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Notes 31911 For liberal historiography, see Butterfield 1951, Burrow 1981, and Culler1985. Newman’s other historical writings also reveal Whig assumptions.A liberal teleology shaped the lessons he drew from historical “contrasts”and frequently issued into a utopianism, both democratic andnationalistic:We […] can look back upon changes which cannot be traced inantiquity: we see the serf and vassal emancipated from his lord, thetowns obtaining, first independence, next coordinate authority withthe lords of the land. When the element which was weaker graduallyworks its way up, chiefly by moral influences and without anyexasperation that can last long, there is every ground to hope a finalunion of feeling between Town and Country on the only stable basis,that of mutual justice. Then all England will be blended into oneinterest, that of the Nation, in which it will be morally impossible forthe humblest classes to be forgotten.(Newman 1847a:23)Newman treated capitalist economic practices with the same Whiggishoptimism, asserting that because “all-reaching Commerce touches distantregions which are beyond the grasp of politics” geopolitical relations willeventually be characterized by “peace” (ibid.:33),12 The divided reception of the controversy becomes evident in a briefsurvey of the reviews. Arnold’s recommendation of hexameters forHomeric translation was accepted in the North American Review 1862a and1862b. More typical were reviews that accepted Arnold’s academicreading of Homer, but rejected his recommendation of hexameters as toodeviant from English literary tradition: see, for example Spedding 1861and the North British Review 1862. Near the end of the decade, Arnold’s“brilliant contribution” to the controversy was still being mentioned inreviews of Homeric translations (Fraser’s Magazine 1868:518). Newman, incontrast, had few supporters. John Stuart Blackie seems to have beenunique in agreeing with Newman’s reading of Homer andrecommending a rhymed ballad measure for Homeric translation(Blackie 1861).13 Lattimore insisted that “my line can hardly be called English hexameter”because it lacks the regularity of nineteenth-century hexameters (he citedLongfellow). But he made clear the domestication at work in his version:he agreed with Arnold’s reading of Homer and aimed to adapt his sixstressline to “the plain English of today” (Lattimore 1951:55). The firstpaperback edition of Lattimore’s Iliad appeared in 1961; by 1971 thetranslation had been reprinted twenty-one times.