If there are others which feem rather to charge him with a defect or narrowness of genius, than an excess of it; thofe feeming defects will be found upon examination to proceed wholly from the nature of the times he lived in. Such are his groffer reprefentations of the Gods, and the vicious and the imperfect manners of his Heroes; but I muft here fpeak a word of the latter, as it is a point generally carried into extremes, both by the cenfurers and defenders of Homer. It must be a ftrange partiality to antiquity, to think with madam Dacier, "that * those times and manners are fo much the more ex"cellent, as they are more contrary to ours," Who can be fo prejudiced in their favour as to magnify the felicity of those ages, when a spirit of revenge and cruelty, joined with the practice of rapine and robbery, reigned through the world; when no mercy was fhewn but for the fake of lucre, when the greatest princes were put to the fword, and their wives and daughters made flaves and concubines? on the other fide, I would not be fo delicate as those modern criticks, who are shocked at the fervile offices and mean employments in which we sometimes fee the heroes of Homer engaged. There is a pleasure in taking a view of that fimplicity, in oppofition to the luxury of fucceeding ages; in beholding monarchs without their guards, princes tending their flocks, and princeffes drawing water from the fprings. When we read Homer, we ought to reflect that we are reading the moft ancient author in the heathen world; and those who confider him in this light, will double their pleasure in the perusal of him. Let them think they are growing acquainted with nations and people that are now no more; that they are ftepping almoft three thoufand years back into the remoteft antiquity, and entertaining themselves with a clear and furprizing vifion of things no where elfe to be found, the only true mirror of that ancient world. By this means alone their greatest obstacles will vanish; and what usually creates their diflike, will become a fatisfaction. This confideration may farther serve to answer for the conftant use of the fame epithets to his Gods and heroes, fuch as the far-darting Phoebus, the blue-eyed Pallas, the fwiftfooted Achilles, &c. which fome have cenfured as impertinent and tediously repeated. Thofe of the Gods depended upon the powers and offices then believed to belong to them, and had contracted a weight and veneration from the rites and folemn devotions in which they were used: they were a fort of attributes, with which it was a matter of religion to falute them on all occafions, and which it was irreverence to omit. As for the epithets of great men, Monf. Boileau is of opinion, that they were in the nature of furnames, and repeated as fuch; for the Greeks, having no names derived from their fathers, were ob liged to add fome other diftinction of each perfon; either naming his parents exprefsly, or his place of birth, profeffion, or the like: as Alexander the fon of Philip, Herodotus of Halicarnaffus, Diogenes the Cynic, &c. Homer therefore, complying with the custom of his country, used fuch diftinctive additions as better agreed with poetry. And indeed we have fomething parallel to these in modern times, fuch as the names of Harold Hare, foot, Edmund Ironfide, Edward Long-fhanks, Edward the Black Prince, &c. If yet this be thought to account better for the propriety than for the repetition, I fhall add a farther conjecture. Hefiod, dividing the world into its different ages, has placed a fourth age between the brazen and the iron one, of "Heroes diftinct from other men: a divinę race, who fought at Thebes and Troy, are called Demi-Gods, and live by the care of Jupiter in the islands of the bleffed.+ Now among the divine honours which were paid them, they might have this also in common with the Gods, not to be mentioned without the folemnity of an epithet, and fuch as might be acceptable to them by its celebrating their families, actions, or qualities. What other cavils have been raised against Homer, are fuch as hardly deferve a reply, but will yet be taken notice of as they occur in the courfe of the work. Many have been occafioned by an injudicious endeavour to exalt Virgil; which is much the fame, as if one should think to raise the fuperftructure by undermining the foundation: one would * Preface to her Homer. Hefiod, lib. i. ver. 155, &c. : imagine, by the whole courfe of their parallels, that these criticks never fo much as heard of Homer's having written first: a confideration which whoever compares these two poets, ought to have always in his eye. Some accufe him for the fame things which they overlook or praife in the other; as when they prefer the fable and moral of the Encis to thofe of the Iliad, for the fame reafons which might fet the Odysseis above the neis as that the hero is a wifer man and the action of the one more beneficial to his country than that of the other; or elfe they blame him for rot doing what he never defigned; as becaufe Achilles is not as good and perfect a prince as Æneas, when the very moral of his poem required a contrary character: it is thus that Rapin judges in his comparifon of Homer and Virgil. Others felect thofe particular paffages of Homer, which are not fo laboured as fome that Virgil drew out of them; this is the whole management of Scaliger in his Poetics. Others quarrel with what they take for low and mean expreffions, fometimes through a falfe delicacy and