flea shall contemplate the structure of a human body, or, in the words of the same author, before whose uncreating word light dies. If Wolf's hypothesis has since been patronized by men of a somewhat higher character, it has been patronized by them, as the general sense of mankind is beginning to declare, only to their discredit. We shall still have our Homer entire, and any attempts to distribute him into parts, or make him evaporate into a myth, will, we may fairly prophesy, prove as futile as the late fanciful project of dividing the plays of Shakspeare between Raleigh and Bacon.

Some remarks on the Odyssey in particular will be offered in the next volume.

Against the version of Pope, which is here once more reprinted, much criticism, and animadversions of various sorts, have at times been directed. But all the objections that have been made to it are little more than a repetition of Bentley's remark that "it is not Homer."

That it is not a literal translation of Homer, rendering every phrase in words exactly correspondent, is well known; but it is what the English world has been well content to accept instead of a literal translation.

Pope, as is now well understood, was not a great Greek scholar, notwithstanding Lord Bathurst's statement to Dr. Blair, that, when he was executing part of the Iliad at that nobleman's house, he would repeat at breakfast the Greek lines which he had previously been translating, accompanied with his own version. Much stress has been laid upon this anecdote by those who wish to make the most of Pope's knowledge of Greek; but it will not prove it to have been very deep; for a man may repeat a few Greek lines with but a very imperfect conception of their meaning.

But if Pope had not the Greek of a Bentley or a Porson, he had that which was of far more importance to a translator of Homer than a greater knowledge of Greek would have been. He had great acuteness and penetration, and was able to see far better into Homer's meaning than many who had far more knowledge of Homer's language; and when he had made himself master of

ON HOMER AND HIS WORKS.

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Homer's matter, he could express it in his own language with a fire and energy that a mere scholar would attempt in vain :

Sudet multum frustraque laboret,

Ausus idem.

He doubtless did not always compass the sense with equal success; he sometimes perverts and sometimes exaggerates; but his misrepresentations are chiefly in minor matters; Homer's great thoughts and noble passages are in general rendered with all the fidelity and exactness that a great poet would desire.

In how much esteem Pope's version, with all its faults, is held by the English public, is shown by the fortune of all subsequent attempts that have been made to represent Homer in English with greater accuracy. Of these, the chief are Cowper's and Sotheby's. Cowper, though he had no superabundance of Greek, had enough to render Homer faithfully; but he is guilty, alas! of that from which every translator of the mighty Grecian should be free; his blank verse is tame and unenergetic; he has occasional warmth, but no ardour; he has not even cherished the fire with which his master supplied him. Sotheby has succeeded better, though he ventured on the hazardous experiment of encountering Pope in the heroic couplet; but he has only encountered, he has not rivalled; his verses are smooth, and show a scholar's fidelity to the sense, but want

"The high majestic march and energy divine."

His version is to Pope's what Pitt's Virgil is to Dryden's; more true to the original, but less pleasing to the reader.

After the fate of these efforts, it is futile to decry Pope's translation as mere "splendid varnish." The public allow that there is varnish, but have found out that there is excellent stuff, whether Homer's or Pope's, below the varnish. They still regard Pope as the English Homer; and all rival performances, except Sotheby's and Cowper's, have found favour neither with the learned nor the unlearned, neither with those who pretend to judge quid distent æra lupinis, nor with those who "give up the reins of their imagination into their author's hands, and are pleased they know not why, and care no wherefore."

XXIV INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON HOMER AND HIS WORKS.

In the following pages no pains have been spared to give a correct text. The few notes are intended chiefly for the elucidation of passages that might seem obscure to the mere English reader; they are mostly from Pope; some few from Cowper; both of whom borrowed liberally from Eustathius and the Greek scholiasts.

J. S. W.

POPE'S PREFACE.

