But it is ungracious to linger on faults which we have only dwelt on because they seemed to flow from what we must take to be a misconception on the part of Mr. Cranch of the true spirit of his author. His version has certainly the merit of fidelity to the sense of the original, though this, it seems to us, is sometimes bought by a sacrifice of the spirit. His verse is, for the most part, what he claims it to be, smooth, flowing, and compact, though it does not recall to us, as to him, the best models of blank-verse, and he does not sin, as one other of our translators does, against that “supreme elegance” which is Virgil’s chief fascination. We find him best in the least essentially poetic passages, which is, perhaps, not so bad a sign as it appears. The speech of Juno in the tenth book is no unfavorable specimen of his best style: “... Then, stung with rage, The royal Juno spake: ‘Wherefore dost thou Force me to break my silence deep, and thus Proclaim in words my secret sorrow? Who Of mortals or of gods ever constrained Æneas to pursue these wars, and face The Latian monarch as an enemy? Led by the fates, he came to Italy; Be it so: Cassandra’s raving prophecies Impelled him. Was it we who counselled him To leave his camp and to the winds commit His life? or to a boy entrust his life And the chief conduct of the war? or seek A Tuscan league? or stir up tribes at peace? What gods, what unrelenting power of mine, Compelled him to this fraud? What part in this Had Juno or had Iris, sent from heaven? A great indignity it is, forsooth, That the Italians should surround with flames Your new and rising Troy, and that their chief, Turnus, should on his native land maintain His own, whose ancestor Pilumnus was, Whose mother was the nymph Venetia. What is it for the Trojans to assail The Latins with their firebrands, and subdue The alien fields and bear away their spoils? Choose their wives’ fathers, and our plighted brides Tear from our breasts? sue with their hands for peace, Yet hang up arms upon their ships? Thy power May rescue Æneas from the Greeks, and show In place of a live man an empty cloud; Or change his ships into so many nymphs. Is it a crime for us to have helped somewhat The Rutuli against him? Ignorant And absent, as thou sayst, Æneas is; Absent and ignorant, then, let him be. Thou hast thy Paphos, thy Idalium too, And lofty seat Cythera. Why, then, try These rugged hearts, a city big with tears? Do we attempt to overturn your loose, Unstable Phrygian state? Is it we or he Who exposed the wretched Trojans to the Greeks? Who was the cause that Europe rose in arms With Asia, or who broke an ancient league By a perfidious theft? Did I command When the Dardanian adulterer Did violence to Sparta? Or did I Supply him weapons and foment the war