has yet failed more conspicuously than any of them.
Coleridge says, in his strange language, speaking of the union of the human soul with the divine essence, that this takes place
Whene'er the mist, which stands 'twixt God and thee,
Defecates to a pure transparency;
and so, too, it may be said of that union of the translator with his original, which alone can produce a good translation, that it takes place when the mist which stands between them—the mist of alien modes of thinking, speaking, and feeling on the translator's part—'defecates to a pure transparency', and disappears. But between Cowper and Homer—(Mr Wright repeats in the main Cowper's manner, as Mr Sotheby repeats Pope's manner, and neither Mr Wright's translation nor Mr Sotheby's has, I must be forgiven for saying, any proper reason for existing)—between Cowper and Homer there is interposed the mist of Cowper's elaborate Miltonic manner, entirely alien to the flowing rapidity of Homer; between Pope and Homer there is interposed the mist of Pope's literary artificial manner, entirely alien to the plain naturalness of Homer's manner; between Chapman and Homer there is interposed the mist of the fancifulness of the Elizabethan age, entirely alien to the plain directness of Homer's thought and feeling; while be-
