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of perfection, and at the same time to be willingly accessible to every second best which offers itself. So I enjoy the ease and beauty of Mr Spedding's stanza,
Therewith to all the gods in order due . . .
I welcome it, in the absence of equally good poetry in another metre[1], although I still
- ↑ As I welcome another more recent attempt in stanza,—Mr Worsley's version of the Odyssey in Spenser's measure. Mr Worsley does me the honour to notice some remarks of mine on this measure: I had said that its greater intricacy made it a worse measure than even the ten-syllable couplet to employ for rendering Homer. He points out, in answer, that 'the more complicated the correspondences in a poetical measure, the less obtrusive and absolute are the rhymes'. This is true, and subtly remarked; but I never denied that the single shocks of rhyme in the couplet were more strongly felt than those in the stanza; I said that the more frequent recurrence of the same rhyme, in the stanza, necessarily made this measure more intricate. The stanza repacks Homer's matter yet more arbitrarily, and therefore changes his movement yet more radically, than the couplet. Accordingly, I imagine a nearer approach to a perfect translation of Homer is possible in the couplet, well managed, than in the stanza, however well managed. But meanwhile Mr Worsley, applying the Spenserian stanza, that beautiful romantic measure, to the most romantic poem of the ancient world; making this stanza yield him, too (what it never yielded to Byron), its treasures of fluidity and sweet ease; above all, bringing to his task a truly poetical sense and skill, has produced a version of the Odyssey much the most pleasing of those hitherto produced, and which is delightful to read. For the public this may well be enough, nay, more than enough; but for the critic even this is not yet quite enough.
