The Catholic World
Chapter 82 : I have spoken of genius as a gift to an individual man. I will conclude by the reflecti

I have spoken of genius as a gift to an individual man. I will conclude by the reflection that that man becomes himself a gift; a gift to his nation; a gift to his age; a gift to the world of all times. That same Providence which bestows greatness, majesty, abundance, and grace, no less presents, from time to time, to a people or a race, these few transcendent men who mark for it {564} periods no less decisively, though more n.o.bly, than victories or conquests. On England that supreme power has lavished the choicest blessings of this worldly life; it has made it vast in dominion, matchless in strength; it has made it the arbiter of the earth, and mistress of the sea; it has made it able to stretch its arm for war to the savage antipodes, and, if it chose, its hand for peace to the utter civilized west; it has brought the produce of north and south to its feet with skill and power, to transform and to refas.h.i.+on in forms graceful or useful, to send them back, almost as new creations, to its very source. Industry has clothed its most barren plains with luxuriant crops, and with t.i.tan boldness hollowed its sternest rocks, to plunder them of their ever-hidden treasures. Its gigantic strength seems but to play with every work of venturesome enterprise, till its cities seem to the stranger to overflow with riches, and its country to be overspread with exuberant prosperity.

Well, these are great and magnificent favors of an over-ruling, most benignant Power; and yet there is a boast which belongs to our country that may seem to be overlooked. Yet it is a double gift that that same creating and directing rule has made this country the birthplace and the seat of the two men who, within a short period, were made the rulers each of a great and separate intellectual dominion, never to be deposed, never to be rivalled, never to be envied. To Newton was given the sway over the science of the civilized world; to Shakespeare the sovereignty over its literature.

The one stands before us pa.s.sionless and grave, embracing in his intellectual grandeur every portion of the universe, from the stars, to him invisible, to the rippling of the tiny waves which the tide brought to his feet. The host of heaven, that seemed in causeless dispersion, he marshalled into order, and bound in safest discipline.

He made known to his fellow-men the secret laws of heaven, the springs of movement, and the chains of connection, which invariably and unchangeably impel and guide the course of its many worlds.

In this aspect one's imagination figures him as truly the director of what he only describes--as the leader of a complicated army, who, with his staff, seems to draw or to send forward the wheeling battalions, intent on their own errands, combining or resolving movements far remote; or, under a more benign and pleasing form, we may contemplate him, like a great master in musical science, standing in the midst of a throng, in which are mingled together the elements of sublimest harmonies, confused to the eye, but sweetly attuned to the ear, mingling into orderly combination and flowing sequence, as they float through the air, which, though he elicit not nor produce, he seems by his outstretched hand to direct, or, at least, he proves himself fully to understand. For what each one separately does, unconscious of what even his companion is doing, he from afar knows, and almost beholds, understanding from his centre the concerted and sure results of their united action. And so Newton, from his chamber on this little earth, without being able more than the most helpless insect to add power or give guidance to one single element in the composition of this universe, could trace the orbits of planet or satellite, and calculate the oscillations and the reciprocal influences of celestial spheres.

Then his directing wand seems to contract itself to a s.p.a.ce within his grasp. It becomes that magic prism with which he intercepts a ray from the sun on his pa.s.sage to earth; and as a bird seizes in its flight the bee laden with its honey, and robs it of its sweet treasure--even so he compels the messenger of light to unfold itself before us, and lay bare to our sight the rich colors which the rainbow had exhibited to man since the deluge, and which had lain concealed since creation, in every sunbeam that had pa.s.sed through our atmosphere. And further still, he bequeathes that wonderful alembic of light {565} to succeeding generations, till, in the hand of new discoverers, it has become the key of nature's laboratory, in which she has been surprised melting and compounding, in crucibles huge as ocean, the rich hues with which she overlays the surfaces of suns and stars, yet, at the same time, breathes its delicate blush upon the tenderest petals of the opening rose.

And all the laws and all the rules which form his code of nature seem engraved, as with a diamond point, upon a granite surface of the primitive rocks--inflexible, immovable, unchangeable as the system which they represent.

