Page:On translating Homer (1905).djvu/271

 supposing that Homer pronounced his hexameters as Mr Spedding pronounces Virgil's. But this, as I have said, is not a question for us to treat; all we are here concerned with is the imitation, by the English hexameter, of the ancient hexameter ''in its effect upon us moderns''. Suppose we concede to Mr Spedding that his parallel proves our accentuation of the English and of the Virgilian hexameter to be different: what are we to conclude from that; how will a criticism, not a formal, but a substantial criticism, deal with such a fact as that? Will it infer, as Mr Spedding infers, that the English hexameter, therefore, must not pretend to reproduce better than other rhythms the movement of Homer's hexameter for us, that there can be no correspondence at all between the movement of these two hexameters, that if we want to have such a correspondence, we must abandon the current English hexameter altogether, and adopt in its place a new hexameter of Mr Spedding's Anglo-Latin type, substitute for lines like the

Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia

of Dr Hawtrey, lines like the

Procession, complex melodies, pause, quantity, accent, After Virgilian precedent and practice, in order

of Mr Spedding? To infer this, is to go,