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perpetually applying the sound to the sense, and varying it on every new
subject. This is indeed one of the most exquisite beauties of poetry, and
attainable by very few: I only know of Homer eminent for it in the Greek,
and Virgil in the Latin. I am sensible it is what may sometimes happen by
chance, when a writer is warm, and fully possessed of his image: however,
it may reasonably be believed they designed this, in whose verse it so
manifestly appears in a superior degree to all others. Few readers have
the ear to be judges of it: but those who have, will see I have
endeavoured at this beauty.
Upon the whole, I must confess myself utterly incapable of doing justice
to Homer. I attempt him in no other hope but that which one may entertain
without much vanity, of giving a more tolerable copy of him than any
entire translation in verse has yet done. We have only those of Chapman,
Hobbes, and Ogilby. Chapman has taken the advantage of an immeasurable
length of verse, notwithstanding which, there is scarce any paraphrase
more loose and rambling than his. He has frequent interpolations of four
or six lines; and I remember one in the thirteenth book of the Odyssey,
ver. 312, where he has spun twenty verses out of two. He is often mistaken
in so bold a manner, that one might think he deviated on purpose, if he
did not in other places of his notes insist so much upon verbal trifles.
He appears to have had a strong affectation of extracting new meanings out
of his author; insomuch as to promise, in his rhyming preface, a poem of
the mysteries he had revealed in Homer; and perhaps he endeavoured to
strain the obvious sense to this end. His expression is involved in
fustian; a fault for which he was remarkable in his original writings, as
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