FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40  
41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   >>   >|  
ime the honor to conduct the reader. But it may not be amiss to observe, that with regard to the earlier books of the Iliad, it was less a revisal of the altered text, than of the text as it stands in the first edition. For though the interleaved copy was always at hand, and in the multitude of its altered places could hardly fail to offer some things worthy to be preserved, but which the ravages of illness and the lapse of time might have utterly effaced from his mind, I could not often persuade the Translator to consult it. I was therefore induced, in the course of transcribing, to compare the two revisals as I went along, and to plead for the continuance of the first correction, when it forcibly struck me as better than the last. This, however, but seldom occurred; and the practice, at length, was completely left off, by his consenting to receive into the number of the books which were daily laid open before him, the interleaved copy to which I allude. At the end of the first six books of the Iliad, the arrival of spring brought the usual interruptions of exercise and air, which increased as the summer advanced to a degree so unfavorable to the progress of HOMER, that in the requisite attention to their salutary claims, the revisal was, at one time, altogether at a stand. Only four books were added in the course of nine months; but opportunity returning as the winter set in, there were added, in less than seven weeks, four more: and thus ended the year ninety-seven. As the spring that succeeded was a happier spring, so it led to a happier summer. We had no longer air and exercise alone, but exercise and Homer hand in hand. He even followed us thrice to the sea: and whether our walks were "on the margin of the land, O'er the green summit of the" cliffs, "whose base Beats back the roaring surge," "or on the shore Of the untillable and barren deep," they were always within hearing of his magic song. About the middle of this busy summer, the revisal of the Iliad was brought to a close; and on the very next day, the 24th of July, the correction of the Odyssey commenced,--a morning rendered memorable by a kind and unexpected visit from the patroness of that work, the Dowager Lady Spencer! It is not my intention to detain the reader with a progressive account of the Odyssey revised, as circumstantial as that of the Iliad, because it went on smoothly from beginnin
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40  
41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

revisal

 

spring

 

exercise

 
summer
 

Odyssey

 

correction

 

happier

 
brought
 

reader

 

altered


interleaved

 

thrice

 
margin
 

roaring

 

cliffs

 
summit
 

ninety

 

returning

 

winter

 

succeeded


longer
 

conduct

 
Dowager
 

Spencer

 

patroness

 

rendered

 

memorable

 

unexpected

 
circumstantial
 

smoothly


beginnin
 

revised

 

account

 

intention

 
detain
 

progressive

 

morning

 

commenced

 
hearing
 

opportunity


untillable

 

barren

 

middle

 

revisals

 
compare
 

transcribing

 

consult

 

induced

 
stands
 

continuance