antiquity are poor and pointless--the fondled god-children of pedantic book-worms. This deficiency the translator must labor to supply. It is to be supplied--not by stripping the original of its _nationality_, and making it apply as well to New England as to Greece--but by preserving it bold, free, and spirited, as it is in its native language--by clothing it in words sufficiently glowing and graceful to arouse sympathy, yet exhibiting, through all, the body of the original, like a lamp flame, shining through its glassy vase--in short, by having it still Greek, but English-Greek. This accords with the practice of all the best translators. No translator ever gave, or intended to give every word, or even shade of idea, that he found in the original. I appeal with confidence to any page in Dryden, or Cowley, in Addison, or Pope. They have, I acknowledge, generally carried their _liberality_ to a fault--still, if _they_ do not translate correctly, who does? Open at any page of Pope--say the last four lines of the Iliad. Read the simple original. “And after having heaped up the (sepulchral) mound, they went back. And then, happily assembled, they banqueted upon a very splendid banquet in the dwelling of Priam, Jove-nourished king. Thus did they attend to the burial of Hector, tamer-of-horses.” “All Troy then moves to Priam’s court again, A solemn, silent, melancholy train. Assembled there, from pious toil they rest, And sadly shared the last sepulchral feast. Such honors Ilion to her hero paid, And peaceful slept the mighty Hector’s shade.” Too wide, I grant--yet it is Pope, the king of translators. Addison, dear reader, was not a bad translator. Yet take his rendering of that grand Horatian--the third of the third book. “Not the heat of the citizens, commanding crooked things, not the countenance of an urgent tyrant, shakes in his solid mind the man just and firm to his purpose.” “The _man_, resolved, and steady to his trust, Inflexible to all and obstinately _just_, May the rude _rabble’s_ insolence despise, Their senseless clamors, and tumultuous cries: The _tyrant’s_ fierceness he beguiles, And the stern brow, and the harsh voice defies, And with superior greatness smiles.” He has rendered literally but four words, and them I have italicised. Is it, therefore, a bad translation? No. It is good--though, with all due deference to thy shade, Oh! Joseph, I must think it a _little_ diffuse--still, it is good, because it expresses the spirit and manner of the original in fine, forcible English. I give thee a literal translation--not that one better and as close might not be made--but to exemplify the difference between transfusing the _spirit_ and the _words_ of an author from one language into another. The upright man, _who_ to his purpose clings, No rabble’s heat, commanding crooked things, Nor urgent tyrant’s countenance can shake In his firm mind----