who perpetually physics himself for his personal health, but has not pluck enough to make any defence against people who choose to kick him.” "Then you would take high ground," said the Earl, "and declare the importance of making the power of England felt.' "Most assuredly. Our insular position renders it more easy for us to evade our responsibilities; but such evasion is as imprudent as it is dishonourable. I am quite sure you will agree with me that the logical result of non-interference is a coalition against England." "You are right," replied Lord Riverdale. "Well, I suppose I must take office. 'Tis a bore-an unmitigated bore. Mind, you are pledged to be Under Secretary; will the Riverdale people re-elect you?" "I am not much afraid," said Guy. "And now, my lord, if you have made up your mind what reply to send to town, I have something of greater importance to talk about." Greater importance!" "Yes," said Guy, in a quiet tone; "I have something to say, which you must be kind enough to receive without indignation. I may as well out with it. I am in love. I want to marry the lady is your daughter." The Earl leaned back in his chair, without uttering a word, and took a long look at Luttrel. After a while he said "Guy, my dear fellow, there never were two creatures better suited to each other than you and Vivian. There's the difference in age, I know" "There's the difference in rank and wealth, my lord," interrupted Guy "Pshaw! You have no right to talk to me in that absurd way. You don't mean it, Guy, you know. If your brains aren't worth more thanmy thousands, I am much mistaken." "Well, Riverdale," said Guy Luttrel, "I'll say no more about that. I knew beforehand, pretty well, what you would say on these points; but the difference in age between us is rather more important." "It is, Guy, it is," said the Earl. "The question is perplexing. Of course the chances are that you'll die before her. But, on the other hand, men like you and I, given to politics, busy in brain, have a habit of long life. If you should live to be eighty, Vivian, at sixty, will be quite as old as you. Positively I don't see many objections." "I see a good many," said Guy. "The two principal ones are, that the lady whom I desire to marry is young enough to be my daughter; and will have fifty times my income. But there is another; I am a widower, with one daughter." "The deuce," said the Earl. At this moment Vivian entered the Holy of Holies; and observed that the bearer of despatches would miss the last train, unless he received an immediate answer. So the Earl scribbled a few lines to Lord Y., and Guy and Vivian looked at one another somewhat significantly. At length the letter was finished and sent off. Then Lord Riverdale turned to Vivian and said— "Well, Witch, do you mean to marry Guy? He seems to fancy you might suit him." "I'll marry him to oblige you, papa," said Lady Vivian, getting up and dropping him a graceful courtesy. "To oblige me?" retorted the Earl, emphatically. And then the dinner bell rang. THE ILIAD OF HOMER.* EACH successive effort to familiarize by translation the epic of Homer -a poem which, from the imaginative power and beauties with which it abounds, is invested with a perennial interest is certain to be received by the literary world with welcome; and when remarkable for many exceligncies like the present, with admiration and applause. The authorship of the great poems which continued for so many ages the bibles of the Greek peoples, the source of their history, theology, and drama, remains a standing cause in the Chancery Court of criticism, in which Wolf and Muller have well nigh exhausted the pleadings on either side. The historical dates of the period in which Homer lived, and of the Siege of Troy --the great pagan crusade of collective Greece against Asia still continues, and will ever remain, a subject of speculation. The most probable solution with respect to the origin of the works to which an Homeric paternity has been assigned, seems to be this: -After the return of the Greek peoples to the Peninsula, after the destruction of the westernmost of the Babylonian satrapies, the events of the war constituted a staple theme for the chroniclers and bards of the respective races, whose function, like all others of the primitive ages, was closely connected with existing religious institutions. History was still embodied in song; and while in the first instance the events and characters of the campaign were narrated and drawn with the truth of tradition, as in the case of the songs of the tronbadours of the middle age, both bee me subsequently invested with the mar vellous colours of imagination; and while the singers of each race son ght to immortalize its special hero or leader, already become mythical, a fusion of the theologe and poetic ideas took place, and the stirica of the gls were introduced into the ballads, to illustrate and ennoble by their interference the heroes they spenadly pro tected and the actions in which they took