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 the Cornell University Library. 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924072598224 
 
Edition de Luxe 
 
 THE WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 IN 
 
 FIFTEEN VOLUMES 
 VOLUME V 
 
ON THE STUDY 
 
 OF 
 
 CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 AND ON 
 
 TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 BY 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 SMITH, ELDER AND COMPANY 
 
 1903 
 
"PR 
 
 Tiis Edition consists of Seven Hundred and Seventy-Jive Copies 
 
 4- 
 
ON THE 
 
 STUDY OF CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The following remarks on the study of Celtic 
 Literature formed the substance of four lectures 
 given by me last year and the year before in 
 the chair of poetry at Oxford. They were first 
 published in the Cornhill Magazine, and are now 
 reprinted from thence. Again and again, in 
 the course of them, I have marked the very 
 humble scope intended ; which is, not to treat 
 any special branch of scientific Celtic studies (a 
 task for which I am quite incompetent), but 
 to point out the many directions in which the 
 results of those studies offer matter of general 
 interest, and to insist on the benefit we may all 
 derive from knowing the Celt and things Celtic 
 more thoroughly. It was impossible, however, 
 to avoid touching on certain points of ethnology 
 and philology, which can be securely handled 
 only by those who have made these sciences the 
 object of special study. Here the mere literary 
 critic must owe his whole safety to his tact in 
 choosing authorities to follow, and whatever he 
 advances must be understood as advanced with 
 VOL. V vii h 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 a sense of the insecurity which, after all, attaches 
 to such a mode of proceeding, and as put forward 
 provisionally, by way of hypothesis rather than 
 of confident assertion. 
 
 To mark clearly to the reader both this 
 provisional character of much which I advance, 
 and my own sense of it, I have inserted, as a 
 check upon some of the positions adopted in 
 the text, notes and comments with which Lord 
 Strangford has kindly furnished me. Lord 
 Strangford is hardly less distinguished for know- 
 ing ethnology and languages so scientifically 
 than for knowing so much of them ; and his 
 interest, even from the vantage-ground of his 
 scientific knowledge, and after making all due 
 reserves on points of scientific detail, in my 
 treatment, — with merely the resources and point 
 of view of a literary critic at my command, 
 — of such a subject as the study of Celtic 
 Literature, is the most encouraging assurance 
 I could have received that my attempt is not 
 altogether a vain one. 
 
 Both Lord Strangford and others whose 
 opinion I respect have said that I am unjust in 
 calling Mr. Nash, the acute and learned author 
 of Talk sin, or the Bards and Druids of Britain, 
 a ' Celt-hater.' ' He is a denouncer,' says Lord 
 Strangford in a note on this expression, 'of 
 Celtic extravagance, that is all; he is an anti- 
 Philocelt, a very different thing from an anti- 
 Celt, and quite indispensable in scientific 
 
 viii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 inquiry. As Philoceltism has hitherto, — hither- 
 to, remember, — meant nothing but uncritical 
 acceptance and irrational admiration of the 
 beloved object's sayings and doings, without 
 reference to truth one way or the other, it is 
 surely in the interest of science to support him 
 in the main. In tracing the workings of old 
 Celtic leaven in poems which embody the Celtic 
 soul of all time in a mediaeval form, I do not 
 see that you come into any necessary opposition 
 with him, for your concern is with the spirit, his 
 with the substance only.' I entirely agree with 
 almost all which Lord Strangford here urges, 
 and indeed, so sincere is my respect for Mr. 
 Nash's critical discernment and learning, and so 
 unhesitating my recognition of the usefulness, 
 in many respects, of the work of demolition 
 performed by him, that in originally designating 
 him as a Celt-hater, I hastened to add, as the 
 reader will see by referring to the passage,^ words 
 of explanation and apology for so calling him. 
 But I thought then, and I think still, that Mr. 
 Nash, in pursuing his work of demolition, too 
 much puts out of sight the positive and con- 
 structive performance for which this work of 
 demolition is to clear the ground. I thought 
 then, and I think still, that in this Celtic con- 
 troversy, as in other controversies, it is most 
 desirable both to believe and to profess that the 
 work of construction is the fruitful and important 
 
 1 See p. 28 of the following essay, 
 ix 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 work, and that we are demolishing only to 
 prepare for it. Mr. Nash's scepticism seems to 
 me, — in the aspect in which his work, on the 
 whole, shows it, — too absolute, too stationary, 
 too much without a future ; and this tends to 
 make it, for the non-Celtic part of his readers, 
 less fruitful than it otherwise would be, and for 
 his Celtic readers, harsh and repellent. I have 
 therefore suffered my remarks on Mr. Nash 
 still to stand, though with a little modification ; 
 but I hope he will read them by the light of 
 these explanations, and that he will believe 
 my sense of esteem for his work to be a thou- 
 sand times stronger than my sense of difference 
 from it. 
 
 To lead towards solid ground, where the Celt 
 may with legitimate satisfaction point to traces 
 of the gifts and workings of his race, and where 
 the Englishman may find himself induced to 
 sympathise with that satisfaction and to feel an 
 interest in it, is the design of all the considera- 
 tions urged in the following essay. Kindly 
 taking the will for the deed, a Welshman and an 
 old acquaintance of mine, Mr. Hugh Owen, 
 received my remarks with so much cordiality, 
 that he asked me to come to the Eisteddfod last 
 summer at Chester, and there to read a paper 
 on some topic of Celtic literature or antiquities. 
 In answer to this flattering proposal of Mr. 
 Owen's, I wrote him a letter which appeared at 
 the time in several newspapers, and of which 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 the following extract preserves all that is of any 
 importance : — 
 
 ' My knowledge of Welsh matters is so utterly 
 insignificant that it would be impertinence in 
 me, under any circumstances, to talk about those 
 matters to an assemblage of persons, many of 
 whom have passed their lives in studying them. 
 
 ' Your gathering acquires more interest every 
 year. Let me venture to say that you have to 
 avoid two dangers in order to work all the good 
 which your friends could desire. You have to 
 avoid the danger of giving offence to practical 
 men by retarding the spread of the English 
 language in the principality. I believe that to 
 preserve and honour the Welsh language and 
 literature is quite compatible with not thwarting 
 or delaying for a single hour the introduction, 
 so undeniably useful, of a knowledge of English 
 among all classes in Wales. You have to avoid, 
 again, the danger of alienating men of science 
 by a blind, partial, and uncritical treatment 
 of your national antiquities. Mr. Stephens's 
 excellent book. The Literature of the Cymry, 
 shows how perfectly Welshmen can avoid this 
 danger if they will. 
 
 ' When I see the enthusiasm these Eisteddfods 
 can awaken in your whole people, and then think 
 of the tastes, the literature, the amusements, of 
 our own lower and middle class, I am filled with 
 admiration for you. It is a consoling thought, 
 and one which history allows us to entertain, 
 
 xi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 that nations disinherited of political success may- 
 yet leave their mark on the world's progress, and 
 contribute powerfully to the civilisation of man- 
 kind. We in England have come to that point 
 when the continued advance and greatness of 
 our nation is threatened by one cause, and one 
 cause above all. Far more than by the help- 
 lessness of an aristocracy whose day is fast 
 coming to an end, far more than by the rawness 
 of a lower class whose day is only just beginning, 
 we are imperilled by what I call the " Philis- 
 tinism" of our middle class. On the side of 
 beauty and taste, vulgarity ; on the side of morals 
 and feeling, coarseness ; on the side of mind 
 and spirit, unintelligence, — this is Philistinism. 
 Now, then, is the moment for the greater 
 delicacy and spirituality of the Celtic peoples 
 who are blended with us, if it be but wisely 
 directed, to make itself prized and honoured. 
 In a certain measure the children of Taliesin 
 and Ossian have now an opportunity for re- 
 newing the famous feat of the Greeks, and 
 conquering their conquerors. No service 
 England can render the Celts by giving you a 
 share in her many good qualities, can surpass 
 that which the Celts can at this moment 
 render England, by communicating to us some 
 of theirs.' 
 
 Now certainly, in that letter, written to a 
 Welshman and on the occasion of a Welsh 
 festival, I enlarged on the merits of the Celtic 
 
 xii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 spirit and of its works, rather than on their 
 demerits. It would have been offensive and 
 inhuman to do otherwise. When an acquaint- 
 ance asks you to write his father's epitaph, you 
 do not generally seize that opportunity for 
 saying that his father was blind of one eye, 
 and had an unfortunate habit of not paying his 
 tradesmen's bills. But the weak side of Celtism 
 and of its Celtic glorifiers, the danger against 
 which they have to guard, is clearly indicated 
 in that letter ; and in the remarks reprinted in 
 this volume, — remarks which were the original 
 cause of Mr. Owen's writing to me, and must 
 have been fully present to his mind when he 
 read my letter, — the shortcomings both of the 
 Celtic race, and of the Celtic students of its 
 literature and antiquities, are unreservedly 
 marked, and, so far as is necessary, blamed.^ 
 It was, indeed, not my purpose to make blame 
 the chief part of what I said ; for the Celts, like 
 other people, are to be meliorated rather by 
 developing their gifts than by chastising their 
 defects. The wise man, says Spinoza admirably, 
 ' de humana impotentia non nisi puree loqui curabit, 
 at largiter de humana virtute seu potential But so 
 far as condemnation of Celtic failure was needful 
 towards preparing the way for the growth of 
 Celtic virtue, I used condemnation. 
 
 The Times, however, prefers a shorter and 
 sharper method of dealing with the Celts, and 
 
 1 See particularly pp. lo, 1 1, 12, of the following essay. 
 xiii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 in a couple of leading articles, having the 
 Chester Eisteddfod and my letter to Mr. Hugh 
 Owen for their text, it developed with great 
 frankness, and in its usual forcible style, its own 
 views for the amelioration of Wales and its 
 people. Cease to do evil, learn to do good, was the 
 upshot of its exhortations to the Welsh ; by evil, 
 the Times understanding all things Celtic, and by 
 good, all things English. ' The Welsh language 
 is the curse of Wales. Its prevalence, and the 
 ignorance of English have excluded, and even 
 now exclude the Welsh people from the 
 civilisation of their English neighbours. An 
 Eisteddfod is one of the most mischievous and 
 selfish pieces of sentimentalism which could 
 possibly be perpetrated. It is simply a foolish 
 interference with the natural progress of civilisa- 
 tion and prosperity. If it is desirable that the 
 Welsh should talk English, it is monstrous folly 
 to encourage them in a loving fondness for their 
 old language. Not only the energy and power, 
 but the intelligence and music of Europe have 
 come mainly from Teutonic sources, and this 
 glorification of everything Celtic, if it were 
 not pedantry, would be sheer ignorance. The 
 sooner all Welsh specialities disappear from the 
 face of the earth the better.' 
 
 And I need hardly say that I myself, as so 
 often happens to me at the hands of my own 
 countrymen, was cruelly judged by the Times, 
 and most severely treated. What I said to Mr. 
 
 xiv 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Owen about the spread of the English language 
 in Wales being quite compatible with preserving 
 and honouring the Welsh language and literature, 
 was tersely set down as ' arrant nonsense,' and I 
 was characterised as ' a sentimentalist who talks 
 nonsense about the children of Taliesin and 
 Ossian, and whose dainty taste requires some- 
 thing more flimsy than the strong sense and 
 sturdy morality of his fellow Englishmen.' 
 
 As I said before, I am unhappily inured to 
 having these harsh interpretations put by my 
 fellow Englishmen upon what I write, and I no 
 longer cry out about it. And then, too, I have 
 made a study of the Corinthian or leading article 
 style, and know its exigences and that they are 
 no more to be quarrelled with than the law of 
 gravitation. So, for my part, when I read these 
 asperities of the Times, my mind did not dwell 
 very much on my own concern in them ; but 
 what I said to myself, as I put the newspaper 
 down, was this : ' Behold England's difficulty in 
 governing Ireland ! ' 
 
 I pass by the dauntless assumption that the 
 agricultural peasant whom we in England, with- 
 out Eisteddfods, succeed in developing, is so 
 much finer a product of civilisation than the 
 Welsh peasant, retarded by these ' pieces of 
 sentimentalism.' I will be content to suppose 
 that our 'strong sense and sturdy morality ' are 
 as admirable and as universal as the Times pleases. 
 But even supposing this, I will ask : Did any 
 
 XV 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 one ever hear of strong sense and sturdy morality 
 being thrust down other people's throats in this 
 fashion ? Might not these divine English gifts, 
 and the English language in which they are 
 preached, have a better chance of making their 
 way among the poor Celtic heathen, if the 
 English apostle delivered his message a little 
 more agreeably ? There is nothing like love 
 and admiration for bringing people to a like- 
 ^ ness with what they love and admire ; but the 
 Englishman seems never to dream of employing 
 these influences upon a race he wants to fuse 
 with himself. He employs simply material 
 interests for his work of fusion ; and, beyond 
 these, nothing except scorn and rebuke. Ac- 
 cordingly there is no vital union between him 
 and the races he has annexed ; and while France 
 can truly boast of her 'magnificent unity,' a 
 unity of spirit no less than of name between all 
 the people who compose her, in England the 
 Englishman proper is in union of spirit with no 
 one except other Englishmen proper like himself. 
 His Welsh and Irish fellow-citizens are hardly 
 more amalgamated with him now than they 
 were when Wales and Ireland were first con- 
 quered, and the true unity of even these small 
 islands has yet to be achieved. When these 
 papers of mine on the Celtic genius and literature 
 first appeared in the Cornhill Magazine, they 
 brought me, as was natural, many communica- 
 tions from Welshmen and Irishmen having an 
 
 xvi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 interest in the subject : and one could not but 
 be painfully struck, in reading these communica- 
 tions, to see how profound a feeling of aversion 
 and severance from the English they in general 
 manifested. Who can be surprised at it, when 
 he observes the strain of the Times in the articles 
 just quoted, and remembers that this is the 
 characteristic strain of the Englishman in com- 
 menting on whatsoever is not himself? And 
 then, with our boundless faith in machinery, we 
 English expect the Welshman as a matter of 
 course to grow attached to us, because we invite 
 him to do business with us, and let him hold 
 any number of public meetings and publish all 
 the newspapers he likes ! When shall we learn 
 that what attaches people to us is the spirit we 
 are of, and not the machinery we employ ? 
 
 Last year there was a project of holding a 
 Breton Eisteddfod at Quimper in Brittany, and 
 the French Home Secretary, whether wishing 
 to protect the magnificent unity of France from 
 inroads of Bretonism, or fearing lest the design 
 should be used in furtherance of Legitimist in- 
 trigues, or from whatever motive, issued an order 
 which prohibited the meeting. If Mr. Walpole 
 had issued an order prohibiting the Chester 
 Eisteddfod, all the Englishmen from Cornwall 
 to John o' Groat's House would have rushed 
 to the rescue ; and our strong sense and sturdy 
 morality would never have stopped gnashing 
 their teeth and rending their garments till the 
 
 xvii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 prohibition was rescinded. What a pity our 
 strong sense and sturdy morality fail to perceive 
 that words like those of the Times create a far 
 keener sense of estrangement and dislike than 
 acts like those of the French Minister ! Acts 
 like those of the French Minister are attributed 
 to reasons of State, and the Government is held 
 blamable for them, not the French people. 
 Articles like those of the Times are attributed 
 to the want of sympathy and of sweetness of 
 disposition in the English nature, and the whole 
 English people gets the blame of them. And 
 deservedly ; for from some such ground of want 
 of sympathy and sweetness in the English nature, 
 do articles like those of the Times come, and to 
 some such ground do they make appeal. The 
 sympathetic and social virtues of the French 
 nature, on the other hand, actually repair the 
 breaches made by oppressive deeds of the 
 Government, and create, among populations 
 joined with France as the Welsh and Irish are 
 joined with England, a sense of liking and 
 attachment towards the French people. The 
 French Government may discourage the German 
 language in Alsace and prohibit Eisteddfods in 
 Brittany ; but the 'Journal des Debuts never 
 treats German music and poetry as mischievous 
 lumber, nor tells the Bretons that the sooner all 
 Breton specialities disappear from the face of the 
 earth the better. Accordingly, the Bretons and 
 Alsatians have come to feel themselves a part of 
 
 xviii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 France, and to feel pride in bearing the French 
 name ; while the Welsh and Irish obstinately 
 refuse to amalgamate with us, and will not 
 admire the Englishman as he admires himself, 
 however much the Times may scold them and 
 rate them, and assure them there is nobody on 
 earth so admirable. 
 
 And at what a moment does it assure them 
 of this, good heavens ! At a moment when the 
 ice is breaking up in England, and we are all 
 beginning at last to see how much real confusion 
 and insufficiency it covered ; when, whatever 
 may be the merits, — and they are great, — of the 
 Englishman and of his strong sense and sturdy 
 morality, it is growing more and more evident 
 that, if he is to endure and advance, he must 
 transform himself, must add something to his i 
 strong sense and sturdy morality, or at least 
 must give to these excellent gifts of his a new 
 development. My friend, Mr. Goldwin Smith, 
 says, in his eloquent way, that England is the 
 favourite of Heaven. Far be it from me to say 
 that England is not the favourite of Heaven ; 
 but at this moment she reminds me more of 
 what the prophet Isaiah calls, ' a bull in a net.' 
 She has satisfied herself in all departments with 
 clap-trap and routine so long, and she is now so 
 astounded at finding they will not serve her turn 
 any longer ! And this is the moment, when 
 Englishism pure and simple, which with all its 
 fine qualities managed always to make itself 
 
 xix 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 singularly unattractive, is losing that imper- 
 turbable faith in its untransformed self which 
 at any rate made it imposing, — this is the 
 moment when our great organ tells the Celts 
 that everything of theirs not English is ' simply 
 a foolish interference with the natural progress of 
 civilisation and prosperity' ; and poor Talhaiarn, 
 venturing to remonstrate, is commanded ' to drop 
 his outlandish title, and to refuse even to talk 
 Welsh in Wales ! ' 
 
 But let us leave the dead to bury their dead, 
 and let us who are alive go on unto perfection. 
 Let the Celtic members of this empire consider 
 that they too have to transform themselves ; and 
 though the summons to transform themselves be 
 often conveyed harshly and brutally, and with 
 the cry to root up their wheat as well as their 
 tares, yet that is no reason why the summons 
 should not be followed so far as their tares are 
 concerned. Let them consider that they are 
 inextricably bound up with us, and that, if the 
 suggestions in the following pages have any 
 truth, we English, alien and uncongenial to our 
 Celtic partners as we may have hitherto shown 
 ourselves, have notwithstanding, beyond perhaps 
 any other nation, a thousand latent springs of 
 possible sympathy with them. Let them con- 
 sider that new ideas and forces are stirring in 
 England, that day by day these new ideas and 
 forces gain in power, and that almost every one 
 of them is the friend of the Celt and not his 
 
 XX 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 enemy. And, whether our Celtic partners will 
 consider this or no, at any rate let us ourselves, 
 all of us who are proud of being the ministers of 
 these new ideas, work incessantly to procure for 
 them a wider and more fruitful application ; and 
 to remove the main ground of the Celt's aliena- 
 tion from the Englishman, by substituting, in 
 place of that type of Englishman with whom 
 alone the Celt has too long been familiar, a new 
 type, more intelligent, more gracious, and more 
 humane. 
 
 XXI 
 
ON THE STUDY 
 
 OF 
 
 CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 They went forth to the war, but they always fell. 
 
 OSSIAN. 
 
 The summer before last I spent some weeks 
 at Llandudno, on the Welsh coast. The best 
 lodging-houses at Llandudno look eastward, 
 towards Liverpool ; and from that Saxon hive 
 swarms are incessantly issuing, crossing the bay, 
 and taking possession of the beach and the 
 lodging-houses. Guarded by the Great and 
 Little Orme's Head, and alive with the Saxon 
 invaders from Liverpool, the eastern bay is an 
 attractive point of interest, and many visitors 
 to Llandudno never contemplate anything else. 
 But, putting aside the charm of the Liverpool 
 steamboats, perhaps the view, on this side, a little 
 dissatisfies one after a while ; the horizon wants 
 mystery, the sea wants beauty, the coast wants 
 verdure, and has a too bare austereness and aridity. 
 
 VOL. v I B 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 At last one turns round and looks westward. 
 Everything is changed. Over the mouth of the 
 Conway and its sands is the eternal softness and 
 mild light of the west ; the low line of the 
 mystic Anglesey, and the precipitous Penmaen- 
 mawr, and the great group of Carnedd Llewelyn 
 and Carnedd David and their brethren fading 
 away, hill behind hill, in an aerial haze, make 
 the horizon ; between the foot of Penmaenmawr 
 and the bending coast of Anglesey, the sea, a 
 silver stream, disappears one knows not whither. 
 On this side, Wales, — Wales, where the past 
 still lives, where every place has its tradition, 
 every name its poetry, and where the people, the 
 genuine people, still knows this past, this tradition, 
 this poetry, and lives with it, and clings to it ; 
 while, alas, the prosperous Saxon on the other 
 side, the invader from Liverpool and Birkenhead, 
 has long ago forgotten his. And the promontory 
 where Llandudno stands is the very centre of this 
 tradition ; it is Creuddyn, the bloody city, where 
 every stone has its story ; there, opposite its 
 decaying rival, Conway Castle, is Diganwy, not 
 decaying but long since utterly decayed, some 
 crumbling foundations on a crag-top and nothing 
 more; — Diganwy, where Mael-gwyn shut up 
 Elphin, and where Taliesin came to free him. 
 Below, in a fold of the hill, is Llan-rhos, the 
 church of the marsh, where the same Mael-gwyn, 
 a British prince of real history, a bold and 
 licentious chief, the original, it is said, of Arthur's 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 Lancelot, shut himself up in the church to avoid 
 the Yellow Plague, and peeped out through a 
 hole in the door, and saw the monster and died. 
 Behind among the woods, is Glod-daeth, the 
 place of feasting, where the bards were entertained ; 
 and farther away, up the valley of the Conway 
 towards Llanrwst, is the Lake of Ceirionydd and 
 Taliesin's grave. Or, again, looking seawards 
 and Anglesey-wards, you have Pen-mon, Seiriol's 
 isle and priory, where Mael-gwyn lies buried ; 
 you have the Sands of Lamentation and Llys 
 Helig, Heilig^s Mansion, a mansion under the 
 waves, a sea-buried palace and realm. Hac ibat 
 Simois ; hie est Sigeia tellus. 
 
