1908.] Indiscriminate Use of Gender in Cowper’s Odyssey. 
- be emasculated without some good rea- 
son. 
I would further observe that the inter- 
pretation of A. B.E runs counter to the 
rival translations of the Atneid; nor does 
any commentator, whora IL have seen, 
sanction his rendering. 
«* Just opposite sad Nilus opens wide 
His arms and ample bosom to the tide, 
And spreads Ais mantle o’er the winding 
coast, 
In which 4e wraps his queen and flying host.” 
Dryden. 
While sunk in grief the mighty Nile bemoans 
The shame and slaughter of sis vanquished 
sons. 
He saw the rout; his mantle he unroll’d,, 
Spread ferth Ais robes, and opened every fold ; 
Expanded wide bis arms with timely care, 
And in his kind embrace received the flying 
war. Bris 
To these authorities I shall only per- 
mit myself to add that of the ingentous 
critic who has delineated ‘ the several 
pictures that compose” the whole repre- 
sentation of the shield in a connected se- 
ries. “ The figure of the wolf bending 
back with fondness, and forming with her 
tongue the smiling infants, or the mourn- 
ing river-god stretching out /ws watery 
garments to receive and shield the routed 
Egyptians, have se/dom escaped even the 
meanest admirer.””* 
Perhaps, Sir, your Correspondent 
A. B. E. may be able to justify his inter- 
pretation, if not the effect of inadver- 
tence; and I can assure him I bave no 
disinclination to yield to convincing evi- 
dence. But I am afraid of losing your 
readers “ in an unreasonable length of 
time”} and hasten to a conclusion, 
Your's, &c. 
Masbro’, AONE: 
February 24, 1808. 
ed ee 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
EADING, the other day in Cow- 
per’s Translation of Homer, I met 
with the followimg indiscriminate use of 
the masculine and feminine genders, 
which, to me, appears exceedingly irre- 
gular, and, in a second edition, remarkably 
careless. 
In the third hook of the Odyssey, 
after the venerable Nestor has discovered 
Minerva to be the companion of Telema- 
* Mr. W. Whitchead’s Observations on the 
Shield cf AEneas. 
+ Pope’s Preface to the Iliad. 
219 
chus, he entreats her favour towards him- 
self and family, and vows to sacrifice an 
heifers 
66 mene l to thee will give 
For sacrifice an heifer of the year.” 
When the ceremony comes to take 
place, an artist is represented as gilding 
the victim’s horns, 
Ci Se 
that seeing him attired 
So costly, Pallas might the more be pleased. 
Stratius and brave Ecephron introduced 
The victim by Ais horns ; 
warlike Thrasymedes armed 
With his long-hafted axe, prepared to smite 
6 DI VeMroy 3 
When all had pray’d and strewed with crum- 
bied cakes 
The heifer over, then, hasting to his work, 
The godlike Thrasymedcs with his axe 
Her tough neck-tendons sever’d, and she 
fell.” 
‘¢ The royal youths then raising from the 
ground 
The heifer’s head, sustain’d it, while sbe 
pour’d 
Her ebbing life’s last current 7 
‘6 Soon as the sable blood had ceased, an® 
life 
Had left the victim, spreading bim abroad, 
With nice address they parted at the joint 
Fis thighs 
Cowper’ s Odyssey, vol. I. p. 73-77, 2d. ed. 
The original word is BOYS, and may 
be used either in the masculine or femi- 
nine gender, though by Homer himself, 
in the passage alluded to, it is used when 
any discrimimation can be discerned, in 
the feminine. Popetranslatesit bullock ; 
but he has, however, uniformly preserved 
consistency. 
If any of your learned readers can free 
this amiable poet from the charge of in- 
cangruity and want of due attention, it 
will doubtless, afford pleasure to his nu- 
merous admirers, and especially, to 
Your’s, &c. QuIsquam. 
——e 
To the. Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
Eccho (alas!) that doth my sorrow rewe, 
Returns thereto a hollowe sounde of playnt 3 
Thus I alone, where all my freedome grewe, 
In pryson pyne, wth bondage and resraynt : 
And with remembrance of the greater griefey 
To banish the Jesse I fynd my chief reliefe, 
Howard, Earl Surrey’s Sonnettes. 
O might sing the feathered chorise 
ter, under the deprivation of liberty, 
whilst his plaintive notes are ascribed ta 
happy resignation, and the melody of his 
song as expressive of joy; and thus, the 
reward 
