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in the full chorus of praife. In every other place it would be an offence to be near them, without thewing in his attitudes and deportment the confcious marks of inferiority; here only he fees the proftrations of the rich as low as his, and hears them both addressed together in the majestic fimplicity of a language that knows no adulation. Here the poor man learns that, in fpite of the distinctions of rank, and the apparent inferiority of his condition, all the true goods of life, all that men dare petition for when in the prefence of their Maker-a found mind, a healthful body, and daily bread, lie within the fcope of his own hopes and endeavours; and that in the large inheritance to come, his expe&ations are no lefs ample than theirs. He rifes from his knees, and feels himself a man. He learns philofophy without its pride, and a fpirit of liberty without its turbulence. Every time focial worship is celebrated, it includes a virtual declaration of the rights of man.'

Many other judicious obfervations are added, particularly refpecting the good effects that may be expected from the attendance of men of learning and refinement on public worship; and on the improvements which are defirable in the prefent methods of conducting public fervices.

Mrs. B. compliments the Diffenters, we fuppofe not without fome authority from experience, on their openness to conviction, and on their readiness to profit by every fober and liberal remark which may affift them to improve their religious addrefles. She advifes them to give their places of worship a more cheerful and a more democratic form; to allow the people to have a confiderable share in the performance of the fervice, by the intermixing of their voices; to introduce a more fyftematic method of teaching, in which a connected series of inftruction may be delivered on natural and revealed religion, and on moral duties, without regard to the cuftom of prefixing a text of scripture to every difcourfe; and to join to religious information fome inftruction in the laws of our country.

Several of these hints appear to merit attention. There will be no reason to regret Mr. Wakefield's attack on public worfhip, if the refult be, not an abolition of the practice, but its correction and improvement.

E.

ART. XIV. The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, tranflated into English Blank Verfe. By W. Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Efq. 4to. 2 Vols. 21. 12s. 6d. Boards. Johnfon. 1791.

THE

"HE attention of the public has been fixed on the volumes before us by many and various causes. The venerable name of the original writer, a name endeared to us by the en thufiafm of our youthful ftudies, and fanctified by the homage of countless generations; the fplendid fuccefs of Mr. Pope, whofe

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whofe verfion, though obnoxious to criticifm, feemed to defy competition; and the poetical reputation of Mr. Cowper, who, inftead of fhrinking from the conteft, boldly challenged the prize; all these circumftances have induced us to perufe this tranflation with avidity, and to reconfider fome parts of it with no common share of attention.

Our remarks, however, will be the lefs numerous, because a few fpecimens, impartially felected, will enable both the Greek scholar and the English reader to appreciate its general character.

Mr. Cowper's own words will beft explain his defign, and what he conceives to be the peculiar excellence of his work:

That he (Mr. Pope) has fometimes altogether fuppreffed the fenfe of his author, and has not feldom intermingled his own ideas with it, is a remark which, on this occafion, nothing but neceffity fhould have extorted from me. But we differ fometimes fo widely in our matter, that unless this remark, invidious as it feems, be premised, I know not how to obviate a fufpicion, on the one hand, of carelefs overfight, or of factitious embellishment on the other. On this head, therefore, the English reader is to be admonished, that the matter found in me, whether he like it or not, is found alfo in HOMER, and that the matter not found in me, how much foever he may admire it, is found only in Mr. Pope. 1 have omitted nothing; I have invented nothing.

There is indifputably a wide difference between the case of an original writer in rhime and a tranflator. In an original work the author is free; if the rhime be of difficult attainment, and he cannot find it in one direction, he is at liberty to feek it in another; the matter that will not accommodate itself to his occafions he may difcard, adopting fuch as will. But in a tranflation no fuch option is allowable; the fenfe of the author is required, and we do not furrender it willingly even to the plea of neceffity. Fidelity is indeed the very effence of tranflation, and the term itself implies it. For which reafon, if we fupprefs the fenfe of our original, and force into its place our own, we may call our work an imitation, if we pleafe, or perhaps a paraphrafe, but it is no longer the fame author only in a different drefs, and therefore it is not translation.

