Chapter V

Subjects painted by Fuseli for Boydell's "Shakspeare Gallery."--His
assistance towards the splendid Edition of "Lavater's
Physiognomy."--His picture for Macklin's "Poets' Gallery."--His
contributions to the Analytical Review.--His critique on Cowper's
Homer.

In the year 1786, Mr. Alderman Boydell, at the suggestion of Mr. George Nicol, began to form his splendid collection of modern historical pictures, the subjects being from Shakspeare's plays, and which was called "The Shakspeare Gallery." This liberal and well-timed speculation gave great energy to this branch of the art, as well as employment to many of our best artists and engravers, and among the former, to Fuseli, who executed eight large and one small picture for the gallery. The following were the subjects:

Prospero, Miranda, Caliban, and Ariel--from the Tempest. Titania in raptures with Bottom, who wears the ass's head, attendant fairies, &c. Titania awaking, discovers Oberon at her side; Puck is removing the ass's head from Bottom--Midsummer Night's Dream. Henry the Vth with the Conspirators--King Henry V. Lear dismissing Cordelia from his Court--King Lear. Ghost of Hamlet's Father--Hamlet. Falstaff and Doll--King Henry IV. 2d part. Macbeth meeting the Witches on the Heath--Macbeth. Robin Goodfellow--Midsummer Night's Dream.--This gallery gave the public an opportunity of judging of Fuseli's versatile powers.

The stately majesty of the ghost of Hamlet's father, contrasted with the expressive energy of his son, and the sublimity brought about by the light, shadow, and general tone, strike the mind with awe. In the picture of Lear is admirably pourtrayed the stubborn rashness of the father, the filial piety of the discarded daughter, and the wicked determination of Regan and Goneril. The fairy scenes in the Midsummer Night's Dream amuse the fancy, and show the vast inventive powers of the painter: and Falstaff with Doll is exquisitely ludicrous.

The example set by Boydell was a stimulus to other speculations of a similar nature, and within a few years appeared the Macklin and Woodmason galleries; and it may be said with great truth, that Fuseli's pictures were among the most striking, if not the best in either collection.

The splendid edition of Lavater's physiognomy was announced this year (1786) for publication. Fuseli wrote the preface, or, as he modestly called it, the "advertisement;" corrected the translation by Hunter; made several drawings to illustrate the work; and superintended the execution of the engravings. Lavater had prepared many of his drawings, illustrative of the system, on a folio size, wishing the treatise to be brought out in that form; and it was his desire, that his lines should be rather traced than imitated by the engraver. Fuseli entered into an animated correspondence on this subject; gave him to understand, that the quarto size best pleased the British public; and expressed his own decided opinion against "ponderous folios." He at length succeeded in getting Lavater's slow consent to the work appearing in quarto; but so particular was the author as to a proper exemplification, that he made his drawings anew to suit the quarto size.

In 1787, he painted a picture for Macklin's Poet's Gallery, "the Vision of Prince Arthur."

In May 1788, the Analytical Review was commenced by Mr. Johnson, and he entered into engagements with most of the authors whose works he published, to write criticisms for it. Fuseli, of course, was among the number; and he wrote, during the progress of that work, which continued until December 1798, upwards of eighty articles, some of which were long and laboured criticisms, while others were only brief notices of the contents of the books. As his knowledge was general and extensive, so he was employed in several departments of literature, and reviewed works on the classics, history, the _belles lettres_, physiology, geography, and the fine arts. Fuseli not only took an interest in his own criticisms in this Review, but frequently defended those of others. When the authenticity of the Parian Chronicle was doubted by the Rev. Joseph Robertson, in a work which he published, it was reviewed and confuted by the Rev. John Hewlett. Robertson replied to this very angrily; and on Mr. Hewlett's being urged, in the hearing of Fuseli, not to let this reply pass without observation, he immediately said, "Answer it! no, by G----d, the subject is as dead as hell: a lion does not feed upon carrion."

The following criticisms on "Cowper's Homer," and "Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici," will give some idea of his powers in this department of literature.

COWPER'S HOMER.

Translators of poetry may be arranged into two classes: those who,
without invention, but an ardent ambition for its honours, with
powers of embellishment, harmony of diction, and elegance of taste,
attempt to graft their own scions on a solid stem; and those who,
from real or imagined sympathy with the production of another,
unable to perceive excellence through any other medium but that of
their idol, renounce all individual consequence, swear to his
words, and rank themselves under his banner. The first sacrifice
their model to themselves and their age; the second sacrifice both
to their darling original. Of both kinds of translation, the muses
of this country have produced specimens: Mr. Pope ranks foremost in
the former; whether that of Mr. Cowper claims the same eminence in
the latter class, we are now to inquire.

Though the ultimate end of poetry be to please, and the best
include both instruction and pleasure at once, it will easily be
perceived that the laws which are to rule two species of
translation so different, cannot be the same. The laws which the
first imposes, are of its own creation and choice; the laws of the
second resemble somewhat those which a master prescribes to his
servant;--they have little to gratify vanity, they are related to
resignation,--they are fidelity and simplicity, with as much
harmony and vivacity as is compatible with both; for the translator
of Homer, indeed, the difficulty will not be--how much he shall
sacrifice of these two last requisites, but how much he shall be
able to obtain, or to preserve.

