live to
translate the Iliad. He has left us only the first book, and a small part
of the sixth; in which if he has in some places not truly interpreted the
sense, or preserved the antiquities, it ought to be excused on account of
the haste he was obliged to write in. He seems to have had too much regard
to Chapman, whose words he sometimes copies, and has unhappily followed
him in passages where he wanders from the original. However, had he
translated the whole work, I would no more have attempted Homer after him
than Virgil: his version of whom (notwithstanding some human errors) is
the most noble and spirited translation I know in any language. But the
fate of great geniuses is like that of great ministers: though they are
confessedly the first in the commonwealth of letters, they must be envied
and calumniated only for being at the head of it.

That which, in my opinion, ought to be the endeavour of any one who
translates Homer, is above all things to keep alive that spirit and fire
which makes his chief character: in particular places, where the sense can
bear any doubt, to follow the strongest and most poetical, as most
agreeing with that character; to copy him in all the variations of his
style, and the different modulations of his numbers; to preserve, in the
more active or descriptive parts, a warmth and elevation; in the more
sedate or narrative, a plainness and solemnity; in the speeches, a fulness
and perspicuity; in the sentences, a shortness and gravity; not to neglect
even the little figures and turns on the words, nor sometimes the very
cast of the periods; neither to omit nor confound any rites or customs of
antiquity: perhaps too he ought to include the whole in a shorter compass
than has hitherto been done by any translator who has tolerably preserved
either the sense or poetry. What I would further recommend to him is, to
study his author rather from his own text, than from any commentaries, how
learned soever, or whatever figure they may make in the estimation of the
world; to consider him attentively in comparison with Virgil above all the
ancients, and with Milton above all the moderns. Next these, the
Archbishop of Cambray's Telemachus may give him the truest idea of the
spirit and turn of our author; and Bossu's admirable Treatise of the Epic
Poem the justest notion of his design and conduct. But after all, with
whatever judgment and study a man may proceed, or with whatever happiness
he may perf