he grammatical
construction of a period, never gave themselves the trouble to enquire,
whether it conveyed either sentiment or instruction; or on the other
hand mere writers for hire, the retainers of a bookseller, men who
translate Homer from the French, and Horace out of Creech.

Let it not be said that I am now talking at random. Let us descend to
examples. We need not be afraid of instancing in the most favourable. I
believe it is generally allowed that Mr. Pope's Iliad is the very best
version that was ever made out of one language into another. It must be
confessed to exhibit very many poetical beauties. As a trial of skill,
as an instance of what can be effected upon so forlorn a hope, it must
ever be admired. But were I to search for a true idea of the style and
composition of Homer, I think I should rather recur to the verbal
translation in the margin of the original, than to the version of Pope.
Homer is the simplest and most unaffected of poets. Of all the writers
of elegance and taste that ever existed, his translator is the most
ornamented. We acknowledge Homer by his loose and flowing robe, that
does not constrain a muscle of his frame. But Pope presents himself in
the close and ungraceful habit of modern times;

"Glittering with gems, and stiff with woven gold."

No, let us for once conduct ourselves with honesty and generosity. If we
will not study the ancients in their own nervous and manly page, let us
close their volumes for ever. I had rather, says the amiable philosopher
of Chaeronea, it should be said of me, that there never was such a man
as Plutarch, than that Plutarch was ill-natured, arbitrary, and
tyrannical. And were I the bard of Venusia, sure I am, I had rather be
entirely forgotten, than not be known for the polite, the spirited, and
the elegant writer I really was.

To converse with the accomplished, is the obvious method by which to
become accomplished ourselves. This general observation is equally
applicable to the study of polite writers of our own and of other
countries. But there are some reasons, upon account of which we may
expect to derive a more perceptible advantage from the ancients. They
carried the art of composition to greater heights than any of the
moderns. Their writers were almost universally of a higher rank in
society, than ours. There did not then exist the temptation of gain to
spur men on to the profession of an author. An industrious modern will
produce t