By _fidelity_, some will understand the mere substitution of one
language for another, with the entire sacrifice of idiom and metre,
which belongs only to the literal translation of school-books.
Fidelity, as Mr. C. himself has with equal happiness and precision
defined it in his preface, is that quality which neither omits nor
adds any thing to an author's stock. "I have invented nothing,'
says he; "I have omitted nothing." When we consider the magnificent
end of epic poetry,--to write for all times and all races,--to
treat of what will always exist and always be understood, the puny
laws of local decorum and fluctuating fashions by which the
omission or modification of certain habits and customs, natural but
obsolete, is prescribed, cannot come into consideration. Such laws
may bind the meaner race of writers. He who translates Homer knows,
that when Patroclus administers at table, or Achilles slays the
sheep himself for Priam, a chief and a prince honour the chieftains
and king who visit them, and disdain to leave to meaner hands these
pledges of hospitality; and he translates faithfully and minutely,
nor fears that any will sneer at such a custom, but those who sneer
at the principle that established it. He neither "attempts to
soften or refine away" the energy of passages relative to the
theology of primitive ages, or fraught with allegoric images of
the phenomena of nature, though they might provoke the smile of the
effeminate, and of the sophists of his day. This is the first and
most essential part of the fidelity prescribed to a translator; and
this Mr. C. has so far scrupulously observed, that he must be
allowed to have given us more of Homer, and added less of his own,
than all his predecessors; and this he has done with that
simplicity, that purity of manner, which we consider as the second
requisite of translation.

By _simplicity_, we mean, what flows from the heart; and there is
no instance of any translator known to us, who has so entirely
transfused the primitive spirit of an ancient work into a modern
language; whose own individual habits and bent, if we may be
allowed the expression, seem to be so totally annihilated, or to
have coalesced so imperceptibly with his model. He is so lost in
the contemplation of his author's narrative, that, in reading, we
no more think of _him_ than we do of Homer, when he hurls us along
by the torrent of his plan: no quaintness, no antithesis, no
epigrammatic flourish, beckons our attention from its track, bids
us admire or rather indignantly spurn the intruding dexterity of
the writer. To have leisure to think of the author when we read, or
of the artist when we behold, proves that the work of either is of
an inferior class: we have neither time to inquire after Homer's
birth-place or rank, when Andromache departs from her husband, nor
stoop to look for the inscription of the artist's name, when we
stand before the Apollo.

Considering next the _harmony_ of numbers prescribed to the
translator of a poet, Mr. C. himself allows that he has many a
line 'with an ugly hitch in its gait;' and perhaps to those he
acknowledges as such, and the copious list of others called forth
in battle array against him, no trifling file of equally feeble,
harsh, or halting ones might be added. Still we do not hesitate to
give it as our opinion, founded on a careful perusal of the whole,
that the style and the flow of his numbers are in general
consonance with the spirit of the poem. In particular lines, he may
be inferior to many; we even venture to say, that he has as often
adopted or imitated the discords of Milton, as his flow of verse.
The English Jupiter perhaps shakes his ambrosial curls not with the
full majesty of the Greek; the plaintive tones of Andromache do not
perhaps melt, or the reverberated bursts of Hector's voice break,
on our ear with their native melody or strength; the stone of
modern Sisyphus oppresses not with equal weight, or rebounds with
equal rapidity as that of old; the hoarseness of Northern language
bound in pebbly monosyllables, and almost always destitute of
decided quantities, must frequently baffle the most vigorous
attempt, if even no allowance were made for the terror that invests
a celebrated passage, and dashes the courage of the translator with
anxiety and fear. Still, if Mr. C. be not always equally successful
in the detail, his work possesses that harmony which consists in
the variety of well-poised periods,--periods that may be pursued
without satiety, and dismiss the ear uncloyed by that monotony
which attends the roundest and most fortunate rhyme, the rhyme of
Dryden himself.

The chief trespass of our translator's style,--and it will be found
to imply a trespass against his fidelity and simplicity,--is no
doubt the intemperate use of inversion, ungraceful in itself,
contrary to the idiom of his language, and, what is still worse,
subversive of perspicuity, than which no quality distinguishes
Homer more from all other writers: for Homer, though fraught with
every element of wisdom, even in the opinion of a critic[16] to no
heresy more adverse than that of acknowledging faultless merit,
whether ancient or modern,--Homer, with all this fund of useful
doctrine, remains to this day the most perspicuous of poets, the
writer least perplexed with ambiguity of style. His tale is so
clearly told, that even now, as of yore, he is or may be the
companion of every age, and almost every capacity, at almost every
hour. This perspicuity is perhaps not to be attained by the
scantiness of modern grammar; it is perhaps not to be fully
expected from the inferior powers of the most attentive translator,
wearied with labour, and fancying that to be clear to others which
is luminous to him: but this we cannot allow to be pleaded every
where in excuse of our translator's ambiguities, after the ample
testimony he bore in his preface to the perspicuity of his author.
Such palliation, indeed, will not be offered by him who tells us,
that not one line before us escaped his attention. We decline
entering into particulars on this head, partly because Mr. C.
cannot be ignorant of the passages alluded to, partly because
sufficient, and even exuberant, pains have been taken by others to
point them out to the public.