 As I walked up and down, last August year, 
 looking at the waves as they washed this Sigeian 
 land which has never had its Homer, and listening 
 with curiosity to the strange, unfamiliar speech of 
 its old possessors' obscure descendants, — bathing 
 people, vegetable-sellers, and donkey boys, — who 
 were all about me, suddenly I heard, through the 
 stream of unknown Welsh, words, not English, 
 indeed, but still familiar. They came from a 
 French nursery-maid with some children. Pro- 
 foundly ignorant of her relationship, this Gaulish 
 Celt moved among her British cousins, speaking 
 her polite neo- Latin tongue, and full of com- 
 passionate contempt, probably, for the Welsh 
 barbarians and their jargon. What a revolution 
 was here ! How had the star of this daughter 
 of Gomer waxed, while the star of these Cymry, 
 
 3 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 his sons, had waned ! What a difference of 
 fortune in the two, since the days when, speaking 
 the same language, they left their common 
 dwelling-place in the heart of Asia ; since the 
 Cimmerians of the Euxine came in upon their 
 western kinsmen, the sons of the giant Galates ; 
 since the sisters, Gaul and Britain, cut the 
 mistletoe in their forests, and saw the coming of 
 Caesar ! Blanc, rouge, rocher, champ, eglise, seigneur, 
 — these words, by which the Gallo-Roman Celt 
 now names white, and red, and rock, and field, 
 and church, and lord, are no part of the speech 
 of his true ancestors, they are words he has 
 learnt ; but since he learned them they have had 
 a world-wide success, and we all teach them to 
 our children, and armies speaking them have 
 domineered in every city of that Germany by 
 which the British Celt was broken, and in the 
 train of these armies, Saxon auxiliaries, a humbled 
 contingent, have been fain to follow ; — the poor 
 Welshman still says, in the genuine tongue of 
 his ancestors,^ gwyn, goch, craig, maes, llan, 
 
 ^ Lord Strangford remarks on this passage : — ' Your Gomer and 
 your Cimmerians are of course only lay figures, to be accepted in 
 the rhetorical and subjective sense. As such I accept them, but 
 I enter a protest against the "genuine tongue of his ancestors." 
 Modern Celtic tongues are to the old Celtic heard by Julius Caesar, 
 broadly speaking, what the modern Romanic tongues are to Caesar's 
 own Latin. Welsh, in fact, is a detritus; a language in the 
 category of modern French, or, to speak less roughly and with a 
 closer approximation, of old Provencal, not in the category of 
 Lithuanian, much less in the category of Basque. By true inductive 
 research, based on an accurate comparison of such forms of Celtic 
 speech, oral and recorded, as we now possess, modern philology 
 
 4 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 arglwydd ; but his land is a province, and his 
 history petty, and his Saxon subduers scout his 
 speech as an obstacle to civilisation ; and the 
 echo of all its kindred in other lands is growing 
 every day fainter and more feeble ; gone in 
 Cornwall, going in Brittany and the Scotch 
 Highlands, going, too, in Ireland ; — and there, 
 above all, the badge of the beaten race, the 
 property of the vanquished. 
 
 But the Celtic genius was just then prepar- 
 ing, in Llandudno, to have its hour of revival. 
 Workmen were busy in putting up a large 
 tent-like wooden building, which attracted the 
 eye of every new-comer, and which my little 
 boys believed (their wish, no doubt, being 
 father to their belief) to be a circus. It turned 
 out, however, to be no circus for Castor and 
 Pollux, but a temple for Apollo and the Muses. 
 It was the place where the Eisteddfod, or Bardic 
 Congress of Wales, was about to be held ; a 
 
 has, in so far as was possible, succeeded in restoring certain forms 
 of the parent speech, and in so doing has achieved not the least 
 striking of its many triumphs ; for those very forms thus restored 
 have since been verified past all cavil by their actual discovery in 
 the old Gaulish inscriptions recently come to light. The phonesis 
 of Welsh as it stands is modern, not primitive ; its grammar, — the 
 verbs excepted, — is constructed out of the fragments of its earlier 
 forms, and its vocabulary is strongly Romanised, two out of the six 
 words here given being Latin of the Empire. Rightly understood, 
 this enhances the value of modern Celtic instead of depreciating it, 
 because it serves to rectify it. To me it is a wonder that Welsh 
 should have retained so much of its integrity under the iron pressure 
 of four hundred years of Roman dominion. Modern Welsh tenacity 
 and cohesive power under English pressure is nothing compared 
 with what that must have been.' 
 
 s 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 meeting which has for its object (I quote the 
 words of its promoters) ' the diffusion of useful 
 knowledge, the eliciting of native talent, and 
 the cherishing of love of home and honourable 
 fame by the cultivation of poetry, music, and 
 art,' My little boys were disappointed ; but 
 I, whose circus days are over, I, who have 
 a professional interest in poetry, and who, also, 
 hating all one-sidedness and oppression, wish 
 nothing better than that the Celtic genius 
 should be able to show itself to the world and 
 to make its voice heard, was delighted. I took 
 my ticket, and waited impatiently for the day 
 of opening. The day came, an unfortunate 
 one ; storms of wind, clouds of dust, an angry, 
 dirty sea. The Saxons who arrived by the 
 Liverpool steamers looked miserable ; even the 
 Welsh who arrived by land, — whether they 
 were discomposed by the bad morning, or 
 by the monstrous and crushing tax which the 
 London and North- Western Railway Company 
 levies on all whom it transports across those 
 four miles of marshy peninsula between Conway 
 and Llandudno, — did not look happy. First 
 we went to the Gorsedd, or preliminary congress 
 for conferring the degree of bard. The Gorsedd 
 was held in the open air, at the windy corner 
 of a street, and the morning was not favourable 
 to open-air solemnities. The Welsh, too, share, 
 it seems to me, with their Saxon invaders, 
 an inaptitude for show and spectacle. Show 
 
 6 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 and spectacle are better managed by the Latin 
 race, and those whom it has moulded ; the 
 Welsh, like us, are a little awkward and resource- 
 less in the organisation of a festival. The 
 presiding genius of the mystic circle, in our 
 hideous nineteenth - century costume relieved 
 only by a green scarf, the wind drowning 
 his voice and the dust powdering his whiskers, 
 looked thoroughly wretched : so did the aspirants 
 for bardic honours ; and I believe, after about an 
 hour of it, we all of us, as we stood shivering 
 round the sacred stones, began half to wish for 
 the Druid's sacrificial knife to end our sufferings. 
 But the Druid's knife is gone from his hands ; so 
 we sought the shelter of the Eisteddfod building. 
 The sight inside was not lively. The pre- 
 sident and his supporters mustered strong on 
 the platform. On the floor the one or two 
 front benches were pretty well filled, but their 
 occupants were for the most part Saxons, who 
 came there from curiosity, not from enthusiasm ; 
 and all the middle and back benches, where 
 should have been the true enthusiasts, — the 
 Welsh people, — were nearly empty. The pre- 
 sident, I am sure, showed a national spirit which 
 was admirable. He addressed us Saxons in our 
 own language, and called us ' the English branch 
 of the descendants of the ancient Britons.' We 
 received the compliment with the impassive dul- 
 ness which is the characteristic of our nature ; 
 and the lively Celtic nature, which should 
 
 7 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 have made up for the dulness of ours, was 
 absent. A lady who sat by me, and who 
 was the wife, I found, of a distinguished bard 
 on the platform, told me, with emotion in 
 her look and voice, how dear were these 
 solemnities to the heart of her people, how 
 deep was the interest which is aroused by them. 
 I believe her, but still the whole performance, 
 on that particular morning, was incurably life- 
 less. The recitation of the prize compositions 
 began : pieces of verse and prose in the Welsh 
 language, an essay on punctuality being, if 
 I remember right, one of them ; a poem on 
 the march of Havelock, another. This went on 
 for some time. Then Dr. Vaughan, — the well- 
 known Nonconformist minister, a Welshman, 
 and a good patriot, — addressed us in English. 
 His speech was a powerful one, and he succeeded, 
 I confess, in sending a faint thrill through our 
 front benches ; but it was the old familiar thrill 
 which we have all of us felt a thousand times in 
 Saxon chapels and meeting-halls, and had nothing 
 bardic about it. I stepped out, and in the street 
 I came across an acquaintance fresh from London 
 and the parliamentary session. In a moment 
 the spell of the Celtic genius was forgotten, 
 the Philistinism of our Saxon nature made 
 itself felt ; and my friend and I walked up 
 and down by the roaring waves, talking not 
 of ovates and bards, and triads and englyns, 
 but of the sewage question, and the glories 
 
 8 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 of our local self-government, and the mysterious 
 perfections of the Metropolitan Board of Works. 
 I believe it is admitted, even by the admirers 
 of Eisteddfods in general, that this particular 
 Eisteddfod was not a success. Llandudno, it 
 is said, was not the right place for it. Held 
 in Conway Castle, as a few years ago it was, 
 and its spectators, — an enthusiastic multitude, — 
 filling the grand old ruin, I can imagine it a 
 most impressive and interesting sight, even to a 
 stranger labouring under the terrible disadvantage 
 of being ignorant of the Welsh language. But 
 even seen as I saw it at Llandudno, it had the 
 power to set one thinking. An Eisteddfod is, 
 no doubt, a kind of Olympic meeting ; and 
 that the common people of Wales should care 
 for such a thing, shows something Greek in 
 them, something spiritual, something humane, 
 something (I am afraid one must add) which 
 in the English common people is not to be 
 found. This line of reflection has been followed 
 by the accomplished Bishop of St David's, 
 and by the Saturday Review ; it is just, it is 
 fruitful, and those who pursued it merit our 
 best thanks. But, from peculiar circumstances, 
 the Llandudno meeting was, as I have said, such 
 as not at all to suggest ideas of Olympia, and 
 of a multitude touched by the divine flame, 
 and hanging on the lips of Pindar. It rather 
 suggested the triumph of the prosaic, practical 
 Saxon, and the approaching extinction of an 
 
 9 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 enthusiasm which he derides as factitious, a 
 literature which he disdains as trash, a language 
 which he detests as a nuisance. 
 
 I must say I quite share the opinion of my 
 brother Saxons as to the practical inconvenience 
 of perpetuating the speaking of Welsh. It may 
 cause a moment's distress to one's imagination 
 when one hears that the last Cornwall peasant 
 who spoke the old tongue of Cornwall is dead ; 
 but, no doubt, Cornwall is the better for adopting 
 English, for becoming more thoroughly one with 
 the rest of the country. The fusion of all the 
 inhabitants of these islands into one homogeneous, 
 English-speaking whole, the breaking down of 
 barriers between us, the swallowing up of separate 
 provincial nationalities, is a consummation to 
 which the natural course of things irresistibly 
 tends ; it is a necessity of what is called modern 
 civilisation, and modern civilisation is a real, 
 legitimate force ; the change must come, and its 
 accomplishment is a mere affair of time. The 
 sooner the Welsh language disappears as an 
 instrument of the practical, political, social life 
 of Wales, the better ; the better for England, 
 the better for Wales itself Traders and tourists 
 do excellent service by pushing the English 
 wedge farther and farther into the heart of 
 the principality ; Ministers of Education, by 
 hammering it harder and harder into the 
 elementary schools. Nor, perhaps, can one 
 have much sympathy with the literary cultivation 
 
 lO 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 of Welsh as an instrument of living literature ; 
 and in this respect Eisteddfods encourage, I think, 
 a fantastic and mischief-working delusion. For 
 all serious purposes in modern literature (and 
 trifling purposes in it who would care to en- 
 courage ?) the language of a Welshman is and 
 must be English ; if an Eisteddfod author has 
 anything to say about punctuality or about the 
 march of Havelock, he had much better say it 
 in English ; or rather, perhaps, what he has to 
 say on these subjects may as well be said in 
 Welsh, but the moment he has anything of real 
 importance to say, anything the world will the 
 least care to hear, he must speak English. 
 Dilettanteism might possibly do much harm 
 here, might mislead and waste and bring to 
 nought a genuine talent. For all modern 
 purposes, I repeat, let us all as soon as possible 
 be one people ; let the Welshman speak English, 
 and, if he is an author, let him write English, 
 
 So far, I go along with the stream of my 
 brother Saxons ; but here, I imagine, I part 
 company with them. They will have nothing 
 to do with the Welsh language and literature on 
 any terms ; they would gladly make a clean 
 sweep of it from the face of the earth. I, on 
 certain terms, wish to make a great deal more of 
 it than is made now ; and I regard the Welsh 
 literature, — or rather, dropping the distinction 
 between Welsh and Irish, Gaels and Cymris, let 
 me say Celtic literature, — as an object of very 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 great interest. My brother Saxons have, as is 
 well known, a terrible way with them of wanting 
 to improve everything but themselves off the face 
 of the earth ; I have no such passion for finding 
 nothing but myself everywhere ; I like variety 
 to exist and to show itself to me, and I would 
 not for the world have the lineaments of the 
 Celtic genius lost. But I know my brother 
 Saxons, I know their strength, and I know that 
 the Celtic genius will make nothing of trying to 
 set up barriers against them in the world of fact 
 and brute force, of trying to hold its own against 
 them as a political and social counter-power, as 
 the soul of a hostile nationality. To me there 
 is something mournful (and at this moment, 
 when one sees what is going on in Ireland, how 
 well may one say so !) in hearing a Welshman 
 or an Irishman make pretensions, — natural pre- 
 tensions, I admit, but how hopelessly vain ! — to 
 such a rival self-establishment ; there is something 
 mournful in hearing an Englishman scout them. 
 Strength ! alas it is not strength, strength in the 
 material world, which is wanting to us Saxons ; 
 we have plenty of strength for swallowing up 
 and absorbing as much as we choose ; there is 
 nothing to hinder us from effacing the last poor 
 material remains of that Celtic power which 
 once was everywhere, but has long since, in the 
 race of civilisation, fallen out of sight. We may 
 threaten them with extinction if we will, and 
 may almost say in so threatening them, like 
 
 12 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 Caesar in threatening with death the tribune 
 Metellus who closed the treasury doors against 
 him : ' And when I threaten this, young man, 
 to threaten it is more trouble to me than to do 
 it.' It is not in the outward and visible world 
 of material life that the Celtic genius of Wales 
 or Ireland can at this day hope to count for 
 much ; it is in the inward world of thought and^ 
 science. What it has been, what it has done, let 
 it ask us to attend to that, as a matter of science/ 
 and history ; not to what it will be or will do, 
 as a matter of modern politics. It cannot count 
 appreciably now as a material power ; but, 
 perhaps, if it can get itself thoroughly known as 
 an object of science, it may count for a good deal,-/ 
 — far more than we Saxons, most of us, imagine, 
 — as a spiritual power. 
 
 The bent of our time is towards science, 
 towards knowing things as they are ; so the 
 Celt's claims towards having his genius and its 
 works fairly treated, as objects of scientific in- 
 vestigation, the Saxon can hardly reject, when 
 these claims are urged simply on their own 
 merits, and are not mixed up with extraneous 
 pretensions which jeopardise them. What the 
 French call the science des origines, the science of 
 origins, — a science which is at the bottom of all 
 real knowledge of the actual world, and which 
 is every day growing in interest and importance, 
 — is very incomplete without a thorough critical 
 account of the Celts, and their genius, language, 
 
 13 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 and literature. This science has still great 
 progress to make, but its progress, made even 
 within the recollection of those of us who are 
 in middle life, has already affected our common 
 notions about the Celtic race ; and this change, 
 too, shows how science, the knowing things as 
 they are, may even have salutary practical con- 
 sequences. I remember, when I was young, I 
 was taught to think of Celt as separated by an 
 impassable gulf from Teuton ; ^ my father, in 
 particular, was never weary of contrasting them ; 
 he insisted much oftener on the separation 
 between us and them than on the separation 
 between us and any other race in the world ; in 
 the same way Lord Lyndhurst, in words long 
 
 1 Here again let me have the pleasure of quoting Lord Strang- 
 ford : — ' When the Celtic tongues were first taken in hand at the 
 dawn of comparative philological inquiry, the tendency was, for 
 all practical results, to separate them from the Indo-European 
 aggregate, rather than to unite them with it. The great gulf once 
 fixed between them was narrowed on the surface, but it was greatly 
 and indefinitely deepened. Their vocabulary and some of their 
 grammar was seen at once to be perfectly Indo-European, but they 
 had no case-endings to their nouns, — none at all in Welsh, none 
 that could be understood in Gaelic ; their fhonesis seemed primeval 
 and inexplicable, and nothing could be made out of their pronouns 
 which could not be equally made out of many wholly un-Aryan 
 languages. They were therefore co-ordinated, not with each 
 single Aryan tongue, but with the general complex of Aryan 
 tongues, and were conceived to be anterior to them and apart from 
 them, as it were the strayed vanguard of European colonisation or 
 •conquest from the East. The reason of this misconception was, 
 that their records lay wholly uninvestigated as far as all historical 
 study of the language was concerned, and that nobody troubled 
 himself about the relative age and the development of forms, so 
 .that the philologists were fain to take them as they were put into 
 
 14 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 famous, called the Irish, ' aliens in speech, in 
 religion, in blood.' This naturally created a 
 profound sense of estrangement ; it doubled the 
 estrangement which political and religious 
 differences already made between us and the 
 Irish : it seemed to make this estrangement 
 immense, incurable, fatal. It begot a strange 
 reluctance, as any one may see by reading the 
 preface to the great text-book for Welsh poetry, 
 the Myvyrian Archaeology^ published at the be- 
 ginning of this century, to further, nay, allow, — 
 even among quiet, peaceable people like the 
 Welsh, the publication of the documents of their 
 ancient literature, the monuments of the Cymric 
 genius ; such was the sense of repulsion, the 
 
 their hands by uncritical or perverse native commentators and 
 writers, whose grammars and dictionaries teemed with blunders and 
 downright forgeries. One thing, and one thing alone, led to the 
 truth : the sheer drudgery of thirteen long years spent by Zeuss in 
 the patient investigation of the most ancient Celtic records, in 
 their actual condition, line by line and letter by letter. Then for 
 the first time the foundation of Celtic research was laid ; but the 
 great philologist did not live to see the superstructure which never 
 could have been raised but for him. Prichard was first to indicate 
 the right path, and Bopp, in his monograph of 1839, displayed his 
 incomparable and masterly sagacity as usual, but for want of any 
 trustworthy record of Celtic words and forms to work upon, the 
 truth remained concealed or obscured until the publication of the 
 Grammatka Celtica. Dr. Arnold, a man of the past generation, 
 who made more use of the then uncertain and unfixed doctrines of 
 comparative philology in his historical writings than is done by the 
 present generation in the fullest noonday light of the Vergleichende 
 Grammatik, was thus justified in his view by the philology of the 
 period, to which he merely gave an enlarged historical expression. 
 The prime fallacy then as now, however, was that of antedating 
 the distinction between Gaelic and Cymric Celts.' 
 
 IS 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 sense of incompatibility, of radical antagonism, 
 making it seem dangerous to us to let such 
 opposites to ourselves have speech and utterance. 
 Certainly the Jew, — the Jew of ancient times, at 
 least, — then seemed a thousand degrees nearer 
 than the Celt to us. Puritanism had so assimi- 
 lated Bible ideas and phraseology ; names like 
 Ebenezer, and notions like that of hewing Agag 
 in pieces, came so natural to us, that the sense of 
 affinity between the Teutonic and the Hebrew 
 nature was quite strong ; a steady, middle-class 
 Anglo-Saxon much more imagined himself 
 Ehud's cousin than Ossian's. But meanwhile, 
 the pregnant and striking ideas of the ethno- 
 logists about the true natural grouping of 
 the human race, the doctrine of a great Indo- 
 European unity, comprising Hindoos, Persians, 
 Greeks, Latins, Celts, Teutons, Slavonians, on 
 the one hand, and, on the other hand, of a 
 Semitic unity and of a Mongolian unity, separ- 
 ated by profound distinguishing marks from the 
 Indo-European unity and from one another, was 
 slowly acquiring consistency and popularising 
 itself. So strong and real could the sense of 
 sympathy or antipathy, grounded upon real 
 identity or diversity in race, grow in men of 
 culture, that we read of a genuine Teuton, — 
 Wilhelm von Humboldt, finding, even in the 
 sphere of religion, that sphere where the might 
 of Semitism has been so overpowering, the food 
 which most truly suited his spirit in the pro- 
 
 i6 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 ductions not of the alien Semitic genius, but of 
 the genius of Greece or India, the Teuton's 
 born kinsfolk of the common Indo-European 
 family. 'Towards Semitism he felt himself,' 
 we read, ' far less drawn ' ; he had the conscious- 
 ness of a certain antipathy in the depths of his 
 nature to this, and to its ' absorbing, tyrannous, 
 terrorist religion,' as to the opener, more flexible 
 Indo-European genius, this religion appeared. 
 ' The mere workings of the old man in him ! ' 
 Semitism will readily reply ; and though one 
 can hardly admit this short and easy method 
 of settling the matter, it must be owned 
 that Humboldt's is an extreme case of Indo- 
 Europeanism, useful as letting us see what may 
 be the power of race and primitive constitution, 
 but not likely, in the spiritual sphere, to have 
 many companion cases equalling it. Still, even 
 in this sphere, the tendency is in Humboldt's 
 direction ; the modern spirit tends more and 
 more to establish a sense of native diversity 
 between our European bent and the Semitic 
 bent, and to eliminate, even in our religion, 
 certain elements as purely and excessively Semitic, 
 and therefore, in right, not combinable with our 
 European nature, not assimilable by it. This 
 tendency is now quite visible even among our- 
 selves, and even, as I have said, within the great 
 sphere of the Semitic genius, the sphere of 
 religion ; and for its justification this tendency 
 appeals to science, the science of origins ; it 
 VOL. v 17 c 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 appeals to this science as teaching us which way 
 our natural affinities and repulsions lie. It appeals 
 to this science, and in part it comes from it ; it is, 
 in considerable part, an indirect practical result 
 from it. 
 
 In the sphere of politics, too, there has, in the 
 same way, appeared an indirect practical result 
 from this science ; the sense of antipathy to the 
 Irish people, of radical estrangement from them, 
 has visibly abated amongst all th'e better part of 
 us ; the remorse for past ill-treatment of them, 
 the wish to make amends, to do them justice, to 
 fairly unite, if possible, in one people with them, 
 has visibly increased ; hardly a book on Ireland 
 is now published, hardly a debate on Ireland now 
 passes in Parliament, without this appearing. 
 Fanciful as the notion may at first seem, I am 
 inclined to think that the march of science, — 
 science insisting that there is no such original 
 chasm between the Celt and the Saxon as we 
 once popularly imagined, that they are not truly, 
 what Lord Lyndhurst called them, aliens in blood 
 from us, that they are our brothers in the great 
 Indo-European family, has had a share, an appre- 
 ciable share, in producing this changed state of 
 feeling. No doubt, the release from alarm and 
 struggle, the sense of firm possession, solid 
 security, and overwhelming power ; no doubt 
 these, allowing and encouraging humane feelings 
 to spring up in us, have done much ; no doubt 
 a state of fear and danger, Ireland in hostile 
 
 i8 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 conflict with us, our union violently disturbed, 
 might, while it drove back all humane feelings, 
 make also the old sense of utter estrangement 
 revive. Nevertheless, so long as such a malig- 
 nant revolution of events does not actually come 
 about, so long the new sense of kinship and 
 kindliness lives, works, and gathers strength ; and 
 the longer it so lives and works, the more it 
 makes any such malignant revolution improbable. 
 And this new, 'reconciling sense has, I say, its 
 roots in science. 
 