My chief boat is that I have adhered clofely to my original, convinced that every departure from him would be punished with the forfeiture of fome grace or beauty for which I could fubftitute no equivalent. The epithets that would confent to an English form I have preferved as epithets; others that would not, I have melted into the context. There are none, I believe, which I have not tranflated in one way or other, though the reader will not find them repeated fo often as moft of them are in HOMER, for a reason that need not be mentioned.

Few perfons of any confideration are introduced either in the Iliad or Ody fey by their own name only, but their patronymic is

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given

given alfo. To this ceremonial I have generally attended, because it is a circumftance of my author's manner.

HOMER never allots lefs than a whole line to the introduction of a speaker. No, not even when the fpeech itself is no longer than the line at leads it. A practice to which, fince he never departs from it, he must have been determined by fome cogent reafon. He probably deemed it a formality neceffary to the majesty of his narration. In this article, therefore, I have scrupulously adhered to my pattern, confidering thefe introductory lines as heralds in a proceffion; important perfons, because employed to usher in perfons more important than them felves.

It has been my point everywhere to be as little verbose as poffible, though, at the fame time, my conftant determination not to facrifice my author's full meaning to an affected brevity.

In the affair of ftyle, I have endeavoured neither to creep nor to blufter, for no author is fo likely to betray his tranflator into both these faults, as HOMER, though himself never guilty of either. I have cautiously avoided all terms of new invention, with an abund ance of which, perfons of more ingenuity than judgment have not enriched our language, but incumbered it. I have alfo everywhere ufed an unabbreviated fullness of phrafe as moft fuited to the nature of the work, and, above all, have ftudied perfpicuity, not only because verfe is good for little that wants it, but becaufe HOMER is the most perfpicuous of all poets.'

What are the natural and indefeasible rights of a translator; how far they are either contracted or extended by the established laws of criticism; beyond what point poetical fidelity becomes really treafon against the majefty of the original, and reformation may be ftyled loyalty; are queftions of nice and hazardous difcuffion. We fufpect, however, that Mr. C. dif claims fome of the neceffary privileges of his fraternity, and that, by contending fo ftrongly for the doctrine of paffive and unlimited obedience to his author, he attempts to mutilate a charter of very ancient date. Would Mr. C. himself, or any other poet who merits the praife of foreign nations and diftant pofterity, fubject his own writings to a translation con ducted on fuch principles? Would he not rather entrust them to men of kindred genius, and cultivated tafte,-men who, transplanting no flower that would perish by removal, but foftening only what is harfh, and adding nothing that is incongruous, would transfufe the energy, the fpirit, the general character, and the colour, of his poem, into their vernacular language? This we have never feen atchieved by the advo cates for literal tranflation, even when fuffered to expatiate in blank verse, an advantage of which Mr. Cowper has judiciously availed himself As the vehicle of a tranflation of Homer, the Miltonic verfification is, in our opinion, fuperior to that of Mr. Pope; not only because it renders fidelity more easy, but

because

ν. 174. Αλλ' αγι, τῳδ' εφες ανδει βέλος 203 of the

Verfion. Difpatch an arrow'.

At yon

chief

vii. 99. Αλλ' ὑμεῖς μεν παίδες ύδωρ καὶ γαια γενοισθε Ημενοι αυθι έκαςοι ακηρίοι, ακλεις αύλως.

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Daftards, deaf to glory's call

Rot where ye fit.'.

viii. 218. Ει μη επι φρεσι θηκ' Αγαμεμνονι ποΐνια Ηρη, Αυῳ ποιπνυσανι, θεως οτρύναι Αχαιες.

Verf. 250.

But Juno mov'd the mind
Of Agamemnon, vigilant him felf,
To exhortation of Achaia's hoft.'

xiii. 11. Και γαρ ὁ θαυμαζων ἦτο πολεμον τε μάχην τε

Verf. 16.

• The fir

Admiring thence and tempeft of the field.'

Ib. 14. Ημεας γ' όπως εσι μεθιέμεναι πολέμοιο.

Verf. 142.