But if the translator often deviate from his model in so essential
a requisite, he scrupulously adheres to another of much less
consequence,--the observance of those customary epithets with which
Homer distinguishes his gods and heroes from each other. As most of
these are frequently no more than harmonious expletives of the
verse, often serve only as a ceremonious introduction to his
speakers, we are of opinion, that he might at least have sometimes
varied them with advantage to his verse, and for the greater
gratification of his reader. He who thought it a venial licence to
deviate in the first line of his work from the text, who
cries--'woe to the land of dwarfs,'[17]--who makes his hero often
'the swiftest of the swift,' tinges the locks of Menelaus with
'amber,' and varies Eumæus from plain swineherd to 'the illustrious
steward or noble pastor of the sties,' he surely might have saved
us from the 'archer-god,' 'the cloud-assembler Jove,' the
'city-spoiler chief,' the 'cloud-assembler deity,' &c. &c. &c. or,
in mercy to our debauched ears, have meditated combinations more
consonant to verse and language. Their casual omission would not
have proved a greater infidelity than that which made him disregard
names and epithets, expressly repeated in the original, of which
that of Asius the Hyrtacide in the catalogue[18] is a striking
instance.

Homer is ample, and the translator studies to be so, and generally
with success; but Homer is likewise concise, where Mr. C. is often
verbose, and where, by more careful meditation, or more frequent
turning of line and period, he might have approached his master.
Homer finishes; but, like Nature, without losing the whole in the
parts. The observations which the translator offers on this in the
Preface we are tempted to transcribe. Pref. p. xv.

"The passages which will be least noticed, and possibly not at all,
except by those who shall wish to find me at a fault, are those
which have cost me abundantly the most labour. It is difficult to
kill a sheep with dignity in a modern language, to flay and to
prepare it for the table, detailing every circumstance of the
process. Difficult also, without sinking below the level of poetry,
to harness mules to a waggon, particularizing every article of
their furniture, straps, rings, staples, and even the tying of the
knots that kept all together. Homer, who writes always to the eye,
with all his sublimity and grandeur, has the minuteness of a
Flemish painter."

To this remark, founded on truth, we could have wished Mr. C. had
added the reason why Homer contrived to be minute without being
tedious,--to appear finished without growing languid,--to
accumulate details without losing the whole; defects which have
invariably attended the descriptions of his finished followers,
from Virgil and Apollonius, down to Ariosto, and from him to the
poets of our days, Milton alone excepted. It is, because he never
suffered the descriptions that branched out of his subject to
become too heavy for the trunk that supported them; because he
never admitted any image calculated to reflect more honour on his
knowledge than on his judgment; because he did not seek, but find,
not serve, but rule detail, absorbed by his great end; and chiefly,
because he, and he alone, contrived to create the image he
described, limb by limb, part by part, before our eyes, connecting
it with his plot, and making it the offspring of action and time,
the two great mediums of poetry. The chariot of Juno is to be
described:[19] it is not brought forth as from a repository, tamely
to wait before the celestial portico, and subjected to finical
examination, the action all the while dormant: on the spur of the
moment, Hebe is ordered to put its various parts together before
our eyes; the goddess arranges her coursers, mounts, shakes the
golden reins, and flies off with Minerva, and our anticipating
expectation, to the battle. Agamemnon is to appear in panoply:[20]
we are not introduced to enumerate greaves, helmet, sword, belt,
corslet, spear; they become important by the action only that
applies them to the hero's limbs. We are admitted to the toilet of
Juno:[21] no idle _étalage_ of ornaments ready laid out, of boxes,
capsules, and cosmetics; the ringlets rise under her fingers, the
pendants wave in her ears, the zone embraces her breast, perfumes
rise in clouds round her body, her vest is animated with charms.
Achilles is to be the great object of our attention: his shield a
wonder:[22] heaven, earth, sea, gods, and men, are to occupy its
orb; yet, even here he deviates not from his great rule, we see its
august texture rise beneath the hammer of Vulcan, and the action
proceeds with the strokes of the celestial artist. Where
description must have stagnated or suspended action, it is confined
to a word, 'the sable ship,' 'the hollow ship;' or despatched with
a compound, 'the red-prowed ship,' 'the shadow-stretching spear.'
If the instrument be too important to be passed over lightly, he,
with a dexterity next to miraculous, makes it contribute to raise
the character of the owner. The bow of Pandarus is traced[23] to
the enormous horns of the mountain ram, and its acquisition proves
the sly intrepidity of the archer, who bends it now. The sceptre of
Agamemnon[24] becomes the pedigree of its wearer: it is the
elaborate work of Vulcan for Jupiter, his gift to Hermes, his
present to Pelops, the inheritance of Atreus, the shepherd-staff of
Thyestes, the badge of command for Agamemnon. Thus Homer describes;
this is the mystery, without which the most exquisite description
becomes an excrescence, and only clogs and wearies the indignant
and disappointed reader. Poetic imitation, we repeat it, is
progressive, and less occupied with the _surface_ of the object
than its _action_; hence all comparisons between the poet's and the
painter's manners, ought to be made with an eye to the respective
end and limits of either art: nor can these observations be deemed
superfluous, except by those who are most in want of them, the
descriptive tribe, who imagine they paint what they only perplex,
and fondly dream of enriching the realms of fancy by silly
excursions into the province of the florist, chemist, or painter of
still life.