 However, on these indirect benefits of science 
 we must not lay too much stress. Only this 
 must be allowed ; it is clear that there are now 
 in operation two influences, both favourable to 
 a more attentive and impartial study of Celtism 
 than it has yet ever received from us. One is 
 the strengthening in us of the feeling of Indo- 
 Europeanism ; the other, the strengthening in 
 us of the scientific sense generally. The first 
 breaks down barriers between us and the Celt, 
 relaxes the estrangement between us ; the second 
 begets the desire to know his case thoroughly, 
 and to be just to it. This is a very different 
 matter from the political and social Celtisatioh 
 of which certain enthusiasts dream ; but it is 
 not to be despised by any one to whom the 
 Celtic genius is dear ; and it is possible, while 
 the other is not. 
 
 t9 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 I 
 
 To know the Celtic case thoroughly, one 
 must know the Celtic people ; and to know 
 them one must know that by which a people 
 best express themselves, — their literature. Few 
 of us have any notion what a mass of Celtic 
 literature is really yet extant and accessible. 
 One constantly finds even very accomplished 
 people, who fancy that the remains of Welsh 
 and Irish literature are as inconsiderable by their 
 volume, as, in their opinion, they are by their 
 intrinsic merit ; that these remains consist ot a 
 few prose stories, in great part borrowed from 
 the literature of nations more civilised than the 
 Welsh or Irish nation, and of some unintelligible 
 poetry. As to Welsh literature, they have heard, 
 perhaps, of the Black Book of Caermarthen, or of 
 the Ked Book of Hergest, and they imagine that 
 one or two famous manuscript books like these 
 contain the whole matter. They have no notion 
 that, in real truth, to quote the words of one 
 who is no friend to the high pretensions of 
 Welsh literature, but their most formidable 
 impugner, Mr. Nash : — • The Myvyrian manu- 
 scripts alone, now deposited in the British 
 Museum, amount to 47 volumes of poetry, of 
 various sizes, containing about 4700 pieces of 
 poetry, in 16,000 pages, besides about 2000 
 englynion or epigrammatic stanzas. There are 
 also, in the same collection, 53 volumes of prose, 
 
 20 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 in about 15,300 pages, containing a great many 
 curious documents on various subjects. Besides 
 these, which were purchased of the widow of the 
 celebrated Owen Jones, the editor of the Myvyrian 
 Archceology, there are a vast number of collections 
 of Welsh manuscripts in London, and in the 
 libraries of the gentry of the principality.' The 
 Myvyrian Archceology, here spoken of by Mr. 
 Nash, I have already mentioned ; he calls its 
 editor, Owen Jones, celebrated ; he is not so 
 celebrated but that he claims a word, in passing, 
 from a professor of poetry. He was a Denbigh- 
 shire statesman, as we say in the north, born 
 before the middle of last century, in that vale 
 of Myvyr, which has given its name to his 
 archaeology. From his childhood he had that 
 passion for the old treasures of his country's 
 literature, which to this day, as I have said, in 
 the common people of Wales is so remarkable ; 
 these treasures were unprinted, scattered, difficult 
 of access, jealously guarded. ' More than once,' 
 says Edward Lhuyd, who in his Archceologia 
 Britannica, brought out by him in 1707, would 
 gladly have given them to the world, ' more than 
 once I had a promise from the owner, and the 
 promise was afterwards retracted at the instigation 
 of certain persons, pseudo-politicians, as I think, 
 rather than men of letters.' So Owen Jones 
 went up, a young man of nineteen, to London, 
 and got employment in a furrier's shop in Thames 
 Street ; for forty years, with a single object in 
 
 21 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 view, he worked at his business ; and at the end 
 of that time his object was won. He had risen 
 in his employment till the business had become 
 his own, and he was now a man of considerable 
 means ; but those means had been sought by 
 him for one purpose only, the purpose of his life, 
 the dream of his youth, — the giving permanence 
 and publicity to the treasures of his national 
 literature. Gradually he got manuscript after 
 manuscript transcribed, and at last, in 1801, he 
 jointly with two friends brought out in three large 
 volumes, printed in double columns, his Myvyrian 
 Archeology of Wales. The book is full of imper- 
 fections ; it presented itself to a public which 
 could not judge of its importance, and it brought 
 upon its author in his lifetime more attack than 
 honour. He died not long afterwards, and now 
 he lies buried in All-hallows Church, in London, 
 with his tomb turned towards the east, away 
 from the green vale of Clwyd and the mountains 
 of his native Wales ; but his book is the great 
 repertory of the literature of his nation, the com- 
 parative study of languages and literatures gains 
 every day more followers, and no one of these 
 followers, at home or abroad, touches Welsh 
 literature without paying homage to the Denbigh- 
 shire peasant's name ; if the bard's glory and 
 his own are still matter of moment to him, — 
 si quid mentem mortalia tangunt^ — he may be 
 satisfied. 
 
 Even the printed stock of early Welsh 
 
 22 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 literature is, therefore, considerable, and the 
 manuscript stock of it is very great indeed. Of 
 Irish literature, the stock, printed and manu- 
 script, is truly vast ; the work of cataloguing 
 and describing this has been admirably per- 
 formed by another remarkable man, who died 
 only the other day, Mr. Eugene O'Curry. 
 Obscure Scaliger of a despised literature, he 
 deserves some weightier voice to praise him 
 than the voice of an unlearned bellettristic trifler 
 like me ; he belongs to the race of the giants 
 in literary research and industry, — a race now 
 almost extinct. Without a literary education, 
 and impeded too, it appears, by much trouble 
 of mind and infirmity of body, he has accom- 
 plished such a thorough work of classification 
 and description for the chaotic mass of Irish 
 literature, that the student has now half his 
 labour saved, and needs only to use his materials 
 as Eugene O'Curry hands them to him. It 
 was as a professor in the Catholic University 
 in Dublin that O'Curry gave the lectures in 
 which he has done the student this service ; it 
 is touching to find that these lectures, a splendid 
 tribute of devotion to the Celtic cause, had no 
 hearer more attentive, more sympathising, than 
 a man, himself, too, the champion of a cause 
 more interesting than prosperous, — one of those 
 causes which please noble spirits, but do not 
 please destiny, which have Cato's adherence, but 
 not Heaven's, — Dr. Newman. Eugene O'Curry, 
 
 23 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 in these lectures of his, taking as his standard the 
 quarto page of Dr. O'Donovan's edition of the 
 Annals of the Four Masters (and this printed 
 monument of one branch of Irish literature 
 occupies by itself, let me say in passing, seven 
 large quarto volumes, containing 4215 pages of 
 closely printed matter), Eugene O'Curry says, 
 that the great vellum manuscript books belong- 
 ing to Trinity College, Dublin, and to the 
 Royal Irish Academy, — books with fascinating 
 titles, the Book of the Dun Cow, the Book of 
 Leinster, the Book of Ballymote, the Speckled Book, 
 the Book of Lecain, the Tellow Book of Lecain, — 
 have, between them, matter enough to fill 
 1 1 ,400 of these pages ; the other vellum manu- 
 scripts in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, 
 have matter enough to fill 8200 pages more ; 
 and the paper manuscripts of Trinity College, 
 and the Royal Irish Academy together, would 
 fill, he says, 30,000 such pages more. The 
 ancient laws of Ireland, the so-called Brehon 
 laws, which a commission is now publishing, 
 were not as yet completely transcribed when 
 O'Curry wrote ; but what had even then been 
 transcribed was sufficient, he says, to fill nearly 
 8000 of Dr. O'Donovan's pages. Here are, at 
 any rate, materials enough with a vengeance. 
 These materials fall, of course, into several 
 divisions. The most literary of these divisions, 
 the Tales, consisting of Historic Tales and 
 Imaginative Tales, distributes the contents of its 
 
 24 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 Historic Tales as follows : — Battles, voyages, 
 sieges, tragedies, cow-spoils, courtships, adven- 
 tures, land-expeditions, sea-expeditions, banquets, 
 elopements, loves, lake-irruptions, colonisations, 
 visions. Of what a treasure-house of resources 
 for the history of Celtic life and the Celtic 
 genius does that bare list, even by itself, call 
 up the image ! The Annals of the Four Masters 
 give ' the years of foundations and destructions 
 of churches and castles, the obituaries of remark- 
 able persons, the inaugurations of kings, the 
 battles of chiefs, the contests of clans, the ages 
 of bards, abbots, bishops, etc' ^ Through other 
 divisions of this mass of materials, — the books 
 of pedigrees and genealogies, the martyrologies 
 and festologies, such as the Felire of Angus 
 the Culdee, the topographical tracts, such as the 
 Dinnsenchas, — we touch ' the most ancient tra- 
 ditions of the Irish, traditions which were 
 committed to writing at a period when the 
 ancient customs of the people were unbroken.' 
 We touch ' the early history of Ireland, civil and 
 ecclesiastical.' We get ' the origin and history 
 of the countless monuments of Ireland, of the 
 ruined church and tower, the sculptured cross, 
 the holy well, and the commemorative name of 
 almost every townland and parish in the whole 
 island.' We get, in short, 'the most detailed 
 information upon almost every part of ancient 
 
 1 Dr. O'Conor in his Catalogue of the Stowe MSS. (quoted by 
 O'Curry), 
 
 25 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 Gaelic life, a vast quantity of valuable details of 
 life and manners.' ^ 
 
 And then, besides, to our knowledge of the 
 Celtic genius, Mr. Norris has brought us from 
 Cornwall, M. de la Villemarque from Brittany, 
 contributions, insignificant indeed in quantity, if 
 one compares them with the mass of the Irish 
 materials extant, but far from insignificant in 
 value. 
 
 We want to know what all this mass of 
 documents really tells us about the Celt. But 
 the mode of dealing with these documents, and 
 with the whole question of Celtic antiquity, has 
 hitherto been most unsatisfactory. Those who 
 have dealt with them, have gone to work, in 
 general, either as warm Celt-lovers or as warm 
 Celt-haters, and not as disinterested students of 
 an important matter of science. One party 
 seems to set out with the determination to find 
 everything in Celtism and its remains ; the 
 other, with the determination to find nothing in 
 them. A simple seeker for truth has a hard 
 time between the two. An illustration or so 
 will make clear what I mean. First let us take 
 the Celt-lovers, who, though they engage one's 
 sympathies more than the Celt-haters, yet, inas- 
 much as assertion is more dangerous than denial, 
 show their weaknesses in a more signal way. 
 A very learned man, the Rev. Edward Davies, 
 published in the early part of this century two 
 
 1 O'Curry. 
 26 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 important books on Celtic antiquity. The 
 second of these books. The Mythology and Rites 
 of the British Druids, contains, with much 
 other interesting matter, the charming story of 
 Taliesin. Bryant's book on mythology was then 
 in vogue, and Bryant, in the fantastical manner 
 so common in those days, found in Greek 
 mythology what he called an arkite idolatry, 
 pointing to Noah's deluge and the ark. Davies, 
 wishing to give dignity to his Celtic mythology, 
 determines to find the arkite idolatry there too, 
 and the style in which he proceeds to do this 
 affords a good specimen of the extravagance 
 which has caused Celtic antiquity to be looked 
 upon with so much suspicion. The story of 
 Taliesin begins thus : — 
 
 ' In former times there was a man of noble 
 descent in Penllyn. His name was Tegid Voel, 
 and his paternal estate was in the middle of 
 the Lake of Tegid, and his wife was called 
 Ceridwen.' 
 
 Nothing could well be simpler ; but what 
 Davies finds in this simple opening of Taliesin's 
 story, is prodigious : — 
 
 ' Let us take a brief view of the proprietor of 
 this estate. Tegid Voel — bald serenity — presents 
 itself at once to our fancy. The painter would 
 find no embarrassment in sketching the portrait 
 of this sedate venerable personage, whose crown 
 is partly stripped of its hoary honours. But 
 of all the gods of antiquity, none could with 
 
 27 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 propriety sit for this picture excepting Saturn, 
 the acknowledged representative of Noah, and 
 the husband of Rhea, which was but another 
 name for Ceres, the genius of the ark.' 
 
 And Ceres, the genius of the ark, is of course 
 found in Ceridwen, ' the British Ceres, the 
 arkite goddess who initiates us into the deepest 
 mysteries of the arkite superstition.' 
 
 Now the story of TaHesin, as it proceeds, 
 exhibits Ceridwen as a sorceress ; and a sorceress, 
 like a goddess, belongs to the world of the 
 supernatural ; but, beyond this, the story itself 
 does not suggest one particle of relationship 
 between Ceridwen and Ceres. All the rest 
 comes out of Davies's fancy, and is established 
 by reasoning of the force of that about * bald 
 serenity.' 
 
 It is not difficult for the other side, the Celt- 
 haters, to get a triumph over such adversaries 
 as these. Perhaps I ought to ask pardon of 
 Mr. Nash, whose TaHesin it is impossible to read 
 without profit and instruction, for classing him 
 among the Celt-haters : his determined scepticism 
 about Welsh antiquity seems to me, however, 
 to betray a preconceived hostility, a bias taken 
 beforehand, as unmistakable as Mr. Davies's pre- 
 possessions. But Mr. Nash is often very happy 
 in demolishing, for really the Celt-lovers seem 
 often to try to lay themselves open, and to invite 
 demolition. Full of his notions about an arkite 
 idolatry and a Helio-dsemonic worship, Edward 
 
 28 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 Davies gives this translation of an old Welsh 
 poem, entitled The Panegyric of Lludd the 
 Great : — 
 
 ' A song of dark import was composed by the 
 distinguished Ogdoad, who assembled on the 
 day of the moon, and went in open procession. 
 On the day of Mars they allotted wrath to their 
 adversaries ; on the day of Mercury they enjoyed 
 their full pomp ; on the day of Jove they were 
 delivered from the detested usurpers ; on the 
 day of Venus, the day of the great influx, they 
 swam in the blood of men ; ^ on the day of the 
 Sun there truly assemble five ships and five 
 hundred of those who make supplication : O 
 Brithi, O Brithoi ! O son of the compacted 
 wood, the shock overtakes me ; we all attend on 
 Adonai, on the area of Pwmpai.' 
 
 That looks Helio - dsmonic enough, un- 
 doubtedly ; especially when Davies prints O 
 Brithi, O Brithoi I in Hebrew characters, as 
 being 'vestiges of sacred hymns in the Phoenician 
 language.' But then comes Mr. Nash, and says 
 that the poem is a Middle-Age composition, 
 with nothing Helio-dsmonic about it ; that it 
 is meant to ridicule the monks ; and that O 
 Brithi, O Brithoi / is a mere piece of unintelli- 
 gible jargon in mockery of the chants used by 
 the monks at prayers ; and he gives this counter- 
 translation of the poem : — 
 
 1 Here, where Saturday should come, something is wanting in 
 the manuscript. 
 
 29 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 ' They make harsh songs ; they note eight 
 numbers. On Monday they will be prying 
 about. On Tuesday they separate, angry with 
 their adversaries. On Wednesday they drink, 
 enjoying themselves ostentatiously. On Thurs- 
 day they are in the choir ; their poverty is dis- 
 agreeable. Friday is a day of abundance, the 
 men are swimming in pleasures. On Sunday, 
 certainly, five legions and five hundreds of them, 
 they pray, they make exclamations : O Brithi, 
 Brithoi ! Like wood-cuckoos in noise they will 
 be, every one of the idiots banging on the 
 ground.' 
 
 As one reads Mr. Nash's explanation and 
 translation after Edward Davies's, one feels that 
 a flood of the broad daylight of common-sense 
 has been suddenly shed over the Panegyric on 
 Lludd the Great, and one is very grateful to Mr. 
 Nash. 
 
 Or, again, when another Celt-lover, Mr. 
 Herbert, has bewildered us with his fancies, as 
 uncritical as Edward Davies's ; with his neo- 
 Druidism, his Mithriac heresy, his Crist-celi, or 
 man-god of the mysteries ; and, above all, his 
 ape of the sanctuary, ' signifying the mercurial 
 principle, that strange and unexplained disgrace 
 of paganism,' Mr. Nash comes to our assistance, 
 and is most refreshingly rational. To confine 
 ourselves to the ape of the sanctuary only. Mr. 
 Herbert constructs his monster, — to whom, he 
 says, ' great sanctity, together with foul crime, 
 
 30 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 deception, and treachery,' is ascribed, — out of 
 four lines of old Welsh poetry, of which he 
 adopts the following translation : — 
 
 ' Without the ape, without the stall of the 
 cow, without the mundane rampart, the world 
 will become desolate, not requiring the cuckoos 
 to convene the appointed dance over the green.' 
 
 One is not very clear what all this means, but 
 it has, at any rate, a solemn air about it, which 
 prepares one for the development of its first- 
 named personage, the ape, into the mystical ape 
 of the sanctuary. The cow, too, — says another 
 famous Celt-lover, Dr. Owen, the learned author 
 of the Welsh Dictionary, — the cow {henfon) is the 
 cow of transmigration ; and this also sounds 
 natural enough. But Mr. Nash, who has a keen 
 eye for the piecing which frequently happens in 
 these old fragments, has observed that just here, 
 where the ape of the sanctuary and the cow of 
 transmigration make their appearance, there seems 
 to come a cluster of adages, popular sayings ; and 
 he at once remembers an adage preserved with 
 the word henfon in it, where, as he justly says, ' the 
 cow of transmigration cannot very well have 
 place.' This adage, rendered literally in English, 
 is : ' Whoso owns the old cow, let him go at 
 her tail ' ; and the meaning of it, as a popular 
 saying, is clear and simple enough. With this 
 clue, Mr. Nash examines the whole passage, 
 suggests that heb eppa, ' without the ape,' with 
 which Mr. Herbert begins, in truth belongs to 
 
 31 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 something going before and is to be translated 
 somewhat differently ; and, in short, that what 
 we really have here is simply these three adages 
 one after another : ' The first share is the full 
 one. PoUteness is natural, says the ape. With- 
 out the cow-stall there would be no dung:-heap.' 
 And one can hardly doubt that Mr. Nash is quite 
 right. 
 
 Even friends of the Celt, who are perfectly 
 incapable of extravagances of this sort, fall too 
 often into a loose mode of criticism concerning 
 him and the documents of his history, which is 
 unsatisfactory in itself, and also gives an advantage 
 to his many enemies. One of the best and most 
 delightful friends he has ever had, — M. de la 
 Villemarque, — has seen clearly enough that often 
 the alleged antiquity of his documents cannot be 
 proved, that it can be even disproved, and that 
 he must rely on other supports than this to 
 establish what he wants ; yet one finds him 
 saying : ' I open the collection of Welsh bards 
 from the sixth to the tenth century. Taliesin, 
 one of the oldest of them,' . . . and so on. But 
 his adversaries deny that we have really any such 
 thing as a ' collection of Welsh bards from the 
 sixth to the tenth century,' or that a ■• Taliesin, 
 one of the oldest of them,' exists to be quoted in 
 defence of any thesis. Sharon Turner, again, 
 whose Vindication of the Ancient British Poems was 
 prompted, it seems to me, by a critical instinct 
 at bottom sound, is weak and uncritical in details 
 
 32 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 like this : ' The strange poem of Taliesin, called 
 the Spoils of Annwn, implies the existence (in the 
 sixth century, he means) of mythological tales 
 about Arthur ; and the frequent allusion of the 
 old Welsh bards to the persons and incidents 
 which we find in the Mabinogion, are further 
 proofs that there must have been such stories in 
 circulation amongst the Welsh.' But the critic 
 has to show, against his adversaries, that the 
 Spoils of Annwn is a real poem of the sixth 
 century, with a real sixth - century poet called 
 Taliesin for its author, before he can use it to 
 prove what Sharon Turner there wishes to prove ; 
 and, in like manner, the high antiquity of persons 
 and incidents that are found in the manuscripts 
 of the Mabinogion, — manuscripts written, like the 
 famous Ked Book of Hergest, in the library of 
 Jesus College at Oxford, in the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries, — is not proved by allusions of 
 the old Welsh bards, until (which is just the 
 question at issue) the pieces containing these 
 allusions are proved themselves to possess a very 
 high antiquity. In the present state of the 
 question as to the early Welsh literature, this 
 sort of reasoning is inconclusive and bewildering, 
 and merely carries us round in a circle. Again, 
 it is worse than inconclusive reasoning, it shows 
 so uncritical a spirit that it begets grave mistrust, 
 when Mr. Williams ab Ithel, employed by the 
 Master of the Rolls to edit the Brut y Tywysogion, 
 the ' Chronicle of the Princes,' says in his intro- 
 voL. V 33 D 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 duction, in many respects so useful and interesting : 
 ' We may add, on the authority of a scrupulously 
 faithful antiquary, and one that was deeply versed 
 in the traditions of his order — the late lolo 
 Morganwg — that King Arthur in his Institutes 
 of the Round Table introduced the age of the 
 world for events which occurred before Christ, 
 and the year of Christ's nativity for all subsequent 
 events.' Now, putting out of the question lolo 
 Morganwg's character as an antiquary, it is 
 obvious that no one, not Grimm himself, can 
 stand in that way as ' authority ' for King 
 Arthur's having thus regulated chronology by 
 his Institutes of the Round Table, or even for 
 there ever having been any such institutes at all. 
 And finally, greatly as I respect and admire Mr. 
 Eugene O' Curry, unquestionable as is the sagacity, 
 the moderation, which he in general unites with 
 his immense learning, I must say that he, too, 
 like his brother Celt-lovers, sometimes lays him- 
 self dangerously open. For instance, the Royal 
 Irish Academy possesses in its Museum a relic 
 of the greatest value, the Domhnach Airgid, a 
 Latin manuscript of the four gospels. The outer 
 box containing this manuscript is of the fourteenth 
 century, but the manuscript itself, says O'Curry 
 (and no man is better able to judge), is certainly 
 of the sixth. This is all very well. ' But,' 
 O'Curry then goes on, ' I believe no reasonable 
 doubt can exist that the Domhnach Airgid was 
 actually sanctified by the hand of our great 
 
 34 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 Apostle.' One has a thrill of excitement at 
 receiving this assurance from such a man as 
 Eugene O 'Curry ; one believes that he is really 
 going to make it clear that St. Patrick did 
 actually sanctify the Domhnach Airgid with his 
 own hands ; and one reads on : — 
 
 ' As St. Patrick, says an ancient life of St. 
 Mac Carthainn preserved by Colgan in his Acta 
 Sanctorum Hibernia, was on his way from the 
 north, and coming to the place now called 
 Clogher, he was carried over a stream by his 
 strong man, Bishop Mac Carthainn, who, while 
 bearing the Saint, groaned aloud, exclaiming : 
 " Ugh ! Ugh ! " 
 
 ' " Upon my good word," said the Saint, " it 
 was not usual with you to make that noise." 
 
 ' " I am now old and infirm," said Bishop 
 Mac Carthainn, " and all my early companions 
 in mission-work you have settled down in their 
 respective churches, while I am still on my 
 travels." 
 
 ' " Found a church then," said the Saint, 
 " that shall not be too near us (that is to his 
 own Church of Armagh) for familiarity, nor too 
 far from us for intercourse." 
 
 ' And the Saint then left Bishop Mac Carthainn 
 there, at Clogher, and bestowed the Domhnach 
 Airgid upon him, which had been given to 
 Patrick from heaven, when he was on the sea, 
 coming to Erin.' 
 
 The legend is full of poetry, full of humour ; 
 
 35 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 and one can quite appreciate, after reading it, the 
 tact which gave St. Patrick such a prodigious 
 success in organising the primitive church in 
 Ireland ; the new bishop, ' not too near us for 
 familiarity, nor too far from us for intercourse,' 
 is a masterpiece. But how can Eugene O'Curry 
 have imagined that it takes no more than a 
 legend like that, to prove that the particular 
 manuscript now in the Museum of the Royal 
 Irish Academy was once in St. Patrick's pocket ? 
 I insist upon extravagances like these, not in 
 order to throw ridicule upon the Celt-lovers, — 
 on the contrary, I feel a great deal of sympathy 
 with them, — but rather, to make it clear what 
 an immense advantage the Celt -haters, the 
 negative side, have in the controversy about 
 Celtic antiquity ; how much a clear-headed 
 sceptic, like Mr. Nash, may utterly demolish, 
 and, in demolishing, give himself the appearance 
 of having won an entire victory. But an entire 
 victory he has, as I will next proceed to show, 
 by no means won. 
 
