Having employed several pages in offering proofs of these failings and remarks upon them,' he concludes this branch of his General Observations in language dictated by the sincerity so familiar to his mind, and which we are persuaded will be acceptable to every reader of cultivated taste or moral feeling. "Thus, under the impression of a reverential diffidence, bordering on religious awe, but sustained by a conviction of disinterested purpose, and protected, I trust, by my enthusiastic admiration of the mighty genius and exquisite accomplishments of our translator, have I presumed, but with a trembling hand of conscious imbecility, to delineate a few dark spots, scarcely visible but to the telescopic eye of searching criticism, on this luminary of transcendant brightness; from whose fountain the urns of all future adventurers in English verse will be replenished.?? t ་ In connection with this passage the following conclusion of the General Observations may well deserve attention. "To remove from myself no improbable accusation of censorial malignity, imputable either to constitutional sourness, to an envious disparagement of unattainable accomplishments, or an insolent af 1 "Gen. Ob." lxxxv. fectation of delicate sensibility and superior discernment; I must advertise the reader that to notice imperfections was more consonant to my duty, than to expatiate on excellence. The numberless elegances of Pope's translation would in this case have reduced me to the neH cessity of perpetual exclamation only, with no great deference to the taste and sagacity of the reader: Pulchré, bené, recté ! must have been the wearisome and monotonous burthen of every paragraph. The gay profusion of poetic flowers through this paradise of the Muses beams with a bloom of beauty, beauty&and! breathes with a gale of fragrance, which must2 excite vibrations of pleasure on the dull sen sorium even of the most inanimate observer!! and will charm the more delicate sensations of sympathetic souls with inexpressible and eternal" yu dog sa Ì0 6 S rapture !””e To return to the order of the General ob servations, Mr. Wakefield next discusses the comparative powers of translation, possessed byd Dryden and Pope; the Virgil of the former he regards as contributing to the improvement of Pope, as an excellent model, as a treasury bus to lord of poetic beauties, and as an incentive of emulation: a work, which made him indeed in a "Gen. Ob." xcvi, vii. great measure what he was. The stream of Pope's poetry," he adds, "clear, and full, and strong, may be justly compared to the gran-, deur and exuberance of the Nile: but its. fountains, like those of the river of Egypt, are not unknown.” f SVEN RA He next introduces a short account" of the poetical tran translators of Homer's poems who preceded Pope, " and then passes the following Judgment upon Mr. Cowper's labours in the saine department, which will conclude our account of this publication. We transcribe the passage entire, as whatever is connected with such a name must excite no common interest. The merits of Mr. Cowper it is much more difficult to estimate, with a benevolent regard To enorme time to the sacred feelings of an amiable writer, under a reverence inspired by a man of fine genius, and with justice to the public by a religiously scrupulous adherence to sincerity, I speak with unwilling emphasis, but unaffected hesitation, when I assert, if my wn ears are not absolutely unattuned to the mellifluous cadence of poetic numbers, the structure of Mr. Cowper's verse is harsh, broken, and inharmonious, to a degree inconceivable in a writer of so much original and intrinsic excellence. His fidelity to his author is, however, entitled to unreserved praise, and proclaims the accuracy and intelligence of a critical proficient in his language. The true sense of Homer, and the character of his phraseology, may be seen in Mr. Cowper's version to more advantage beyond all comparison, than in any other translation whatsoever within the compass of my knowledge. His epithets are frequently combined after the Greek manner, which our language most happily admits, with singular dexterity and complete success; his diction is grand, copious, energetic, and diversified; full fraught with every embellishment of poetic phraseology; his turns of expression are on many occasions hit off with most ingenious felicity, and there are specimens of native simplicity also in his performance, that place him at least on a level with his author, and vindicate his title in this respect to a superiority over all his predecessors in this most arduous and painful enterprize. "h h« Gen. Ob." xci. On this passage Mr. Hayley remarks, "The late Mr. Wakefield, in republishing Pope's Homer, mentioned Cowper's superior fidelity to his original, with the liberal praise of a scholar, but he falls, I think, into injudicious severity on the structure of his verse." HAYLEY'S Life of Cowper. From the Preface to the second edition of his Homer, it appears that these strictures were well received by Mr. Cowper, and came before him under such circumstances that very unexpectedly they had an important place' in his affecting story. Yet it should be remembered that Mr. W. could only judge by the first edition of Cowper's Homer, now confessedly so much amended as to be almost a new work. *** « During two long years from this most anxious period, the translation continued as it was, and though in the hope of its being able to divert his melancholy, I had attempted more than once to introduce it to its author: I was every time painfully obliged to desist. But in the summer of 1796, when he had resided with me twelve miserable months, the introduction, long wished for, took place. To my inexpressible astonishment and joy, I surprized him one morning with the Iliad in his hand; and with an excess of delight which I am still more unable to describe, I the next day discovered that he had been writing. Were I to mention one of the happiest moments of my life, it might be that which introduced me to the following lines "Mistaken meanings corrected." "Admonente G. Wakefield." B. XXIII. L. 429. L. 865. orib -that the nave Of thy neat wheel seem ev'n to grind upon it. And disappears beneath the sable flood, |