I
believe it is generally allowed that Mr. Pope's Iliad is the very best
version that was ever made out of one language into another. It must be
confessed to exhibit very many poetical beauties. As a trial of skill,
as an instance of what can be effected upon so forlorn a hope, it must
ever be admired. But were I to search for a true idea of the style and
composition of Homer, I think I should rather recur to the verbal
translation in the margin of the original, than to the version of Pope.
Homer is the simplest and most unaffected of poets. Of all the writers
of elegance and taste that ever existed, his translator is the most
ornamented. We acknowledge Homer by his loose and flowing robe, that
does not constrain a muscle of his frame. But Pope presents himself in
the close and ungraceful habit of modern times;
"Glittering with gems, and stiff with woven gold."
No, let us for once conduct ourselves with honesty and generosity. If we
will not study the ancients in their own nervous and manly page, let us
close their volumes for ever. I had rather, says the amiable philosopher
of Chaeronea, it should be said of me, that there never was such a man
as Plutarch, than that Plutarch was ill-natured, arbitrary, and
tyrannical. And were I the bard of Venusia, sure I am, I had rather be
entirely forgotten, than not be known for the polite, the spirited, and
the elegant writer I really was.
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