war in defence of the divine Homer against all the heretics of the age. And yet it is Madame Dacier who accuses me, and who accuses me of nothing less than betraying our common cause. She affirms that the most declared enemies of this author have never said anything against him more injurious or more unjust than I. What must the world think of me, after such a judgment passed by so great a critic; the world, who decides so often, and examines so seldom; the world, who even in matters of literature is almost always the slave of authority? Who will suspect that so much learning should mistake, that so much accuracy should be misled, or that so much candour should be biased?

All this, however, has happened, and Madame Dacier's criticisms on my preface flow from the very same error from which so many false criticisms of her countrymen on Homer have flowed, and which she has so justly and so severely reproved; I mean the error of depending on injurious and unskilful translations.

An indifferent translation may be of some use, and a good one will be of a great deal. But I think that no translation ought to be the ground for criticism, because no man ought to be condemned on another man's explanation of his meaning; could Homer have had the honour of explaining his before that august tribunal where Monsieur de la Motte presides, I make no doubt but he had escaped many of those severe animadversions with which some French authors have loaded him, and from which even Madame Dacier's translation of the Iliad could not preserve him.

How unhappy was it for me that the knowledge of our islandtongue was as necessary to Madame Dacier in my case, as the knowledge of Greek was to Monsieur de la Motte in that of our great author; or to any of those whom she styles blind censurers, and blames for condemning what they did not understand.

I may say with modesty, that she knew less of my true sense from that faulty translation of part of my preface, than those blind censurers might have known of Homer's even from the translation of La Valterie, which preceded her own

It pleased me, however, to find that her objections were not levelled at the general doctrine, or at any essentials of my preface, but only at a few particular expressions. She proposed little more than (to use her own phrase) to combat two or three similies; and I hope that to combat a similie is no more than to fight with a shadow, since a similie is no better than the shadow of an argument.

She lays much weight where I laid but little, and examines with more scrupulosity than I writ, or than perhaps the matter requires.

These unlucky similies, taken by themselves, may perhaps render my meaning equivocal to an ignorant translator; or there may have fallen from my pen some expressions, which, taken by themselves, likewise, may to the same person have the same effect. But if the translator had been master of our tongue, the general tenour of my argument, that which precedes and that which follows the passages objected to, would have sufficiently determined him as to the precise meaning of them; and if Madame Dacier had taken up her pen a little more leisurely, or had employed it with more temper, she would not have answered paraphrases of her own, which even the translation will not justify, and which say, more than once, the very contrary to what I have said in the passages themselves.

If any person has curiosity enough to read the whole paragraphs in my preface, on some mangled parts of which these reflections are made, he will easily discern that I am as orthodox as Madame Dacier herself in those very articles on which she treats me like a heretic: he will easily see that all the difference between us consists in this, that I offer opinions, and she delivers doctrines; that my imagination represents Homer as the greatest of human poets, whereas in hers he was exalted above humanity; infallibility and impeccability were two of his attributes. There was therefore no need of defending Homer against me, who, if I mistake not, had carried my admiration of him as far as it can be carried, without giving a real occasion of writing in his defence.

After answering my harmless similies, she proceeds to a matter which does not regard so much the honour of Homer, as that of the times he lived in; and here I must confess she does not wholly mistake my meaning, but I think she mistakes the state of the question. She had said, the manners of those times were so much the better, the less they were like ours. I thought this required a little qualification. I confessed that in my opinion the world was mended in some points, such as the custom of putting whole nations to the sword, condemning kings and their families to perpetual slavery, and a few others. Madame Dacier judges otherwise in this; but as to the rest, particularly in preferring the simplicity of the ancient world to the luxury of ours, which is the main point contended for, she owns we agree. This I thought was well; but I am so unfortunate that this too is taken amiss, and called adopting or (if you will) stealing her sentiment. The truth is, she might have said her words, for I used them on purpose, being then professedly citing from her : though I might have done the same without intending that compliment, for they are also to be found in Eustathius, and the sentiment I believe is that of all mankind. I cannot really tell what to say to this whole remark, only that in the first part of it, Madame Dacier is displeased that I do not agree with her,