with Mr. Gifford himself, that to many "the mode here adopted will be less pleasing than a more splendid style of versification."—(Gifford's Introduction to Persius, p. ix—xi. 1817.)
Agreeing then, as I do, in toto, with the tenor of the foregoing observations, the appropriation of them to my own purpose will not, I trust, be deemed presumptuous; although my compliance. with the requisitions they contain may have been far more imperfect, and proportionably less successful, than that of the learned critic with whom they originated; and whose practice they so happily point out. It is impossible, however, in every instance to act up to the rules which we profess to adopt, and whose authority we do fully recognize. Consequently, in looking again over the following sheets, I discover more passages than one, in which these rules have been unnecessarily departed from. Such exceptions I believe to be neither very numerous nor very important: at any rate, it is now too late to correct them. I can therefore but advertise—and apologise for—their existence generally.[1]
- ↑ Two, nevertheless, I will take the liberty of particularizing. The first occurs in my version of that noble line (the 49th of the first Book of the Iliad, page 3.) Δεινὴ δὲ κλαγγὴ κ. τ. λ. where, for the nervous simplicity of the original, I have substituted a vague and indefinite