Beside him stands the Ruler of that world, which, though even sublimely intellectual, is governed by him with laws in which the affections, even the pa.s.sions, the moralities, and the anxieties of life have their share; in which there is no severity but for vice, no slavery but for baseness, no unforgivingness but for calculating wickedness. In his hand is not the staff of authority, whether it take the form of a royal sceptre or of a knightly lance, whether it be the shepherdess's crook or the fool's bauble, it is still the same, the magician's wand. Whether it be the divining rod with which he draws up to light the most hidden streams of nature's emotions, or the potential instrument of Prospero's spells, which raises storms in the deep or works spirit-music in the air, or the wicked implement with which the witches mingle their unholy charm, its cunning and its might have no limit among created things. But it is not a world of stately order which he rules, nor are the laws of unvarying rigor by which it is commanded. The wildest paroxysms of pa.s.sion; the softest delicacy of emotions; the most extravagant accident of fortune; the tenderest incidents of home; the king and the beggar, the sage and the jester, the tyrant and his victim; the maiden from the cloister and the peasant from the mountains; the Italian school-child and the Roman matron; the princes of Denmark and the lords of Troy--all these and much more are comprised in the vast embrace of his dominions. Scarcely a rule can be drawn from them, yet each forms a model separately, a finished group in combination. Unconsciously as he weaves his work, apparently without pattern or design, he interlaces and combines in its surface and its depth images of the most charming variety and beauty; now the stern mosaic, without coloring, of an ancient pavement, now the flowing and intertwining arabesque of the fanciful east; now the rude scenes of ancient mediaeval tapestry like that of Beauvais, and then the finished and richly tinted production of the Gobelins loom.

And yet through this seeming chaos the light permeates, and that so clear and so brilliant as equally to define and to dazzle. Every portion, every fragment, every particle, stands forth separate and particular, so as to be handled, measured, and weighed in the balance of critic and poet. Each has its own exact form and accurate place, so that, while separately they are beautiful, united they are perfect.

Hence their combinations have become sacred rules, and have given inviolable maxims not only to English but to universal literature.

Germany, as we have seen, studies with love and almost veneration every page of Shakespeare; national sympathies and kindred speech make it not merely easy but natural to all people of the Teutonic family to a.s.similate their literature to that its highest standard. France has departed, or is fast departing, from its favorite cla.s.sical type, and adopting, though with unequal power, the broader and more natural lines of the Shakespearian model. His practice is an example, his declarations are oracles.

Still, as I have said, the wide region of intellectual enjoyment over which our great bard exerts dominion, is not one parcelled out or divided into formal and state-like provinces. While the student of science is reading in his {566} chamber the great "Principia" of Newton, he must keep before him the solution of only one problem. On that his mind must undistractedly rest, on that his power of thought be intensely concentrated. Woe to him if imagination leads his reason into truant wanderings; woe if he drop the thread of finely-drawn deductions! He will find his wearied intelligence drowsily floundering in a sea of swimming figures and evanescent quant.i.ties, or floating amidst the fragments of a s.h.i.+pwrecked diagram. But over Shakespeare one may dream no less than pore; we may drop the book from our hand and the contents remain equally before us. Stretched in the shade by a brook in summer, or sunk in the reading chair by the hearth in winter, in the imaginative vigor of health, in the drooping spirits of indisposition, one may read, and allow the trains of fancy which spring up in any scene to pursue their own way, and minister their own varied pleasure or relief; and when by degrees we have become familiar with the inexhaustible resources of his genius, there is scarcely a want in mind or the affections that needs no higher than human succor, which will not find in one or other of his works that which will soothe suffering, comfort grief, strengthen good desires, and present some majestic example to copy, or some fearful phantom. But when we endeavor to contemplate all his infinitely varied conceptions as blended together in one picture, so as to take in, if possible, at one glance the prodigious extent of his prolific genius, we thereby build up what he himself so beautifully called the "fabric of a vision,"

matchless in its architecture as in the airiness of its materials.

