uld that critic be laughing at
Milton? Payne Knight,[436] in his _Taste_, translated part of Gray's _Bard_
into Greek. Some of his lines are

[Greek: therma d' ho tengon dakrua stonachais]
[Greek: oulon melos phoberai]
[Greek: eeide phonai.]

Literally thus:

"Wetting warm tears with groans,
Continuous chant with fearful
Voice he sang."

On which Hallam remarks: "The twelfth line [our first] is nonsense." And so
it is, a poet can no more wet his tears with his groans than wet his ale
with his whistle. Now this first line is from Pindar, but is only part of
the sense; in full it is:

[Greek: therma de tengon dakrua stonachais]
[Greek: horthion phonase.]

Pindar's [Greek: tengon] must be Englished by _shedding_, and he stands
alone in this use. He says, "shedding warm tears, he cried out loud, with
groans." Byron speaks of

"Classic Hallam, much renowned for Greek:"

and represents him as criticising _the Greek_ of all Payne's lines, and not
discovering that "the lines" were Pindar's {275} until after publication.
Byron was too much of a scholar to make this blunder himself: he either
accepted the facts from report, or else took satirical licence. And why
not? If you want to laugh at a person, and he will not give occasion, whose
fault is it that you are obliged to make it? Hallam did criticise some of
Payne Knight's Greek; but with the caution of his character, he remarked
that possibly some of these queer phrases might be "critic-traps" justified
by some one use of some one author. I remember well having a Latin essay to
write at Cambridge, in which I took care to insert a few monstrous and
unusual idioms from Cicero: a person with a Nizolius,[437] and without
scruples may get scores of them. So when my tutor raised his voice against
these oddities, I was up to him, for I came down upon him with Cicero,
chapter and verse, and got round him. And so my own solecisms, many of
them, passed unchallenged.

Byron had more good in his nature than he was fond of letting out: whether
he was a soured misanthrope, or whether his _vein_ lay that way in poetry,
and he felt it necessary to fit his demeanor to it, are matters far beyond
me. Mr. Crabb Robinson[438] told me the following story more than once. He
was at Charles Lamb's chambers in the Temple when Wordsworth came in, with
the new _Edinburgh Review_ in his hand, and fume on his countenance. "These
reviewers," said he, "put me out of patience!