Page:Prometheus bound - Browning (1833).djvu/10

VI artist, will the copy be. According to Dr. Bentley, Pope's translation of Homer is not Homer; it is Spondanus: he might have said, it is not even Spondanus—it is Pope. Cowper's translation is a different Homer altogether; not Spondanus, nor Pope, nor the right Homer either. We do not blame Pope and Cowper for not having faithfully represented Homer: we do not blame Pope and Cowper for being Pope and Cowper. It is the nature of the human mind to communicate its own character to whatever substance it conveys, whether it convey metaphysical impressions from itself to another mind, or literary compositions from one to another language. It is therefore desirable that the same composition should be conveyed by different minds, that the character of the medium may not be necessarily associated with the thing conveyed. All