part. Already, in this period of traditional knowledge, the chiefs who had sailed to the Trojan war had retreated into the magnifying mist-land of fable, with the deities of Olympus. The chief event which had occurred in the existence of the Greeks as yet continned, doubtless, a perpetual and prominent theme of song, in which, on a diminishing basis of authentic detail, an immense superstructure had been raised by the imagination of successive generations of the bards of the Greek nation. Presentlyabout three ages after the destruction of Troy is the assigned time, but probabelty would indicate a much later period-occurred the great migration of the northern Greeks to the coasts of Asia, whither they carried their traditions, and where the bards became acquainted with many others connected with the siege, handed down both by the Greek-speaking people of the region fronting Thrace, whose ice and that of the Troad, Herodotus says, were identical- though there must have been a large Asian intermixture and by the Asian peoples of the south, among whom they incolated. Here the bards, who long subsequently remained an institution, became posibly possessed of other traditions having an Asiatic colouring with respect to the characters and events of the war; and these songs, which represented the siege, &c., from the Trojan point of view, they used as materials for their composí tions. In this form they were addressed to the Greeks at festivals and games, sung in the palaces of Greek chieftains, in glorification, however, of the old hers of their people, and the great expedition against Troy was the chief object. Many have doubted, in an age before the art of writing was known, whether it was possible to transmit by memory oriv,poe ins running to so great a length as the “Iad,” “Odynaca,' "The Ilal of Homer, renter into English verse by Elward Earl of Derby," 2 vols. Leuim. Murray, 1954 and others. Even Homer, who appeared ages after the immense Greek ballad literature had grown into existence, makes no mention of written characters, except on one occasion, and in a dubious expression, referring to the letter Bellerophon carried from Proetus to the Lycian king. Such an objection is rendered of no value, however, when illustrated by what we know of the druids and other primitive theocracies, whose entire body of knowledge, poetic, moral, and physical, was memorial. In such a state of society the cultivation of the retentive faculty among the theocratic class, with its three orders, constituted their only means of preserving the civilization they had attained- the only protection against relapsing into barbarism, and remained in long later and more enlightened epochs of antiquity the chief faculty cultivated in the system of education. In the time of Homer, who calls the Muses daughters of memory, the art of minstrelsy and rhapsody, represented one of the leading elements of existing civilization. The bard pursued his business, for such it was, by every means of study and research which emulation and genius suggested; and when he appeared, a vast ballad literature existed among the long constituted body of the Ionian aoidai, who somewh resembled the Arabian and the southern and eastern storytellers, and improvisatori, who have the natural gift of narrative talent aud character delineation. When the poet or singer remains at once chronicler and historian of the life of a family or people-theogonist and national annalist-he forms the most important personage in their primitive social state; and doubtless a generic resemblance existed between his position and requirements in the early ages of the Greek as of many other people. Thus we find that the qualifications of a Celtic file or poet involved the knowledge of two hundred and fifty prime stories, or those embodying great events, such as destructions, battles, navigations, tragedies, sieges, and so on; and two hundred secondary stories, referring to social incidents, humorous or other. The poetic order were regularly trained in schools, and their characters formed on the highest VOL. LXV.NO. CCCLXXXVI. models, purity of mind being regarded as a sine qua non for the exercise of their elevated and important profession. When qualified according to the judgment of their teachers, they were allotted a portion of laud, and possessed many exclusive advantages, such as indemnification from taxes, &c., being regarded the while as objects of the highest honour and admiration. Among the imaginative Greek races who settled along the Asian coast-line, the position of the aoidai was possibly, in many respects, similar. Their business was to possess a store of national traditions in verse, and extemporize themes suited to the life of the time, which they sung at festivals, games, and in the palaces of chiefs-subjects religious, heroic, national, or social. From the mass of such traditional material as existed among this order respecting the siege of Troy, Homer selected the class of ballads relating to the greatest