xameters (especially the Virgilian, that run the
lines into each other for a great length) cannot. I have long been
persuaded that Milton formed his blank verse upon the model of the
_Georgics_ and the _Aeneid_, and I am so much struck with this
resemblance, that I should have attempted Virgil in blank verse, had I
not been persuaded that no ancient author can be with advantage so
rendered. Their religion, their warfare, their course of action and
feeling, are too remote from modern interest to allow it. We require
every possible help and attraction of sound, in our language, to smooth
the way for the admission of things so remote from our present concerns.
My own notion of translation is, that it cannot be too literal, provided
three faults be avoided: _baldness_, in which I include all that takes
from dignity; and _strangeness_ or _uncouthness_, including harshness;
and lastly, attempts to convey meanings which, as they cannot be given
but by languid circumlocutions, cannot in fact be said to be given at
all. I will trouble you with an instance in which I fear this fault
exists. Virgil, describing Aeneas's voyage, third book, verse 551,
says--

'Hinc sinus Herculei, si vera est fama. Tarenti
Cernitur.'

[83] _Memoirs_, ii. 69.

I render it thus:

'Hence we behold the bay that bears the name
Of proud Tarentum, proud to share the fame
Of Hercules, though by a dubious claim.'

I was unable to get the meaning with tolerable harmony into fewer words,
which are more than to a modern reader, perhaps, it is worth.

I feel much at a loss, without the assistance of the marks which I have
requested, to take an exact measure of your Lordship's feelings with
regard to the diction. To save you the trouble of reference, I will
transcribe two passages from Dryden; first, the celebrated appearance of
Hector's ghost to Aeneas. Aeneas thus addresses him:

'O light of Trojans and support of Troy,
Thy father's champion, and thy country s joy,
O long expected by thy friends, from whence
Art thou returned, so late for our defence?
Do we behold thee, wearied as we are
With length of labours and with toils of war?
After so many funerals of thy own,
Art thou restored to thy declining town?'

This I think not an unfavourable specimen of Dryden's way of treating
the solemnly pathetic passages. Yet, surely, here is _nothing_ of the
_cadence_ of the original, and little of its spirit