 II 
 
 I said that a sceptic like Mr. Nash, by 
 demolishing the rubbish of the Celtic antiquaries, 
 might often give himself the appearance of having 
 won a complete victory, but that a complete 
 victory he had, in truth, by no means won. He 
 has cleared much rubbish away, but this is no 
 
 36 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 such very difficult feat, and requires mainly 
 common-sense ; to be sure, Welsh archasologists 
 are apt to lose their common -sense, but at 
 moments when they are in possession of it they 
 can do the indispensable, negative part of criti- 
 cism, not, indeed, so briskly or cleverly as Mr, 
 Nash, but still well enough. Edward Davies, for 
 instance, has quite clearly seen that the alleged 
 remains of old Welsh literature are not to be 
 taken for genuine just as they stand : ' Some petty 
 and mendicant minstrel, who only chaunted it as 
 an old song, has tacked on ' (he says of a poem 
 he is discussing) ' these lines, in a style and 
 measure totally different from the preceding 
 verses : " May the Trinity grant us mercy in 
 the day of judgment : a liberal donation, good 
 gentlemen ! " ' There, fifty years before Mr. 
 Nash, is a clearance very like one of Mr. Nash's. 
 But the difficult feat in this matter is the feat of 
 construction ; to determine, when one has cleared 
 away all that is to be cleared away, what is the 
 significance of that which is left ; and here, I 
 confess, I think Mr. Nash and hfs fellow-sceptics, 
 who say that next to nothing is left, and that the 
 significance of whatever is left is next to nothing, 
 dissatisfy the genuine critic even more than 
 Edward Davies and his brother-enthusiasts, who 
 have a sense that something primitive, august, 
 and interesting is there, though they fail to 
 extract it, dissatisfy him. There is a very edify- 
 ing story told by O'Curry of the effect produced 
 
 37 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 on Moore, the poet, who had undertaken to 
 write the history of Ireland (a task for which 
 he was quite unfit), by the contemplation of an 
 old Irish manuscript. Moore had, without 
 knowing anything about them, spoken slight- 
 ingly of the value to the historian of Ireland of 
 the materials afforded by such manuscripts ; but, 
 says O'Curry : — 
 
 ' In the year 1839, during one of his last visits 
 to the land of his birth, he, in company with his 
 old and attached friend Dr. Petrie, favoured me 
 with an unexpected visit at the Royal Irish 
 Academy. I was at that period employed on 
 the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, and at the time 
 of his visit happened to have before me on my 
 desk the Books of Ballymote and Lecain, The Speckled 
 Book, The Annals of the Four Masters, and many 
 other ancient books, for historical research and 
 reference. I had never before seen Moore, and 
 after a brief introduction and explanation of the 
 nature of my occupation by Dr. Petrie, and seeing 
 the formidable array of so many dark and time- 
 worn volumes by which I was surrounded, he 
 looked a little disconcerted, but after a while 
 plucked up courage to open the Book of Ballymote 
 and ask what it was. Dr. Petrie and myself then 
 entered into a short explanation of the history 
 and character of the books then present as well 
 as of ancient Gaedhelic documents in general. 
 Moore listened with great attention, alternately 
 scanning the books and myself, and then asked 
 
 38 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 me, in a serious tone, if I understood them, and 
 how I had learned to do so. Having satisfied 
 him upon these points, he turned to Dr. Petrie 
 and said : " Petrie, these huge tomes could not 
 have been written by fools or for any foolish 
 purpose. I never knew anything about them 
 before, and I had no right to have undertaken 
 the History of Ireland." ' 
 
 And from that day Moore, it is said, lost all 
 heart for going on with his History of Ireland^ 
 and it was only the importunity of the publishers 
 which induced him to bring out the remaining 
 volume. 
 
 Could not have been written by fools, or for any 
 foolish purpose. That is, I am convinced, a true 
 presentiment to have in one's mind when one 
 looks at Irish documents like the Book ofBallymote, 
 or Welsh documents like the Red Book of Hergest. 
 In some respects, at any rate, these documents 
 are what they claim to be, they hold what they 
 pretend to hold, they touch that primitive world 
 of which they profess to be the voice. The true 
 critic is he who can detect this precious and 
 genuine part in them, and employ it for the 
 elucidation of the Celt's genius and history, and 
 for any other fruitful purposes to which it can 
 be applied. Merely to point out the mixture of 
 what is late and spurious in them, is to touch 
 but the fringes of the matter. In reliance upon 
 the discovery of this mixture of what is late and 
 spurious in them, to pooh-pooh them altogether, 
 
 39 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 to treat them as a heap of rubbish, a mass of 
 Middle-Age forgeries, is to fall into the greatest 
 possible error. Granted that all the manuscripts 
 of Welsh poetry (to take that branch of Celtic 
 literature which has had, in Mr. Nash, the ablest 
 disparager), granted that all such manuscripts 
 that we possess are, with the most insignificant 
 exception, not older than the twelfth century ; 
 granted that the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 
 were a time of great poetical activity in Wales, 
 a time when the medisval literature flourished 
 there, as it flourished in England, France, and 
 other countries ; granted that a great deal of 
 what Welsh enthusiasts have attributed to their 
 great traditional poets of the sixth century belongs 
 to this later epoch, — what then ? Does that get 
 rid of the great traditional poets, the Cynveirdd 
 or old bards, Aneurin, Taliesin, Llywarch Hen, 
 and their compeers, — does that get rid of the 
 great poetical tradition of the sixth century alto- 
 gether ; does it merge the whole literary antiquity 
 of Wales in her mediaeval literary antiquity, or, 
 at least, reduce all other than this to insignificance ? 
 Mr. Nash says it does ; all his efforts are directed 
 to show how much of the so-called sixth-century 
 pieces may be resolved into mediaeval, twelfth- 
 century work ; his grand thesis is that there is 
 nothing primitive and pre-Christian in the extant 
 Welsh literature, no traces of the Druidism 
 and Paganism every one associates with Celtic 
 antiquity ; all this, he says, was extinguished by 
 
 40 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 Paulinus in a.d. 59, and never resuscitated. ' At 
 the time the Mabinogion and the Taliesin ballads 
 were composed, no tradition or popular recollec- 
 tion of the Druids or the Druidical mythology 
 existed in Wales. The Welsh bards knew of no 
 older mystery, nor of any mystic creed, unknown 
 to the rest of the Christian world.' And Mr. 
 Nash complains that 'the old opinion that the 
 Welsh poems contain notices of Druid or Pagan 
 superstitions of a remote origin ' should still find 
 promulgators ; what we find in them is only, he 
 says, what was circulating in Wales in the twelfth 
 century, and ' one great mistake in these investiga- 
 tions has been the supposing that the Welsh of the 
 twelfth, or even of the sixth century, were wiser 
 as well as more Pagan than their neighbours.' 
 
 Why, what a wonderful thing is this ! We 
 have, in the first place, the most weighty and 
 explicit testimony, — Strabo's, Caesar's, Lucan's, 
 — that this race once possessed a special, pro- 
 found, spiritual discipline, that they were, to use 
 Mr. Nash's words, ' wiser than their neighbours.' 
 Lucan's words are singularly clear and strong, 
 and serve well to stand as a landmark in this 
 controversy, in which one is sometimes em- 
 barrassed by hearing authorities quoted on this 
 side or that, when one does not feel sure pre- 
 cisely what they say, how much or how little ; 
 Lucan, addressing those hitherto under the 
 pressure of Rome, but now left by the Roman 
 civil war to their own devices, says : — 
 
 41 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 ' Ye too, ye bards, who by your praises per- 
 petuate the memory of the fallen brave, without 
 hindrance poured forth your strains. And ye, 
 ye Druids, now that the sword was removed, 
 began once more your barbaric rites and weird 
 solemnities. To you only is given knowledge 
 or ignorance (whichever it be) of the gods and 
 the powers of heaven ; your dwelling is in the 
 lone heart of the forest. From you we learn, 
 that the bourne of man's ghost is not the sense- 
 less grave, not the pale realm of the monarch 
 below ; in another world his spirit survives still ; 
 — death, if your lore be true, is but the passage 
 to enduring life.' 
 
 There is the testimony of an educated Roman, 
 fifty years after Christ, to the Celtic race being 
 then ' wiser than their neighbours ' ; testimony 
 all the more remarkable because civilised nations, 
 though very prone to ascribe to barbarous people 
 an ideal purity and simplicity of life and manners, 
 are by no means naturally inclined to ascribe to 
 them high attainment in intellectual and spiritual 
 things. And now, along with this testimony of 
 Lucan's, one has to carry in mind Cassar's re- 
 mark, that the Druids, partly from a religious 
 scruple, partly from a desire to discipline the 
 memory of their pupils, committed nothing to 
 writing. Well, then come the crushing defeat 
 of the Celtic race in Britain and the Roman 
 conquest ; but the Celtic race subsisted here 
 still, and any one can see that, while the race 
 
 42 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 subsisted, the traditions of a discipline such as 
 that of which Lucan has drawn the picture were 
 not likely to be so very speedily ' extinguished.' 
 The withdrawal of the Romans, the recovered 
 independence of the native race here, the Saxon 
 invasion, the struggle with the Saxons, were just 
 the ground for one of those bursts of energetic 
 national life and self-consciousness which find a 
 voice in a burst of poets and poetry. Accord- 
 ingly, to this time, to the sixth century, the 
 universal Welsh tradition attaches the great 
 group of British poets, Taliesin and his fellows. 
 In the twelfth century there began for Wales, 
 along with another burst of national life, another 
 burst of poetry ; and this burst literary in the 
 stricter sense of the word, — a burst which left, 
 for the first time, written records. It wrote the 
 records of its predecessors, as well as of itself, 
 and therefore Mr. Nash wants to make it the 
 real author of the whole poetry, one may say, of 
 the sixth century as well as its own. No doubt 
 one cannot produce the texts of the poetry of 
 the sixth century ; no doubt we have this only 
 as the twelfth and succeeding centuries wrote 
 it down ; no doubt they mixed and changed it 
 a great deal in writing it down. But, since 
 a continuous stream of testimony shows the 
 enduring existence and influence among the 
 kindred Celts of Wales and Brittany, from the 
 sixth century to the twelfth, of an old national 
 literature, it seems certain that much of this 
 
 43 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 must be traceable in the documents of the twelfth 
 century, and the interesting thing is to trace it. 
 It cannot be denied that there is such a con- 
 tinuous stream of testimony ; there is Gildas in 
 the sixth century, Nennius in the eighth, the 
 laws of Howel in the tenth ; in the eleventh, 
 twenty or thirty years before the new literary 
 epoch began, we hear of Rhys ap Tudor having 
 ' brought with him from Brittany the system of 
 the Round Table, which at home had become 
 quite forgotten, and he restored it as it is, with 
 regard to minstrels and bards, as it had been at 
 Caerleon-upon-Usk, under the Emperor Arthur, 
 in the time of the sovereignty of the race of the 
 Cymry over the island of Britain and its adjacent 
 islands.' Mr. Nash's own comment on this is : 
 ' We here see the introduction of the Arthurian 
 romance from Brittany, preceding by nearly one 
 generation the revival of music and poetry in 
 North Wales ' ; and yet he does not seem to 
 perceive what a testimony is here to the reality, 
 fulness, and subsistence of that primitive litera- 
 ture about which he is so sceptical. Then in 
 the twelfth century testimony to this primitive 
 literature absolutely abounds ; one can quote 
 none better than that of Giraldus de Barri, or 
 Giraldus Cambrensis, as he is usually called. 
 Giraldus is an excellent authority, who knew 
 well what he was writing about, and he speaks 
 of the Welsh bards and rhapsodists of his time 
 as having in their possession * ancient and 
 
 44 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 authentic books ' in the Welsh language. The 
 apparatus of technical terms of poetry, again, 
 and the elaborate poetical organisation which we 
 find both in Wales and Ireland, existing from 
 the very commencement of the mediaeval literary 
 period in each, and to which no other mediaeval 
 literature, so far as I know, shows at its first 
 beginnings anything similar, indicates surely, in 
 these Celtic peoples, the clear and persistent 
 tradition of an older poetical period of great 
 development, and almost irresistibly connects 
 itself in one's mind with the elaborate Druidic 
 discipline which Cassar mentions. 
 
 But perhaps the best way to get a full sense 
 of the storied antiquity, forming as it were the 
 background to those mediaeval documents which 
 in Mr. Nash's eyes pretty much begin and end 
 with themselves, is to take, almost at random, a 
 passage from such a tale as Kilhwch and Olwen, 
 in the Mabinogion, — that charming collection, for 
 which we owe such a debt of gratitude to Lady 
 Charlotte Guest (to call her still by the name 
 she bore when she made her happy entry into 
 the world of letters), and which she so unkindly 
 suffers to remain out of print. Almost every 
 page of this tale points to traditions and person- 
 ages of the most remote antiquity, and is instinct 
 with the very breath of the primitive world. 
 Search is made for Mabon, the son of Modron, 
 who was taken when three nights old from 
 between his mother and the wall. The seekers 
 
 45 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 go first to the Ousel of Cilgwri ; the Ousel 
 had lived long enough to peck a smith's anvil 
 down to the size of a nut, but he had never 
 heard of Mabon. ' But there is a race of animals 
 who were formed before me, and I will be your 
 guide to them.' So the Ousel guides them to 
 the Stag of Redynvre. The Stag has seen an oak 
 sapling, in the wood where he lived, grow up to 
 be an oak with a hundred branches, and then 
 slowly decay down to a withered stump, yet he 
 had never heard of Mabon. ' But I will be 
 your guide to the place where there is an animal 
 which was formed before I was ' ; and he guides 
 them to the Owl of Cwm Cawlwyd. ' When 
 first I came hither,' says the Owl, ' the wide 
 valley you see was a wooded glen. And a race 
 of men came and rooted it up. And there grew 
 a second wood ; and this wood is the third. 
 My wings, are they not withered stumps ? ' 
 Yet the Owl, in spite of his great age, had never 
 heard of Mabon ; but he offered to be guide ' to 
 where is the oldest animal in the world, and the 
 one that has travelled most, the Eagle of Gwern 
 Abwy.' The Eagle was so old, that a rock, 
 from the top of which he pecked at the stars 
 every evening, was now not so much as a span 
 high. He knew npthing of Mabon ; but there 
 was a monster Salmon, into whom he once 
 struck his claws in Llyn Llyw, who might, per- 
 haps, tell them something of him. And at last 
 the Salmon of Llyn Llyw told them of Mabon. 
 
 46 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 ' With every tide I go along the river upwards, 
 until I come near to the walls of Gloucester, and 
 there have I found such wrong as I never found 
 elsewhere.' And the Salmon took Arthur's 
 messengers on his shoulders up to the wall of the 
 prison in Gloucester, and they delivered Mabon. 
 Nothing could better give that sense of 
 primitive and pre -medieval antiquity which 
 to the observer with any tact for these things 
 is, I think, clearly perceptible in these remains, 
 at whatever time they may have been written ; 
 or better serve to check too absolute an acceptance 
 of Mr. Nash's doctrine, — in some respects very 
 salutary, — ' that the common assumption of such 
 remains of the date of the sixth century, has 
 been made upon very unsatisfactory grounds.' 
 It is true, it has ; it is true, too, that, as he 
 goes on to say, ' writers who claim for produc- 
 tions actually existing only in manuscripts of 
 the twelfth, an origin in the sixth century, are 
 called upon to demonstrate the links of evidence, 
 either internal or external, which bridge over 
 this great intervening period of at least five 
 hundred years.' Then Mr. Nash continues : 
 'This external evidence is altogether wanting.' 
 Not altogether, as we have seen ; that assertion 
 is a little too strong. But I am content to let it 
 pass, because it is true, that without internal 
 evidence in this matter the external evidence 
 would be of no moment. But when Mr. Nash 
 continues further : ' And the internal evidence 
 
 47 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 even of the so-called historic poems themselves, 
 is, in some instances at least, opposed to their 
 claims to an origin in the sixth centuryi' and 
 leaves the matter there, and finishes his chapter, 
 I say that is an unsatisfactory turn to give to the 
 matter, and a lame and impotent conclusion to 
 his chapter ; because the one interesting, fruitful 
 question here is, not in what instances the in- 
 ternal evidence opposes the claims of these poems 
 to a sixth-century origin, but in what instances 
 it supports them, and what these sixth-century 
 remains, thus established, signify. 
 
 So again with the question as to the mytho- 
 logical import of these poems. Mr. Nash 
 seems to me to have dealt with this, too, rather 
 in the spirit of a sturdy enemy of the Celts and 
 their pretensions, — often enough chimerical, — 
 than in the spirit of a disinterested man of 
 science. ' We find in the oldest compositions 
 in the Welsh language no traces,' he says, 'of 
 the Druids, or of a pagan mythology.' He 
 will not hear of there being, for instance, in 
 these compositions, traces of the doctrine of 
 the transmigration of souls, attributed to the 
 Druids in such clear words by Caesar. He 
 is very severe upon a German scholar, long and 
 favourably known in this country, who has 
 already furnished several contributions to our 
 knowledge of the Celtic race, and of whose 
 labours the main fruit has, I believe, not yet 
 been given us, — Mr. Meyer. He is very severe 
 
 48 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 upon Mr. Meyer, for finding in one of the 
 poems ascribed to Taliesin, ' a sacrificial hymn 
 addressed to the god Pryd, in his character 
 of god of the Sun.' It is not for me to 
 pronounce for or against this notion of Mr. 
 Meyer's.' I have not the knowledge which 
 is needed in order to make one's suffrage in 
 these matters of any value ; speaking merely 
 as one of the unlearned public, I will confess 
 that allegory seems to me to play, in Mr. 
 Meyer's theories, a somewhat excessive part ; 
 Arthur and his Twelve (.?) Knights of the 
 Round Table signifying solely the year with 
 its twelve months ; Percival and the Miller 
 signifying solely steel and the grindstone ; 
 Stonehenge and the Gododin put to purely 
 calendarial purposes ; the Nibelungen, the Maha- 
 bharata, and the Iliad, finally following the 
 fate of the Gododin; all this appears to me, 
 I will confess, a little prematurely grasped, 
 a little unsubstantial. But that any one who 
 knows the set of modern mythological science 
 towards astronomical and solar myths, a set 
 which has already justified itself in many respects 
 so victoriously, and which is so irresistible that 
 one can hardly now look up at the sun without 
 having the sensations of a moth ; — that any 
 one who knows this should find in the 
 Welsh remains no traces of mythology is quite 
 astounding. Why, the heroes and heroines 
 of the old Cymric world are all in the sky 
 VOL. v 49 ^ 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 as well as in Welsh story ; Arthur is the Great 
 Bear, his harp is the constellation Lyra ; 
 Cassiopeia's chair is Llys Don, Don's Court ; 
 the daughter of Don was Arianrod, and the 
 Northern Crown is Caer Arianrod ; Gwydion 
 was Don's son, and the Milky Way is Caer 
 Gwydion. With Gwydion is Math, the son of 
 Mathonwy, the ' man of illusion and phantasy ' ; 
 and the moment one goes below the surface, — 
 almost before one goes below the surface, — all 
 is illusion and phantasy, double-meaning, and 
 far-reaching mythological import, in the world 
 which all these personages inhabit. What are 
 the three hundred ravens of Owen, and the nine 
 sorceresses of Peredur, and the dogs of Annwn 
 the Welsh Hades, and the birds of Rhiannon, 
 whose song was so sweet that warriors remained 
 spell-bound for eighty years together listening to 
 them ? What is the Avanc, the water-monster, 
 of whom every lake-side in Wales, and her 
 proverbial speech, and her music, to this day 
 preserve the tradition ? What is Gwyn the son 
 of Nudd, king of fairie, the ruler of the 
 Tylwyth Teg, or family of beauty, who till the 
 day of doom fights on every first day of May, 
 — the great feast of the sun among the Celtic 
 peoples, — with Gwythyr, for the fair Cordelia, 
 the daughter of Lear .? What is the wonderful 
 mare of Teirnyon, which on the night of every 
 first of May foaled, and no one ever knew what 
 became of the colt ? Who is the mystic Arawn, 
 
 50 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 the king of Annwn, who changed semblance for 
 a year with Pwyll, prince of Dyved, and reigned 
 in his place ? These are no mediaeval personages ; 
 they belong to an older, pagan, mythological 
 world. The very first thing that strikes one, 
 in reading the Mabinogion, is how evidently the 
 medieval story-teller is pillaging an antiquity 
 of which he does not fully possess the secret ; 
 he is like a peasant building his hut on the 
 site of Halicarnassus or Ephesus ; he builds, 
 but what he. builds is full of materials of which 
 he knows not the history, or knows by a 
 glimmering tradition merely ; — stones ' not of 
 this building,' but of an older architecture, 
 greater, cunninger, more majestical. In the 
 medieval stories of no Latin or Teutonic people 
 does this strike one as in those of the Welsh. 
 Kilhwch, in the story, already quoted, of 
 Kilhwch and Olwen, asks help at the hand of 
 Arthur's warriors ; a list of these warriors is 
 given, which fills I know not how many pages 
 of Lady Charlotte Guest's book ; this list is a 
 perfect treasure-house of mysterious ruins : — 
 
 'Teithi Hen, the son of Gwynham — (his 
 domains were swallowed up by the sea, and he 
 himself hardly escaped, and he came to Arthur, 
 and his knife had this peculiarity, that from the 
 time that he came there no haft would ever 
 remain upon it, and owing to this a sickness 
 came over him, and he pined away during the 
 remainder of his life, and of this he died) . 
 
 SI 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 ' Drem, the son of Dremidyd — (when the 
 gnat arose in the morning with the sun, Drem 
 could see it from Gelli Wic in Cornwall, as far 
 off as Pen Blathaon in North Britain). 
 
 ' Kynyr Keinvarvawc — (when he was told he 
 had a son born, he said to his wife : Damsel, if 
 thy son be mine, his heart will be always cold, 
 and there will be no warmth in his hands).' 
 
 How evident, again, is the slightness of the 
 narrator's hold upon the Twrch-Trwyth and his 
 strange story ! How manifest the mixture of 
 known and unknown, shadowy and clear, of 
 different layers and orders of tradition jumbled 
 together, in the story of Bran the Blessed, a story 
 whose personages touch a comparatively late and 
 historic time. Bran invades Ireland, to avenge 
 one of ' the three unhappy blows of this island,' 
 the daily striking of Branwen by her husband 
 Matholwch, King of Ireland. Bran is mortally 
 wounded by a poisoned dart, and only seven men 
 of Britain, ' the Island of the Mighty,' escape, 
 among them Taliesin : — 
 
 * And Bran commanded them that they should 
 cut off his head. And take you my head, said 
 he, and bear it even unto the White Mount in 
 London, and bury it there with the face towards 
 France. And a long time will you be upon the 
 road. In Harlech you will be feasting seven 
 years, the birds of Rhiannon singing unto you 
 the while. And all that time the head will be 
 to you as pleasant company as it ever was when 
 
 52 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 on my body. And at Gwales in Penvro you 
 will be fourscore years, and you may remain 
 there, and the head with you uncorrupted, until 
 you open the door that looks towards Aber 
 Henvelen and towards Cornwall. And after 
 you have opened that door, there you may no 
 longer tarry ; set forth then to London to bury 
 the head, and go straight forward. 
 
 ' So they cut off his head, and those seven 
 went forward therewith. And Branwen was 
 the eighth with them, and they came to land at 
 Aber Alaw in Anglesey, and they sate down to 
 rest. And Branwen looked towards Ireland and 
 towards the Island of the Mighty, to see if she 
 could descry them. " Alas," said she, " woe is 
 me that I was ever born ; two islands have been 
 destroyed because of me." Then she uttered a 
 loud groan, and there broke her heart. And 
 they made her a four-sided grave, and buried her 
 upon the banks of the Alaw. 
 
 ' Then they went to Harlech, and sate down 
 to feast and to drink there ; and there came three 
 birds and began singing, and all the songs they 
 had ever heard were harsh compared thereto ; and 
 at this feast they continued seven years. Then 
 they went to Gwales in Penvro, and there they 
 found a fair and regal spot overlooking the 
 ocean, and a spacious hall was therein. And 
 they went into the hall, and two of its doors were 
 open, but the third door was closed, that which 
 looked towards Cornwall. " See yonder," said 
 
 53 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 Manawyddan, " is the door that we maynot open." 
 And that night they regaled themselves, and 
 were joyful. And there they remained fourscore 
 years, nor did they think they had ever spent a 
 time more joyous and mirthful. And they were 
 not more weary than when first they came, 
 neither did they, any of them, know the time 
 they had been there. And it was as pleasant to 
 them having the head with them as if Bran had 
 been with them himself. 
 
