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sought for, and those who could read so good a poem as Pope's Iliad had
fair reason to be satisfied.
It would be absurd, therefore, to test Pope's translation by our own
advancing knowledge of the original text. We must be content to look at it
as a most delightful work in itself,--a work which is as much a part of
English literature as Homer himself is of Greek. We must not be torn from
our kindly associations with the old Iliad, that once was our most
cherished companion, or our most looked-for prize, merely because
Buttmann, Loewe, and Liddell have made us so much more accurate as to
amphikupellon being an adjective, and not a substantive. Far be it from us
to defend the faults of Pope, especially when we think of Chapman's fine,
bold, rough old English;--far be it from, us to hold up his translation as
what a translation of Homer might be. But we can still dismiss Pope's
Iliad to the hands of our readers, with the consciousness that they must
have read a very great number of books before they have read its fellow.
As to the Notes accompanying the present volume, they are drawn up without
pretension, and mainly with the view of helping the general reader. Having
some little time since translated all the works of Homer for another
publisher, I might have brought a large amount of accumulated matter,
sometimes of a critical character, to bear upon the text. But Pope's
version was no field for such a display; and my purpose was to touch
briefly on antiquarian or mythological allusions, to notice occasionally
some departures from the original, and to give a few parallel passages
from our English Homer, Milton. In the latter task I cannot pretend to
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