in the full chorus of praife. In every other place it would be an offence to be near them, without fhewing 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 addreffed together in the majestic fimplicity of a language that knows no adulation. Here the poor man learns that, in fpite of the diftinctions 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 scope of his own hopes and endeavours; and that in the large inheritance to come, his expectations are no lefs ample than theirs. He rifes from his knees, and feels him felf a man. He learns philofophy without its pride, and a spirit 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 respecting 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 addreffes. She advises them to give their places of worship a more cheerful and a more democratic form; to allow the people to have a confiderable fhare 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 worship, if the refult be, not an abolition of the practice, but its correction and improvement. ART. XIV. The Iliad and Odyfey of Homer, translated 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 caufes. The venerable name of the original writer, a name endeared to us by the enthufiafm of our youthful ftudies, and fanctified by the homage of countless generations; the fplendid fuccefs of Mr. Pope, Gg 4 whofe whose version, 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 peruse 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 design, and what he conceives to be the peculiar excellence of his work: That he (Mr. Pope) has fometimes altogether fuppressed the sense 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 premifed, I know not how to obviate a fufpicion, on the one hand, of carelefs overfight, or of factitious embellishment on the other. Oa 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 be may admire it, is found only in Mr. Pope. I have omitted nothing; I have invented nothing. There is indifputably a wide difference between the cafe 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 seek 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 please, or perhaps a paraphrafe, but it is no longer the fame author only in a different drefs, and therefore it is not tranflation. My chief boaft is that I have adhered clofely to my original, convinced that every departure from him wou'd 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 most 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 Odyffey by their own name only, but their patronymic is 4 given given alfo. To this ceremonial I have generally attended, because it is a circumftance of my author's manner. HOMER never allots less than a whole line to the introduction of a speaker. No, not even when the speech itself is no longer than the line that 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 majefty of his narration. In this article, therefore, I have fcrupulously adhered to my pattern, confidering thefe introductory lines as heralds in a proceffion; important perfons, because employed to usher in perfons more important than themselves. 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 so likely to betray his tranflator into both thefe faults, as HOMER, though himfelf never guilty of either. I have cautiously avoided all terms of new invention, with an abundance of which, perfons of more ingenuity than judgment have not enriched our language, but incumbered it. I have alfo everywhere used 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 moft perfpicuous of al! poets.' What are the natural and indefeafible rights of a tranflator; how far they are either contracted or extended by the established laws of criticifm; beyond what point poetical fidelity becomes really treafon against the majesty of the original, and reformation may be ftyled loyalty; are questions 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 conducted on fuch principles? Would he not rather entrust them to men of kindred genius, and cultivated tafte,-men who, tranfplanting no flower that would perifh by removal, but foftening only what is harfh, and adding nothing that is incongruous, would transfute 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 advocates 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 because its pauses are more varied, its march is more stately, and its general effect is more in unifon with that of the Greek Hexameter. If Mr. C. has employed it with lefs fuccess than we expected, his failure may be ascribed to that quixotical spirit, which has impelled him to engage in a conteft in which victory affords few laurels, and ridicule exafperates defeat. To the general praise of fidelity, Mr. Cowper is eminently intitled. Inftances, however, occur, not infrequently, (and how could it be otherwife?) in which he has offended against the rigorous law that he profeffes to have imposed on himself; fometimes by miftaking the meaning of his author, at others by adding what is not to be found in the original Greek, or by omitting what really does exift there. The giant ftrength of Homer is fometimes represented by the feebleness of a pigmy:-his tranflator at one time foars into bombaft, and at another, finks into vulgarity. In many inftances, he happily exemplifies the coincidence of the Greek and Englith idioms: but, in others, his violent attempts to reconcile them render his language affected and uncouth. English reader is fo difgufted by the frequent use of terms long fince grown obfolete, or by the application of words in common use to exprefs meanings very different from these which custom has affixed to them; and his ear is often offended by an unusual, and therefore unwarrantable, tranfpofition of words, fometimes adopted in imitation of a fimilar arrangement in the Greek, and not infrequently, it should seem, from the mere love of quaint and unprecedented inverfions. Thefe obfervations, we truft, will be fully confirmed and il、 luftrated by the following examples: Iliad, ν. 226. Αλλ' αγε, τον μάτιγα καὶ ἡνα σιγαλεία Δεξαι; εγω δ' ίππων αποβησομαι, ούρα μαχώματο Με συ τούδε δίδοξος μελήσεσιν δε μου ἵπποι. Verf. 265. The lafh take thou, and the refplendent reins, Receive them, and the fteeds fhall be my care.' The One perfon only is mentioned-Touds dedeo-viz, Diomede. 1b. 681. Βη δε δια προμαχων κεκορυθμένος αίθοπι χαλκων Verf. 808. radiant to the van he flew.' vi. 55. Ω πέπον, ο Μπέλας, πη δε συ κήδεαι αύτως Verf. 67. Now, brother, whence this milkinefs of mind, vii. 5. Ib. 69. Verl. 76. Threshing the waves have all their strength confum'd.' Jove high enthron'd Hath not fulfill'd the truce.' Ib. 321. Νωτεισιν δ' Αιανία διηνεκεεσσι γεραίρε». Verf. 381. to whom the hero-king, Wide ruling, Agamemnon, gave the chine In his note, Mr. C. obferves, The word is here used in the Latin fenfe of it. Virgil, defcribing the entertainment given by Evander to the Trojans, fays that he regaled them, 'Perpetui tergo bovis et luftralibus extis.' This line of Virgil is quoted by Clarke in his note on the original paffage; and on this authority, Mr. Cowper tranflates the words VWTOLOI DINVEXEE, wherever they occur, perpetual chine:-but, furely, neither the authority of Homer nor of Virgil are fufficient to warrant this ufe of perpetual in English. The mere English reader, indeed, is much obliged to Mr. C. for the information contained in the latter part of his note, viz. that it means the whole;' fince, without this information, he must have been totally at a lofs to conjecture what meaning he ought to affix to the word, or whether it had any meaning at all. xi. 661. Βιβλήλαι δε και Ευρύπυλος κατα μηρον οἴςῳ• xiii. 567. Verf. 689. Iliad, βαλε δεξι Αιδοίων τε μεσηγυ και ομφαλοι- Book v. verfe 16 of the original, 18 of Mr. C.'s tranflation, pos is render'd difmifs'd his long-fhadow'd fpear difmifs'd.' Mr. C. has tranflated the word more happily, vii. 295. kurl'd his long-fhadow'd fpear.' v. 174. |