Our heroic measure is at once too long and too short--for, take the caesura as a division of the line, (and what is it if not that?) and the latter part of the line is too short for any effective power--a fault that does not exist in the Greek hexameter. Without the caesura, or with a very slight attention to it, the line is too long, and made tiresome by the monotony which the necessary pause of the rhyme imposes. Besides, how do we know, after all, that the Greeks did not read their one hexameter like two lines, with a decided pause at the caesura, with the additional grace of the short syllable at its end often passing the voice into the second part, or, as we may call it in the argument, the second line? Try, Eusebius; read off a dozen lines any where in Homer with this view, and tell me what you think of the _possible_ short measure of Homer. It is true our measures are of the iambic character, which Horace says is the fittest for action--and therefore, in the Greek, the dramatic. The trimeter iambic is a foot longer than our heroic measure. But then it has the double ictus; and, as the word implies, is divisible into three parts, thus giving a quickness and shortness where wanted. Take away, however, the first caesura, rest only on the second, (and then you have exactly one short measure, that of "Marmion,") and how superfluous the last division of the trimeter appears! as weak and ineffective as the latter part of our long measure, if we read it as wanting the additional foot of the hexameter. For example, "[Greek: o techna tho palou]"-- There is the measure of Scott--the Greek iambic, however, is lengthened by two feet--[Greek: nea trophe]; so that to the Greek the three ictuses (at least to English ears, accustomed to our short measure) are necessary. That this short measure wants not power in any respect, _Marmion_ alone sufficiently shows. I, however, wished only to show that it had something of an Homeric character; and the facility with which you can read the hexameter of Homer as two lines, you will, perhaps, more than suspect, tends to confirm this opinion. I think, somewhere, Sir Walter Scott recommends the translating Homer into short measure--you forget, perhaps, my making the trial upon the two first books of the Odyssey which I sent to you, and you returned, _condemned_; although, to tell you the truth, I was not displeased with my attempt, and expected your flattering commendation, and would even now deceive myself into a belief that you were not prepared for the novelty. Admire the candour that proclaims the failure. It is enough that Eusebius admitted my other Homeric translations.