Proceeding now to lay before the reader specimens of the
translation itself, we shall select passages which, by their
contrast, may enable him to estimate the variety of our author's
powers, to poise his blemishes and beauties, and to form an idea of
what he is to expect from a perusal of the whole. To exhibit only
the splendid, would have been insidious; it would have been unfair
to expose languor alone;--we have pursued a middle course; and when
he has consulted the volumes themselves, the reader, we trust, will
pronounce us equally impartial to the author and himself.

Juno, entering her apartment to array herself for her visit to
Jupiter on Gargarus, is thus described--Iliad, B. XIV. p. 365.

"She sought her chamber; Vulcan, her own son,
That chamber built. He framed the solid doors,
And to the posts fast closed them with a key
Mysterious, which, herself except, in heav'n
None understood. Entering, she secured
The splendid portal. First, she laved all o'er
Her beauteous body with ambrosial lymph,
Then, polish'd it with richest oil divine
Of boundless fragrance; oil that, in the courts
Eternal only shaken, through the skies
Breathed odours, and through all the distant earth.
Her whole fair body with those sweets bedew'd,
She pass'd the comb through her ambrosial hair,
And braided her bright locks, streaming profuse
From her immortal brows; with golden studs
She made her gorgeous mantle fast before,
Ethereal texture, labour of the hands
Of Pallas, beautified with various art,
And braced it with a zone fringed all round
An hundred fold; her pendents triple-gemm'd
Luminous, graceful, in her ears she hung,
And cov'ring all her glories with a veil,
Sun-bright, new-woven, bound to her fair feet
Her sandals elegant. Thus, full attired
In all her ornaments, she issued forth,
And beck'ning Venus from the other pow'rs
Of Heav'n apart, the Goddess thus bespake:
'Daughter, beloved! Shall I obtain my suit?
Or wilt thou thwart me, angry that I aid
The Grecians, while thine aid is given to Troy?'
"To whom Jove's daughter, Venus, thus replied.
'What would majestic Juno, daughter dread
Of Saturn, sire of Jove? I feel a mind
Disposed to gratify thee, if thou ask
Things possible, and possible to me.'
"Then thus, with wiles veiling her deep design,
Imperial Juno. 'Give me those desires,
That love-enkindling power by which thou sway'st
Immortal hearts, and mortal, all alike.
For to the green Earth's utmost bounds I go,
To visit there the parent of the Gods,
Oceanus, and Tethys his espoused,
Mother of all. They kindly from the hands
Of Rhea took, and with parental care
Sustain'd and cherish'd me, what time from heav'n
The Thund'rer howl'd down Saturn, and beneath
The earth fast bound him and the barren Deep.
Them, go I now to visit, and their feuds
Innumerable to compose; for long
They have from conjugal embrace abstain'd
Through mutual wrath; whom by persuasive speech
Might I restore into each other's arms,
They would for ever love me and revere.

"Her, foam-born Venus then, Goddess of smiles,
Thus answer'd. 'Thy request, who in the arms
Of Jove reposest the Omnipotent,
Nor just it were, nor seemly, to refuse.'
"So saying, the cincture from her breast she loos'd
Embroider'd, various, her all-charming zone.
It was an ambush of sweet snares, replete
With love, desire, soft intercourse of hearts,
And music of resistless whisper'd sounds
That from the wisest steal their best resolves;
She placed it in her hands and thus she said.
'Take this--this girdle fraught with ev'ry charm.
Hide this within thy bosom, and return,
Whate'er thy purpose, mistress of it all.'
She spake; imperial Juno smiled, and still
Smiling complacent, bosom'd safe the zone."

Euphorbus falls thus under the spear of Menelaus: Iliad, B. XVII.
p. 452. v. 60.

"Sounding he fell; loud rang his batter'd arms.
His locks, which even the Graces might have own'd,
Blood-sullied, and his ringlets wound about
With twine of gold and silver, swept the dust.
As the luxuriant olive, by a swain
Rear'd in some solitude where rills abound,
Puts forth her buds, and, fann'd by genial airs
On all sides, hangs her boughs with whitest flow'rs,
But by a sudden whirlwind from its trench
Uptorn, it lies extended on the field,
Such, Panthus' warlike son, Euphorbus seem'd,
By Menelaus, son of Atreus, slain
Suddenly, and of all his arms despoil'd.
But as the lion on the mountains bred,
Glorious in strength, when he hath seiz'd the best
And fairest of the herd, with savage fangs
First breaks her neck, then laps the bloody paunch
Torn wide; meantime, around him, but remote,
Dogs stand and swains clamouring, yet by fear
Repress'd, annoy him not or dare approach;
So there, all wanted courage to oppose
The force of Menelaus, glorious chief."

The beauty of this passage will no doubt prompt Mr. C. to revise
the words descriptive of the olive's gender. He cannot possibly
have had an eye to the passage in the XIth B. of the Odyssey,
relating to the spirit of Tiresias; the licence there, and the
beauty obtained by it, are founded on very different principles.

With the following ample scene between Achilles, Lycaon, and
Asteropæus, we conclude our extracts from the Iliad, B. XXI. p.
553. v. 119.