refinement, oftner from an ignorance of the graces of the original; and then triumph in the aukwardness of their own translations; this is the conduct of Perault in his Parallels. Laftly, there are others, who, pretending to a fairer proceeding, diftinguish between the perfonal merit of Homer, and that of his work; but when they come to affign the caufes of the great reputation of the Iliad, they found it upon the ignorance of his times and the prejudice of thofe that followed: and in purfuance of this principle, they make thofe accidents (fuch as the contention of the cities, &c.) to be the caufes of his fame, which were in reality the consequences of his merit. The fame might as well be faid of Virgil, or any great author, whose general character will infallibly raise many casual additions to their reputation. This is the method of Monf. de la Motte; who yet confefles upon the whole, that in whatever age Homer had lived, he must have been the greatest poet of his nation, and that he may be faid in this fenfe to be the mafter even of those who surpassed him. In all thefe objections we fee nothing that contradicts his title to the honour of the chief Invention; and as long as this (which is indeed the characteristic of poetry itself) remains unequalled by his followers, he ftill continues fuperior to them. A cooler judg ment may commit fewer faults, and be more approved in the eyes of one fort of criticks: but that warmth of fancy will carry the loudest and most universal applauses, which holds the heart of a reader under the strongest enchantment. Homer not only appears the Inventor of poetry, but excells all the inventors of other arts in this, that he has fwallowed up the honour of those who succeeded him. What he has done admitted no increase, it only left room for contraction or regulation. He fhewed all the stretch of fancy at once; and if he has failed in fome of his flights, it was but because he attempted every thing. A work of this kind feems like a mighty tree which rifes from the moft vigorous feed, is improved with induftry, flourishes, and produces the finest fruit; Nature and Art confpire to raise it; pleasure and profit join to make it valuable and they who find the jufteft faults, have only faid, that a few branches (which run luxuriant through a richnefs of nature) might be lopped into form to give it a more regular appearance. Having now fpoken of the beauties and defects of the original, it remains to treat of the tranflation, with the fame view to the chief characteristic. As far as that is feen in the main parts of the poem, fuch as the Fable, Manners, and Sentiments, no translator can prejudice it but by wilful omiffions or contractions. As it also breaks out in every particular image, defeription, and fimile; whoever leffens or too much foftens thofe, takes off from this chief character. It is the first grand daty of an interpreter to give his author entire and unmaimed; for the reft, the diction and verfification only are his proper province; fince thefe matt be his own; but the others he is to take as he finds them. It fhould then be confidered what methods may afford fome equivalent in our language for the graces of these in the Greek. It is certain no literal tranflation can be just to an excellent original in fuperior language: but it is a great mistake to imagine (as many have done) that a rafh paraphrafe can make amends for this general defect; which is no lefs in danger to lofe the fpirit of an ancient, by deviating into the modern manners of expreflion. If there be fometimes a darkness, there is often a light in antiquity, which nothing better preferves than a verfion almost literal. I know no liberties one ought to take, but those which are neceffary for transfufing the spirit of the original, and fupporting the poetical ftyle of the tranflation: and I will venture to say, there have not been more men misled in former times by a fervile dull adherence to the latter, than have been deluded in ours by a chimerical infolent hope of raifing and improving their author. It is not to be doubted that the Fire of the poem is what a tranflator fhould principally regard, as it is most likely to expire in his managing: however it is the fafeft way to be content with preferving this to the utmost in the whole, without endeavouring to be more than he finds his author is in any particular place. It is a great fecret in writing, to know when to be plain, and when poetical and figurative; and it is what Homer will teach us, if we will but follow modeftly in his footsteps. Where his diction is bold and lofty, let us raife ours as high as we can; but where his is plain and humble, we ought not to be deterred from imitating him by the fear of incurring the cenfure of a mere English critick. Nothing that belongs to Homer feems to have been more commonly mistaken than the juft pitch of his ftyle; fome of his tranflators having fwelled into fuftian, in a proud confidence of the fublime; others funk into flatnefs, in a cold and timorous notion of fimplicity. Methinks I fee thefe different followers of Homer, fome fweating and ftraining after him by violent leaps and bounds (the certain figns of falfe mettle); others flowly and fervilely creeping in his train, while the poet himself is all the time proceeding with an unaffected and equal majefty before then. However, of the two extremes, one would fooner pardon frenzy than frigidity: no author is to be envied for fuch commendations as he