 ' But one day said Heilyn, the son of Gwyn : 
 " Evil betide me if I do not open the door to 
 know if that is true which is said concerning 
 it." So he opened the door and looked towards 
 Cornwall and Aber Henvelen. And when they 
 had looked, they were as conscious of all the 
 evils they had ever sustained, and of all the 
 friends and companions they had lost, and of all 
 the misery that had befallen them, as if all had 
 happened in that very spot ; and especially of 
 the fate of their lord. And because of their 
 perturbation they could not rest, but journeyed 
 forth with the head towards London. And they 
 buried the head in the White Mount.' 
 
 Arthur afterwards, in his pride and self- 
 confidence, disinterred the head, and this was 
 one of ' the three unhappy disclosures of the 
 island of Britain.' 
 
 There is evidently mixed here, with the 
 newer legend, a detritus, as the geologists would 
 say, of something far older ; and the secret of 
 
 54 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 Wales and its genius is not truly reached until- 
 this detritus, instead of being called recent because 
 it is found in contact with what is recent, is 
 disengaged, and is made to tell its own story. 
 
 But when we show him things of this kind 
 in the Welsh remains, Mr. Nash has an answer 
 for us, ' Oh,' he says, ' all this is merely a 
 machinery of necromancers and magic, such as 
 has probably been possessed by all people in all 
 ages, more or less abundantly. How similar 
 are the creations of the human mind in times 
 and places the most remote ! We see in this 
 similarity only an evidence of the existence of 
 a common stock of ideas, variously developed 
 according to the formative pressure of external 
 circumstances. The materials of these tales are 
 not peculiar to the Welsh.' And then Mr. 
 Nash points out, with much learning and in- 
 genuity, how certain incidents of these tales have 
 their counterparts in Irish, in Scandinavian, in 
 Oriental romance. He says, fairly enough, that 
 the assertions of Taliesin, in the famous Hanes 
 Taliesin, or History of Taliesin, that he was present 
 with Noah in the Ark, at the Tower of Babel, 
 and with Alexander of Macedon, 'we may 
 ascribe to the poetic fancy of the Christian 
 priest of the thirteenth century, who brought 
 this romance into its present form. We may 
 compare these statements of the universal pres- 
 ence of the wonder-working magician with those 
 of the gleeman who recites the Anglo-Saxon 
 
 55 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 metrical tale called the Traveller's Song.' No 
 doubt lands the most distant can be shown to 
 have a common property in many marvellous 
 stories. This is one of the most interesting 
 discoveries of modern science ; but modern 
 science is equally interested in knowing how 
 the genius of each people has differentiated, so 
 to speak, this common property of theirs ; in 
 tracking out, in each case, that special ' variety 
 of development ' which, to use Mr. Nash's 
 own words, 'the formative pressure of external 
 circumstances ' has occasioned ; and not the 
 formative pressure from without only, but also 
 the formative pressure from within. It is this 
 which he who deals with the Welsh remains in 
 a philosophic spirit wants to know. Where is 
 the force, for scientific purposes, of telling us 
 that certain incidents by which Welsh poetry 
 has been supposed to indicate a surviving tradi- 
 tion of the doctrine of transmigration, are found 
 in Irish poetry also, when Irish poetry has, like 
 Welsh, its roots in that Celtism which is said 
 to have held this doctrine of transmigration so 
 strongly ? Where is even the great force, for 
 scientific purposes, of proving, if it were possible 
 to prove, that the extant remains of Welsh 
 poetry contain not one plain declaration of 
 Druidical, Pagan, pre-Christian doctrine, if one 
 has in the extant remains of Breton poetry such 
 texts as this from the prophecy of Gwenchlan : 
 ' Three times must we all die, before we come 
 
 56 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 to our final repose ' ? or as the cry of the eagles, 
 in the same poem, of fierce thirst for Christian 
 blood, a cry in which the poet evidently gives 
 vent to his own hatred ? since the solidarity, to 
 use that convenient French word, of Breton and 
 Welsh poetry is so complete, that the ideas of 
 the one may be almost certainly assumed not to 
 have been wanting to those of the other. The 
 question is, when Taliesin says, in the Battle of 
 the Trees : ' I have been in many shapes before I 
 attained a congenial form. I have been a narrow 
 blade of a sword, I have been a drop in the air, 
 I have been a shining star, I have been a word 
 in a book, I have been a book in the beginning, 
 I have been a light in a lantern a year and a 
 half, I have been a bridge for passing over three- 
 score rivers ; I have journeyed as an eagle, I 
 have been a boat on the sea, I have been a 
 director in battle, I have been a sword in the 
 hand, I have been a shield in fight, I have been 
 the string of a harp, I have been enchanted for a 
 year in the foam of water. There is nothing in 
 which I have not been,' — the question is, have 
 these 'statements of the universal presence of 
 the wonder-working magician ' nothing which 
 distinguishes them from ' similar creations of 
 the human mind in times and places the most 
 remote ' ; have they not an inwardness, a severity ' 
 of form, a solemnity of tone, which indicates the 
 still reverberating echo of a profound doctrine 
 and discipline, such as was Druidism ? Suppose . 
 
 57 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 we compare Taliesin, as Mr. Nash invites us, 
 with the gleeman of the Anglo-Saxon Traveller s 
 Song. Take the specimen of this song which 
 Mr. Nash himself quotes : ' I have been with 
 the Israelites and with the Essyringi, with the 
 Hebrews and with the Indians and with the 
 Egyptians ; I have been with the Medes and 
 with the Persians and with the Myrgings.' 
 It is very well to parallel with this extract 
 Taliesin's : ' I carried the banner before Alex- 
 ander ; I was in Canaan when Absalom was 
 slain ; I was on the horse's crupper of Elias and 
 Enoch ; I was on the high cross of the merciful 
 son of God ; I was the chief overseer at the 
 building of the tower of Nimrod ; I was with 
 my King in the manger of the ass ; I supported 
 Moses through the waters of Jordan ; I have been 
 in the buttery in the land of the Trinity ; it is 
 not known what is the nature of its meat and its 
 fish.' It is very well to say that these assertions 
 ' we may fairly ascribe to the poetic fancy of 
 a Christian priest of the thirteenth century.' 
 Certainly we may ; the last of Taliesin's asser- 
 tions more especially ; though one must remark 
 at the same time that the Welshman shows 
 much more fire and imagination than the Anglo- 
 Saxon. But Taliesin adds, after his : ' I was in 
 Canaan when Absalom was slain,' ' I was in the 
 hall of Don before Gwydion was born ' ; he adds, 
 after : ' I was chief overseer at the building of 
 the tower of Nimrod,' ' / have been three times 
 
 58 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 resident in the castle of Arianrod' ; he adds, after : 
 ' I was at the cross with Mary Magdalene,' 
 ' / obtained my inspiration from the cauldron of 
 Ceridwen.^ And finally, after the medieval 
 touch of the visit to the buttery in the land of 
 the Trinity, he goes off at score : ' I have been 
 instructed in the whole system of the universe ; 
 I shall be till the day of judgment on the face of 
 the earth. I have been in an uneasy chair above 
 Caer Sidin, and the whirling round without 
 motion between three elements. Is it not the 
 wonder of the world that cannot be discovered ? ' 
 And so he ends the poem. But here is the 
 Celtic, the essential part of the poem : it is here 
 that the ' formative pressure ' has been really in 
 operation ; and here surely is paganism and 
 mythology enoiigh, which the Christian priest 
 of the thirteenth century can have had nothing 
 to do with. It is unscientific, no doubt, to 
 interpret this part as Edward Davies and Mr. 
 Herbert do ; but it is unscientific also to get rid 
 of it as Mr. Nash does. Wales and the Welsh 
 genius are not to be known without this part ; 
 and the true critic is he who can best disengage 
 its real significance. 
 
 I say, then, what we want is to know the / 
 Celt and his genius ; not to exalt him or to 
 abase him, but to know him. And for this a 
 disinterested, positive, and constructive criticism 
 is needed. Neither his friends nor his enemies 
 have yet given us much of this. His friends 
 
 59 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 have given us materials for criticism, and for 
 these wc ought to be grateful ; his enemies have 
 given us negative criticism, and for this, too, 
 up to a certain point, we may be grateful ; but 
 the criticism we really want neither of them has 
 yet given us. 
 
 Philology, however, that science which in 
 our time has had so many successes, has not 
 been abandoned by her good fortune in touching 
 the Celt ; philology has brought, almost for the 
 first time in their lives, the Celt and sound 
 criticism together. The Celtic grammar of 
 Zeuss, whose death is so grievous a loss to 
 science, offers a splendid specimen of that 
 patient, disinterested way of treating objects of 
 knowledge, which is the best and most attrac- 
 tive characteristic of Germany. Zeuss proceeds 
 neither as a Celt -lover nor as a Celt -hater ; 
 not the slightest trace of a wish to glorify 
 Teutonism or to abase Celtism, appears in his 
 book. The only desire apparent there, is the 
 desire to know his object, the language of the 
 Celtic peoples, as it really is. In this he stands 
 as a model to Celtic students ; and it has been 
 given to him, as a reward for his sound method, 
 to establish certain points which are henceforth 
 cardinal points, landmarks, in all the discussion 
 of Celtic matters, and which no one had so 
 established before. People talked at random 
 of Celtic writings of this or that age ; Zeuss 
 has definitely fixed the age of what we actually 
 
 60 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 have of these writings. To take the Cymric 
 group of languages : our earliest Cornish docu- 
 ment is a vocabulary of the thirteenth century ; 
 our earliest Breton document is a short descrip- 
 tion of an estate in a deed of the ninth century ; 
 our earliest Welsh documents are Welsh glosses 
 of the eighth century to Eutychus, the gram- 
 marian, and Ovid's Art of Love, and the verses 
 found by Edward Lhuyd in the Juvencus manu- 
 script at Cambridge. The mention of this 
 Juvencus fragment, by the bye, suggests the 
 difference there is between an interested and a 
 disinterested critical habit. Mr. Nash deals 
 with this fragment ; but, in spite of all his 
 great acuteness and learning, because he has a 
 bias, because he does not bring to these matters 
 the disinterested spirit they need, he is capable 
 of getting rid, quite unwarrantably, of a par- 
 ticular word in the fragment which does not 
 suit him ; his dealing with the verses is an 
 advocate's dealing, not a critic's. Of this sort 
 of thing Zeuss is incapable. 
 
 The test which Zeuss used for establish- 
 ing the age of these documents is a scientific 
 test, the test of orthography and of declensional 
 and syntactical forms. These matters are far out 
 of my province, but what is clear, sound, and 
 simple, has a natural attraction for us all, and 
 one feels a pleasure in repeating it. It is the 
 grand sign of age, Zeuss says, in Welsh and 
 Irish words, when what the grammarians call 
 
 6i 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 the ' destitutio tenuium ' has not yet taken place ; 
 when the sharp consonants have not yet been 
 changed into flat,/ or t into b or d; when, for 
 instance, map, a son, has not yet become mab ; 
 coet, a wood, coed ; ocef, a harrow, oged. This is 
 a clear, scientific test to apply, and a test of 
 which the accuracy can be verified ; I do not 
 say that Zeuss was the first person who knew 
 this test or applied it, but I say that he is the 
 first person who in dealing with Celtic matters 
 has invariably proceeded by means of this and 
 similar scientific tests ; the first person, there- 
 fore, the body of whose work has a scientific, 
 stable character ; and so he stands as a model to 
 all Celtic inquirers. 
 
 His influence has already been most happy ; 
 and as I have enlarged on a certain failure in 
 criticism of Eugene O'Curry's, — whose business, 
 after all, was the description and classification of 
 materials rather than criticism, — let me show, 
 by another example from Eugene O'Curry, this 
 good influence of Zeuss upon Celtic studies. 
 Eugene O'Curry wants to establish that com- 
 positions of an older date than the twelfth 
 century existed in Ireland in the twelfth cen- 
 tury, and thus he proceeds. He takes one of 
 the great extant Irish manuscripts, the heabhar 
 na K TJidhre ; or Book of the Dun Cow. The 
 compiler of this book was, he says, a certain 
 Maelmuiri, a member of the religious house 
 of Cluainmacnois. This he establishes from a 
 
 62 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 passage in the manuscript itself : ' This is a trial 
 of his pen here, by Maelmuiri, son of the son of 
 Conn na m'Bocht.' The date of Maelmuiri he 
 establishes from a passage in the Annals of the 
 Four Masters, under the year i io6 : ' Maelmuiri, 
 son of the son of Conn na m'Bocht, was killed 
 in the middle of the great stone church of 
 Cluainmacnois, by a party of robbers.' Thus 
 he gets the date of the Book of the Dun Cow. 
 This book contains an elegy on the death of 
 St. Columb. Now, even before 1106, the 
 language of this elegy was so old as to require 
 a gloss to make it intelligible, for it is accom- 
 panied by a gloss written between the lines. 
 This gloss quotes, for the explanation of obsolete 
 words, a number of more ancient compositions ; 
 and these compositions, therefore, must, at the 
 beginning of the twelfth century, have been 
 still in existence. Nothing can be sounder ; 
 every step is proved, and fairly proved, as one 
 goes along. O'Curry thus affords a good 
 specimen of the sane mode of proceeding so 
 much wanted in Celtic researches, and so little 
 practised by Edward Davies and his brethren ; 
 and to found this sane method, Zeuss, by the 
 example he sets in his own department of 
 philology, has mainly contributed. 
 
 Science's reconciling power, too, on which I 
 have already touched, philology, in her Celtic 
 researches, again and again illustrates. Races 
 and languages have been absurdly joined, and 
 
 63 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 unity has been often rashly assumed at stages 
 where one was far, very far, from having yet 
 really reached unity. Science has and will long 
 have to be a divider and a separatist, breaking 
 arbitrary and fanciful connections, and dissipat- 
 ing dreams of a premature and impossible unity. 
 Still, science, — true science, — recognises in the 
 bottom of her soul a law of ultimate fusion, of 
 conciliation. To reach this, but to reach it 
 legitimately, she tends. She draws, for instance, 
 towards the same idea which fills her elder and 
 diviner sister, poetry, — the idea of the substantial 
 unity of man ; though she draws towards it by 
 roads of her own. But continually she is showing 
 us affinity where we imagined there was isolation. 
 What schoolboy of us has not rummaged his 
 Greek dictionary in vain for a satisfactory account 
 of that old name for the Peloponnese, the Apian 
 Land? and within the limits of Greek itself 
 there is none. But the Scythian name for earth, 
 * apia,' watery, water-issued, meaning first isle and 
 then land — this name, which we find in ' avia,' 
 Scandinawi?, and in * ey ' for Alderney, not only 
 explains the Apian Land of Sophocles for us, 
 but points the way to a whole world of relation- 
 ships of which we knew nothing. The Scythians 
 themselves again, — obscure, far-separated Mon- 
 golian people as they used to appear to us, — 
 when we find that they are essentially Teutonic 
 and Indo-European, their very name the same 
 word as the common Latin word ' scutum,' the 
 
 64 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 shielded people, what a surprise they p.v& us ! 
 And then, before we have recovered from this 
 surprise we learn that the name of their father 
 and god, Targitavus, carries us I know not how 
 much further into familiar company. This 
 divinity. Shining with the targe, the Greek Hercules, 
 the Sun, contains \r\ the second half of his name, 
 tavus, ' shining,' a wonderful cement to hold 
 times and nations together. Tavus, ' shining,' 
 from ' tava ' — in Sanscrit, as well as Scythian, 
 * to burn ' or * shine,' — is Divus, dies, Zeus, 0eo?, 
 Deva, and I know not how much more ; and 
 Taviti, the bright and burnt, fire, the place of 
 fire, the hearth, the centre of the family, becomes 
 the family itself, just as our word family, the 
 Liatinjizmi/ia, is from thymele, the sacred centre 
 of fire. The hearth comes to mean home. 
 Then from home it comes to mean the group of 
 homes, the tribe ; from the tribe the entire 
 nation ; and in this sense of nation or people, 
 the word appears in Gothic, Norse, Celtic, and 
 Persian, as well as in Scythian ; the Theuthisks, 
 Deutschen, Tudesques, are the men of one theuth, 
 nation, or people ; and of this our name Germans 
 itself is, perhaps, only the Roman translation, 
 meaning the men of one germ or stock. The 
 Celtic divinity, Teutates, has his name from the 
 Celtic teuta, people ; taviti, fire, appearing here 
 in its secondary and derived sense of people, just 
 as it does in its own Scythian language in Targi- 
 tavus's second name, Tavitvarus, Teutaros, the 
 VOL. V 65 F 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 protector of the people. Another Celtic divinity, 
 the Hesus of Lucan, finds his brother in the 
 Gaisos, the sword, symbolising the god of battles 
 of the Teutonic Scythians.^ And after philology 
 has thus related to each other the Celt and the 
 Teuton, she takes another branch of the Indo- 
 European family, the Sclaves, and shows us them 
 as having the same name with the German Suevi, 
 the solar people ; the common ground here, too, 
 being that grand point of union, the sun, fire. 
 So, also, we find Mr. Meyer, whose Celtic studies 
 I just now mentioned, harping again and again 
 
 1 See Les Scythes les Ancetres des Peuples Germaniques et Slaves, 
 par F. G. Bergmann, professeur k la faculty des Lettres de Stras- 
 bourg : Colmar, 1858. But Professor Bergmann's etymologies are 
 often, says Lord Strangford, ' false lights, held by an uncertain hand.' 
 And Lord Strangford continues : — 'The Apian land certainly meant 
 the watery land, Meer-umschlungen, among the pre-Hellenic Greeks, 
 just as the same land is called Morea by the modern post-Hellenic 
 or Romaic Greeks from more, the name for the sea in the Slavonic 
 vernacular of its inhabitants during the heart of the Middle Ages. 
 But it is only connected by a remote and secondary affinity, if 
 connected at all, with the avia of Scandinavia, assuming that to be 
 the true German word for water, which, if it had come down to us 
 in Gothic, would have been avi, genitive aujos, and not a mere 
 Latinised termination. Scythian is surely a negative rather than a 
 positive term, much like our Indian, or the Turanian of modern 
 ethnologists, used to comprehend nomads and barbarians of all sorts 
 and races north and east of the Black and Caspian seas. It is un- 
 safe to connect their name with anything as yet ; it is quite as likely 
 that it refers to the bow and arrow as to the shield, and is connected 
 with our word to shoot, sceotan, skiutan, Lithuanian sxau-ti. Some 
 of the Scythian peoples may have been Anarian, Allophylic, Mon- 
 golian ; some were demonstrably Aryan, and not only that, but 
 Iranian as well, as is best shown in a memoir read before the Berlin 
 Academy this last year ; the evidence having been first indicated 
 in the rough by SchafFarik the Slavonic antiquary. Coins, glosses, 
 proper names, and inscriptions prove it. Targitaos (not -tavus) and 
 
 66 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 on the connection even in Europe, if you go back 
 far enough, between Celt and German. So, after 
 all we have heard, and truly heard of the diversity 
 between all things Semitic and all things Indo- 
 European, there is now an Italian philologist at 
 work upon the relationship between Sanscrit and 
 Hebrew. 
 
 Both in small and great things, philology, 
 dealing with Celtic matters, has exemplified this 
 tending of science towards unity. Who has not 
 been puzzled by the relation of the Scots with 
 Ireland — that vetus et major Scotia, as Colgan calls 
 
 the rest is guess-work or wrong. Herodotus's Ta/Strt for the goddess 
 Vesta is not connected with the root div whence DSvas, Deus, etc., 
 but the root tap, in Latin tep (of tepere, tepefacere), Slavonic tepl, 
 topi (for tep or top), in modern Persian tab. Thymele refers to the 
 hearth as the place of smoke [dvta, thu5,fumui), hxxt. familia denotes 
 household from famulus for fagmulus, the root fag being equated 
 with the Sansk. bhaj, servira. Lucan's Hesus or Esus may fairly be 
 compared with the Welsh Hu Gadarn by legitimate process, but no 
 letter-change can justify his connection with Gaisos, the spear, not 
 the sword, Virgil's gusum, A.S. gar, our verb to gore, retained in 
 its outer form in ^/jr-fish. For Theuthisks, lege Thiudisks, from 
 thiuda, populus ; in old high German Diutisk, Diotisk, popularis, 
 vulgaris, the country vernacular as distinguished from the cultivated 
 Latin ; hence the word Dutch, Deutsch. With our ancestors the'od 
 stood for nation generally and gethe'ode for any speech. Our diet in 
 the political sense is the same word, but borrowed from our German 
 cousins, not inherited from our fathers. The modern Celtic form 
 is the Irish tuath, in ancient LCeltic it must have been teuta, touta, 
 of which we actually have the adjective toutius in the Gaulish 
 inscription of Nismes. In Oscan we have it as turta, tuta, its 
 adjective being handed down in Livy's meddix tuticus, the mayor or 
 chief magistrate of the tuta. In the Umbrian inscriptions it is tota. 
 In Lithuanian tauta, the country opposed to the town, and in old 
 Prussian tauta, the country generally, en Prusiskan tautan, im Land 
 zu Preussen.' 
 
 67 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 it ? Who does not feel what pleasure Zcuss 
 brings us when he suggests that Gael, the name 
 for the Irish Celt, and Scot, are at bottom the 
 same word, both having their origin in a word 
 meaning "wind, and both signifying the violent 
 stormy people?^ Who does not feel his mind 
 agreeably cleared about our friends the Fenians, 
 when he learns that the root of their name,y^«, 
 * white,' appears in the hero Fingal ; in Gwynned, 
 the Welsh name for North Wales ; in the 
 Roman Venedotia ; in Vannes in Brittany ; in 
 Venice ? The very name of Ireland, some say, 
 comes from the famous Sanscrit word Arya, the 
 land of the Aryans, or noble men ; although the 
 weight of opinion seems to be in favour of con- 
 necting it rather with another Sanscrit word, 
 avara, occidental, the western land or isle of the 
 west.'' But, at any rate, who that has been 
 brought up to think the Celts utter aliens from 
 us and our culture, can come without a start of 
 sympathy upon such words as heol (sol), or buaist 
 (fuisti) ? or upon such a sentence as this, ' Peris 
 
 1 Lord Strangford observes here : — ' The original forms of Gael 
 should be mentioned — Gaedil, Goidil : in modern Gaelic ortho- 
 graphy Gaoidheal where the dh is not realised in pronunciation. 
 There is nothing impossible in the connection of the root of this 
 with that of Scot, j^the / of the latter be merely prosthetic. But 
 the whole thing is in nubibus, and given as a guess only.' 
 
 ' ' The name of Erin,' says Lord Strangford, ' is treated at length 
 in a masterly note by Whitley Stokes in the first series of Max 
 Mailer's lectures (4th ed.) p. 255, where its earliest tangible form 
 is shown to have been Iverio. Pictet's connection with Arya is 
 quite baseless.' 
 
 68 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 Duw dui funnaun ' (' God prepared two foun- 
 tains ') ? Or when Mr. Whitley Stokes, one of 
 the very ablest scholars formed in Zeuss's school, 
 a born philologist, — he now occupies, alas ! a 
 post under the Government of India, instead of 
 a chair of philology at home, and makes one 
 think mournfully of Montesquieu's saying, that 
 had he been an Englishman he should never 
 have produced his great work, but have caught 
 the contagion of practical life, and devoted 
 himself to what is called * rising in the world,' 
 — when Mr. Whitley Stokes, in his edition of 
 Cormac's Glossary, holds up the Irish word traith, 
 the sea, and makes us remark that, though the 
 names Triton, Amphitrite, and those of correspond- 
 ing Indian and Zend divinities, point to the 
 meaning sea, yet it is only Irish which actually 
 supplies the vocable, how delightfully that 
 brings Ireland into the Indo-European concert ! 
 What a wholesome buffet it gives to Lord Lynd- 
 hurst's alienation doctrines ! 
 