"Such supplication the illustrious son
Of Priam made, but answer harsh received.
'Fool! speak'st of ransom? Name it not to me.
For till my friend his miserable fate
Accomplish'd, I was somewhat giv'n to spare,
And num'rous; whom I seized alive, I sold;
But now, of all the Trojans whom the Gods
Deliver to me, none shall death escape,
'Specially of the house of Priam, none.
Die, therefore, even thou, my friend! What mean
Thy tears, unreasonably shed, and vain?
Died not Patroclus, braver far than thou?
And look on me--see'st not to what an height
My stature tow'rs, and what a bulk I boast?
A king begat me, and a Goddess bore.
What then! A death by violence awaits
Me also, and at morn, or eve, or noon
I perish, whensoe'er the destin'd spear
Shall reach me, or the arrow from the nerve.'
"He ceased, and where the suppliant kneel, he died.
Quitting the spear, with both hands spread abroad
He sat; but swift Achilles with his sword
'Twixt neck and key-bone smote him, and his blade
Of double edge sank all into the wound.
He prone extended on the champion lay,
Bedewing with his sable blood the glebe,
'Till, by the foot, Achilles cast him far
Into the stream, and as he floated down,
Thus in wing'd accents, glorying exclaim'd.
'Lie there, and feed the fishes, which shall lick
Thy blood secure. Thy mother ne'er shall place
Thee on thy bier, nor on thy body weep,
But swift Scamander on his giddy tide
Shall bear thee to the bosom of the sea.
There, many a fish shall through the crystal flood
Ascending to the rippled surface, find
Lycaon's pamper'd flesh delicious fare.
Die Trojans! till we reach your city, you
Fleeing, and slaughtering, I. This pleasant stream
Of dimpling silver, which ye worship oft
With victim bulls, and sate with living steeds
His rapid whirlpools, shall avail you nought,
But ye shall die, die terribly till all
Shall have requited me with just amends
For my Patroclus, and for other Greeks
Slain at the ships, while I declined the war.'
"He ended, at whose words still more incensed
Scamander means devised, thenceforth, to check
Achilles, and avert the doom of Troy.
Meantime the son of Peleus, his huge spear
Grasping, assail'd Asteropæus, son
Of Pelegon, on fire to take his life.
Fair Periboea, daughter eldest-born
Of Acessamenus, his father bore
To broad-stream'd Axius, who had clasp'd the nymph
In his embrace. On him Achilles sprang.
He, newly risen from the river, stood
Arm'd with two lances opposite, for him
Xanthus embolden'd, at the deaths incensed
Of many a youth whom, mercy none vouchsafed,
Achilles had in all his current slain.
And now, small distance interposed, they faced
Each other, when Achilles thus began.
'Who art and whence, who dar'st encounter me?
Hapless, the sires whose sons my force defy.'
"To whom the noble son of Pelegon,
Pelides, mighty chief. 'Why hast thou ask'd
My derivation? From the land I come
Of mellow-soil'd Pæonia, far remote,
Chief-leader of Pæonia's host spear-arm'd;
This day hath also the eleventh ris'n
Since I at Troy arriv'd. For my descent,
It is from Axius' river, wide-diffused,
From Axius, fairest stream that waters earth,
Sire of bold Pelegon, whom men report
My sire. Let this suffice. Now fight, Achilles!'
"So spake he threat'ning, and Achilles rais'd
Dauntless the Pelian ash. At once two spears
The hero bold, Asteropæus threw,
With both hands apt for battle. One his shield
Struck but pierced not, impeded by the gold,
Gift of a God; the other as it flew
Grazed his right elbow; sprang the sable blood;
But, overflying him, the spear in earth
Stood planted deep, still hung'ring for the prey.
Then, full at the Pæonian Peleus' son
Hurl'd forth his weapon with unsparing force,
But vain; he struck the sloping river-bank,
And mid-length deep stood plunged the ashen beam.
Then, with his faulchion drawn, Achilles flew
To smite him; he in vain, meantime, essay'd
To pluck the rooted spear forth from the bank;
Thrice with full force he shook the beam, and thrice,
Although reluctant, left it; at his fourth
Last effort, bending it, he sought to break
The ashen spear-beam of Æacides,
But perish'd by his keen-edg'd faulchion first;
For on the belly, at his navel's side,
He smote him; to the ground effused fell all
His bowels, Death's dim shadows veil'd his eyes,
Achilles ardent on his bosom fix'd
His foot, despoil'd him, and exulting cried.
'Lie there; though river-sprung thou find'st it hard
To cope with sons of Jove omnipotent.
Thou said'st, a mighty river is my sire--
But my descent from mightier Jove I boast;
My father, whom the myrmidons obey,
Is son of Æacus, and he, of Jove.
As Jove all streams excels that seek the sea,
So, Jove's descendants nobler are than theirs.
Behold a River at thy side--Let Him
Afford thee, if he can, some succour--No,
He may not fight against Saturnian Jove.
Therefore, not kingly Achelous,
Nor yet the strength of Ocean's vast profound,
Although from him all rivers and all seas,
All fountains, and all wells proceed, may boast
Comparison with Jove, but even He
Astonish'd trembles at his fiery bolt,
And his dread thunders rattling in the sky."