may gain by that character of ftyle, which his friends muft agree together to call fimplicity, and the rest of the world will call dullaefs. There is a graceful and dignified fimplicity, as well as a bold and fordid one, which differ as much from each other as the air of a plain man from that of a floven: it is one thing to be tricked up, and another not to be dreffed at all. Simplicity is the means between oftentation and rufticity. This pure and noble fimplicity is no where in fuch perfection as in the Scripture and our Author. One may affirm, with all refpect to the infpired Writings, that the Divine Spirit made ufe of no other words but what were intelligible and common to men at that time, and in that part of the world; and as Homer is the author nearest to those, his style muft of course bear a greater refemblance to the facred books than that of any other writer. This confideration (together with what has been obferved of the purity of fome of his thoughts) nay methinks induce a tranflator on the one hand to give into feveral of thofe general phrafes and manners of expreffion, which have attained a veneration even in our language from being used in the Old Teftament; as on the other, to avoid those which have been appropriated to the Divinity, and in a manner configned to mystery and religion. For a farther prefervation of this air of fimplicity, a particular care fhould be taken to exprefs with all plainnefs those moral fentences and proverbial fpeeches which are fo numerous in this poet. They have fomething venerable, and as I may fay oracular, in that unadorned gravity and shortnefs with which they are delivered a grace which would be utterly loft by endeavouring to give them what we call a more ingenious (that is, a more modern) turn in the paraphrafe. : Perhaps the mixture of fome Græcifms and old words after the manner of Milton, if done without too much affectation, might not have an ill effect in a verfion of this particular work, which moft of any other feems to require a venerable antique caft. But certainly the use of modern terms of war and government, fuch as platoon, campaign, junto, or the like (into which some of his tranflators have rallen) cannot be allowable; thofe only excepted, without which it is impoffible to treat the fubjects in any living language, VOL. VI. B There are two peculiarities in Homer's diction which are a fort of marks, or moles, by which every common eye diftinguishes him at firft fight: thofe who are not his greatest admirers look upon them as defects, and those who are feem pleased with them as beauties. I fpeak of his compound epithets, and of his repetitions. Many of the former cannot be done literally into English without deftroying the purity of our language. I believe fuch fhould be retained as flide cafily of themfelves into an English compound, without violence to the ear or to the received rules of compofition; as well as thofe which have received a fanction from the authority of our beft poets, and are become familiar through their ufe of them; fuch as the cloud-compelling Jove, &c. As for the reft, whenever any can be as fully and fignificantly expreft in a fingle word as in a compound one, the courfe to be taken is obvious. Some that cannot be fo turned as to preferve their full image by one or two words, may have juftice done them by circumlocution; as the epithet horiques to a mountain, would appear little or ridiculous tranflated literally " leaf-fhaking," but affords a majeftic idea in the periphrafis: "The lofty mountain shakes his waving woods." Others that admit of differing fignifications, may receive an advantage by a judicious variation. according to the occafions on which they are introduced. For example, the epithet of Apollo, is, or "far-fhooting" is capable of two explications; one literal, in refpect to the darts and bow, the enfigns of that God; the other allegorical, with regard to the rays of the fun therefore, in fuch places where Apollo is reprefented as a God in perfon, I would ufe the former interpretation; and where the effects of the fun are defcribed, I would make choice of the latter. Upon the whole, it will be neceffary to avoid that perpetual repetition of the fame epithets which we find in Homer; and which, though it might be accommodated (as has been already fhewn) to the ear of those times, is by no means fo to ours: but one may wait for opportunities of placing them, where they derive an additional beauty from the occafions on which they are employed; and in doing this properly, a tranflator may at once fhew his fancy and his judgment. As for Homer's repetitions, we may divide them into three forts; of whole narrations and fpeeches, of fingle fentences, and of one verfe or hemiftich. I hope it is not impoffible to have fuch a regard to thefe, as neither to lose fo known a mark of the Author on the one hand, nor to offend the reader too much on the other. The repetition is not ungraceful in thofe fpeeches where the dignity of the fpeaker renders it a fort of infolence to alter his words; as in the meffages from Gods to men, or from higher powers to inferiors in concerns of state, or where the ceremonial of religion feems to require it, in the folemn forms of prayers, oaths, or the like. In other cafes, I believe, the best rule is, to be guided by the nearness, or diftance, at which the repetitions are placed in the original when they follow too clofe, one may vary the expreffion; but it is a question whether a