read the_ Greek _Fathers in the Original._ I suppose the Fathers are not so difficult as _Homer_ with respect to the Tongue at least; for the Language of Poetry is peculiar to it, a made Language compounded and metaphorical. If it be so, the Translation of the _Ilias_, from the _Greek_ of _Homer_, must shew the Translator to be a greater Master of the _Greek_ Language than all the Learned Men in _France_ except Three, and all the Learned Men in _England_ except about Twenty. For my own Part, I confess, I make bold with all Kinds of Versions to help me out in Originals, and am not asham'd to do as _Menage_ did; _I own I do not understand_ Pindar _enough_, says he, _to take Pleasure in him_. I have heard _Pindar_ quoted a Hundred Times by Persons who were very far from being so modest as _Menage_, and fully satisfy'd themselves that they understood him as well as the _Græcians_, to whom he read his _Odes_, tho' I suspected the contrary. _Menage_, again; _I never read a_ Greek _Author without having before read the Translation_. I do not insinuate any thing to depreciate the Translator of _Homer_'s excellent Performance, which, as I have observ'd, has the Merit of the most pure and harmonious Diction and Versification; but to hint a little of the Confusion of our Taste, and the Irregularity of our Judgement, which like Things for Beauties which they have not, and not for those which they have. Thus the Version of _Homer_ is lik'd as a Translation of the best _Epick_ Poem that ever was written, and not for the Softness and Sweetness of the Elegy, which are every where to be met with, as where the God _Apollo_ appears in the Shape of _Agenor_: _Flies from the furious Chief in this Disguise, The furious Chief still follows as he flies._ This is what the _French_ call _Jeu des Mots_, playing upon Words, and what _Dryden_'s _Virgil_ is full of, tho' he knew as well as any Body that it was a Fault: _The Turn of Thoughts, and Words_, says he, _is the chief Talent of the_ French; _but the_ Epick _Poem is too stately to receive such little Ornaments_, which would have been in Perfection in a Version of _Ovid_, and very little agrees with _Waller_ in his Epistle to my Lord _Roscommon_; _Well sounding Verses are the Charm we use, Heroick Thoughts, and Virtue to infuse: Things of deep Sense, we may in Prose unfold, But they move more, in lofty Numbers told: By the loud Trumpet, which our Courage aids, We learn that Sound, as well as Sense, perswades._