re, we will notice first.

Now, the chief thing to say as to Pindar is--to show cause, good and
reasonable, why no man of sense should trouble his head about him.
There was in the seventeenth century a notion prevalent about Pindar,
the very contradiction to the truth. It was imagined that he 'had a
demon'; that he was under a burthen of prophetic inspiration; that he
was possessed, like a Hebrew prophet or a Delphic priestess, with
divine fury. Why was this thought?--simply because no mortal read him.
Laughable it is to mention, that Pope, when a very young man, and
writing his _Temple of Fame_ (partly on the model of Chaucer's), when
he came to the great columns and their bas-reliefs in that temple,
each of which is sacred to one honoured name, having but room in all
for six, chose Pindar for one[13] of the six. And the first bas-relief
on Pindar's column is so pretty, that we shall quote it; especially as
it suggested Gray's car for Dryden's 'less presumptuous flight!'

'Four swans sustain a car of silver bright,
With heads advanc'd, and pinions stretch'd for flight:
Here, _like some furious prophet_, Pindar rode,
And seem'd to _labour with th' inspiring god_.'

[Footnote 13: The other five were Homer, Virgil, Horace, Aristotle,
Cicero.]

Then follow eight lines describing other bas-reliefs, containing 'the
figured games of Greece' (Olympic, Nemean, &c.). But what we spoke of
as laughable in the whole affair is, that Master Pope neither had then
read one line of Pindar, nor ever read one line of Pindar: and reason
good; for at that time he could not read the simple Homeric Greek;
while the Greek of Pindar exceeds all other Greek in difficulty,
excepting, perhaps, a few amongst the tragic choruses, which are
difficult for the very same reason--lyric abruptness, lyric
involution, and lyric obscurity of transition. Not having read Homer,
no wonder that Pope should place, amongst the bas-reliefs illustrating
the _Iliad_, an incident which does not exist in the _Iliad_.[14] Not
having read Pindar, no wonder that Pope should ascribe to Pindar
qualities which are not only imaginary, but in absolute contradiction
to his true ones. A more sober old gentleman does not exist: his
demoniac possession is a mere fable. But there are two sufficient
arguments for not reading him, so long as innumerable books of greater
interest remain unread. First, he writes upon subjects that, to us,
are mean and extinct--race