The Iliad of Homer | Page 4

it seem to fail, on whatsoever occasion, in energy, the
blame is due, not to itself, but to the unskilful manager of it. For so long as Milton's
works, whether his prose or his verse, shall exist, so long there will be abundant proof
that no subject, however important, however sublime, can demand greater force of
expression than is within the compass of the English language.
I have no fear of judges familiar with original HOMER. They need not be told that a
translation of him is an arduous enterprise, and as such, entitled to some favor. From
these, therefore, I shall expect, and shall not be disappointed, considerable candor and
allowance. Especially they will be candid, and I believe that there are many such, who
have occasionally tried their own strength in this _bow of Ulysses_. They have not found
it supple and pliable, and with me are perhaps ready to acknowledge that they could not
always even approach with it the mark of their ambition. But I would willingly, were it
possible, obviate uncandid criticism, because to answer it is lost labor, and to receive it in
silence has the appearance of stately reserve, and self-importance.
To those, therefore, who shall be inclined to tell me hereafter that my diction is often

plain and unelevated, I reply beforehand that I know it,--that it would be absurd were it
otherwise, and that Homer himself stands in the same predicament. In fact, it is one of his
numberless excellences, and a point in which his judgment never fails him, that he is
grand and lofty always in the right place, and knows infallibly how to rise and fall with
his subject. _Big words on small matters_ may serve as a pretty exact definition of the
burlesque; an instance of which they will find in the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, but
none in the Iliad.
By others I expect to be told that my numbers, though here and there tolerably smooth,
are not always such, but have, now and then, an ugly hitch in their gait, ungraceful in
itself, and inconvenient to the reader. To this charge also I plead guilty, but beg leave in
alleviation of judgment to add, that my limping lines are not numerous, compared with
those that limp not. The truth is, that not one of them all escaped me, but, such as they are,
they were all made such with a wilful intention. In poems of great length there is no
blemish more to be feared than sameness of numbers, and every art is useful by which it
may be avoided. A line, rough in itself, has yet its recommendations; it saves the ear the
pain of an irksome monotony, and seems even to add greater smoothness to others.
Milton, whose ear and taste were exquisite, has exemplified in his Paradise Lost the
effect of this practice frequently.
Having mentioned Milton, I cannot but add an observation on the similitude of his
manner to that of HOMER. It is such, that no person familiar with both, can read either
without being reminded of the other; and it is in those breaks and pauses, to which the
numbers of the English poet are so much indebted both for their dignity and variety, that
he chiefly copies the Grecian. But these are graces to which rhyme is not competent; so
broken, it loses all its music; of which any person may convince himself by reading a
page only of any of our poets anterior to Denham, Waller, and Dryden. A translator of
HOMER, therefore, seems directed by HOMER himself to the use of blank verse, as to
that alone in which he can be rendered with any tolerable representation of his manner in
this particular. A remark which I am naturally led to make by a desire to conciliate, if
possible, some, who, rather unreasonably partial to rhyme, demand it on all occasions,
and seem persuaded that poetry in our language is a vain attempt without it. Verse, that
claims to be verse in right of its metre only, they judge to be such rather by courtesy than
by kind, on an apprehension that it costs the writer little trouble, that he has only to give
his lines their prescribed number of syllables, and so far as the mechanical part is
concerned, all is well. Were this true, they would have reason on their side; for the author
is certainly best entitled to applause who succeeds against the greatest difficulty, and in
verse that calls for the most artificial management in its construction. But the case is not
as they suppose. To rhyme, in our language, demands no great exertion of ingenuity, but
is always easy to a person exercised in the practice. Witness the multitudes who