There are forms fantastically sketched in cloud-shapes, such as Hamlet showed to Polonius, in the midst of others rounded and full, which open and unfold ever-changing varieties, now gloomy and threatening, then tipped with gold and tinted with azure, ever-rolling, ever-moving, melting the one into the other, or extricating each itself from the general ma.s.s. Dwelling upon this maze of things and imaginations, the most incongruous combinations come before the dreamy thought, fascinated, spell-bound, and entranced. The wild Ardennes and Windsor Park seem to run into one another, their firs and their oaks mingle together; the boisterous ocean boiling round "the still vexed Bermoothes" runs smoothly into the lagoons of Venice; the old gray porticos of republican Rome, like the transition in a dissolving view, are confused and entangled with the slim and fluted pillars of a Gothic hall; here the golden orb, dropped from the hand of a captive king, rolls on the ground side by side with a jester's mouldy skull--both emblems of a common fate in human things. Then the grave chief-justice seems incorporated in the bloated Falstaff; King John and his barons are wa.s.sailing with Poins and Bardolph at an inn door; Coriola.n.u.s and Shylock are contending for the right of human sensibilities; Macbeth and Jacques are moralizing together on tenderness even to the brute. And so of other more delicate creations of the poet's mind--Isabella and Ophelia, Desdemona and the Scotch Thane's wife, produce respectively composite figures of inextricable confusion. And around and above is that filmy world, Ariel and t.i.tania and Peas-blossom and Cobweb and Moth, who weave as a gossamer cloud around the vision, dimming it gradually before our eyes, in the last drooping of weariness, or the last hour of wakefulness.

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MISCELLANY.

ART.

_Domestic._--The south gallery of the new academy is the largest and best lighted of the several exhibition rooms, and contains some of the most ambitious pictures of the year. As the visitor, pausing for a moment to survey the paintings, drawings, studies, architectural designs, and miscellanea which are hung around the four sides of the open corridor at the head of the grand staircase, turns naturally into the great gallery, through whose wide entrance he catches glimpses of the art treasures within, so do we propose to conduct the reader thither without further parley. Here confront us specimens of almost every subject legitimate to the art, and of some not legitimate--great pictures and little pictures, grave pictures and gay pictures, landscape and _genre_, history and portraiture, beasts, birds, fishes, and flowers. At either end of the room hangs a full-length portrait of a gentleman of note, which challenges the visitor's attention, be he never so reluctant. No. 464, the late Governor Gamble, of Missouri, by F.T.L. Boyle, belongs to a family only too numerous among us (we speak of the picture only), and whose acquaintance one feels strongly inclined to cut in the present instance. But that is impossible. There stands the familiar lay-figure in the old conventional att.i.tude, which we feel sure the governor never a.s.sumed of his own accord. The marble columns, the draped curtain, the library table and the books--all the stock accessories in fine--are there; and either for the purpose of pointing a moral, of inst.i.tuting a personal comparison, or of calling attention to its workmans.h.i.+p, the governor blandly directs your attention to a bust of Was.h.i.+ngton. He might be intending to do any one or all of these things so far as the expression of his face affords an indication. The idea on which the portrait is painted is thoroughly false, and ought to be by this time discarded; but year after year artists continue to mint these modish, stiff, and ridiculous figures, when with a little regard to common sense they could produce portraits which all would recognize as natural and effective. Especially is this the case with the present picture, which evinces considerable executive ability. The other portrait to which we alluded, No. 412, a full length of Ex-Governor Morgan, painted by Huntington, for the Governor's Room in the City Hall, is one of the least creditable works ever produced by that artist, cold and repulsive in color, awkward in att.i.tude, and unsatisfactory as a likeness.

Occupying a less prominent position than either of these pictures, but conspicuous enough to attract a large share of attention, is the full-length portrait of Archbishop McCloskey, No. 438, by G.P.A.

Healy. Mr. Healy, though never very happy as a colorist and often disposed to sacrifice characteristic expression to a pa.s.sion for painting brocades and draperies, has generally succeeded in imparting a refined air to his portraits, however feeble they might be as likenesses. The present work is coa.r.s.e in expression, and untrue as a likeness. It is a mistake to suppose that a free, rapid touch is adapted to every style of face. The small and delicate features of the archbishop, with their shrewd, yet refined and benevolent expression, cannot be dashed off with a few strokes of the brush, but require careful painting, and, above all, patient painting. Mr. Healy's portrait of Dr. Brownson in last year's exhibition, though of little merit as a painting, was much better than this. No. 448, a portrait of the late Peletiah Perit, by Hicks, is one of the most creditable specimens of that very unequal painter that we have recently seen. Mr.