of the mythical Greek chieftains, Achilles, whose wrath, the subject which informs the action of the "Iliad," constitutes its most dramatic element, as it eventually produces, when consummated, the proximate cause of the taking of Troy. Achilles has been said to be the only character in the "Iliad" which is highly idealized, and it is hence supposed to be a pure creation of Homer's genius; but the leading idea on which the sublimity of the character rests-namely, that, though conscious of being predestined to death the moment Troy is taken, he heroically advances to effect that object, was possibly traditionized in the mythical songs previously composed in his celebration. It is difficult to say in what state social civilization existed in Homer's day; the savage traits which Achilles, the glorified model of Greek heroism, displays, may have been preserved in some of the old ballads; but from the general tenor of human nature, as depicted in the "Iliad," were very likely drawn, as we find them, to suit a congenial audience. The subsequent tragedy of the Greeks indeed showed that ferocity-nay, the utmost criminality of character- when painted in relation to the power of destiny, received universal admiration; just as did Macbeth, when the witch was an object of popular credence. As regards the story of Pisistratus being the first who transferred to writing the "Dad" and "Odyssea," as collected, arranged, and modelled by Homer, it seems highly probable that in his age the poems already existed in manuscript. The alphabet which Calmus (the name merely means eastern, from the east is said to have introduced into Greece must have been in use in Asia ages before Fisistratus, and utilized by the Ioni in Homeride or order of bards who succeeded Homer. Though the balance of probability is in favour of the supposition that the two great poems are not the puce conceptions of Homer, but a collertion of balla is referring to a special event and to characters of a remote period, the greatness of his genius, as manifested in his work, suhets to diminution. Rade ballad poetry, judging from the eil et d specimetes of many nations, when ocisting at an early epoch a, i handed down by tradition, though here and tire evincing strong powe is of maraton, characterization, and touches of nature, is, for the most part, of voy common material, whose interest is historie more than petie; and the matter on wi ich Homer brought 's creative faculty to bear, compared with the petty he produced, mast Ikely offered a contrast simular to that existing between Shake pe's "Lear" and the ski ton balad from which he took lesendet. Homer is always equal to his subject -natu,a', simple, animated, vigorous, sublime, Asa delinea orof el ia ter he hasseldom been equalled, as a depi tor ofac. tion, never surpassed. Like Shake speare, his knowledge of passion has moquaintancew ti lumin ná'd e- is a matter of imag native intuition, and h's creative powers extrast'ess, Throughout his poem he displays, in parts, the most exquisitive sclose of moral ani plyn. Cearty; in others, a conception of the suble of the majestie order, as distingui Lod fri the prane vai ta oss vetess of t. He, brew mail, whose images may be said to have in trated all su verdih poetry of the most cevated cast. Pops, however, his greatest charm to modern readers is the receptive »iminicity of las opeta sotiled as tog in QUES which reflects and harn mizes with every object an. 1 form of nature, like the occan, wui h, wine elabracing, now the majesty of a sunset, mirrors with truth the simplest weed depending from a rock, and now refleting the tumult of a wrathful sky, raising its terrible billows to heaven, sweis in dark sympathy with the movements of the tempest. The absence of good poetic translations of the classic authors of antiquity in Fish literature has long been and still remains a theme of regretiu, comment. Many have been produce i by eminent scholars, and by men of more or less portie power; yet there is hardly one which, save in parts, realizes an idea or conveys the e leet of the ancient writer, from whom, despite the talents and genius di played in such renderings, the air of autoputy has for the most part disap pared. The reason of this is obviously that the object of translators has been to modernze the ancients; and one of the clie fineans by which this injurious transformation has been wrought Fas been a result of d parting from the form of verse in which such original poetry is written many times we are given something of the spirit, never the form. Among those who have translated Homer into English three names have hitherto stood pre-eminent Chap man, Pope, and Cowper. The geniiss of the first was admirably suited to such a work. It was not in the highes degree creative and hence he famed in tragedy; but, gifted with a strong sym pathetic imagination, an i co ordinat ing sense of music; several passages in his work indeed app", ach nearer to the v gour of Homer than any subsequent attempts