unknown to the ancients, and was,
indeed, stigmatised by Longinus with the epithet of "corybantising,"[32]
the full development of this pernicious practice has been reserved for
the modern world. Dryden made himself indirectly responsible for a good
deal of bad poetry when he said that great wits were allied to madness.
The late Professor Butcher,[33] as also Lamb in his essay on "The Sanity
of True Genius," have both pointed out that genius and high ability are
eminently sane.

In some respects it may be said that didactic poetry affords special
facilities to the translator, inasmuch as it bears a more close relation
to prose than verse of other descriptions. Didactic poets, such as
Lucretius and Pope, are almost forced by the inexorable necessities of
their subjects to think in prose. However much we may admire their
verse, it is impossible not to perceive that, in dealing with subjects
that require great precision of thought, they have felt themselves
hampered by the necessities of metre and rhythm. They may, indeed,
resort to blank verse, which is a sort of half-way house between prose
and rhyme, as was done by Mr. Leonard in his excellent translation of
Empedocles, of which the following specimen may be given:

[Greek: ouk estin pelasasthai en ophthalmoisin ephekton
hemeterois e chersi labein, heper te megiste
peithous anthropoisin hamaxitos eis phrena piptei.]

We may not bring It near us with our eyes,
We may not grasp It with our human hands.
With neither hands nor eyes, those highways twain,
Whereby Belief drops into the minds of men.

But Dr. Symmons, one of the numerous translators of Virgil, said, with
some truth, that the adoption of blank verse only involves "a laborious
and doubtful struggle to escape from the fangs of prose."[34]

A good example of what can be done in this branch of literature is
furnished by Dryden. Lucretius[35] wrote:

Tu vero dubitabis et indignabere obire?
Mortua cui vita est prope iam vivo atque videnti,
Qui somno partem maiorem conteris aevi,
Et vigilans stertis nec somnia cernere cessas
Sollicitamque geris cassa formidine mentem
Nec reperire potes tibi quid sit saepe mali, cum
Ebrius urgeris multis miser undique curis,
Atque animi incerto fluitans errore vagaris.

Dryden's translation departs but slightly from the original text and at
the same time presents the ideas of Lucretius in rhythmical and
melodious En