Perit is sitting easily and naturally in his library chair, and is not made to a.s.sume the att.i.tude of a posture-master for the time being, in order that posterity may know how he did _not_ look in life. The likeness is not remarkable; but the accessories are carefully painted and agreeably colored. No. 423, portrait of a lady, by R.M. Staigg, is exactly what it a.s.sumes to be--a lady. In the refined air of the gentlewoman which the artist has so happily conveyed, he recalls some of the female heads of Stuart, though in the present instance he had no wide scope for the display {568} of Stuart's charming gift of color. The resemblance is more in the general sentiment than in any technical qualities. Almost adjoining this work is another portrait of a lady, No. 425, by W.H. Furness, a forcible example of the naturalistic school, of great solidity of texture and purity of color.

There is intelligence, earnestness, and strength in this face, and in the att.i.tude, though the latter, as well as the accessories, is studiously simple. Baker and Stone contribute some attractive portraits to this room. No. 454, a lady, by the latter, is a good specimen of a style neither strong nor founded on true principles, but which, on account of a certain conventional gracefulness, which amply satisfies those who look no deeper than the surface of the canvas, will always find admirers. No. 458, a portrait of Capt. Riblett, of the New York 7th Regiment, by Baker, is a clever work, noticeable for the easy pose of the figure, the clear fresh coloring, and the firm handling.

Two other portrait pieces may be noticed in this room, of very opposite degrees of merit. They ill.u.s.trate a method of treating this branch of the art which has become popular of late years, and which seeks to combine portraiture with _genre_; that is to say, the figures represent real personages, but to the uninitiated seem merely the actors in some little domestic scene. Any subject verging on the dramatic is of course inappropriate to this method. Thus the stiffness too often inseparable from portraiture and its unsympathetic character to a stranger are avoided, and the "gentlemen" and "ladies" who have monopolized so much s.p.a.ce on the walls awaken an interest in a wider circle than when appearing simply in their proper persons. No. 441, "A Picnic in the Highlands," by Rossiter, presents us with portraits of some twenty ladies and gentlemen, including a fair proportion of generals, who have been ruthlessly summoned from the pleasures of the rural banquet or of social intercourse to place themselves in att.i.tudes which a travelling photographer would blush to copy, and be thus handed down to posterity. In submitting to this dreadful process Generals Warren and Seymour afforded a new proof of courage under adverse circ.u.mstances; and one scarcely knows whether they deserve most to be pitied, or the artist to be denounced for putting brave men in so ridiculous a position. The picture is simply disgraceful, and would naturally be pa.s.sed over in silence had it not been hung in a position to challenge attention, while many works of merit are placed far above the line. Thirty or forty years ago, when the academy was glad to enroll painters of the calibre of Mr. Rossiter among its members, such productions were perhaps acceptable on the line. But have hanging committees no appreciation that there is such a thing as progress? The other picture above alluded to is No. 435, "Claiming the Shot," by J.G. Brown. It represents a hunting scene in the Adirondacks, and though thinly painted, with no merit in the landscape, and of a general commonplace character, tells its story with humor and point. We have not the pleasure of knowing the party of amateur hunters whose good-natured altercation forms the subject of Mr. Brown's picture, but their faces are perfectly familiar to us, and may be seen any day on Broadway, until the shooting season summons them to a purer atmosphere than our civic rulers permit us to breathe.

That good-looking and well-dressed young man, with the incipient aristocratic baldness, and the languid, gentleman-like air, reclining in a not ungraceful att.i.tude on a stump, and whose incredulous shake of the head denotes that he will not resign his claim to the successful shot--is he not a type of our _jeunesse doree?_ And who has not met the portly, florid gentleman, his face beaming with good nature and good living, who claps our young friend on the back and advises him to give it up? The earnest expression of the half-kneeling hunter, clinching the argument as he identifies his bullet-hole in the side of the slain buck, is well rendered, as is also that of another florid gentleman who looks on, a quiet but highly amused witness of the dispute. In the background are a party of guides and boatmen engaged in preparing supper for the disputants, over whose perplexity they appear to be indulging in a little quiet "chaff." We imagine that the faces of the princ.i.p.al actors in this group are good likenesses, and we feel sure that to see them thus depicted amidst scenes suggesting healthful out-door sports will be pleasant to their friends.

