Translators of poetry may be arranged into two classes: those who, without invention, but an ardent ambition for its honours, with powers of embellishment, harmony of diction, and elegance of taste, attempt to graft their own scions on a solid stem; and those who, from real or imagined sympathy with the production of another, unable to perceive excellence through any other medium but that of their idol, renounce all individual consequence, swear to his words, and rank themselves under his banner. The first sacrifice their model to themselves and their age; the second sacrifice both to their darling original. Of both kinds of translation, the muses of this country have produced specimens: Mr. Pope ranks foremost in the former; whether that of Mr. Cowper claims the same eminence in the latter class, we are now to inquire. Though the ultimate end of poetry be to please, and the best include both instruction and pleasure at once, it will easily be perceived that the laws which are to rule two species of translation so different, cannot be the same. The laws which the first imposes, are of its own creation and choice; the laws of the second resemble somewhat those which a master prescribes to his servant;--they have little to gratify vanity, they are related to resignation,--they are fidelity and simplicity, with as much harmony and vivacity as is compatible with both; for the translator of Homer, indeed, the difficulty will not be--how much he shall sacrifice of these two last requisites, but how much he shall be able to obtain, or to preserve.