 To go a little farther. Of the two great 
 Celtic divisions of language, the Gaelic and the 
 Cymric, the Gaelic, say the philologists, is more 
 related to the younger, more synthetic, group of 
 languages, Sanscrit, Greek, Zend, Latin, and 
 Teutonic ; the Cymric to the older, more 
 analytic Turanian group. Of the more synthetic 
 Aryan group, again, Zend and Teutonic are, in 
 their turn, looser and more analytic than Sanscrit 
 and Greek, more in sympathy with the Turanian 
 
 69 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 group and with Celtic. What possibilities of 
 affinity and influence are here hinted at ; what 
 lines of inquiry, worth exploring, at any rate, 
 suggest themselves to one's mind. By the forms 
 of its language a nation expresses its very self 
 Our language is the loosest, the most analytic, of 
 all European languages. And we, then, what 
 are we ? what is England ? I will not answer, 
 A vast obscure Cymric basis with a vast visible 
 Teutonic superstructure ; but I will say that 
 that answer sometimes suggests itself, at any 
 rate, — sometimes knocks at our mind's door for 
 admission ; and we begin to cast about and see 
 whether it is to be let in. 
 
 But the forms of its language are not our 
 only key to a people ; what it says in its 
 language, its literature, is the great key, and we 
 must get back to literature. The literature of 
 the Celtic peoples has not yet had its Zeuss, and 
 greatly it wants him. We need a Zeuss to apply 
 to Celtic literature, to all its vexed questions of 
 dates, authenticity, and significance, the criticism, 
 the sane method, the disinterested endeavour to 
 get at the real facts, which Zeuss has shown in 
 dealing with Celtic language. Science is good 
 in itself, and therefore Celtic literature, — the 
 Celt-haters having failed to prove it a bubble, 
 — Celtic literature is interesting, merely as an 
 object of knowledge. But it reinforces and re- 
 doubles our interest in Celtic literature if we find 
 that here, too, science exercises the reconciling, 
 
 70 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 the uniting influence of which I have said so 
 much ; if we find here, more than anywhere 
 else, traces of kinship, and the most essential 
 sort of kinship, spiritual kinship, between us and 
 the Celt, of which we had never dreamed. I 
 settle nothing, and can settle nothing ; I have 
 not the special knowledge needed for that. I 
 have no pretension to do more than to try and 
 awaken interest ; to seize on hints, to point out 
 indications, which, to any one with a feeling 
 for literature, suggest themselves ; to stimulate 
 other inquirers. I must surely be without the 
 bias which has so often rendered Welsh and 
 Irish students extravagant ; why, my very name 
 expresses that peculiar Semitico-Saxon mixture 
 which makes the typical Englishman ; I can 
 have no ends to serve in finding in Celtic 
 literature more than is there. What is there, is 
 for me the only question. 
 
 Ill 
 
 We have seen how philology carries us 
 towards ideas of affinity of race which are new 
 to us. But it is evident that this affinity, even 
 if proved, can be no very potent affair, unless it 
 goes beyond the stage at which we have hitherto 
 observed it. Affinity between races still, so to 
 speak, in their mother's womb, counts for some- 
 thing, indeed, but cannot count for very much. 
 
 71 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 So long as Celt and Teuton are in their embryo 
 rudimentary state, or, at least, no such great 
 while out of their cradle, still engaged in their 
 wanderings, changes of place and struggle for 
 development, so long as they have not yet 
 crystallised into solid nations, they may touch 
 and mix in passing, and yet very little come of 
 it. It is when the embryo has grown and 
 solidified into a distinct nation, into the Gaul or 
 German of history, when it has finally acquired 
 the characters which make the Gaul of history 
 what he is, the German of history what he 
 is, that contact and mixture are important, and 
 may leave a long train of effects ; for Celt and 
 Teuton by this time have their formed, marked, 
 national, ineffaceable qualities to oppose or to 
 communicate. The contact of the German of 
 the Continent with the Celt was in the pre- 
 historic times, and the definite German type, as 
 we know it, was fixed later, and from the time 
 when it became fixed was not influenced by the 
 Celtic type. But here in our country, in his- 
 toric times, long after the Celtic embryo had 
 crystallised into the Celt proper, long after the 
 Germanic embryo had crystallised into the 
 German proper, there was an important contact 
 between the two peoples ; the Saxons invaded 
 the Britons and settled themselves in the Britons' 
 country. Well, then, here was a contact which 
 one might expect would leave its traces ; if the 
 Saxons got the upper hand, as we all know they 
 
 72 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 did, and made our country be England and us be 
 English, there must yet, one would think, be 
 some trace of the Saxon having met the Briton ; 
 there must be some Celtic vein or other running 
 through us. Many people say there is nothing 
 at all of the kind, absolutely nothing ; the 
 Saturday Review treats these matters of ethnology 
 with great power and learning, and the Saturday 
 Review says we are ' a nation into which a 
 Norman element, like a much smaller Celtic 
 element, was so completely absorbed that it is 
 vain to seek after Norman or Celtic elements in 
 any modern Englishman.' And the other day 
 at Zurich I read a long essay on English litera- 
 ture by one of the professors there, in which 
 the writer observed, as a remarkable thing, that 
 while other countries conquered by the Germans, 
 — France, for instance, and Italy, — had ousted 
 all German influence from their genius and 
 literature, there were two countries, not origin- 
 ally Germanic, but conquered by the Germans, 
 England and German Switzerland, of which the 
 genius and the literature were purely and un- 
 mixedly German ; and this he laid down as 
 a position which nobody would dream of 
 challenging. 
 
 I say it is strange that this should be so, 
 and we in particular have reason for inquiring 
 whether it really is so ; because though, as I 
 have said, even as a matter of science the Gelt 
 has a claim to be known, and we have an interest 
 
 73 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 in knowing him, yet this interest is wonderfully 
 enhanced if we find him to have actually a part 
 in us. The question is to be tried by external 
 and by internal evidence ; the language and the 
 physical type of our race afford certain data 
 for trying it, and other data are afforded by 
 our literature, genius, and spiritual production 
 generally. Data of this second kind belong to 
 the province of the literary critic ; data of the 
 first kind to the province of the philologist and 
 of the physiologist. 
 
 The province of the philologist and of the 
 physiologist is not mine ; but this whole question 
 as to the mixture of Celt with Saxon in us has 
 been so little explored, people have been so 
 prone to settle it off-hand according to their 
 prepossessions, that even on the philological and 
 physiological side of it I must say a few words 
 in passing. Surely it must strike with surprise 
 any one who thinks of it, to find that without 
 any immense inpouring of a whole people, that 
 by mere expeditions of invaders having to come 
 over the sea, and in no greater numbers than the 
 Saxons, so far as we can make out, actually came, 
 the old occupants of this island, the Celtic 
 Britons, should have been completely annihilated, 
 or even so completely absorbed that it is vain 
 to seek after Celtic elements in the existing 
 English race. Of deliberate wholesale exter- 
 mination of the Celtic race, all of them who 
 could not fly to Wales or Scotland, we hear 
 
 74 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 nothing ; and without some such extermination 
 one would suppose that a great mass of them 
 must have remained in the country, their lot the 
 obscure and, so to speak, underground lot of a 
 subject race, but yet insensibly getting mixed 
 with their conquerors, and their blood entering 
 into the composition of a new people, in which 
 the stock of the conquerors counts for most, 
 but the stock of the conquered, too, counts for 
 something. How little the triumph of the 
 conqueror's laws, manners, and language, proves 
 the extinction of the old race, we may see by 
 looking at France ; Gaul was Latinised in lan- 
 guage, manners, and laws, and yet her people 
 remained essentially Celtic. The Germanisation 
 of Britain went far deeper than the Latinisation 
 of France, and not only laws, manners, and 
 language, but the main current of the blood, 
 became Germanic ; but how, without some 
 process of radical extirpation, of which, as I 
 say, there is no evidence, can there have failed 
 to subsist in Britain, as in Gaul, a Celtic current 
 too ? The indications of this in our language 
 have never yet been thoroughly searched out ; 
 the Celtic names of places prove nothing, of 
 course, as to the point here in question ; they 
 come from the prehistoric times, the times 
 before the nations, Germanic or Celtic, had 
 crystallised, and they are everywhere, as the 
 impetuous Celt was formerly everywhere, — in 
 the Alps, the Apennines, the Cevennes, the 
 
 75 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 Rhine, the Po, as well as in the Thames, the 
 Humber, Cumberland, London. But it is said 
 that the words of Celtic origin for things having 
 to do with every-day peaceful life, — the life of 
 a settled nation, — words like basket (to take 
 an instance which all the world knows) form 
 a much larger body in our language than is 
 commonly supposed ; it is said that a number of 
 our raciest, most idiomatic, popular words — for 
 example, bam, kick, whop, twaddle, fudge, hitch, 
 muggy, — are Celtic. These assertions require to 
 be carefully examined, and it by no means 
 follows that because an English word is found 
 in Celtic, therefore we get it from thence ; but 
 they have not yet had the attention which, as 
 illustrating through language this matter of the 
 subsistence and intermingling in our nation of a 
 Celtic part, they merit. 
 
 Nor have the physiological data which 
 illustrate this matter had much more attention 
 from us in England. But in France, a physician, 
 half English by blood though a Frenchman by 
 home and language. Monsieur W. F. Edwards, 
 brother to Monsieur Milne-Edwards, the well- 
 known zoologist, published in 1839 a letter to 
 Monsieur Amedee Thierry with this title : Ties 
 Caracteres Physiologiques des Races Humaines con- 
 sideris dans leurs Rapports avec I'Histoire. The 
 letter attracted great attention on the Continent ; 
 it fills not much more than a hundred pages, and 
 they are a hundred pages which well deserve 
 
 76 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 reading and re-reading. Monsieur Thierry in 
 his Histoire des Gaulois had divided the popula- 
 tion of Gaul into certain groups, and the object 
 of Monsieur Edwards was to try this division by 
 physiology. Groups of men have, he says, their 
 physical type which distinguishes them, as well 
 as their language ; the traces of this physical 
 type endure as the traces of language endure, and 
 physiology is enabled to verify history by them. 
 Accordingly, he determines the physical type of 
 each of the two great Celtic families, the Gaels 
 and the Cymris, who are said to have been dis- 
 tributed in a certain order through Gaul, and 
 then he tracks these types in the population of 
 France at the present day, and so verifies the 
 alleged original order of distribution. In doing 
 this, he makes excursions into neighbouring 
 countries where the Gaels and the Cymris have 
 been, and he declares that in England he finds 
 abundant traces of the physical type which he 
 has established as the Cymric, still subsisting in 
 our population, and having descended from the 
 old British possessors of our soil before the Saxon 
 conquest. But if we are to believe the current 
 English opinion, says Monsieur Edwards, the 
 stock of these old British possessors is clean 
 gone. On this opinion he makes the following 
 comment : — 
 
 ' In the territory occupied by the Saxons, the 
 Britons were no longer an independent nation, 
 nor even a people with any civil existence at all. 
 
 71 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 For history, therefore, they were dead, above 
 all for history as it was then written ; but 
 they had not perished ; they still lived on, and 
 undoubtedly in such numbers as the remains 
 of a great nation, in spite of its disasters, might 
 
 •" still be expected to keep. That the Britons 
 were destroyed or expelled from England, 
 properly so called, is, as I have said, a popular 
 opinion in that country. It is founded on the 
 exaggeration of the writers of history ; but in 
 these very writers, when we come to look closely 
 at what they say, we find the confession that the 
 remains of this people were reduced to a state of 
 strict servitude. Attached to the soil, they will 
 have shared in that emancipation which during 
 the course of the Middle Ages gradually restored 
 to political life the mass of the population in 
 the countries of Western Europe ; recovering 
 by slow degrees their rights without resuming 
 their name, and rising gradually with the rise of 
 industry, they will have got spread through all 
 ranks of society. The gradualness of this move- 
 ment, and the obscurity which enwrapped its 
 beginnings, allowed the contempt of the con- 
 queror and the shame of the conquered to 
 become fixed feelings ; and so it turns out, that 
 an Englishman who now thinks himself sprung 
 from the Saxons or the Normans, is often in 
 
 ^_ reality the descendant of the Britons.' 
 
 So physiology, as well as language, incomplete 
 though the application of their tests to this 
 
 78 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 matter has hitherto been, may lead us to hesitate 
 before accepting the round assertion that it is 
 vain to search for Celtic elements in any modern 
 Englishman. But it is not only by the tests of 
 physiology and language that we can try this 
 matter. As there are for physiology physical 
 marks, such as the square head of the German, 
 the round head of the Gael, the oval head of the 
 Cymri, which determine the type of a people, 
 so for criticism there are spiritual marks which 
 determine the type, and make us speak of the 
 Greek genius, the Teutonic genius, the Celtic 
 genius, and so on. Here is another test at our 
 service ; and this test, too, has never yet been 
 thoroughly employed. Foreign critics have 
 indeed occasionally hazarded the idea that in 
 English poetry there is a Celtic element trace- 
 able ; and Mr. Morley, in his very readable as 
 well as very useful book on the English writers 
 before Chaucer, has a sentence which struck my 
 attention when I read it, because it expresses an 
 opinion which I, too, have long held. Mr. 
 Morley says : — * The main current of English 
 literature cannot be disconnected from the 
 lively Celtic wit in which it has one of its 
 sources. The Celts do not form an utterly 
 distinct part of our mixed population. But for 
 early, frequent, and various contact with the 
 race that in its half-barbarous days invented 
 Ossian's dialogues with St, Patrick, and that 
 quickened afterwards the Northmen's blood in 
 
 79 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 France, Germanic England would not have 
 produced a Shakspeare.' But there Mr. Morley 
 leaves the matter. He indicates this Celtic 
 element and influence, but he does not show us, 
 — it did not come within the scope of his work 
 to show us, — how this influence has declared 
 itself. Unlike the physiological test, or the 
 linguistic test, this literary, spiritual test is one 
 which I may perhaps be allowed to try my hand 
 at applying. I say that there is a Celtic element 
 in the English nature, as well as a Germanic 
 element, and that this element manifests itself in 
 our spirit and literature. But before I try to 
 point out how it manifests itself, it may be as 
 well to get a clear notion of what we mean by 
 a Celtic element, a Germanic element ; what 
 characters, that is, determine for us the Celtic 
 genius, the Germanic genius, as we commonly 
 conceive the two. 
 
 IV 
 
 Let me repeat what I have often said of the 
 characteristics which mark the English spirit, 
 the English genius. This spirit, this genius, 
 judged, to be sure, rather from a friend's than 
 an enemy's point of view, yet judged on the 
 whole fairly, is characterised, I have repeatedly 
 said, by energy with honesty. Take away some of 
 the energy which comes to us, as I believe, in 
 part from Celtic and Roman sources ; instead of 
 
 80 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 energy, say rather steadiness ; and you, have the 
 Germanic genius : steadiness with honesty. It is 
 evident how nearly the two characterisations 
 approach one another ; and yet they leave, as 
 Mre shall see, a great deal of room for differ- 
 ence. Steadiness with honesty ; the danger for 
 a national spirit thus composed is the humdrum, 
 the plain and ugly, the ignoble : in a word, das 
 Gemeine, die Gemeinheit, that curse of Germany, 
 against which Goethe was all his life fighting. 
 The excellence of a national spirit thus composed 
 is freedom from whim, flightiness, perverseness ; 
 patient fidelity to Nature, — in a word, science, — 
 leading it at last, though slowly, and not by the 
 most brilliant road, out of the bondage of the 
 humdrum and common, into the better life. 
 The universal dead-level of plainness and home- 
 liness, the lack of all beauty and distinction in 
 form and feature, the slowness and clumsiness 
 of the language, the eternal beer, sausages, and 
 bad tobacco, the blank commonness everywhere, 
 pressing at last like a weight on the spirits of 
 the traveller in Northern Germany, and making 
 him impatient to be gone, — this is the weak 
 side ; the industry, the well-doing, the patient 
 steady elaboration of things, the idea of science 
 governing all departments of human activity, — 
 this is the strong side ; and through this side 
 of her genius, Germany has already obtained 
 excellent results, and is destined, we may depend 
 upon it, however her pedantry, her slowness, her 
 
 VOL. v 8 1 G 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 fumbling, her ineffectiveness, her bad govern- 
 ment, may at times make us cry out, to an 
 immense development.^ 
 
 For diilness, the creeping Saxons^ — says an old 
 Irish poem, assigning the characteristics for 
 which different nations are celebrated : — 
 
 For acuteness and valour, the Greeks, 
 
 For excessive pride, the Romans, 
 
 For dulness, the creeping Saxons ; 
 
 For beauty and amorousness, the Gaedhils. 
 
 We have seen in what sense, and with what 
 explanation, this characterisation of the German 
 may be allowed to stand ; now let us come to 
 the beautiful and amorous Gaedhil. Or rather, 
 let us find a definition which may suit both 
 branches of the Celtic family, the Cymri as well 
 as the Gael. It is clear that special circumstances 
 may have developed some one side in the national 
 character of Cymri or Gael, Welshman or Irish- 
 man, so that the observer's notice shall be readily 
 caught by this side, and yet it may be impossible 
 to adopt it as characteristic of the Celtic nature 
 generally. For instance, in his beautiful essay 
 on the poetry of the Celtic races, M. Renan, 
 with his eyes fixed on the Bretons and the 
 Welsh, is struck with the timidity, the shyness, 
 the delicacy of the Celtic nature, its preference 
 for a retired life, its embarrassment at having to 
 deal with the great world. He talks of the douce 
 
 * It is to be remembered that the above was written before 
 the recent war between Prussia and Austria. 
 
 82 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 petite race naturellement chretienne, his race Jiere et 
 timide, a Fexterieur gauche et embarrassee. But it 
 is evident that this description, however well 
 it may do for the Cymri, will never do for 
 the Gael, never do for the typical Irishman 
 of Donnybrook fair. Again, M. Renan's injinie 
 delicatesse de sentiment qui caracterise la race Celtique, 
 how little that accords with the popular concep- 
 tion of an Irishman who wants to borrow money ! 
 Sentiment is, however, the word which marks 
 where the Celtic races really touch and are 
 one ; sentimental, if the Celtic nature is to be 
 characterised by a single term, is the best term 
 to take. An organisation quick to feel impres- 
 sions, and feeling them very strongly ; a lively 
 personality therefore, keenly sensitive to joy and 
 to sorrow ; this is the main point. If the downs 
 of life too much outnumber the ups, this tem- 
 perament, just because it is so quickly and nearly 
 conscious of all impressions, may no doubt be 
 seen shy and wounded ; it may be seen in wistful^ 
 regret, it may be seen in passionate, penetrating 
 melancholy ; but its essence is to aspire ardently 
 after life, light, and emotion, to be expansive, 
 adventurous, and gay. Our word gay, it is said,j 
 is itself Celtic. It is not from gaudium, but from 
 the Celtic ^^z^ir, to laugh ; ^ and the impressionable 
 
 1 The etymology is Monsieur Henri Martin's, but Lord Strang- 
 ford says : — ' Whatever gai may be, it is assuredly not Celtic. Is 
 there any authority for this word gair, to laugh, or rather " laughter," 
 beyond O'Reilly? O'Reilly is no authority at all except in so 
 far as tested and passed by the new school. It is hard to give up 
 
 83 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 Celt, soon up and soon down, is the more down 
 because it is so his nature to be up — to be 
 sociable, hospitable, eloquent, admired, figuring 
 away brilliantly. He loves bright colours, he 
 easily becomes audacious, overcrowing, full of 
 fanfaronade. The German, say the physiologists, 
 has the larger volume of intestines (and who that 
 has ever seen a German at a table-d'h6te will not 
 readily believe this?), the Frenchman has the 
 more developed organs of respiration. That is 
 just the expansive, eager Celtic nature ; the 
 head in the air, snuffing and snorting ; a proud 
 look and a high stomach, as the Psalmist says, but 
 without any such settled savage temper as the 
 Psalmist seems to impute by those words. For 
 good and for bad, the Celtic genius is more airy 
 and unsubstantial, goes less near the ground, than 
 the German. The Celt is often called sensual ; 
 but it is not so much the vulgar satisfactions of 
 sense that attract him as emotion and excitement ; 
 he is truly, as I began by saying, sentimental. 
 
 Sentimental, — always ready to react against the 
 despotism of fact; that is the description a great 
 friend ^ of the Celt gives of him ; and it is 
 not a bad description of the sentimental tempera- 
 ment ; it lets us into the secret of its dangers 
 
 gavisus. But Diez, chief authority in Romanic matters, is content 
 to accept Muratori's reference to an old High-German gahi, modern 
 j'dht, sharp, quick, sudden, brisk, and so to the sense of lively, 
 animated, high in spirits.' 
 
 ^ Monsieur Henri Martin, whose chapters on the Celts, in his 
 Hiittire de France, are full of information and interest. 
 
 84 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 and of its habitual want of success. Balance, 
 measure, and patience, these are the eternal 
 conditions, even supposing the happiest tempera- 
 ment to start with, of high success ; and balance, 
 measure, and patience are just what the Celt 
 has never had. Even in the world of spiritual 
 creation, he has never, in spite of his admirable 
 gifts of quick perception and warm emotion, 
 succeeded perfectly, because he never has had 
 steadiness, patience, sanity enough to comply 
 with the conditions under which alone can 
 expression be perfectly given to the finest 
 perceptions and emotions. The Greek has 
 the same perceptive, emotional temperament as 
 the Celt ; but he adds to this temperament 
 the sense of measure ; hence his admirable 
 success in the plastic arts, in which the Celtic 
 genius, with its chafing against the despotism of 
 fact, its perpetual straining after mere emotion, 
 has accomplished nothing. In the comparatively 
 petty art of ornamentation, in rings, brooches, 
 crosiers, relic-cases, and so on, he has done just 
 enough to show his delicacy of taste, his happy 
 temperament ; but the grand difficulties of 
 painting and sculpture, the prolonged dealings 
 of spirit with matter, he has never had patience 
 for. Take the more spiritual arts of music 
 and poetry. All that emotion alone can do 
 in music the Celt has done ; the very soul 
 of emotion breathes in the Scotch and Irish 
 airs ; but with all this power of musical feeling, 
 
 85 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 what has the Celt, so eager for emotion that 
 he has not patience for science, effected in 
 music, to be compared with what the less 
 emotional German, steadily developing his musi- 
 cal feeling with the science of a Sebastian Bach 
 or a Beethoven, has effected ? In poetry, again, 
 — poetry which the Celt has so passionately, so 
 nobly loved ; poetry where emotion counts for 
 so much, but where reason, too, reason, measure, 
 sanity, also count for so much, — the Celt has shown 
 genius, indeed, splendid genius ; but even here his 
 faults have clung to him, and hindered him from 
 producing great works, such as other nations 
 with a genius for poetry, — the Greeks, say, 
 or the Italians, — have produced. The Celt has 
 not produced great poetical works, he has only 
 produced poetry with an air of greatness in- 
 vesting it all, and sometimes giving, moreover, 
 to short pieces, or to passages, lines, and snatches 
 of long pieces, singular beauty and power. And 
 yet he loved poetry so much that he grudged 
 no pains to it ; but the true art, the architectonice 
 which shapes great works, such as the Agamemnon 
 or the Divine Comedy, comes only after a steady, 
 deep-searching survey, a firm conception of the 
 facts of human life, which the Celt has not 
 patience for. So he runs off into technic, where 
 he employs the utmost elaboration, and attains 
 astonishing skill ; but in the contents of his 
 poetry you have only so much interpretation 
 of the world as the first dash of a quick, 
 
 86 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 strong perception, and then sentiment, infinite 
 sentiment, can bring you. Here, too, his want 
 of sanity and steadfastness has kept the Celt back 
 from the highest success. j 
 
 If his rebellion against fact has thus lamed 
 the Celt even in spiritual work, how much more 
 must it have lamed him in the world of business 
 and politics ! The skilful and resolute appliance 
 of means to ends which is needed both to make 
 progress in material civilisation, and also to 
 form powerful states, is just what the Celt 
 has least turn for. He is sensual, as I have 
 said, or at least sensuous ; loves bright colours, 
 company, and pleasure ; and here he is like 
 the Greek and Latin races ; but compare the 
 talent the Greek and Latin (or Latinised) races 
 have shown for gratifying their senses, for 
 procuring an outward life, rich, luxurious, 
 splendid, with the Celt's failure to reach any 
 material civilisation sound and satisfying, and 
 not out at elbows, poor, slovenly, and half- 
 barbarous. The sensuousness of the Greek made 
 Sybaris and Corinth, the sensuousness of the 
 Latin made Rome and Baias, the sensuousness 
 of the Latinised Frenchman makes Paris ; the 
 sensuousness of the Celt proper has made Ireland. 
 Even in his ideal heroic times, his gay and 
 sensuous nature cannot carry him, in the 
 appliances of his favourite life of sociability and 
 pleasure, beyond the gross and creeping Saxon 
 whom he despises ; the regent Breas, we are 
 
 87 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 told in the Battle of Moytura of the Fomorians^ 
 became unpopular because 'the knives of his 
 people were not greased at his table, nor did 
 their breath smell of ale at the banquet.' In its 
 grossness and barbarousness is not that Saxon, 
 as Saxon as it can be ? just what the Latinised 
 Norman, sensuous and sociable like the Celt, 
 but with the talent to make this bent of his 
 serve to a practical embellishment of his mode 
 of living, found so disgusting in the Saxon. 
 
