MR. BRYANTS "HOMER"
exists no longer. Had Mr. Tennyson undertaken the full translation of Homer, after the manner indicated by that magnificent early production, the "Morte d'Arthur," we are sure that something very fine would have been the result. Bryant's verse is noticeably different from that of Tennyson. Only in an occasional passage, like the following, the one reminds us of the other:—
The formidable baldric, on whose band
Of gold were sculptured marvels,—forms of bears,
Wild boars, grim lions, battles, skirmishings,
And death by wounds, and slaughter.
But Mr. Tennyson himself would be the first now to recognize the fact that a great blank-verse translation has been written, and that for another there can be no well-founded demand.
A point still remains unsettled, even by the work under review. Are we prepared to assert that all has been done which can be done to represent Homer to the English ear? The question which Mr. Bryant put to himself was, not whether the Greek epics could be adequately translated, for that can never be, but whether the resources of the language afford any better medium for their translation than that of heroic blank-verse. This he has decided in the negative, giving his reasons therefor; and the argument on that side is further extended by Mr. Lewis in a brilliant review of Bryant's Iliad and the nature of the Homeric poems.
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