It is not to be denied that men of undoubted talents, and even poets of true, though not of first-rate, genius, have from a mistaken theory deluded both themselves and others in the opposite extreme. I once read to a company of sensible and well-educated women the introductory period of Cowley’s preface to his _Pindaric Odes, written in imitation of the style and manner of the odes of Pindar_. ‘If (says Cowley) a man should undertake to translate Pindar, word for word, it would be thought that one madman had translated another: as may appear, when he, that understands not the original, reads the verbal traduction of him into Latin prose, than which nothing seems more raving.’ I then proceeded with his own free version of the second Olympic, composed for the charitable purpose of rationalizing the Theban Eagle. Queen of all harmonious things, Dancing words and speaking strings, What God, what hero, wilt thou sing? What happy man to equal glories bring? Begin, begin thy noble choice, And let the hills around reflect the image of thy voice. Pisa does to Jove belong, Jove and Pisa claim thy song. The fair first-fruits of war, th’ Olympic games, Alcides offer’d up to Jove; Alcides too thy strings may move! But, oh! what man to join with these can worthy prove? Join Theron boldly to their sacred names; Theron the next honour claims; Theron to no man gives place, Is first in Pisa’s and in Virtue’s race; Theron there, and he alone, Ev’n his own swift forefathers has outgone. One of the company exclaimed, with the full assent of the rest, that if the original were madder than this, it must be incurably mad. I then translated the ode from the Greek, and as nearly as possible, word for word; and the impression was, that in the general movement of the periods, in the form of the connexions and transitions, and in the sober majesty of lofty sense, it appeared to them to approach more nearly, than any other poetry they had heard, to the style of our Bible in the prophetic books. The first strophe will suffice as a specimen: Ye harp-controling hymns! (or) ye hymns the sovereigns of harps! What God? what Hero? What Man shall we celebrate? Truly Pisa indeed is of Jove, But the Olympiad (or the Olympic games) did Hercules establish, The first-fruits of the spoils of war. But Theron for the four-horsed car, That bore victory to him, It behoves us now to voice aloud: The Just, the Hospitable, The Bulwark of Agrigentum, Of renowned fathers The Flower, even him Who preserves his native city erect and safe.