 '^ And as in material civilisation he has been 
 ineffectual, so has the Celt been ineffectual in 
 politics. This colossal, impetuous, adventurous 
 wanderer, the Titan of the early world, who in 
 primitive times fills so large a place on earth's 
 scene, dwindles and dwindles as history goes on, 
 and at last is shrunk to what we now see him. 
 For ages and ages the world has been constantly 
 slipping, ever more and more, out of the Celt's 
 grasp. 'They went forth to the war,' Ossian 
 
 j_says most truly, ' hut they always fell.' 
 
 And yet, if one sets about constituting an 
 ideal genius, what a great deal of the Celt does 
 one find oneself drawn to put into it ! Of an 
 ideal genius one does not want the elements, 
 any of them, to be in a state of weakness ; on 
 the contrary, one wants all of them to be in 
 the highest state of power ; but with a law of 
 measure, of harmony, presiding over the whole. 
 So the sensibility of the Celt, if everything else 
 were not sacrificed to it, is a beautiful and 
 
 88 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 admirable force. For sensibility, the power of 
 quick and strong perception and emotion, is one 
 of the very prime constituents of genius, perhaps 
 its most positive constituent ; it is to the soul 
 what good senses are to the body, the grand 
 natural condition of successful activity. Sensi- 
 bility gives genius its materials ; one cannot 
 have too much of it, if one can but keep its 
 master and not be its slave. Do not let us wish 
 that the Celt had had less sensibility, but that 
 he had been more master of it. Even as it is, if 
 his sensibility has been a source of weakness to ,-• 
 him, it has been a source of power too, and a 
 source of happiness. Some people have found 
 in the Celtic nature and its sensibility the main 
 root out of which chivalry and romance and the 
 glorification of a feminine ideal spring ; this is a 
 great question, with which I cannot deal here. 
 Let me notice in passing, however, that there 
 is, in truth, a Celtic air about the extravagance 
 of chivalry, its reaction against the despotism of ^ 
 fact, its straining human nature further than it 
 will stand. But putting all this question of 
 chivalry and its origin on one side, no doubt 
 the sensibility of the Celtic nature, its nervous 
 exaltation, have something feminine in them, 
 and the Celt is thus peculiarly disposed to feel 
 the spell of the feminine idiosyncrasy ; he has 
 an affinity to it ; he is not far from its secret. 
 Again, his sensibility gives him a peculiarly 
 near and intimate feeling of nature and the life 
 
 89 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 of nature ; here, too, he seems in a special way 
 attracted by the secret before him, the secret of 
 natural beauty and natural magic, and to be close 
 to it, to half- divine it. In the productions of 
 the Celtic genius, nothing, perhaps, is so interest- 
 ing as the evidences of this power : I shall have 
 occasion to give specimens of them by and by. 
 The same sensibility made the Celts full of 
 reverence and enthusiasm for genius, learning, 
 and the things of the mind ; to be a bard^ 
 freed a man, — that is a characteristic stroke of 
 this generous and ennobling ardour of theirs, 
 which no race has ever shown more strongly. 
 Even the extravagance and exaggeration of the 
 sentimental Celtic nature has often something 
 romantic and attractive about it, something 
 which has a sort of smack of misdirected 
 "good. The Celt, undisciplinable, anarchical, 
 and turbulent by nature, but out of affection and 
 admiration giving himself body and soul to some 
 leader, that is not a promising political tempera- 
 ment, it is just the opposite of the Anglo-Saxon 
 temperament, disciplinable and steadily obedient 
 within certain limits, but retaining an inalien- 
 able part of freedom and self-dependence ; but it 
 is a temperament for which one has a kind of 
 sympathy notwithstanding. And very often, for 
 the gay defiant reaction against fact of the lively 
 Celtic nature one has more than sympathy ; one 
 feels, in spite of the extravagance, in spite of good 
 sense disapproving, magnetised and exhilarated 
 
 90 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 by it? The Gauls had a rule inflicting a fine 
 on every warrior who, when he appeared on 
 parade, was found to stick out too much in 
 front, — to be corpulent, in short. Such a rule 
 is surely the maddest article of war ever framed, 
 and to people to whom nature has assigned a 
 large volume of intestines, must appear, no 
 doubt, horrible ; but yet has it not an audacious, 
 sparkling, immaterial manner with it, which 
 lifts one out of routine, and sets one's spirits in 
 a glow ? 
 
 All tendencies of human nature are in them- 
 selves vital and profitable ; when they are 
 blamed, they are only to be blamed relatively, 
 not absolutely. This holds true of the Saxon's 
 phlegm as well as of the Celt's sentiment. Out 
 of the steady humdrum habit of the creeping 
 Saxon, as the Celt calls him, — out of his way of 
 going near the ground, — has come, no doubt, 
 Philistinism, that plant of essentially Germanic 
 growth, flourishing with its genuine marks only 
 in the German fatherland. Great Britain and her 
 colonies, and the United States of America ; but 
 what a soul of goodness there is in Philistinism 
 itself! and this soul of goodness I, who am 
 often supposed to be Philistinism's mortal enemy 
 merely because I do not wish it to have things 
 all its own way, cherish as much as anybody. 
 This steady-going habit leads at last, as I have 
 said, up to science, up to the comprehension and 
 interpretation of the world. With us in Great 
 
 91 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 Britain, it is true, it does not seem to lead so far 
 as that ; it is in Germany, where the habit is 
 more unmixed, that it can lead to science. Here 
 with us it seems at a certain point to meet with 
 a conflicting force, which checks it and prevents 
 its pushing on to science ; but before reaching 
 this point what conquests has it not won ! and 
 all the more, perhaps, for stopping short at this 
 point, for spending its exertions within a bounded 
 field, the field of plain sense, of direct practical 
 utility. How it has augmented the comforts 
 and conveniences of life for us ! Doors that 
 open, windows that shut, locks that turn, razors 
 that shave, coats that wear, watches that go, and 
 a thousand more such good things, are the 
 invention of the Philistines. 
 
 Here, then, if commingling there is in our 
 race, are two very unlike elements to commingle ; 
 the steady-going Saxon temperament and the 
 sentimental Celtic temperament. But before we 
 go on to try and verify, in our life and literature, 
 the alleged fact of this commingling, we have 
 yet another element to take into account, the 
 Norman element. The critic in the Saturday 
 Review, whom I have already quoted, says that 
 in looking for traces of Normanism in our 
 national genius, as in looking for traces of 
 Celtism in it, we do but lose our labour ; he 
 says, indeed, that there went to the original 
 making of our nation a very great deal more of 
 a Norman element than of a Celtic element, but 
 
 92 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 he asserts that both elements have now so 
 completely disappeared, that it is vain to look 
 for any trace of either of them in the modern 
 Englishman. But this sort of assertion I do 
 not like to admit without trying it a little. I 
 want, therefore, to get some plain notion of the 
 Norman habit and genius, as I have sought to 
 get some plain notion of the Saxon and Celtic. 
 Some people will say that the Normans are 
 Teutonic, and that therefore the distinguishing 
 characters of the German genius must be those 
 of their genius also ; but the matter cannot be 
 settled in this speedy fashion. No doubt the 
 basis of the Norman race is Teutonic ; but the 
 governing point in the history of the Norman 
 race, — so far, at least, as we English have to do 
 with it, — is not its Teutonic origin, but its Latin 
 civilisation. The French people have, as I have 
 already remarked, an undoubtedly Celtic basis, 
 yet so decisive in its effect upon a nation's habit 
 and character can be the contact with a stronger 
 civilisation, that Gaul, without changing the 
 basis of her blood, became, for all practical 
 intents and purposes, a Latin country, France 
 and not Ireland, through the Roman conquest. 
 Latinism conquered Celtism in her, as it also con- 
 quered the Germanism imported by the Frankish 
 and other invasions ; Celtism is, however, I need 
 not say, everywhere -manifest still in the French 
 nation ; even Germanism is distinctly traceable 
 in it, as any one who attentively compares 
 
 93 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 the French with other Latin races will see. 
 No one can look carefully at the French troops 
 in Rome, amongst the Italian population, and 
 not perceive this trace of Germanism ; I do not 
 mean in the Alsatian soldiers only, but in the 
 soldiers of genuine France. But the governing 
 character of France, as a power in the world, is 
 Latin ; such was the force of Greek and Roman 
 civilisation upon a race whose whole mass re- 
 mained Celtic, and where the Celtic language 
 still lingered on, they say, among the common 
 people, for some five or six centuries after the 
 Roman conquest. But the Normans in Ncustria 
 lost their old Teutonic language in a wonder- 
 fully short time ; when they conquered England 
 they were already Latinised ; with them were a 
 number of Frenchmen by race, men from Anjou 
 and Poitou, so they brought into England more 
 non-Teutonic blood, besides what they had them- 
 selves got by intermarriage, than is commonly 
 supposed ; the great point, however, is, that by 
 civilisation this vigorous race, when it took 
 possession of England, was Latin. 
 
 These Normans, who in Neustria had lost 
 their old Teutonic tongue so rapidly, kept in 
 England their new Latin tongue for some three 
 centuries. It was Edward the Third's reign 
 before English came to be used in law-pleadings 
 and spoken at court. Why this difference ? 
 Both in Neustria and in England the Normans 
 were a handful ; but in Neustria, as Teutons, 
 
 94 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 they were in contact with a more advanced 
 civilisation than their own ; in England, as 
 Latins, with a less advanced. The Latinised 
 Normans in England had the sense for fact, 
 which the Celts had not ; and the love of 
 strenuousness, clearness, and rapidity, the high 
 Latin spirit, which the Saxons had not. They 
 hated the slowness and dulness of the creeping 
 Saxon ; it offended their clear, strenuous talent 
 for affairs, as it offended the Celt's quick and 
 delicate perception. The Normans had the 
 Roman talent for affairs, the Roman decisiveness 
 in emergencies. They have been called prosaic, 
 but this is not a right word for them ; they 
 were neither sentimental, nor, strictly speaking, 
 poetical. They had more sense for rhetoric 
 than for poetry, like the Romans ; but, like the 
 Romans, they had too high a spirit not to like a 
 noble intellectual stimulus of some kind, and 
 thus they were carried out of the region of the 
 merely prosaic. Their foible, — the bad excess 
 of their characterising quality of strenuousness, 
 — was not a prosaic flatness, it was hardness and 
 insolence. 
 
 I have been obliged to fetch a very wide 
 circuit, but at last I have got what I went to 
 seek. I have got a rough, butj I hope, clear 
 notion of these three forces, the Germanic genius, 
 the Celtic genius, the Norman genius. The 
 Germanic genius has steadiness as its main basis, 
 with commonness and humdrum for its defect, 
 
 95 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 fidelity to nature for its excellence. The Celtic 
 genius, sentiment as its main basis, with love of 
 ^ beauty, charm, and spirituality for its excellence, 
 inefFectualness and self-will for its defect. The 
 Norman genius, talent for affairs as its main 
 basis, with strenuousness and clear rapidity for its 
 excellence, hardness and insolence for its defect. 
 And now to try and trace these in the composite 
 English genius. 
 
 V 
 
 To begin with what is more external. If we 
 are so wholly Anglo-Saxon and Germanic as 
 people say, how comes it that the habits and gait 
 of the German language are so exceedingly un- 
 like ours ? Why while the Times talks in this 
 fashion : ' At noon a long line of carriages 
 extended from Pall Mall to the Peers' entrance 
 of the Palace of Westminster,' does the Cologne 
 Gazette talk in this other fashion : ' Nachdem 
 die Vorbereitungen zu dem auf dem Giirzenich- 
 Saale zu Ehren der Abgeordneten Statt finden 
 sollenden Bankette bereits vollstandig getroffen 
 worden waren, fand heute vormittag auf polizei- 
 liche Anordnung die Schliessung sammtlicher 
 Zugange zum GUrzenich Statt ' ? ^ Surely the 
 
 * The above is really a sentence taken from the Cologne Gazette. 
 Lord Strangford's comment here is as follows ; — ' Modern Ger- 
 manism, in a general estimate of Germanism, should not be taken, 
 absolutely and necessarily, as the constant, whereof we are the 
 variant. The Low Dutch of Holland, anyhow, are indisputably as 
 
 96 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 mental habit of people who express their thoughts 
 in so very different a manner, the one rapid, the 
 other slow, the one plain, the other embarrassed, 
 the one trailing, the other striding, cannot be 
 essentially the same. The English language, 
 strange compound as it is, with its want of in- 
 flections, and with all the difficulties which this 
 want of inflections brings upon it, has yet made 
 itself capable of being, in good hands, a business 
 instrument as ready, direct, and clear, as French 
 or Latin. Again : perhaps no nation, after the 
 Greeks and Romans, has so clearly felt in what 
 true rhetoric, rhetoric of the best kind, consists, 
 and reached so high a pitch of excellence in this, 
 as the English. Our sense for rhetoric has in 
 some ways done harm to us in our cultivation of 
 literature, harm to us, still more, in our cultiva- 
 tion of science ; but in the true sphere of rhetoric, 
 in public speaking, this sense has given us orators 
 whom I do think we may, without fear of being 
 contradicted and accused of blind national vanity, 
 assert to have inherited the great Greek and 
 
 genuine Dutch as the High Dutch of Germany' Proper. But do 
 they write sentences like this one, — informe, ingens, cui lumen 
 ademptum ? If not, the question must be asked, not how we have 
 come to deviate, but how the Germans have come to deviate. 
 Our modern English prose in plain matters is often all just the 
 same as the prose of King Alfred and the Chronicle. Ohthere's 
 North Sea Voyage and Wulfstan's Baltic Voyage is the sort of thing 
 which is sent in every day, one may say, to the Geographical or 
 Ethnological Society, in the whole style and turn of phrase and 
 thought.' 
 
 The mass of a stock must supply our data for judging the stock. 
 But see, moreover, what I have said at p. 99. 
 
 VOL. w 97 H 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 Roman oratorical tradition more than the orators 
 of any other country. Strafford, Bolingbroke, 
 the two Pitts, Fox, — to cite no other names, — I 
 imagine few will dispute that these call up the 
 notion of an oratory, in kind, in extent, in power, 
 coming nearer than any other body of modern 
 oratory to the oratory of Greece and Rome. 
 And the affinity of spirit in our best public life 
 and greatest public men to those of Rome, has 
 often struck observers, foreign as well as English. 
 Now, not only have the Germans shown no 
 eminent aptitude for rhetoric such as the English 
 have shown, — that was not to be expected, since 
 our public life has done so much to develop an 
 aptitude of this kind, and the public life of the 
 Germans has done so little, — but they seem in 
 a singular degree devoid of any aptitude at all 
 for rhetoric. Take a speech from the throne 
 in Prussia, and compare it with a speech from 
 the throne in England. Assuredly it is not in 
 speeches from the throne that English rhetoric 
 or any rhetoric shows its best side ; — they are 
 often cavilled at, often justly cavilled at ; — no 
 wonder, for this form of composition is beset 
 with very trying difficulties. But what is to be 
 remarked is this ; — a speech from the throne falls 
 essentially within the sphere of rhetoric, it is 
 one's sense of rhetoric which has to fix its tone 
 and style, so as to keep a certain note always 
 sounding in it ; in an English speech from the 
 throne, whatever its faults, this rhetorical note is 
 
 98 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 always struck and kept to ; in a Prussian speech 
 from the throne, never. An English speech 
 from the throne is rhetoric ; a Prussian speech is 
 half talk, — heavy talk, — and half effusion. This 
 is one instance, it may be said ; true, but in one 
 instance of this kind the presence or the absence 
 of an aptitude for rhetoric is decisively shown. 
 Well, then, why am I not to say that we English 
 get our rhetorical sense from the Norman element 
 in us, — our turn for this strenuous, direct, high- 
 spirited talent of oratory, from the influence of 
 the strenuous, direct, high-spirited Normans? 
 Modes of life, institutions, government, and other 
 such causes, are sufficient, I shall be told, to 
 account for English oratory. Modes of life, 
 institutions, government, climate, and so forth, — 
 let me say it once for all, — will further or hinder 
 the development of an aptitude, but they will 
 not by themselves create the aptitude or explain 
 it. On the other hand, a people's habit and 
 complexion of nature go far to determine its 
 modes of life, institutions, and government, and 
 even to prescribe the limits within which the 
 influences of climate shall tell upon it. 
 
 However, it is not my intention, in these 
 remarks, to lay it down for certain that this 
 or that part of our powers, shortcomings, and 
 behaviour, is due to a Celtic, German, or 
 Norman element in us. To establish this I 
 should need much wider limits, and a knowledge, 
 too, far beyond what I possess ; all I purpose 
 
 99 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 is to point out certain correspondences, not 
 yet, perhaps, sufficiently observed and attended 
 to, which seem to lead towards certain con- 
 clusions. The following up the inquiry till full 
 proof is reached, — or perhaps, full disproof, — 
 is what I want to suggest to more competent 
 persons. Premising this, I now go on to a 
 second matter, somewhat more delicate and 
 inward than that with which I began. Every 
 one knows how well the Greek and Latin 
 races, with their direct sense for the visible, 
 palpable world, have succeeded in the plastic 
 arts. The sheer German races, too, with their 
 honest love of fact, and their steady pursuit of 
 it, — their fidelity to nature, in short, — have 
 attained a high degree of success in these arts ; 
 few people will deny that Albert Dizrer and 
 Rubens, for example, are to be called masters 
 in painting, and in the high kind of painting. 
 ^The Celtic races, on the other hand, have 
 shown a singular inaptitude for the plastic arts ; 
 the abstract, severe character of the Druidical 
 religion, its dealing with the eye of the mind 
 rather than the eye of the body, its having no 
 elaborate temples and beautiful idols, all point 
 this way from the first ; its sentiment cannot 
 satisfy itself, cannot even find a resting-place for 
 itself, in colour and form ; it presses on to the 
 impalpable, the ideal. The forest of trees and 
 the forest of rocks, not hewn timber and carved 
 stones, suit its aspirations for something not to 
 
 100 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 be bounded or expressed. With this tendency, 
 the Celtic races have, as I remarked before, 
 been necessarily almost impotent in the higher 
 branches of the plastic arts. Ireland, that has 
 produced so many powerful spirits, has pro- 
 duced no great sculptors or painters.j Cross 
 into England. The inaptitude for the plastic 
 art strikingly diminishes, as soon as the German, 
 not the Celtic element, preponderates in the 
 race. And yet in England, too, in the English 
 race, there is something which seems to prevent 
 our reaching real mastership in the plastic arts, 
 as the more unmixed German races have reached 
 it. Reynolds and Turner are painters of genius, 
 who can doubt it ? but take a European jury, 
 the only competent jury in these cases, and see 
 if you can get a verdict giving them the rank 
 of masters, as this rank is given to Raphael 
 and Correggio, or to Albert Diirer and Rubens. 
 And observe in what points our English pair 
 succeed, and in what they fall short. They fall 
 short in architectonice, in the highest power of 
 composition, by which painting accomplishes the 
 very uttermost which it is given to painting to 
 accomplish ; the highest sort of composition, 
 the highest application of the art of painting, 
 they either do not attempt, or they fail in it. 
 Their defect, therefore, is on the side of art, 
 of plastic art. And they succeed in magic, in 
 beauty, in gra:ce, in expressing almost the in- 
 expressible : here is the charm of Reynolds's 
 
 lOI 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 children and Turner's seas; the impulse to 
 express the inexpressible carries Turner so far, 
 that at last it carries him away, and even long 
 before he is quite carried away, even in works 
 that are justly extolled, one can see the stamp- 
 mark, as the French say, of insanity. The 
 excellence, therefore, the ' success, is on the side 
 of spirit. Does not this look as if a Celtic stream 
 met the main German current in us, and gave it 
 a somewhat different course from that which it 
 takes naturally ? We have Germanism enough 
 in us, enough patient love for fact and matter, 
 to be led to attempt the plastic arts, and we 
 make much more way in them than the pure 
 Celtic races make ; but at a certain point our 
 Celtism comes in, with its love of emotion, 
 sentiment, the inexpressible, and gives our best 
 painters a bias. And the point at which it 
 comes in is just that critical point where the 
 flowering of art into its perfection commences ; 
 we have plenty of painters who never reach this 
 point at all, but remain always mere journey- 
 men, in bondage to matter ; but those who do 
 reach it, instead of going on to the true consum- 
 mation of the masters in painting, are a little 
 overbalanced by soul and feeling, work too 
 directly for these, and so do not get out of their 
 art all that may be got out of it. 
 
 The same modification of our Germanism 
 by another force which seems Celtic, is visible 
 in our religion. Here, too, we may trace a 
 
 102 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 gradation between Celt, Englishman, and German, 
 the difference which distinguishes Englishman 
 from German appearing attributable to a Celtic 
 element in us. Germany is the land of exegesis, 
 England is the land of Puritanism. The religion 
 of Wales is more emotional and sentimental 
 than English Puritanism ; Romanism has indeed 
 given way to Calvinism among the Welsh, — the 
 one superstition has supplanted the other, — but 
 the Celtic sentiment which made the Welsh 
 such devout Catholics, remains, and gives unction 
 to their Methodism ; theirs is not the contro- 
 versial, rationalistic, intellectual side of Protes- 
 tantism, but the devout, emotional, religious 
 side. Among the Germans, Protestantism has 
 been carried on into rationalism and science. 
 The English hold a middle place between the 
 Germans and the Welsh ; their religion has the 
 exterior forms and apparatus of a rationalism, so 
 far their Germanic nature carries them ; but 
 long before they get to science, their feeling, 
 their Celtic element catches them, and turns 
 their religion all towards piety and unction. 
 So English Protestantism has the outside appear- 
 ance of an intellectual system, and the inside 
 reality of an emotional system : this gives it its 
 tenacity and force, for what is held with the ardent 
 attachment of feeling is believed to have at the 
 same time the scientific proof of reason. The 
 English Puritan, therefore (and Puritanism is the 
 characteristic form of English Protestantism), 
 
 103 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 stands between the German Protestant and the 
 Celtic Methodist ; his real affinity indeed, at 
 present, being rather with his Welsh kinsman, 
 if kinsman he may be called, than with his 
 German. 
 
