Homer's narrative. My chief reason for adopting the metre which Scott has made popular was that it seemed to give me my best chance of imparting to my work that rapidity of movement which is indispensably necessary to a long narrative poem. An ode of Horace is something to dwell on, to scrutinize minutely: a poem like the Æneid is something to read rapidly and continuously. A metre which gives the translator the hope of making his work interesting as a story is so far successful: a metre which does not give this hope fails. Marmion has been read by multitudes who would find the perusal of the Paradise Lost too severe an undertaking: and there can be little doubt that Scott would have done unwisely had he tried to produce a Miltonic poem. It is true of course that if Homer's heroes are, as my friend Mr. Arnold so strongly contends, not mosstroopers, Virgil's have still less of the Border character; but it is better to run the risk of importing a few unseasonable associations than to sacrifice the living character of the narrative by making it stiff and cumbrous. Apart from associations, I believe that the metre of Marmion and the Lord of the Isles is one that possesses high capabilities, even for a translation of Virgil. It is not without dignity; it has lyrical tones which lend themselves well to occasions of pathos. Its variety enables it, by a change of measure, to mark those transitions of feeling which no poet exhibits more frequently than the author of the Æneid. No doubt it is the part of a great artist to do as Virgil has done, and draw out all varieties of expression from one and the same instrument: but to most of those who engage in the work of translation it cannot but be an advantage to employ a measure which is really several measures in one. I will
