Preface.
that book, from its very position, as well as from its having, more frequently than any other portion of the poem, been experimented upon by part-translators, is naturally the most obvious to criticism.
The quasi-filial relation in which the translation stood to Mr. Kingsley's Andromeda, may account for that feature which was urged by some critics as a prominent ground of objection to it: viz., the retention of the Greek accentuation of the proper names. The Translator read, and he must own, admired, such lines as—
"There they set Andromedèn, most beautiful, shaped like a Goddess,"
and—
"Hebè, Harmoniè, and the golden Queen Aphrodìte,"
and he therefore thought—erroneously, as he now admits, although still admiring Mr. Kingsley's lines, above cited,—that the Greek accentuations should be always preserved. Further consideration, aided by the light of criticism, has, however, satisfied him that, as a rule, the effect of such retention is unpleasing to an English ear.[1] He has therefore, at the cost of much labor, eliminated it from the first twelve books, and has avoided it in the remaining twelve; except in some very rare cases, where the aggregation of proper names is such as to render it necessary, either to retain the accentuation of thevi
- ↑ See note subjoined to the list of proper names, infrà.
