Upon the whole, I must confess myself utterly incapable of doing justice
to Homer. I attempt him in no other hope but that which one may entertain
without much vanity, of giving a more tolerable copy of him than any
entire translation in verse has yet done. We have only those of Chapman,
Hobbes, and Ogilby. Chapman has taken the advantage of an immeasurable
length of verse, notwithstanding which, there is scarce any paraphrase
more loose and rambling than his. He has frequent interpolations of four
or six lines; and I remember one in the thirteenth book of the Odyssey,
ver. 312, where he has spun twenty verses out of two. He is often mistaken
in so bold a manner, that one might think he deviated on purpose, if he
did not in other places of his notes insist so much upon verbal trifles.
He appears to have had a strong affectation of extracting new meanings out
of his author; insomuch as to promise, in his rhyming preface, a poem of
the mysteries he had revealed in Homer; and perhaps he endeavoured to
strain the obvious sense to this end. His expression is involved in
fustian; a fault for which he was remarkable in his original writings, as
in the tragedy of Bussy d'Amboise, &c. In a word, the nature of the man
may account for his whole performance; for he appears, from his preface
and remarks, to have been of an arrogant turn, and an enthusiast in
poetry. His own boast, of having finished half the Iliad in less than
fifteen weeks, shows with what negligence his version was performed. But
that which is to be allowed him, and which very much contributed to cover
his defects, is a daring fiery spirit that animates his translation, which
is something like what one might imagine Homer himself would have writ
before he arrived at years of discretion.

Hobbes has given us a correct explanation of the sense in general; but for
particulars and circumstances he continually lops them, and often omits
the most beautiful. As for its being esteemed a close translation, I doubt
not many have been led into that error by the shortness of it, which
proceeds not from his following the original line by line, but from the
contractions above mentioned. He sometimes omits whole similes and
sentences; and is now and then guilty of mistakes, into which no writer of
his learning could have fallen, but through carelessness. His poetry, as
well as Ogilby's, is too mean for criticism.

It is a great loss to the poetical world that Mr. Dryden did not