Homeric Translation in Theory and Practice
A Reply to Matthew Arnold
By Francis W. Newman
It is so difficult, amid the press of literature,
for a mere versifier and translator to gain
notice at all, that an assailant may even do
one a service, if he so conduct his assault
as to enable the reader to sit in intelligent
judgment on the merits of the book assailed.
But when the critic deals out to the readers
only so much knowledge as may propagate
his own contempt of the book, he has undoubtedly
immense power to dissuade them
from wishing to open it. Mr Arnold writes
as openly aiming at this end. He begins by
complimenting me, as 'a man of great
ability and genuine learning'; but on
questions of learning, as well as of taste,
he puts me down as bluntly, as if he had
meant, 'a man totally void both of learning
and of sagacity'. He again and again
takes for granted that he has 'the scholar'
on his side, 'the living scholar', the man
