rary standards. The discussion centering around Pope's _Homer_, at
once the most popular and the most typical translation of the period,
may be taken as presenting the situation in epitome. Like other prefaces
of the time, Pope's introductory remarks are, whether intentionally or
unintentionally, misleading. He begins, in orthodox fashion, by
advocating the middle course approved by Dryden. "It is certain," he
writes, "no literal translation can be just to an excellent original in
a superior language: but it is a great mistake to imagine (as many have
done) that a rash paraphrase can make amends for this general defect;
which is no less in danger to lose the spirit of an ancient, by
deviating into the modern manners of expression." Continuing, however,
he urges an unusual degree of faithfulness. The translator must not
think of improving upon his author. "I will venture to say," he
declares, "there have not been more men misled in former times by a
servile, dull adherence to the letter, than have been deluded in ours by
a chimerical insolent hope of raising and improving their author....
'Tis a great secret in writing to know when to be plain, and when
poetical and figurative; and it is what Homer will teach us, if we will
but follow modestly in his footsteps. Where his diction is bold and
lofty, let us raise ours as high as we can; but where his is plain and
humble, we ought not to be deterred from imitating him by the fear of
incurring the censure of a mere English critic." The translator ought to
endeavor to "copy him in all the variations of his style, and the
different modulations of his numbers; to preserve, in the more active or
descriptive parts, a warmth and elevation; in the more sedate or
narrative, a plainness and solemnity; in the speeches a fullness and
perspicuity; in the sentences a shortness and gravity: not to neglect
even the little figures and turns on the words, nor sometimes the very
cast of the periods; neither to omit nor confound any rites and customs
of antiquity."

Declarations like this would, if taken alone, make one rate Pope as a
pioneer in the art of translation. Unfortunately the comment of his
critics, even of those who admired him, tells a different story. "To say
of this noble work that it is the best which ever appeared of the kind,
would be speaking in much lower terms than it deserves," writes
Melmoth, himself a successful translator, in _Fitzosborne's Letters_.
Melmoth's descripti