Page:On translating Homer (1905).djvu/147

 Mr Arnold wrongly supposes me to have overlooked his main and just objections to rhyming Homer; viz. that so many Homeric lines are intrinsically made for isolation. In p. ix of my Preface I called it a fatal embarrassment. But the objection applies in its full strength only against Pope's rhymes, not against Walter Scott's.

Mr Gladstone has now laid before the public his own specimens of Homeric translation. Their dates range from 1836 to 1859. It is possible that he has as strong a distaste as Mr Arnold for my version; for he totally ignores the archaic, the rugged, the boisterous element in Homer. But as to metre, he gives me his full suffrage. He has lines with four accents, with three, and a few with two; not one with five. On the whole, his metre, his cadences, his varying rhymes, are those of Scott. He has more trochaic lines than I approve. He is truthful to Homer on many sides; and (such is the delicate grace and variety admitted by the rhyme) his verses are more pleasing than mine. I do not hesitate to say, that if all Homer could be put before the public in the same style equally well with his best pieces, a translation executed on my principles could not live in the market at its side; and certainly I should spare my labour. I add, that I myself prefer the former piece which I quote to my own, even while I see his defects: for I hold that his graces, at