profeffed tranflator be authorised to omit any if they be tedious, the author. is to anfwer for it. It only remains to fpeak of the verfification. Homer (as has been faid) is perpetually applying the found to the fenfe, and varying it on every new fubject. This is indeed one of the most exquifite beauties of poetry, and attainable by very few I know only of Homer eminent for it in the Greek, and Virgil in Latin. I am sensible it is what may fometimes happen by chance, when a writer is warm, and fully poffeft of his image: however it may be reafonably believed they defigned this, in whofe verfe it fo manifeftly appears in a fuperior degree to all others. Few readers have the ear to be judges of it; but those who have, will fee I have endeavoured at this beauty. Upon the whole I muft confefs myfelf utterly incapable of doing juftice to Homer. I attempt him in no other hope but that which one may entertain without much vanity, of giving a more tolerable copy of him than any entire tranflation in verfe has yet done. We have only thofe of Chapman, Hobbes, and Ogilby. Chapman has taken the advantage of an immeafurable length of verfe, notwithstanding which, there is fcarce any paraphrafe more loofe and rambling than his. He has frequently interpolations of four or fix lines, and I remember one in the thirteenth book of the Odyffes, ver. 312. where he has spun twenty verfes out of two. He is often mistaken in fo bold a manner, that one may think he deviated on purpose, if he did not in other places of his notes in fift fo much upon verbal trifles. He appears to have had a strong affectation of extracting new meanings out of his author, infomuch as to promife, in his rhyming preface, a poem of the mysteries he had revealed in Homer and perhaps he endeavoured to ftrain the obvious fenfe to this end. His expreffion is involved in fuftian, a fault for which he was remarkable in his original writings, as in the tragedy of Buffy d'Amboife, &c. In a word, the nature of the man may account for his whole perfor mance; for he appears from his preface and remarks to have been of an arrogant turn, and an enthufiaft in poetry. His own boast of having finished half the Iliad in lefs than fifteen weeks, fhews with what negligence his verfion was performed. that which is to be allowed him, and which very much contributed to cover his defects, is a daring fiery spirit that animates his tranflation, which is fomething like what one might imagine Homer himself would have writ before he arrived at years of difcretion. But Hobbes has given us a correct explanation of the fenfe in general; but for particulars and circumstances he continually lops them, and often omits the most beautiful. As for its being efteemed a close translation, I doubt not many have been led into that error by the fhortnefs of it, which proceeds not from his following the original line by line, but from the contractions abovementioned. He fometimes omits whole fimilies and fentences, and is now and then guilty of mistakes, into which no writer of his learning could have fallen, but through careleffnefs. His poetry, as well as Ogilby's, is too mean for criticifm. It is a great lofs to the poetical world that Mr. Dryden did not live to tranflate the Iliad. He has left us only the first book, and a small part of the fixth; in which if he has in fome places not truly interpreted the fenfe, or preferved the antiquities, it ought to be excused on account of the hafte he was obliged to write in. He feems to have had too much regard to Chapman, whofe words he fometimes copies, and has unhappily followed him in paffages where he wanders from the original. However, had he tranflated the whole work, I would no more have attempted Homer after him than Virgil, his version of whom (notwithstanding fome human errors) is the most noble and spirited tranflation 1 know in any language. But the fate of great geniufes is like that of great minifters: though they are confeffedly the first in the common-wealth of letters, they must be envied and calumniated only for being at the head of it. That which in my opinion ought to be the endeavour of any one who tranflates Homer, is above all things to keep alive that spirit and fire which makes his chief charac ter in particular places, where the fenfe can bear any doubt, to follow the strongeft and moft poetical, as moft agreeing with that character; to copy him in all the variations of his ftyle, and the different modulations of his numbers; to preferve, in the more active or defcriptive parts, a warmth and elevation; in the more fedate or narrative, a plainnefs and folemnity; in the fpeeches, a fullness and perfpicuity; in the fentences, a fhortness and gravity: not to neglect even the little figures and turns on the words, nor fometimes the very calt of the periods; neither to omit nor confound any rites or customs of antiquity; perhaps too he ought to include the whole in a shorter compafs, than has hitherto been done by any tranflator who, has tolerably preferved either the fenfe or poetry. What I would farther recommend to him, is to ftudy his author rather from his own text, than from any commentaries, how learned foever, or whatever figure they may make in the eftimation of the world; to confi der him attentively in comparison with Virgil above all the ancients, and with Milton above all the moderns. Next thefe, the archbishop of Cambray's Telemachus may give him the trueft idea of the spirit and turn of our author, and |