Psychologically they belong to the time when in ideas and language, the moral was just disengaging itself from the physical. In the wail of Andromache for instance, _adinon epos_, which Pope improves into "sadly dear," and Cowper, with better taste at all events, renders "precious," is really semi-physical, and scarcely capable of exact translation. It belongs to an unreproducible past, like the fierce joy which, in the same wail, bursts from the savage woman in the midst of her desolation at the thought of the numbers whom her husband's hands had slain. Cowper had studied the Homeric poems thoroughly in his youth, he knew them so well that he was able to translate them, not very incorrectly with only the help of a Clavis; he understood their peculiar qualities as well as it was possible for a reader without the historic sense to do; he had compared Pope's translation carefully with the original, and had decisively noted the defects which make it not a version of Homer, but a periwigged epic of the Augustan age. In his own translation he avoids Pope's faults, and he preserves at least the dignity of the original, while his command of language could never fail him, nor could he ever lack the guidance of good taste. But we well know where he will be at his best. We turn at once to such passages as the description of Calypso's Isle, Alighting on Pieria, down he (Hermes) stooped. To Ocean, and the billows lightly skimmed In form a sea-mew, such as in the bays Tremendous of the barren deep her food Seeking, dips oft in brine her ample wing. In such disguise o'er many a wave he rode, But reaching, now, that isle remote, forsook The azure deep, and at the spacious grove Where dwelt the amber-tressed nymph arrived Found her within. A fire on all the hearth Blazed sprightly, and, afar diffused, the scent Of smooth-split cedar and of cypress-wood Odorous, burning cheered the happy isle. She, busied at the loom and plying fast Her golden shuttle, with melodious voice Sat chanting there; a grove on either side, Alder and poplar, and the redolent branch Wide-spread of cypress, skirted dark the cave Where many a bird of broadest pinion built Secure her nest, the owl, the kite, and daw, Long-tongued frequenters of the sandy shores. A garden vine luxuriant on all sides Mantled the spacious cavern, cluster-hung Profuse; four fountains of serenest lymph, Their sinuous course pursuing side by side, Strayed, all around, and everywhere appeared Meadows of softest verdure purpled o'er With violets; it was a scene to fill A God from heaven with wonder and delight.