Ye at least the fight decline,
Blameworthy, and with no fufficient plea.'
xvii. 122. yupov is, we think, vulgarly tranflated' bare.'
Verf. 145. My gallant Ajax, hafte, come quickly, strive
With me to refcue for Achilles' fake

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His friend, though bare, for Hector hath his arms.'

Ib. 157. οἷον τ' ανδρας εσερχεται, οἱ περὶ παύης

Verf. 191.

xviii. 306.

Verf. 377.

Ανδρασι δυσμενεσσι πονον καὶ δήριν εθόνο.

fuch as in the breaft refides
Of lab'rers in their country's dear behalf.'

8 μεν έγωγε
Φεύξομαι εκ πολεμοιο δυσηχεος, αλλα μαλ' αΰτην
Στήσομαι

The epithet duonos is happily rendered deep-toned, but the paffage ends miferably in Mr. C.'s translation— I fhall not for his fake

Avoid the deep-toned battle, but will firm

Oppofe bis utmost.'.

The defcription of Vulcan leaving his forge, and dreffing to receive the visit of Thetis, is not remarkable for its delicacy in the original: but, in the hands of Mr. C., it degenerates, we think, into coarse vulgarity:

xviii. 414. Σπογίῳ δ' αμφι πρόσωπα, και αμφωχειρ, απομοργού, Αυχένα τι σοβαροί, και σήθεα λαχνηνία

Δε δε χίων έλε δε σκηπῖρον παχυ• βῃ δε θύραζε

Χωλεύων

6

Verf. 511. Then, all around with a wet sponge be wiped
His vifage, and his arms and brawny neck
Purified, and his fhaggy breaft from fmutch;
Laft, putting on his vest, he took in hand
His furdy staff, and shuffled through the door."

sxi. 282. Ερχθέντ' εν μεγάλῳ πολαμῳ, ὡς παιδα συφορβονο

Verf. 334.

• Whelm'd in deep waters like a fwineherd's boy Drown'd in wet weather while he fords a brook.' xxxiii. 426. Αντίλοχ' αφραδέως ἱππαζίαι

Verf. 532. • Antilochus, at what a madman's rate
Driv't thou'

Odyffey, i. 216.

Verf. 270.

ii. 146.

Verf. 200.

· γαρ πω τις εον γονον αύλος ανεγνώ
fince no mortal knows

His derivation..

τω δ' αιετω ευρύοπα Ζευς

Υψοθεν εκ κορυφης ορεος προέηκε πέλεσθαι

• The thund'rer from a lofty mountain-top
Turn'd off two eagles'.

iv. 471. Ως εφαμεν· ὁ δε μ' αύτις αμειβόμενος προσέειπεν
Verf. 573.
So I-when thus the old one of the waves.'

Verf. 500.

κιν. 412. Κλαγη δ' ασπελος ωριο συων αυλιζομεναων.
• And loud
The hubbub was of fwine prifon'd within.'
xvii. 78. Πειραι' η γαρ τ' ιδμεν όπως εται ταδι εργασ
Piræus, wait, for I not yet foresee
The up hot..

Verf. 94

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Verf. 379

.. like an old hag

Collied with chimney fmutch.'

• Pedæus, whom, althos his fpurious fon
Antenor's wife, to gratify her lord,

Had cherish'd as her own, him Meges flew."
· ὁ δε Κύπριν επωχείο τηλε χαλκῳ

Γιγνώσκων δι' αναλκις την θεος

• He, fierce in arms,

Purfu'd the Cyprian goddels, confcious uber.

Ib. 395. Τλη δ' Αΐδης εν τοισι πελώριος

Verf. 461.

vi. 62.

Verf. 750

*. 383.

• Nor fuffer'd Pluto lefs, of all the gods
Gigantic moft

- ὁ δ' απο έθεν ωσατο χειρο
Ηρω' Αδρησον" τον δε κρείων Αγαμέμνων

Ουτα κατα λαπάρην

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xi. 755. Οφρ

Verf. 913

επι Βοπρασια πολυπῦρα βησαμεν ίππες.

o till we our fteeds had driven

To the Buprafian fields laden with corn.'

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