removed from the Attic purity of speech which we all of us admired, that when one of them called a calf a bulkin, the rest 'easily understood' him; or, when he wanted to say that a newspaper-article was 'proudly fine', it mattered little whether he said it was that or bragly! No; his having lived with the fellows of Balliol does not explain Mr Newman's glossary to me. I will no longer ask 'with whom he can have lived', since that gives him offence; but I must still declare that where he got his test of rarity or intelligibility for words is a mystery to me.
That, however, does not prevent me from entertaining a very sincere respect for Mr Newman, and since he doubts it, I am glad to reiterate my expression of it. But the truth of the matter is this: I unfeignedly admire Mr Newman's ability and learning; but I think in his translation of Homer he has employed that ability and learning quite amiss. I think he has chosen quite the wrong field for turning his ability and learning to account. I think that in England, partly from the want of an Academy, partly from a national habit of intellect to which that want of an Academy is itself due, there exists too little of what I may call a public force of correct literary opinion, possessing within certain limits a clear sense of what is right and wrong, sound and unsound, and sharply recalling men of ability and