have displayed, besides this, we reflecting Lis polvsvi, dble cp: tle's, the fenteen syllat le metre he adopted resized something of the viried and mpetuous music of the Gheck loro e hexametre. Popt's Homer d'splays much poctie faculty in various parts, and is distin_ushed as a translation by the finest taste and musical art. WROL modern, however, it is no more like the poetry of the old lon, an tian the "E say on Man." Cowper wrote has translation in feroje blank verse, arsi so evinced ahher taste in avoiding the absur dity of rhyme, but though us Work is rih mote literal than that of he freüller, and a' .... mated and v efect is ing with an * A ..tion of Miltonic verse, with its classical structure and phraseology, to which his ear was attuned; and hence, though nearer the original than Pope, is unlike the simple and powerful poetry and sonorous minstrel verse of Homer. The defects in such works are attributable to many causes, the first and most obvious of which is the writer's inferiority of genius to the most imaginative poet of Greece; secondly, the mistake that in rendering his poetry familiar to English readers, it was necessary to modernize it; thirdly, and this is included in the second category, the selection of a form of verse different from and inferior to the original-a defect which, destroying one of the chief elements of verisimilitude, arose partly from example, but was doubtless chiefly attributable to the great and perhaps insuperable differences existing between the respective languages, Chapman's Homer stands nearest to the old bard-nearer in parts as to the spirit, it superadds something of the metrical form, and thus conveys somewhat of his antique manner; Cowper's, at a greater distance, in the imitative dress of the author of "Paradise Lost;” whereas, unlike the aged rhapsodist, with snowy beard, and robes floating in the wind, as with inspired gesture he strikes his harp to some theme of heroic inspiration, in Pope's we see Homer in the costume of Queen Anne's day, tastefully and affectedly picking his steps down Fleet-street, with a Brummagen lyre under his arm. Until the form of verse in which Homer wrote, or an approximation thereto, is attempted, despite the congeniality of the translator's powers, we can never have in English, or any other language, a true representation of the ancient poet; and possibly, except in German, in which Vos's translation is the closest approximation, such a work can hardly be expected. The great difference between the "Iliad" and any of our renderings is this, and it is one which translators appear never to have considered-namely, that the one was composed to be sùng, whereas the others were written to be read. The Greek heroic hexameter of Homer's ballad epic possesses a flowing structural vigour, and various continuous music, which the English, different in syn tactical and prosodial structure, and deficient in polysyllables and particles, can never attain; and the effect of confining the flowing majesty of the rhapsody within the limits of the English heroic verse might be illustrated by turning any superior and suitable metre in which a poem was written into an inferior - say that that of Tennyson's "Locklesly Hall"- were turned into ten-syllabled rhymed verse. How weak is the effect produced by the monosyllabic endings of the lines in the English heroic hexameter compared with the dactylo-sponda e terminations of the Greek rhapsody, which seem specially shaped for accompanying the terminal vibrations of the singer's harp. Few as yet have attempted this form of verse in English, whose difficulty is patent to every experimentalizer; hardly anyone succeeded, except in couplets and passages; while none have ambitioned to sustain the metre throughout any long work except Longfellow, in his " Evangeline," which would have been more pleasing in many another metre. The Greek lyrics and choruses of the dramas, from their lineal limits, stand a much better chance of being accurately reflected in English than the hexameter. Even in imitations of antique metres, when the utmost accuracy has been preserved, as in Tennyson's fragment," Boadicea," written in Galliambic verse, the multiplication of final combinative words essential to the imitative harmony, produces an exotic and disagreeable effect on the ear, and proves the almost insuperable difficulty in the way of reproducing the longer and more impassioned order of antique metres in our language, and the hopelessness of sustaining them agreeably to any length in one whose structure is legical, unlike the flexible, harmonious, and magnificent material afforded by the imaginative Greek and Latin. In such efforts the desire to retain literality--the first essential of translation - - constitutes a constant impediment in reproducing the heroic hexameter. If long sustained, how st and monotonous would a literal version in this metre become :-"The rage of the son of Peleus, Achilleus, sing, oh goddess, Destruction-winged, which wafted th' |