On opening the Odyssey, we present the reader with the interview of
Ulysses and his mother in the Shades, and the description of Tyro's
amour with Neptune.--Odyss. B. XI. p. 254.

"She said; I ardent wish'd to clasp the shade
Of my departed mother; thrice I sprang
Toward her, by desire impetuous urged,
And thrice she flitted from between my arms,
Light as a passing shadow or a dream.
Then, pierced by keener grief, in accents wing'd
With filial earnestness, I thus replied:--
'My mother, why elud'st thou my attempt
To clasp thee, that ev'n here, in Pluto's realm,
We might to full satiety indulge
Our grief, enfolded in each other's arms?
Hath Proserpine, alas! only dispatch'd
A shadow to me, to augment my woe?'
"Then, instant, thus the venerable form.
'Ah, son! thou most afflicted of mankind!
On thee, Jove's daughter, Proserpine, obtrudes
No airy semblance vain; but such the state
And nature is of mortals once deceased.
For they nor muscle have, nor flesh, nor bone;
All those, (the spirit from the body once
Divorced) the violence of fire consumes,
And, like a dream, the soul flies swift away.
But haste thou back to light, and, taught thyself
These sacred truths, hereafter teach thy spouse.'
"Thus mutual we conferr'd. Then, thither came,
Encouraged forth by royal Proserpine,
Shades female num'rous, all who consorts, erst,
Or daughters were of mighty chiefs renown'd.
About the sable blood frequent they swarm'd,
But I consid'ring sat, how I might each
Interrogate, and thus resolv'd. My sword
Forth drawing from beside my sturdy thigh,
Firm I prohibited the ghosts to drink
The blood together; they successive came;
Each told her own distress; I question'd all.
"There, first, the high-born Tyro I beheld;
She claim'd Salmoneus as her sire, and wife
Was once of Cretheus, son of Æolus,
Enamour'd of Enipeus, stream divine.
Loveliest of all that water earth, beside
His limpid current she was wont to stray,
When Ocean's God (Enipeus' form assumed)
Within the eddy-whirling river's mouth
Embraced her; there, while the o'er-arching flood,
Uplifted mountainous, conceal'd the God
And his fair human bride, her virgin zone
He loos'd, and o'er her eyes sweet sleep diffused.
His am'rous purpose satisfied, he grasp'd
Her hand, affectionate, and thus he said.
'Rejoice in this, my love, and when the year
Shall tend to consummation of its course,
Thou shalt produce illustrious twins, for love
Immortal never is unfruitful love.
Rear them with all a mother's care; meantime,
Hence to thy home. Be silent. Name it not,
For I am Neptune, shaker of the shores.'
"So saying, he plunged into the billowy deep.
She, pregnant grown, Pelias and Neleus bore,
Both valiant ministers of mighty Jove."

The visit of Hermes to Calypso and her abode, are thus
described.--Odyss. B. V. p. 110.

"He ended, nor the Argicide refused,
Messenger of the skies; his sandals fair,
Ambrosial, golden, to his feet he bound,
Which o'er the moist wave, rapid as the wind,
Bear him, and o'er th' illimitable earth,
Then took his rod, with which, at will, all eyes
He closes soft, or opes them wide again.
So arm'd, forth flew the valiant Argicide.
Alighting on Pieria, down he stoop'd
To ocean, and the billows lightly skimm'd
In form a sea-mew, such as in the bays
Tremendous of the barren deep her food
Seeking dips oft in brine her ample wing.
In such disguise, o'er many a wave he rode,
But reaching, now, that isle remote, forsook
The azure deep, and at the spacious grot
Where dwelt the amber-tressed nymph arrived,
Found her within. A fire on all the hearth
Blazed sprightly, and, afar-diffused, the scent
Of smooth split cedar and of cyprus-wood.
Odorous, burning, cheer'd the happy isle.
She, busied at the loom, and plying fast
Her golden shuttle, with melodious voice
Sat chaunting there; a grove on either side,
Alder and poplar, and the redolent branch
Wide-spread of cypress, skirted dark the cave.
There many a bird of broadest pinion built
Secure her nest, the owl, the kite, and daw
Long-tongued, frequenter of the sandy shores.
A garden-vine luxuriant on all sides
Mantled the spacious cavern, cluster-hung
Profuse; four fountains of serenest lymph
Their sinuous course pursuing side by side,
Stray'd all around, and ev'ry where appear'd
Meadows of softest verdure, purpled o'er
With violets; it was a scene to fill
A God from heav'n with wonder and delight.
Hermes, heav'n's messenger, admiring stood
That sight, and having all survey'd, at length
Enter'd the grotto; nor the lovely nymph
Him knew not soon as seen, for not unknown
Each to the other the immortals are,
How far soever sep'rate their abodes.
Yet found he not within the mighty chief
Ulysses; he sat weeping on the shore,
Forlorn, for there his custom was with groans
Of sad regret t' afflict his breaking heart,
Looking continual o'er the barren deep.
Then thus Calypso, nymph divine, the God
Question'd from her resplendent throne august."

With the subsequent passage of Ulysses' stratagem in the cave of
Polypheme, we shall dismiss the Odyssey, and add a few
observations.--Odyss. B. IX. p. 207.

