his forms of thought: of course I could not have done this in modern style. The lisping of a child is well enough from a child, but is disgusting in a full-grown man. Cowper and Pope systematically cut out from Homer whatever they cannot make stately, and harmonize with modern style: even Mr Brandreth often shrinks, though he is brave enough to say ox-eyed Juno. Who then can doubt the extreme unfitness of their metre and of their modern diction? My opposers never fairly meet the argument. Mr Arnold, when most gratuitously censuring my mild rendering of κυνὸς κακομηχάνου ὀκρυοέσσης, does not dare to suggest any English for it himself. Even Mr Brandreth skips it. It is not merely offensive words; but the purest and simplest phrases, as a man's 'dear life', 'dear knees', or his 'tightly-built house', are a stumbling-block to translators. No stronger proof is necessary, or perhaps is possible, than these phenomena give, that to shed an antique hue over Homer is of first necessity to a translator: without it, injustice is done both to the reader and to the poet. Whether I have managed the style well, is a separate question, and is matter of detail. I may have sometimes done well, sometimes ill; but I claim that my critics shall judge me from a broader ground, and shall not pertinaciously go on comparing my version with modern style, and condemning me as