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From portraits we pa.s.s naturally to figure pieces, and first pause with astonishment before No. 394, "The Two Marys at the Sepulchre," by R.W. Weir. Here is a work which has doubtless cost much thought and patient labor, but which is so hopelessly beneath the dignity of the subject as to seem almost like a caricature. When will modern painters recognize that sacred history is a branch of their art not to be attempted except under very peculiar and favorable circ.u.mstances?--that the artist must feel and believe what he paints, unless he wishes to degenerate into insipidity? We do not desire to impugn Mr. Weir's sincerity, but a work so cold, lifeless, and void of propriety shows that he is either hiding his light under a bushel, or is incapable of feeling, perhaps we should say of reflecting, the religious fervor which should be a.s.sociated with so awful a scene. Had he even stuck to the conventional forms and accessories which have satisfied six centuries of Christian painters, he might have produced something of respectable mediocrity. But modern realism would not permit this, and therefore the Virgin is represented as a commonplace middle-aged woman, who might as well be Mr. Weir's housekeeper, and whose mawkish expression is positively repulsive. Of St. Mary Magdalen the att.i.tude, figure, and expression are not less inappropriate.

Surely these personages are raised above the level of ordinary women--no believer in Christianity will deny that--and cannot the painter so represent them? In other respects the picture has little merit, being stiff and mannered in the drawing and of a mixture of dull gray and salmon in its local coloring.

The most conspicuous landscape in this room is Bierstadt's immense view of the Yo Semite Valley in California, No. 436, which occupies the place of honor in the middle of the south wall. For months past the artist has been announced as at work on this picture, and in view of the great merits recognized in his "Rocky Mountains," public expectation has been raised to a high pitch. But public expectation has been doomed to disappointment this time, for the Yo Semite is much inferior to its predecessor, though, in several respects, both works show the same characteristics in equal perfection. They have breadth of drawing, admirable perspective, and convey an idea of the solemn grandeur of nature in the virgin solitudes of the west. But while in the older work Mr. Bierstadt succeeded in forgetting for a time the academic mannerisms which he brought with him from Germany, in the present one he has, unconsciously, perhaps, lapsed into them again, and produced something of great mechanical excellence, and with about as much nature as can be seen through the atmosphere of a Dusseldorf studio. Yellow appears to be his weakness, and the canvas is accordingly suffused with yellow tints of every gradation of tone; not a luminous yellow which the eye may rest upon with pleasure, but a hard, dusty-looking pigment, without warmth, or transparency, or depth; such a yellow as never tinged the skies of California or any other part of the world, but is begotten of men who derive their ideas of nature from copying _pictures_ of landscapes, instead of going directly to nature. The gra.s.s and the foliage which receive the sunlight are of a dirty, yellowish green, those in the shadow of the great mountain ridge on the right of the scene of a yellowish black, the very rocks and water are yellow, and if Indians or emigrants had been introduced into the foreground, we feel convinced they would have received the prevailing hue. Only in the mountain peaks, checkered with sunlight and shadow, does the artist seem to escape from this thraldom to one color, and paint with force and truthfulness. The picture is therefore a failure; and yet viewed from the head of the great stair-case, across the open s.p.a.ce, and through the entrance to the exhibition-room, it has a mellowness of tone and truthfulness of perspective which almost induce us to retract our criticism. Approach it, however, and the illusion vanishes. Another Californian scene by Bierstadt, in this room, No. 472, "the Golden Gate," shows the artist's predominant fault even more conspicuously, and is not only unworthy of him, but absolutely unpleasant to look at. No. 487, "Among the Alps," by Gignoux, is a solidly, though coa.r.s.ely painted work, and notwithstanding a prevalent cold, leaden tone, tolerably effective.