"'Cyclops! thou hast my noble name inquired,
Which I will tell thee. Give me, in return,
The promised boon, some hospitable pledge.
My name is[25] Outis; Outis I am call'd,
At home, abroad, wherever I am known.'
"So I; to whom he, savage, thus replied:
'Outis, when I have eaten all his friends,
Shall be my last regale. Be that thy boon.'
"He spake, and, downward sway'd, fell resupine,
With his huge neck aslant. All conqu'ring sleep
Soon seized him. From his gullet gush'd the wine
With human morsels mingled, many a blast
Sonorous issuing from his glutted maw.
Then, thrusting far the spike of olive-wood
Into the embers glowing on the hearth,
I heated it, and cheer'd my friends the while,
Lest any should, through fear, shrink from his part.
But when that stake of olive-wood, though green,
Should soon have flamed, for it was glowing hot,
I bore it to his side. Then all my aids
Around me gather'd, and the Gods infused
Heroic fortitude into our hearts.
They, seizing the hot stake rasp'd to a point,
Bored his eye with it, and myself, advanced
To a superior stand, twirl'd it about.
As when a shipwright with his wimble bores
Tough oaken timber, placed on either side
Below, his fellow artists strain the thong
Alternate, and the restless iron spins;
So grasping hard the stake pointed with fire,
We twirl'd it in his eye; the bubbling blood
Boil'd round about the brand; his pupil sent
A scalding vapour forth that singed his brow,
And all his eye-roots crackled in the flame.
As when the smith an hatchet or large axe
Temp'ring with skill, plunges the hissing blade
Deep in cold water, (whence the strength of steel,)
So hiss'd his eye around the olive-wood.
The howling monster with his outcry fill'd
The hollow rock, and I, with all my aids,
Fled terrified. He, plucking forth the spike
From his burnt socket, mad with anguish, cast
The implement, all bloody, far away.
Then, bellowing, he sounded forth the name
Of ev'ry Cyclops dwelling in the caves
Around him, on the wind-swept mountain tops;
They, at his cry flocking from ev'ry part,
Circled his den, and of his ail enquired.
'What grievous hurt hath caused thee, Polypheme!
Thus yelling, to alarm the peaceful ear
Of Night, and break our slumbers? Fear'st thou lest
Some mortal man drive off thy flocks? or fear'st
Thyself to die by cunning or by force?'
"Them answer'd, then, Polypheme from his cave,
'Oh, friends! I die, and Outis gives the blow.'
"To whom with accents wing'd his friends without.
'If no[26] man harm thee, but thou art alone,
And sickness feel'st, it is the stroke of Jove,
And thou must bear it; yet invoke for aid
Thy father Neptune, sov'reign of the floods.'
"So saying, they went, and in my heart I laugh'd;
That by the fiction only of a name,
Slight stratagem! I had deceived them all."

If translation be chiefly written for those who cannot read the
original, it is, we apprehend, self-evident, that Polypheme's
charging _Outis_ with an attempt on his life, and the departure of
his associates in consequence of this information, must remain a
problem to those who do not understand the Greek. To them, _Outis_
is the name of somebody, and why that should pacify the giants who
came to assist the Cyclops, appears unsatisfactory, if not
inconceivable. Clarke, when he adduces the passage from the Acta
Eruditorum, which censures Gyphanius for having translated _Outis_,
_nemo_, would have done well if he had adduced other reasons in
support of his opinion (if indeed he coincided in opinion with that
passage) than grammatical futilities. The separation of ou-de can
be no reason why the brethren of Polypheme should depart; his
destruction remained a call equally urgent for their assistance,
whether it was carrying on by fraud or force. In Homer, whenever a
man is asked after his name, he replies, they call me so, or my
mother has given me such a name; and this is always in the
accusative. Ulysses, to deceive Polypheme, consults probability,
and the customary reply to a question after a name, and therefore
calls him _Outin_, not _Outina_, to escape the suspicion of the
Cyclops; but well surmised, or Homer at least for him, that his
enemy would pronounce his name in the nominative, if he should be
asked who was his destroyer. If the deception be puerile, it is to
be considered, that no sense can be obtained without it; and on
whom is it practised? on something worse than a solitary barbarian
not trained up in social craft; it is exerted on a monster of mixed
nature, unacquainted with other ideas than the immediate ones of
self-preservation, brutal force, and greedy appetite. The whole
fiction is indeed one of those which Longinus calls dreams, but the
dreams of Jupiter; and the improbabilities of the component parts
vanish in the pathos, and the restless anguish of curiosity which
overwhelms us in the conduct of the tale.[27]

That the translation of the word Krataus, in the celebrated passage
of Sisyphus, should have met with indulgence from those who insist
on the preservation of _Outis_, may not be matter of surprise,
because, as Mr. C. observes, 'it is now perhaps impossible to
ascertain with precision what Homer meant by the word krataus,
which he only uses here and in the next book, where it is the name
of Scylla's dam.' We give it up too, though not willingly, because
the ancients appear to have been as ignorant of the being so called
as ourselves; some of whom, by cutting the word into two, attempted
to make it rather an attribute of the stone itself, than the effect
of some external power: but from _him_, we are more surprised at
the observation on the word anaidês,' in the same passage, as
'also of very doubtful explication.' Is it not the constant
practice of Homer to diffuse energy by animating the inanimate? has
he forgotten the maddening lances, the greedy arrows, the roaring
shores, the groaning earth, the winged words, the cruel brass, and
a thousand other metaphors from life? and if these occurred not to
his memory, the observation of _Aristotle_ on the passage in
question, as quoted by Clarke, might have removed all doubts about
the true sense of the word anaidês, when applied to a rock.

