prepense of pseudo-poesy,
or the startling hysteric of weakness over-exerting itself, which
bursts on the unprepared reader in sundry odes and apostrophes to
abstract terms. Such are the Odes to Jealousy, to Hope, to Oblivion,
and the like, in Dodsley's collection and the magazines of that day,
which seldom fail to remind me of an Oxford copy of verses on the two
Suttons, commencing with

INOCULATION, heavenly maid! descend!

It is not to be denied that men of undoubted talents, and even poets
of true, though not of first-rate, genius, have from a mistaken theory
deluded both themselves and others in the opposite extreme. I once
read to a company of sensible and well-educated women the introductory
period of Cowley's preface to his _Pindaric Odes, written in imitation
of the style and manner of the odes of Pindar_. 'If (says Cowley) a
man should undertake to translate Pindar, word for word, it would be
thought that one madman had translated another: as may appear, when
he, that understands not the original, reads the verbal traduction of
him into Latin prose, than which nothing seems more raving.' I then
proceeded with his own free version of the second Olympic, composed
for the charitable purpose of rationalizing the Theban Eagle.

Queen of all harmonious things,
Dancing words and speaking strings,
What God, what hero, wilt thou sing?
What happy man to equal glories bring?
Begin, begin thy noble choice,
And let the hills around reflect the image of thy voice.
Pisa does to Jove belong,
Jove and Pisa claim thy song.
The fair first-fruits of war, th' Olympic games,
Alcides offer'd up to Jove;
Alcides too thy strings may move!
But, oh! what man to join with these can worthy prove?
Join Theron boldly to their sacred names;
Theron the next honour claims;
Theron to no man gives place,
Is first in Pisa's and in Virtue's race;
Theron there, and he alone,
Ev'n his own swift forefathers has outgone.

One of the company exclaimed, with the full assent of the rest, that
if the original were madder than this, it must be incurably mad. I
then translated the ode from the Greek, and as nearly as possible,
word for word; and the impression was, that in the general movement of
the periods, in the form of the connexions and transitions, and in the
sober majesty of lofty sense, it appeared to them to approach more
nearly, than any other poetry they had h