in the Greek. It is certain no literal translation can be just to an excellent original in a fuperior language: but it is a great mistake to imagine (as many have done) that a rash paraphrafe can make amends for this general defect; which is no lefs in danger to lose the spirit of an ancient, by deviating into the modern manners of expreffion. If there be fometimes a dark nefs, there is often a light in antiquity, which nothing better preferves than a version almoft 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 style of the tranflation: and I will venture to fay, 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 raising and improving their author. It is not to be doubted that the Fire of the poem is what a tranflator should principally regard, as it is most likely to expire in his managing: however it is his fafest way to be content with preferving this to his 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 footfteps. Where his diction is bold and lofty, let us raise 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

C 4

than the just pitch of his style; fome of his tranflators having fwelled into fuftian, in a proud confidence of the fublime; others funk into flatness, 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 majesty before them. How ever, of the two extremes, one could fooner pardon frenzy than frigidity: no author is to be envied for fuch commendations as he may gain by that character of style, which his friends must agree together to call fimplicity, and the rest of the world will call dullness. 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 dressed at all. Simplicity is the mean 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 neareft to thofe, his ftyle 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 parity of fome of his thoughts)

may

may methinks induce a tranflator on the one hand to give into several of those general phrases 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 thofe 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 should be taken to express with all plainnefs thofe moral fentences and proverbial speeches which are so numerous in this poet. They have fomething venerable, and as I may fay oracular, in that unadorned gravity and shortness 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 paraphrase.

Perhaps the mixture of fome Græcisms 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 most of any other seems 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 fome of his tranflators have fallen) cannot be allowable; those only excepted, without which it is impoffible to treat the fubjects in any living language.

There are two peculiarities in Homer's diction which, are a fort of marks, or moles, by which every common eye diftinguishes him at first fight: thofe who are not his greatest admirers look upon them as defects, and

thofe

those who are seem 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 destroying the purity of our language. I believe fuch fhould be retained as lide eafily of themselves into an English compound, without violence to the ear or to the received rules of compofition; as well as those which have received a fanction from the authority of our best poets, and are become familiar through their use of them; fuch as the cloudcompelling Jove, &c. As for the rest, whenever any can be as fully and fignificantly exprest in a single word as in a compound one, the course to be taken is obvious.

Some that cannot be so turned as to preserve their full image by one or two words, may have justice done them by circumlocution; as the epithet sivoipuano5 to a mountain, would appear little or ridiculous tranflated literally" leaf-fhaking," but affords a majestic 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, Exného, or " far-fhooting," is capable of two explicaἑκηβόλος, tions; 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 such places where Apollo is reprefented as a God in perfon, I would use 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 necessary 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 shewn) 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 translator 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 impossible to have such a regard to these, as neither to lose so 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 those fpeeches where the dignity of the speaker 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 ftate, 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 distance, 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 professed tranflator be authorised to omit any : if they be tedious, the author is to answer for it.

It only remains to speak of the Verfification. Ho

mer

2