Mr. Cowper, in his interpretation of many words and expressions of
dubious explication, has generally chosen that sense which seemed
most to contribute to the perspicuity of the passage: thus in
Iliad, iv. v. 306, seq. when Nestor instructs his troops before the
battle, he has, in our opinion, adopted the best and only sense,
though rejected by Clarke, with more subtilty than reason. Thus he
has substituted the word 'monster' for the epithet amaimaketos,
Iliad, xvi. 329, with sufficient propriety, whether that word be
expressive of enormity of dimension, or untameableness of
disposition; in both which senses it occurs in Pindar.[28] We might
enlarge on the terms amêtrochitônas; tropai Êelioio; orsothyrê, and a
variety of others equally disputed or obscure; but as they will be
sufficiently recognized by the scholar, whilst the unlearned reader
is enabled to pass smoothly over them, we shall just observe, that
the interpretation of the proverbial passage in Odyss. viii. v.
351,

Deilai toi deilôn ge kai engyai engyaasthai
'Lame suitor, lame security,'

is the happiest instance of the superiority of plain sense over
learning merely intricate.

When, in Odyss. iv. v. 73, Telemachus describes the mansion of
Menelaus, Mr. C., with all the translators, renders Êlektron
'amber,' contrary to the explanation of Pliny, who defines electrum
to be gold, containing a fifth part of silver, and quotes the
Homeric passage.[29] Amber ornaments, we believe, are not mentioned
by Homer in the singular. Thus, in Odyss. xviii. 294-5, the golden
necklace presented by Eurymachus, is called Êlektroisin eermenon,
inlaid with amber drops.

Homer, Odyss. xi. v. 579, seq., places two vultures by the sides of
Tityus, who entered his entrails, and tore his liver by turns, and
adds, to enhance the terror of the image,

ho d' ouk apamyneto chersi,

'he had not hands to rescue him;' entranced, no doubt, or chained
to the ground. This Mr. C. translates--

"----Two vultures on his liver prey'd,
Scooping his entrails; nor suffic'd his hands
To fray them thence."----

Why not, if he had a hand for each vulture, unless we suppose him
chained or entranced?

Odyss. xix. 389, Ulysses removes from the light of the hearth into
the shade, lest the nurse, who had already discovered a striking
resemblance in his shape, voice, and limbs, to those of her lost
master, by handling his thigh, and seeing all at once the scar on
it, should be convinced that he could be no other, and betray him.
This Mr. C. translates thus: p. 453.

"Ulysses (for beside the hearth he sat)
Turn'd quick _his face_ into the shade, alarm'd
Lest, handling him, she should at once
remark His scar, and all his stratagem unveil."

He who, unacquainted with the rest, should read these lines, would
either conclude that the nurse had not looked at the face before,
or that the scar was in the face. Minerva had taken care that
Ulysses should not be discovered by his countenance, making
identity vanish into mere resemblance; but as the scar in such a
place, without a miracle, could belong only to Ulysses, he
attempted to elude the farther guesses of the nurse, by having his
thigh washed in the dark.

Odyss. viii. 400, Euryalus, eager to appease Ulysses for the
affront offered to him, addressed Alcinous his chief--

Ton d' aut' Euryalos apameibeto, phônêsen te
Alkinoe kreioi.----

But Mr. C. turns Alcinous into his father;

"When thus Euryalus his _sire_ addressed."

The sons of Alcinous were Laodamus, Halius, and Clytoneus.

When Mr. C., Odyss. xi. v. 317, seq. tells us that Alcmena bore
Megara to Creon, he says surely what Homer has not said,[30] who
mentions Megara as the daughter of Creon, and one of the women
Ulysses _saw_, and not as the sister and wife of Hercules together.

But enough. Of similar observations, perhaps more might be added.
These at least will show the attention with which we have compared
copy and original. If, among the emendations of a future edition,
they be not passed over as cavils, or treated as nugatory, our
purpose will be fully answered. It would be difficult to determine
in which of the two poems Mr. C. has succeeded best. We however
incline to decide in favour of the Odyssey. The prevalent mixture
of social intercourse, domestic manners, and rural images, with the
scenes of terror and sublimity, as upon the whole it renders that
poem more pleasing, though not more interesting than the Iliad, and
what we would call a poem for all hours, appears to us to have been
more adapted to the mild tones of our translator, than the
uninterrupted sublimity and pathos of the Iliad. In parting from
both, we congratulate the author on the production, and the public
on the acquisition of so much excellence. We contemplate the whole
in its mass as an immense fabric reared for some noble purpose: on
too near an approach, not perhaps of equal beauty, with parts left
rough that might have been smoothed to neatness, and others only
neat that might have been polished into elegance; blemishes that
vanish at a proper distance: by uniform grandeur of style, the
whole strikes with awe and delight, attracts now the eyes of the
race who saw it rise, and, secure of duration from the firmness of
its base and the solidity of its materials, will command the
admiration of posterity.