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employed by the Asiatic Greeks for that purpose, that this poem
was another offspring of Attic ingenuity; and generally that the
familiar mention of the cock (v. 191) is a strong argument against
so ancient a date for its composition."
Having thus given a brief account of the poems comprised in Pope's design,
I will now proceed to make a few remarks on his translation, and on my own
purpose in the present edition.
Pope was not a Grecian. His whole education had been irregular, and his
earliest acquaintance with the poet was through the version of Ogilby. It
is not too much to say that his whole work bears the impress of a
disposition to be satisfied with the general sense, rather than to dive
deeply into the minute and delicate features of language. Hence his whole
work is to be looked upon rather as an elegant paraphrase than a
translation. There are, to be sure, certain conventional anecdotes, which
prove that Pope consulted various friends, whose classical attainments
were sounder than his own, during the undertaking; but it is probable that
these examinations were the result rather of the contradictory versions
already existing, than of a desire to make a perfect transcript of the
original. And in those days, what is called literal translation was less
cultivated than at present. If something like the general sense could be
decorated with the easy gracefulness of a practised poet; if the charms of
metrical cadence and a pleasing fluency could be made consistent with a
fair interpretation of the poet's meaning, his words were less jealously
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