The Iliad; - Truth Seeker Times

viii PREFACE.
for the Homeric hexameter, ever since they have abandoned
the musical principle of quantity (or Time) as determining
metre, and have betaken themselves to accent. Thus, while
our Common Metre has
The queen sits lone in lathgow pile,
and weeps the weary day
my metre, as the modern Greek epic, runs :
They hied to go, as liong twain,
amid the nightly darlmess,
O'er carcases and dusky gore,
;
—
through weapons and through carnage.
At the same time, I have occasionally varied the division, so
as to throw a syllable more to the end of the first part; thus
By &r the wisest of the augurs,
Calchas, son of Thestor.
It need hardly be said, that the printing of such a couplet
into a single line is merely for compactness. They still remain
essentially two in one ; and until all readers are skilful in
metre, it is safer to exhibit to the eye their duality, which my
page is broad enough generally to allow.
I am not so rash as to say that Mfreedom be given to rhyme,
as in Walter Scott's poetry,—where the echo comes back
sometimes in one, sometimes in two or even three, four lines,
—a genius may not arise, who wiU translate Homer into the
melodies of Marmion, an^ produce a faithful and far more
delightful poem than can ever come forth out of the principles
on which I proceed. But such geniuses are rare, and they
generally prefer to employ themselves on original poetry. Sir
Walter Scott, I believe, might have translated Homer nobly, as
far as his talents were concerned; but his very genius forbade
him. At the same time, in many passages it is of much value
: