge of the verse, 

 ignorance of the accent, and English pronunciation, we blandly 

 accept for such music as Homer chanted. We have utterly lost 

 the tune and cannot reproduce it. Mr. Newman conjectures it 

 to have been something like Yankee Doodle ; Mr. Arnold is 

 sure it was the English hexameter ; and they are both partly 

 right so far as we may trust our reasonable impressions ; for, 

 after all, an impression is all that we have. Cowper attempts 

 to give the ring of the dpyupioio (3io1o by 



Dread-sounding, bounding on the silver bow, 



which only too fatally recalls the old Scottish dancing-tune, 



Amaisit I gaisit 

 To see, led at command, 

 A strampant and rampant 

 Ferss lyon in his hand. 



The attempt was in the right direction, however, for Homer, 

 like Dante and Shakspcare, like all who really command lan 

 guage, seems fond of playing with assonances. No doubt the 

 Homeric verse consented at will to an eager rapidity, and no 

 doubt also its general character is that of prolonged but unmo- 

 notonous roll. Everybody says it is like the long ridges of the 

 sea, some overtopping their neighbours a little, each with an 

 independent undulation of its crest, yet all driven by a common 

 impulse, and breaking, not with the sudden snap of an unyield 

 ing material, but one after the other with a stately curve, to slide 

 back and mingle with those that follow. Chapman s measure 

 has the disadvantage of an association with Sternhold and 