The idea of solemn repose is well conveyed, although scarcely one of the details is truthfully rendered. The water of the mountain lake is not water, but an opaque ma.s.s, the trees and rocks are so slurred in the drawing as to be {570} unrecognizable by the naturalist, and the shadows are unnecessarily deep and sombre. Such painting, however, pleases the mult.i.tude, who do not care much for absolute truth, provided effect is obtained; and Mr. Gignoux's picture is considered very fine indeed. No. 466, "A Mountain Lake in the Blue Ridge," by Sonntag, is a fine piece of scene painting, and, if properly enlarged, would form an excellent design for a stage drop-curtain. As a representation of nature it is false in nearly every detail. And yet no landscape painter deals more readily and dexterously with the external forms of American forest scenery, or perhaps has more neatness of touch; and none, it may be added, has wandered further from the true path.

No. 465, "Greenwood Lake," by Cropsey, is a pleasanter picture than we commonly see from this artist, who, to judge from his productions, scarcely ever saw a cloudy day, and has a very indifferent acquaintance with shadows. Here is a still, serene summer afternoon, in the foreground a newly-mown hayfield, with a group of mowers and rakers, just pausing from their labor, and beyond the placid bosom of the lake. Despite its somewhat monotonous uniformity of tone, the picture is pervaded by an agreeable sentiment of repose, characteristic of midsummer; and as an honest attempt to portray a pleasing phase of nature it is welcome. No. 493, "Afternoon in the Housatonic Valley," by J.B. Bristol, represents the period of the day selected by Mr. Cropsey, but the tone of his picture is lower and cooler, and the coloring more harmonious. Its most noticeable feature is a n.o.ble mountain in the background, whose wooded sides afford fine contrasts of light and shadow. No. 494, "A Foggy Morning--Coast of France," by Dana, evinces more desire to catch the secret of rich coloring than success. It is not by scattering warm pigments about, without regard to harmony or gradation, that Mr. Dana can attain his end; and so far as color is concerned he shows no improvement upon his work of former years. In composition he wields, as usual, a graceful pencil, and his children are pleasingly and naturally drawn.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE ILIAD OF HOMER RENDERED INTO ENGLISH BLANK VERSE.

By Edward, Earl of Derby. 2 vols. 8vo., pp. 430 and 457. New York: Charles Scribner & Company.

There have been several translations of the Iliad into English verse, but, practically, only three have hitherto been much in vogue. The first of these, by Chapman, is a work of considerable spirit, of a rude, fiery kind; but it is unfaithful, and has long been antiquated.

Pope's brilliant and thoroughly un-Homeric version will always be popular as a poem, though anything more widely different from the original was probably never published as a translation. Cowper is verbally accurate, but tame and tiresome. A translation in blank verse, by William Munford, of Richmond, Va., appeared in Boston some twenty years ago, but does not seem to have attracted the attention it deserved.

Lord Derby appears to have avoided nearly all the defects and combined nearly all the merits of his predecessors. He has aimed "to produce a translation and not a paraphrase; not, indeed, such a translation as would satisfy, with regard to each word, the rigid requirements of accurate scholars.h.i.+p, but such as would fairly and honestly give the sense and spirit of every pa.s.sage and of every line, omitting nothing and expanding nothing, and adhering as closely as our language will allow, even to every epithet which is capable of being translated, and which has, in the particular pa.s.sage, anything of a special and distinctive character." The testimony of critics is almost unanimous as to the success with which he has carried out his design. His translation is incomparably more faithful than either of those we have mentioned. He almost invariably perceives the delicate shades of meaning which Pope was {571} not scholar enough to notice, and he is often wonderfully happy in expressing them in English. His language is dignified and pure; his style animated and idiomatic; and his verse has more of the majestic flow of Homer than that of any previous translator. He has produced by all odds the best version of the Iliad in the English language.

That a statesman should have succeeded in a task of this sort, where Pope and Cowper failed, is strange indeed. But let our readers judge for themselves: we give first a somewhat celebrated pa.s.sage from Pope--the bivouac of the Trojans, at the end of the eighth book--premising that Pope prefixes to it four lines which have no equivalent in the Greek, and which are not only an interpolation but a positive injury to the sense:

"The troops exulting sat in order round, And beaming fires illumined all the ground.

