68
PRINCIPLES OF
Chap. IV.
under the feet of the Greeks marching silently to battle."
With what superior taste has the translator heightened this simile, and exchanged the offending circumstance for a beauty. The fault is in the third line; τοσσον τις επιλευσσει, &c. which is a mean idea, compared with that which Mr Pope has substituted in its stead:
"Thus from his shaggy wings when Eurus sheds
"A night of vapours round the mountain-heads,
"Swift-gliding mists the dusky fields invade,
"To thieves more grateful than the midnight shade;
"While scarce the swains their feeding flocks survey,
"Lost and confus'd amidst the thicken'd day:
"So wraps in gath'ring dust the Grecian train,
"A moving cloud, swept on and hid the plain[1]."
"A night of vapours round the mountain-heads,
"Swift-gliding mists the dusky fields invade,
"To thieves more grateful than the midnight shade;
"While scarce the swains their feeding flocks survey,
"Lost and confus'd amidst the thicken'd day:
"So wraps in gath'ring dust the Grecian train,
"A moving cloud, swept on and hid the plain[1]."
But even the highest beauties of the
- ↑ A similar instance of good taste occurs in the following translation of an epigram of Martial, where the
indelicacy
