Madame Guion, seems to have chosen the style of Pope, which on other occasions he had rather tried to avoid. His versification in the poem just mentioned affords a complete proof, that in rhyme, as in blank verse, he could at once be easy, forcible, and melodious.

Churchill had before objected to an excess of unvaried excellence in the verses of Pope. An objection that appears rather fastidious, than reasonable. Happy the poet, whose antagonist can only say of his language, that it is too musical, and of his fancy, that it is too much under the guidance of reason! Such are the charges by which even scholars and critics, of acknowledged taste, and good-nature, have, from the influence of accidental prejudice, endeavoured to lessen the poetical eminence of Pope; a poet remarkably unfortunate in his numerous biographers! for Ruff head, whom Warburton employed in a task, which gratitude might have taught him to execute better himself, is neglected as dull: Johnson, though he nobly and eloquently vindicates the dignity of the poet, yet betrays a perpetual inclination to render him contemptible as a man: and Warton, though by nature one of the most candid, and liberal of critics, continues, as a biographer, to indulge that prejudice, which had early induced him in his popular essay on this illustrious poet, to en

deavour to sink him a little in the scale of

poetical renown; not I believe from any envious motive, but as an affectionate compliment to his friend Young, the patron to whom he inscribed his essay.

Of this continued prejudice, which this goodnatured critic was himself very far from perceiving, he exhibits a remarkable proof in his life of Pope, by the following facetious severity on the translation of Homer.

"No two things can be so unlike, as the Iliad of Homer, and the Iliad of Pope; to co`lour the images, to point the sentences, to lavish Ovidian graces on the simple Grecian, is to put a bag-wig on Mr. Townley's fine busto of the venerable old bard."

This sentence has all the sprightly pleasantry of my amiable old friend; but to prove that it is critically unjust, the reader has only to observe, that Pope is very far from having produced that ludicrous effect, which the comparison of the critic supposes. Spectators must laugh, indeed, at a bust of Homer enveloped in a wig, but the reader has not a disposition to laughter in reading the Iliad of Pope. On the contrary, in many, many, passages, where it deviates widely from the original, a reader of taste and candour

admires both the dexterity and the dignity of the translator; and if he allows the version to be unfaithful, yet with Mr. Twining, (the accomplished translator of Aristotle, who has justly and gracefully applied an expressive Latin verse to this glorious translation, so bitterly branded with the epithet unfaithful) he tenderly exclaims

Perfida, sed quamvis perfida, cara tamen.

I have been induced, by a sense of what is due to the great works of real genius, to take the part of Pope against the lively injustice of a departed friend, for whose literary talents, and for whose social character, I still retain the sincerest regard. The delight and the improvement derived from such noble works as the Homer of Pope ought to guard every scholar against any partialities of friendship, that can render him blind to the predominant merits, or severe to the petty imperfections of such a work. Predominant merits, and petty imperfections are certainly to be found in the translation of Pope. These are temperately and judiciously displayed in the liberal essay of that gentle and amiable critic, Spence, on the Odyssey; who, though he was rather partial to blank verse, yet regarded Pope's Homer as a work entitled to great admiration. It is indeed a work so truly

admirable, that I should be sorry, if the more faithful version of my favorite friend could materially injure the honor of its author; but between Pope and Cowper there is no contest: "They are performers on different instruments," as Cowper has very properly remarked himself, in the Preface to his own translation.

We may apply to the two translators, therefore, the comprehensive Latin words, that Gibbon applied to two eminent lawyers-" Magis Pares, quam similes:" but of the two translators it may be added, that each has attained such a degree of excellence in the mode he adopted, as will probably remain unsurpassed for ever. Instead therefore of endeavouring to decide which is entitled to a greater portion of praise, a reader, who has derived great pleasure from both, may rather wish (for the embellishment and honor of the English language) that it exhibit a double version of every great may ancient poet perfectly equal in spirit and beauty to the Homers of Pope and Cowper. My impartial esteem for the merits of these two preeminent translators had almost tempted me to introduce in this composition a minute display of their alternate successes and failures in many most striking passages of Homer; but on reflection it appears to me, that such a comparison, if fairly and extensively conducted, would form

an episode too large for the body of my work, and the spirit of my departed friend seems to admonish me against it in the following words of his Grecian favorite

Μητ' αρ με μαλ' αινεε, μήτε τι νεικεί
Ειδοσι γαρ τοι ταυτα μετ' Αργείοις αγορευεις.

Neither praise me much, nor blame,

For these are Grecians, in whose ears thou speak'st,
And know me well.

Cowper's Homer's Iliad, 10.

I will therefore confine myself to the general result of such a comparison, and I am persuaded, that all unprejudiced scholars, who may amuse themselves by pursuing the comparison, will find the result to be this: that both the English poets have rendered noble justice to their original, taken all together; that in separate parts each translator has frequently sunk beneath him, and each, in their happier moments, surpassed the model, which they endeavoured to copy.

As to the emolument that each translator received for labour so extensive and so meritorious, we may observe with concern, that Cowper obtained for his Iliad and Odyssey united not half the sum, which the zeal of many active and liberal friends, enabled Pope to collect from his Iliad alone. That work, though accom