general alteration of Horner's style to be a much greater fault, than the mistakes which he made in the meaning" of particular passages. If I may so express myself, he was attempting to follow and imitate the flight of the Grecian poet, without possessing the same variety of movement, or equal flexibility of wing. 'Perhaps the greatest charm, (says a critic[1] of much taste and knowledge) of the most sublime of all the ancient poets, is a variety and discrimination of manner and character in which Shakespeare is his only rival.' The friends of Pope were men of wit and humour, of admirable genius, and extensive information; but with the exception of Parnell and of Arbuthnot, he had no one to whom he could apply for information on subjects of Greek literature: and they were all so dazzled with the splendour of his trans-
- ↑ See Mr. Uvedale Price's essay on the Mod. Pronun. of the Anc. Languages, p. 186.
and the venerable and patriarchal majesty of the Grecian bard will descend from its illustrious elevation, to sit on the steps of the throne which it had once dignified and adorned. Pope's Homer, like Dryden's translation of Virgil, is exceedingly valuable as an English poem; in them united, is to be found, every curious modulation of rhythm, and every beautiful variety of expression that our heroic metre admits. Pope somewhere mentions that injudicious friends, for ten years, persecuted him with the most importunate persuasion to give a new translation of Virgil. What accurate estimation of his own powers, and what respect for Dryden, was included in the silent and steady refusal.
