Page:On translating Homer (1905).djvu/138

 Homer and his poetry, one cannot help feeling that there is no very deep community of nature between them and the object of their enthusiasm.' It does not occur to Mr Arnold that the defect of perception lies with himself, and that Homer has more sides than he has discovered. He deplores that Dr Maginn, and others whom he names, err with me, in believing that our ballad-style is the nearest approximation to that of Homer; and avows that it is time to say plainly (p. 46) that Homer is not of the ballad-type. So in p. 45, '—this popular, but, it is time to say, this erroneous analogy' between the ballad and Homer. Since it is reserved for Mr Arnold to turn the tide of opinion; since it is a task not yet achieved, but remains to be achieved by his authoritative enunciation; he confesses that hitherto I have with me the suffrage of scholars. With this confession, a little more diffidence would be becoming, if diffidence were possible to the fanaticism with which he idolises hexameters. P. 88, he says: 'The hexameter has a natural dignity, which repels both the jaunty style and the jog-trot style, etc The translator who uses it cannot too religiously follow the ' etc. Inspiration from a metre which has no recognised type? from a metre which the heart and soul of the nation ignores? I believe, if the metre can inspire anything, it is to frolic and gambol