ding 'a foul,
lumbering, boistrous, wallowing measure, in his translation of
Virgil,' down to our own time, no one has succeeded in avoiding faults
of monotony and lack of poetical quality. A short extract from Dr.
Crane's translation will illustrate this very clearly--

'No species of hardships,
Longer, O maiden, arises before me as strange and unlooked for:
All things have I foreknown, and in soul have already endured them.
One special thing I crave, since here, it is said, that the gateway
Stands of the monarch infernal, and refluent Acheron's dark pool:
Let it be mine to go down to the sight and face of my cherished
Father, and teach me the way, and the sacred avenues open.'

Nor is William Morris' attempt to devise a new metre anything but
disappointing. It is surprising that so delightfully endowed a poet
should have so often missed the music of Virgil's verse as he has
done in his translation, and the archaisms with which his work
abounds, though they might be suitable in a translation of Homer,
are only a source of irritation in the case of Virgil.

For the best metre to use we must look in a different direction.
Virgil made use of the dactylic hexameter because it was the literary
tradition of his day that epics should be written in that metre. In
the same way it might be argued, the English tradition points to blank
verse as the correct medium. This may be so, but its use demands that
the translator should be as great a poet as Virgil. Had Tennyson ever
translated the _Aeneid_, it would doubtless have been as nearly
faultless as any translation could be, as is shown by the version
of Sir Theodore Martin, which owes so much of its stately charm to
its close adherence to the manner of Tennyson. A typical passage is
the description of Dido's love for Aeneas--

'Soothsayers, ah! how little do they know!
Of what avail are temples, vows, and prayers,
To quell a raging passion? All the while
A subtle flame is smouldering in her veins,
And in her heart a silent aching wound.

* * * * *

Now Dido leads
Aeneas round the ramparts, to him shows
The wealth of Sidon, all the town laid out,
Begins to speak, then stops, she knows not why.
Now, as day wanes, the feast of yesterday
She gives again, again with fevered lips
Begs for the tale of Troy and all it