Page:The Iliad of Homer in English Hexameter Verse.djvu/11



HE first twelve books of this Translation of the entire Iliad were published in the spring of 1862, when they were honored with the notice, in journals and periodicals, of many able critics, including thedistinguished names of Dr. Whewell and Lord Lindsay. The generally favourable tone of the criticisms then elicited, has induced a careful revision of those twelve books, and the translation of the twelve remaining books;—the completed work exhibiting, it is hoped, many marks of its having profited by an attentive consideration of the strictures and suggestions of which the former half was thought deserving by such competent judges.

The translation was commenced, undesignedly, and as a matter of experiment, after reading Mr. Kingsley's Andromeda; and it was continued, as an amusement, and without, in the first instance, any view to publication. This may account for the fact that the first book was, originally—and, possibly, may still be—as a whole, less close as a translation, and less regular in rhythm, than the subsequent books:—a circumstance somewhat unpropitious to a favorable impression; inasmuch as v