what is flattest, I have no choice but to imitate Homer in retaining a uniform, but easy and unpretending metre. Mr Arnold calls my metre 'slip-shod': if it can rise into grandeur when needful, the epithet is a praise.
Of course I hold the Iliad to be generally noble and grand. Very many of the poet's conceptions were grand to him, mean to us: especially is he mean and absurd in scenes of conflict between the gods. Besides, he is disgusting and horrible occasionally in word and thought; as when Hecuba wishes to 'cling on Achilles and eat up his liver'; when (as Jupiter says) Juno would gladly eat Priam's children raw; when Jupiter hanged Juno up and fastened a pair of anvils to her feet; also in the description of dreadful wounds, and the treatment which (Priam says) dogs give to an old man's corpse. The descriptions of Vulcan and Thersites are ignoble; so is the mode of mourning for Hector adopted by Priam; so is the treatment of the populace by Ulysses, which does but reflect the manners of the day. I am not now blaming Homer for these things; but I say no treatment can elevate the subject; the translator must not be expected to make noble what is not so intrinsically.
If anyone think that I am disparaging Homer, let me remind him of the horrid grossnesses of Shakspeare, which yet are