As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night, O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light, When not a breath disturbs the deep serene, And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene; Around her throne the vivid planets roll, And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole, O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed, And tip with silver every mountain's head; Then s.h.i.+ne the vales, the rocks in prospect rise, A flood of glory bursts from all the skies; The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight, Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.

So many flames before proud Ilion blaze, And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays: The long reflections of the distant fires Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires; A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild, And shoot a shady l.u.s.tre o'er the field, Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend, Whose umbered arms, by fits, thick flashes send, Loud neigh the coursers o'er their heaps of corn, And ardent warriors wait the rising morn."

This is not a faultless pa.s.sage, but no one can help admiring the felicitous imagery, the vivid word-painting, the wonderful harmony of the versification. Yet what reader of Homer will hesitate to prefer Lord Derby's simpler and almost strictly literal rendering?

"Full of proud hopes, upon the pa.s.s of war, All night they camped; and frequent blazed their fires.

As when in heaven, around the glittering moon The stars s.h.i.+ne bright amid the breathless air; And every crag, and every jutting peak Stands boldly forth, and every forest glade; _Ev'n to the gates of heaven is opened wide The boundless sky;_ s.h.i.+nes each particular star Distinct; joy fills the gazing shepherd's heart.

So bright, so thickly scattered o'er the plain, Before the walls of Troy, between the s.h.i.+ps And Xanthus' stream, the Trojan watchfires blazed.

A thousand fires burnt brightly; and round each Sat fifty warriors in the ruddy glare; With store of provender before them laid, Barley and rye, the tethered horses stood Beside the cars, and waited for the morn."

Take now the description of Vulcan serving the G.o.ds at a banquet, from the conclusion of the first book. Cowper gives it as follows:

"So he; then Juno smiled, G.o.ddess white-armed, And smiling still, from his unwonted hand Received the goblet. He from right to left [Footnote 112]

Rich nectar from the beaker drawn, alert Distributed to all the powers divine.

Heaven rang with laughter inextinguishable, Peal after peal, such pleasure all conceived At sight of Vulcan in his new employ.

So spent they in festivity the day, And all were cheered; nor was Apollo's harp Silent, nor did the muses spare to add Responsive melody of vocal sweets.

But when the sun's bright orb had now declined, Each to his mansion, wheresoever built By the same matchless architect, withdrew.

Jove also, kindler of the fires of heaven, His couch ascending as at other times When gentle sleep approached him, slept serene, With golden-sceptred Juno by his side."

[Footnote 112: Just the reverse,--_from left to right_, [Greek text]

Cowper's blunder is serious, because to proceed from right to left was looked upon by the Greeks as unlucky.]

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Cowper is better than Pope here; but Lord Derby is the most literal and by far the best of the three. His lines have a dignified simplicity not unworthy the father of poetry himself; yet the translation is nearly verbatim:

"Thus as he spoke, the white-armed G.o.ddess smiled, And smiling from his hand received the cup, Then to th' immortals all in order due He ministered, and from the flagon poured The luscious nectar; while among the G.o.ds Rose laughter irrepressible, at sight Of Vulcan hobbling round the s.p.a.cious hall.

Thus they till sunset pa.s.sed the festive hours; Nor lacked the banquet aught to please the sense, Nor sound of tuneful lyre, by Phoebus touched, Nor muses' voice, who in alternate strains Responsive sang; but when the sun was set, Each for his home departed, where for each The cripple Vulcan, matchless architect, With wondrous skill a n.o.ble house had reared.

To his own couch, where he was wont of old, When overcome by gentle sleep, to rest, Olympian Jove ascended; there he slept, And by his side the golden-throned queen."

If our s.p.a.ce permitted we might easily extend these comparisons, and show that Lord Derby excels other translators in every phase of his undertaking--in the rude shock of war, the touching emotions of human sentiment, the debates of the G.o.ds, and the beauties and phenomena of nature. We cannot refrain, however, from quoting a few pa.s.sages of conspicuous excellence.