HOMER is universally allowed to have had the greatest invention of any writer whatever. The praise of judgment Virgil has justly contested with him, and others may have their pretensions as to particular excellencies; but his invention remains yet unrivalled. Nor is it a wonder if he has ever been acknowledged the greatest of poets, who most excelled in that which is the very foundation of poetry. It is the invention that in different degrees distinguishes all great geniuses: the utmost stretch of human study, learning, and industry, which masters everything besides, can never attain to this. It furnishes Art with all her materials, and without it, Judgment itself can at best but steal wisely for Art is only like a prudent steward, that lives on managing the riches of Nature. Whatever praises may be given to works of judgment, there is not even a single beauty in them but is owing to the invention as in the most regular gardens, however Art may carry the greatest appearance, there is not a plant or flower but is the gift of Nature. The first can only reduce the beauties of the latter into a more obvious figure, which the common eye may better take in, and is therefore more entertained with them. perhaps the reason why most critics are inclined to prefer a judicious and methodical genius to a great and fruitful one, is, because they find it easier for themselves to pursue their observations through an uniform and bounded walk of art, than to comprehend the vast and various extent of nature.

:

And

Our author's work is a wild paradise, where if we cannot see all the beauties so distinctly as in an ordered garden, it is only because the number of them is infinitely greater. It is like a copious nursery, which contains the seeds and first productions of every kind, out of which those who followed him have but selected some particular plants, each according to his fancy, to cultivate and beautify. If some things are too luxuriant, it is owing to the richness of the soil; and if others are not arrived to perfection or maturity, it is only because they are over-run and oppressed by those of a stronger nature.

It is to the strength of this amazing invention we are to attri bute that unequalled fire and rapture, which is so forcible in

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Homer, that no man of a true poetical spirit is master of himself while he reads him. What he writes is of the most animated nature imaginable; everything moves, everything lives, and is put in action. If a council be called, or a battle fought, you are not coldly informed of what was said or done as from a third person; the reader is hurried out of himself by the force of the poet's imagination, and turns in one place to a hearer, in another to a spectator. The course of his verses resembles that of the army he describes,

Οἱ δ ̓ ἄρ ̓ ἴσαν, ὡσεί τε πυρὶ χθὼν πᾶσα νέμοιτο.

They pour along like a fire that sweeps the whole earth before it. It is, however, remarkable that his fancy, which is every where vigorous, is not discovered immediately at the beginning of his poem in its fullest splendour; it grows in the progress both upon himself and others, and becomes on fire, like a chariot-wheel, by its own rapidity. Exact disposition, just thought, correct elocution, polished numbers, may have been found in a thousand; but this poetical fire, this vivida vis animi, in a very few. Even in works where all those are imperfect or neglected, this can overpower criticism, and make us admire even while we disapprove. Nay, where this appears, though attended with absurdities, it brightens all the rubbish about it, till we see nothing but its own splendour. This fire is discerned in Virgil, but discerned as through a glass, reflected from Homer, more shining than fierce, but every where equal and constant: in Lucan and Statius, it bursts out in sudden, short, and interrupted flashes in Milton, it glows like a furnace kept up to an uncommon ardour by the force of art in Shakspeare, it strikes before we are aware, like an accidental fire from heaven: but in Homer, and in him only, it burns every where clearly, and every where irresistibly.

I shall here endeavour to shew, how this vast invention exerts itself in a manner superior to that of any poet, through all the main constituent parts of his work, as it is the great and peculiar characteristic which distinguishes him from all other authors.

;

This strong and ruling faculty was like a powerful star, which, in the violence of its course, drew all things within its vortex. It seemed not enough to have taken in the whole circle of arts, and the whole compass of nature, to supply his maxims and reflections all the inward passions and affections of mankind, to furnish his characters; and all the outward forms and images of things for his descriptions; but wanting yet an ampler sphere to expatiate in, he opened a new and boundless walk for his imagination, and created a world for himself in the invention of fable. That which Aristotle calls the soul of poetry, was first breathed into it by