 Sometimes one is left in doubt from whence 
 the check and limit to Germanism in us proceeds, 
 whether from a Celtic source or from a Norman 
 source. Of the true steady-going German nature 
 the bane is, as I remarked, flat commonness ; 
 there seems no end to its capacity for platitude ; 
 it has neither the quick perception of the Celt 
 to save it from platitude, nor the strenuousness 
 of the Norman ; it is only raised gradually out 
 of it by science, but it jogs through almost 
 interminable platitudes first. The English nature 
 is not raised to science, but something in us, 
 whether Celtic or Norman, seems to set a bound 
 to our advance in platitude, to make us either 
 shy of platitude or impatient of it. I open an 
 English reading- book for children, and I find 
 these two characteristic stories in it, one of them 
 of English growth, the other of German. Take 
 the English story first : — 
 
 ' A little boy accompanied his elder sister 
 while she busied herself with the labours of 
 the farm, asking questions at every step, and 
 learning the lessons of life without being aware 
 of it. 
 
 ' " Why, dear Jane," he said, " do you scatter 
 good grain on the ground ; would it not be 
 
 104 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 better to make good bread of it than to throw it 
 to the greedy chickens ? " 
 
 * " In time," replied Jane, " the chickens will 
 grow big, and each of them will fetch money at 
 the market. One must think on the end to be 
 attained without counting trouble, and learn to 
 wait." 
 
 ' Perceiving a colt, which looked eagerly at 
 him, the little boy cried out : "Jane, why is the 
 colt not in the fields with the labourers helping 
 to draw the carts ? " 
 
 ' " The colt is young," replied Jane, " and he 
 must lie idle till he gets the necessary strength ; 
 one must not sacrifice the future to the present."' 
 
 The reader will say that is most mean and 
 trivial stuff, the vulgar English nature in full 
 force ; just such food as the Philistine would 
 naturally provide for his young. He will say 
 he can see the boy fed upon it growing up to be 
 like his father, to be all for business, to despise 
 culture, to go through his dull days, and to 
 die without having ever lived. That may be 
 so ; but now take the German story (one of 
 Krummacher's), and see the difference : — 
 
 ' There lived at the court of King Herod a 
 rich man who was the king's chamberlain. He 
 clothed himself in purple and fine linen, and 
 fared like the king himself. 
 
 ' Once a friend of his youth, whom he had 
 not seen for many years, came from a distant 
 land to pay him a visit. Then the chamberlain 
 
 los 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 invited all his friends and made a feast in honour 
 of the stranger. 
 
 ' The tables were covered with choice food 
 placed on dishes of gold and silver, and the finest 
 wines of all kinds. The rich man sate at the 
 head of the table, glad to do the honours to his 
 friend who was seated at his right hand. So 
 they ate and drank, and were merry. 
 
 ' Then the stranger said to the chamberlain of 
 King Herod : " Riches and splendour like thine 
 are nowhere to be found in my country." And 
 he praised his greatness, and called him happy 
 above all men on earth. 
 
 ' Well, the rich man took an apple from a 
 golden vessel. The apple was large, and red, 
 and pleasant to the eye. Then said he : 
 " Behold, this apple hath rested on gold, and its 
 form is very beautiful." And he presented it 
 to the stranger, the friend of his youth. The 
 stranger cut the apple in two ; and behold, in 
 the middle of it there was a worm ! 
 
 'Then the stranger looked at the chamberlain ; 
 and the chamberlain bent his eyes on the ground, 
 and sighed.' 
 
 There it ends. Now I say, one sees there an 
 abyss of platitude open, and the German nature 
 swimming calmly about in it, which seems in 
 some way or other to have its entry screened off 
 for the English nature. The English story leads 
 with a direct issue into practical life : a narrow 
 and dry practical life, certainly, but yet enough 
 
 1 06 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 to supply a plain motive for the story ; the 
 German story leads simply nowhere except into 
 pathos. Shall we say that the Norman talent 
 for affairs saves us here, or the Celtic perceptive 
 instinct ? one of them it must be, surely. The 
 Norman turn seems most germane to the matter 
 here immediately in hand ; on the other hand, the 
 Celtic turn, or some degree of it, some degree of 
 its quick perceptive instinct, seems necessary to 
 account for the full difference between the German 
 nature and ours. Even in Germans of genius or 
 talent the want of quick light tact, of instinctive 
 perception of the impropriety or impossibility of 
 certain things, is singularly remarkable. Herr 
 Gervinus's prodigious discovery about Handel 
 being an Englishman and Shakspeare a German, 
 the incredible mare's-nest Goethe finds in looking 
 for the origin of Byron's Manfred, — these are 
 things from which no deliberate care or reflec- 
 tion can save a man ; only an instinct can save 
 him from them, an instinct that they are ab- 
 surd ; who can imagine Charles Lamb making 
 Herr Gervinus's blunder, or Shakspeare making 
 Goethe's ? but from the sheer German nature 
 this intuitive tact seems something so alien, that 
 even genius fails to give it. And yet just what 
 constitutes special power and genius in a man 
 seems often to be his blending with the basis 
 of his national temperament, some additional 
 gift or grace not proper to that temperament ; 
 Shakspeare's greatness is thus in his blending 
 
 107 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 and openness and flexibility of spirit, not English, 
 with the English basis ; Addison's, in his blending 
 a moderation and delicacy, not English, with 
 the English basis ; Burke's, in his blending a 
 largeness of view and richness of thought, not 
 English, with the English basis. In Germany 
 itself, in the same way, the greatness of their 
 great Frederic lies in his blending a rapidity and 
 clearness, not German, with the German basis ; 
 the greatness of Goethe in his blending a love of 
 form, nobility, and dignity, the grand style, — 
 with the German basis. But the quick, sure, in- 
 stinctive perception of the incongruous and absurd 
 not even genius seems to give in Germany; at 
 least, I can think of only one German of genius, 
 Lessing (for Heine was a Jew, and the Jewish 
 temperament is quite another thing from the 
 German), who shows it in an eminent degree. 
 
 If we attend closely to the terms by which 
 foreigners seek to hit off the impression which 
 we and the Germans make upon them, we shall 
 detect in these terms a difference which makes, 
 I think, in favour of the notion I am pro- 
 pounding. Nations in hitting off one another's 
 characters are apt, we all know, to seize the 
 unflattering side rather than the flattering ; 
 the mass of mankind always do this, and indeed 
 they really see what is novel, and not their own, 
 in a disfiguring light. Thus we ourselves, for 
 instance, popularly say ' the phlegmatic Dutch- 
 man ' rather than 'the sensible Dutchman,' or 
 
 1 08 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 ' the grimacing Frenchman ' rather than ' the 
 polite Frenchman.' Therefore neither we nor 
 the Germans should exactly accept the descrip- 
 tion strangers give of us, but it is enough for my 
 purpose that strangers, in characterising us with 
 a certain shade of difference, do at any rate make 
 it clear that there appears this shade of difference, 
 though the character itself, which they give 
 us both, may be a caricature rather than a 
 faithful picture of us. Now it is to be noticed 
 that those sharp observers, the French, — who 
 have a double turn for sharp observation, for 
 they have both the quick perception of the 
 Celt, and the Latin's gift for coming plump 
 upon the fact, — it is to be noticed, I say, that 
 the French put a curious distinction in their 
 popular, depreciating, we will hope inadequate, 
 way of hitting off us and the Germans. While 
 they talk of the ' betise allemande,' they talk of 
 the '■ gaucherie anglaise'; while they talk of the 
 ' Allemand balourd^ they talk of the ' Anglais 
 empStre'; while they call the German ^ niais,' 
 they call the Englishman '• milancolique.^ The 
 difference between the epithets balourd and 
 empetri exactly gives the difference in character 
 I wish to seize ; balourd means heavy and dull, 
 empetre means hampered and embarrassed. This 
 points to a certain mixture and strife of elements 
 in the Englishman ; to the clashing of a Celtic 
 quickness of perception with a Germanic instinct 
 for going steadily along close to the ground. 
 
 109 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 The Celt, as we have seen, has not at all, in 
 spite of his quick perception, the Latin talent 
 for dealing with the fact, dexterously managing 
 it, and making himself master of it ; Latin or 
 Latinised people have felt contempt for him on 
 this account, have treated him as a poor creature, 
 just as the German, who arrives at fact in a 
 different way from the Latins, but who arrives 
 at it, has treated him. The couplet of Chrestien 
 of Troyes about the Welsh — 
 
 Gallois sont tous, par nature. 
 Plus fous que betes en pature — 
 
 is well known, and expresses the genuine verdict 
 of the Latin mind on the Celts. But the per- 
 ceptive instinct of the Celt feels and anticipates, 
 though he has that in him which cuts him off 
 from command of the world of fact ; he sees 
 what is wanting to him well enough ; his mere 
 eye is not less sharp, nay, it is sharper, than 
 the Latin's. He is a quick genius, checkmated 
 for want of strenuousness or else patience. The 
 German has not the Latin's sharp precise glance 
 on the world of fact, and dexterous behaviour 
 in it ; he fumbles with it much and long, but 
 his honesty and patience give him the rule of 
 it in the long run, — a surer rule, some of us 
 think, than the Latin gets ; — still, his behaviour 
 in it is not quick and dexterous. The English- 
 man, in so far as he is German, — and he 
 is mainly German, — proceeds in the steady- 
 no 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 going German fashion ; if he were all German 
 he would proceed thus for ever without self- 
 consciousness or embarrassment ; but, in so far 
 as he is Celtic, he has snatches of quick instinct ^ 
 which often make him feel he is fumbling, show 
 him visions of an easier, more dexterous behaviour, 
 disconcert him and fill him with misgiving. No"^ 
 people, therefore, are so shy, so self-conscious, 
 so embarrassed as the English, because two 
 natures are mixed in them, and natures which 
 pull them such different ways. The Germanic 
 part, indeed, triumphs in us, we are a Germanic 
 people ; but not so wholly as to exclude hauntings 
 of Celtism, which clash with our Germanism, 
 producing, as I believe, our humour^ neither 
 German nor Celtic, and so affect us that we strike 
 people as odd and singular, not to be referred to 
 any known type, and like nothing but ourselves.j 
 ' Nearly every Englishman,' says an excellent and 
 by no means unfriendly observer, George Sand, 
 ' nearly every Englishman, however good-looking 
 he may be, has always something singular about 
 him which easily comes to seem comic ; — a 
 sort of typical awkwardness {gaucherie ty pique) 
 in his looks or appearance, which hardly ever 
 wears out.' I say this strangeness is accounted 
 for by the English nature being mixed as we 
 have seen, while the Latin nature is all of a 
 piece, and so is the German nature, and the 
 Celtic nature. 
 
 It is impossible to go very fast when the 
 III 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 matter with which one has to deal, besides 
 being new and little explored, is also by its 
 nature so subtle, eluding one's grasp unless one 
 handles it with all possible delicacy and care. 
 It is in our poetry that the Celtic part in us has 
 left its trace clearest, and in our poetry I must 
 follow it before I have done. 
 
 VI 
 
 If I were asked where English poetry got 
 these three things, its turn for style, its turn for 
 melancholy, and its turn for natural magic, for 
 catching and rendering the charm of nature in 
 a wonderfully near and vivid way, — I should 
 answer, with some doubt, that it got much of its 
 turn for style from a Celtic source ; with less 
 doubt, that it got much of its melancholy from a 
 Celtic source ; with no doubt at all, that from a 
 Celtic source it got nearly all its natural magic. 
 
 Any German with penetration and tact in 
 matters of literary criticism will own that the 
 principal deficiency of German poetry is in style ; 
 that for style, in the highest sense, it shows 
 but little feeling. Take the eminent masters of 
 style, the poets who best give the idea of what 
 the peculiar power which lies in style is, — Pindar, 
 Virgil, Dante, Milton . An example of the peculiar 
 effect which these poets produce, you can hardly 
 give from German poetry. Examples enough you 
 
 I 12 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 can give from German poetry of the eiFect pro- 
 duced by genius, thought, and feeling expressing 
 thernselves in clear language, simple language, 
 passionate language, eloquent language, with 
 harmony and melody ; but not of the peculiar 
 effect exercised by eminent power of style. 
 Every reader of Dante can at once call to mind 
 what the peculiar effect I mean is ; I spoke of 
 it in my lectures on translating Homer, and 
 there I took an example of it from Dante, who 
 perhaps manifests it more eminently than any 
 other poet. But from Milton, too, one may 
 take examples of it abundantly ; compare this 
 from Milton : — 
 
 nor sometimes forget 
 Those other two equal with me in fate. 
 So were I equall'd with them in renown, 
 Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides — 
 
 with this from Goethe : — 
 
 Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, 
 Sich ein Character in dem Strom der Welt. 
 
 Nothing can be better in its way than the style 
 in which Goethe there presents his thought, but 
 it is the style of prose as much as of poetry ; it 
 is lucid, harmonious, earnest, eloquent, but it has 
 not received that peculiar kneading, heighten- 
 ing, and recasting which is observable in the 
 style of the passage from Milton, — a style which 
 seems to have for its cause a certain pressure 
 of emotion, and an ever-surging, yet bridled, 
 VOL. V 113 I 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 excitement in the poet, giving a special intensity 
 to his way of delivering himself. In poetical 
 races and epochs this turn for style is peculiarly 
 observable ; and perhaps it is only on condition 
 of having this somewhat heightened and diffi- 
 cult manner, so different from the plain manner 
 of prose, that poetry gets the privilege of being 
 loosed, at its best moments, into that perfectly 
 simple, limpid style, which is the supreme 
 style of all, but the simplicity of which is still 
 not the simplicity of prose. The simplicity of 
 Menander's style is the simplicity of prose, and is 
 the same kind of simplicity as that which Goethe's 
 style, in the passage I have quoted, exhibits ; 
 but Menander does not belong to a great poetical 
 moment, he comes too late for it ; it is the simple 
 passages in poets like Pindar or Dante which are 
 perfect, being masterpieces of poetical simplicity. 
 One may say the same of the simple passages in 
 Shakspeare ; they are perfect, their simplicity 
 being a poetical simplicity. They are the golden, 
 easeful, crowning moments of a manner which is 
 always pitched in another key from that of prose, 
 a manner changed and heightened ; the Eliza- 
 bethan style, regnant in most of our dramatic 
 poetry to this day, is mainly the continuation of 
 this manner of Shakspeare's. It was a manner 
 much more turbid and strewn with blemishes 
 than the manner of Pindar, Dante, or Milton ; 
 often it was detestable ; but it owed its existence 
 to Shakspeare's instinctive impulse towards style 
 
 114 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 in poetry, to his native sense of the necessity for 
 it ; and without the basis of style everywhere, 
 faulty though it may in some places be, we 
 should not have had the beauty of expression, 
 unsurpassable for effectiveness and charm, which 
 is reached in Shakspeare's best passages. The 
 turn for style is perceptible all through English 
 poetry, proving, to my mind, the genuine 
 poetical gift of the race ; this turn imparts to 
 our poetry a stamp of high distinction, and 
 sometimes it doubles the force of a poet not by 
 nature of the very highest order, such as Gray, 
 and raises him to a rank beyond what his natural 
 richness and power seem to promise. Goethe, 
 with his fine critical perception, saw clearly 
 enough both the power of style in itself, and the 
 lack of style in the literature of his own country ; 
 and perhaps if we regard him solely as a German, 
 not as a European, his great work was that he 
 laboured all his life to impart style into German 
 literature, and firmly to establish it there. Hence 
 the immense importance to him of the world of 
 classical art, and of the productions of Greek or 
 Latin genius, where style so eminently manifests 
 its power. Had he found in the German genius 
 and literature an element of style existing by 
 nature and ready to his hand, half his work, one 
 may say, would have been saved him, and he 
 might have done much more in poetry. But as 
 it was, he had to try and create, out of his own 
 powers, a style for German poetry, as well as to 
 
 IIS 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 provide contents for this style to carry ; and thus 
 his labour as a poet was doubled. 
 
 It is to be observed that power of style, in 
 the sense in which I am here speaking of style, 
 is something quite different from the power of 
 idiomatic, simple, nervous, racy expression, such 
 as the expression of healthy, robust natures so 
 often is, such as Luther's was in a striking degree. 
 Style, in my sense of the word, is a peculiar 
 recasting and heightening, under a certain con- 
 dition of spiritual excitement, of what a man has 
 to say, in such a manner as to add dignity and 
 distinction to it ; and dignity and distinction are 
 not terms which suit many acts or words of 
 Luther. Deeply touched with the Gemeinheit 
 which is the bane of his nation, as he is at the 
 same time a grand example of the honesty which 
 is his nation's excellence, he can seldom even 
 show himself brave, resolute, and truthful, with- 
 out showing a strong dash of coarseness and 
 commonness all the while ; the right definition 
 of Luther, as of our own Bunyan, is that he is 
 a Philistine of genius. So Luther's sincere 
 idiomatic German, — such language is this : 
 ' Hilf lieber Gott, wie manchen Jammer habe 
 ich gesehen, dass der gemeine Mann doch so gar 
 nichts weiss von der christlichen Lehre ! ' — no 
 more proves a power of style in German litera- 
 ture, than Cobbett's sinewy idiomatic English 
 proves it in English literature. Power of style, 
 properly so called, as manifested in masters of 
 
 ii6 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 style like Dante or Milton in poetry, Cicero, 
 Bossuet or Bolingbroke in prose, is something 
 quite different, and has, as I have said, for its 
 characteristic effect, this : to add dignity and 
 distinction. 
 
 Style, then, the Germans are singularly with- 
 out, and it is strange that the power of style 
 should show itself so strongly as it does in 
 the Icelandic poetry, if the Scandinavians are 
 such genuine Teutons as is commonly supposed. 
 Fauriel used to talk of the Scandinavian Teutons 
 and the German Teutons, as if they were two 
 divisions of the same people, and the common 
 notion about" them, no doubt, is very much this. 
 Since the war in Schleswig-Holstein, however, 
 all one's German friends are exceedingly anxious 
 to insist on the difference of nature between 
 themselves and the Scandinavians ; when one ex- 
 presses surprise that the German sense of nation- 
 ality should be so deeply affronted by the rule 
 over Germans, not of Latins or Celts, but of 
 brother Teutons or next door to it, a German 
 will give you I know not how long a catalogue 
 of the radical points of unlikeness, in genius and 
 disposition, between himself and a Dane. This 
 emboldens me to remark that there is a fire, a 
 sense of style^ a distinction, in Icelandic poetry, 
 which German poetry has not. Icelandic poetry, 
 too, shows a powerful and developed technic ; 
 and I wish to throw out, for examination by 
 those who are competent to sift the matter, 
 
 117 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 the suggestion that this power of style and de- 
 velopment of technic in the Norse poetry seems 
 to point towards an early Celtic influence or 
 intermixture. It is curious that Zeuss, in his 
 grammar, quotes a text which gives countenance 
 to this notion ; as late as the ninth century, he 
 says, there were Irish Celts in Iceland ; and the 
 text he quotes to show this, is as follows : — * In 
 870 A.D., when the Norwegians came to Iceland, 
 there were Christians there, who departed, and 
 left behind them Irish books, bells, and other 
 things ; from whence it may be inferred that 
 these Christians were Irish.' I speak, and ought 
 to speak, with the utmost diffidence on all these 
 questions of ethnology ; but I must say that 
 when I read this text in Zeuss, I caught eagerly 
 at the clue it seemed to offer ; for I had been 
 hearing the Nibelungen read and commented on in 
 German schools (German schools have the good 
 habit of reading and commenting on German 
 poetry, as we read and comment on Homer and 
 Virgil, but do not read and comment on Chaucer 
 and Shakspeare), and it struck me how the fatal 
 humdrum and want of style of the Germans had 
 marred their way of telling this magnificent 
 tradition of the Nibelungen^ and taken half its 
 grandeur and power out of it ; while in the 
 Icelandic poems which deal with this tradition, 
 its grandeur and power are much more fully 
 visible, and everywhere in the poetry of the 
 Edda there is a force of style and a distinction 
 
 118 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 as unlike as possible to the want of both in the 
 German Nibelungen} At the same time the 
 Scandinavians have a realism, as it is called, 
 in their genius, which abundantly proves their 
 relationship with the Germans ; any one whom 
 Mr. Dasent's delightful books have made ac- 
 quainted with the prose tales of the Norsemen, 
 will be struck with the stamp of a Teutonic 
 nature in them ; but the Norse poetry seems to 
 have something which from Teutonic sources 
 alone it could not have derived ; which the 
 Germans have not, and which the Celts have. 
 
 This something is style, and the Celts certainly 
 have it in a wonderful measure. Style is the 
 most striking quality of their poetry. Celtic 
 poetry seems to make up to itself for being 
 unable to master the world and give an adequate 
 interpretation of it, by throwing all its force into 
 style, by bending language at any rate to its will, 
 
 1 Lord Strangford's note on this is : — ' The Irish monks whose 
 bells and books were found in Iceland could not have contributed 
 anything to the old Norse spirit, for they had perished before the 
 first Norsemen had set foot on the island. The form of the old 
 Norse poetry known to us as Icelandic, from the accident of its 
 preservation in that island alone, is surely Pan-Teutonic from old 
 times ; the art and method of its strictly literary cultivation must 
 have been much influenced by the contemporary Old-English 
 national poetry, with which the Norsemen were in constant contact ; 
 and its larger, freer, and wilder spirit must have been owing to their 
 freer and wilder life, to say nothing of their roused and warring 
 paganism. They could never have known any Celts save when 
 living in embryo with other Teutons.' 
 
 Very likely Lord Strangford is right, but the proposition with 
 which he begins is at variance with what the text quoted by Zeuss 
 alleges. 
 
 119 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 and expressing the ideas it has with unsurpassable 
 intensity, elevation, and effect. It has all through 
 it a sort of intoxication of style, — a Pindarism, to 
 use a word formed from the name of the poet, 
 on whom, above all other poets, the power of 
 style seems to have exercised an inspiring and 
 intoxicating effect ; and not in its great poets 
 only, in Taliesin, or Llywarch Hen, or Ossian, 
 does the Celtic genius show this Pindarism, but 
 in all its productions : — 
 
 The grave of March is this, and this the grave of Gwythyr ; 
 Here is the grave of Gwgawn Gleddyfreidd ; 
 But unknown is the grave of Arthur. 
 
 That comes from the Welsh Memorials of the 
 Graves of the Warriors, and if we compare it 
 with the familiar memorial inscriptions of an 
 English churchyard (for we English have so 
 much Germanism in us that our productions 
 offer abundant examples of German want of 
 style as well as of its opposite) : — 
 
 Afflictions sore long time I bore. 
 Physicians were in vain. 
 Till God did please Death should me seize 
 And ease me of my pain — 
 
 if, I say, we compare the Welsh memorial lines 
 with the English, which in their Gemeinheit of 
 style are truly Germanic, we shall get a clear 
 sense of what that Celtic talent for style I have 
 been speaking of is. 
 
 Or take this epitaph of an Irish Celt, Angus 
 the Culdee, whose Filiri, or festology, I have 
 
 120 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 already mentioned ; — a festology in which, at the 
 end of the eighth or beginning of the ninth 
 century, he collected from ' the countless hosts of 
 the illuminated books of Erin' (to use his own 
 words) the festivals of the Irish saints, his poem 
 having a stanza for every day in the year. The 
 epitaph on Angus, who died at Cluain Eidhncch, 
 in Queen's County, runs thus : — 
 
 Angus in the assembly of Heaven, 
 Here are his tomb and his bed ; 
 It is from hence he went to death. 
 In the Friday, to holy Heaven. 
 
 It was in Cluain Eidhnech he was rear'd ; 
 It was in Cluain Eidhnech he was buried j 
 In Cluain Eidhnech, of many crosses. 
 He first read his psalms. 
 
 That is by no eminent hand ; and yet a Greek 
 epitaph could not show a finer perception of 
 what constitutes propriety and felicity of style 
 in compositions of this nature. Take the well- 
 known Welsh prophecy about the fate of the 
 Britons : — 
 
 Their Lord they will praise, 
 Their speech they will keep. 
 Their land they will lose. 
 Except wild Wales. 
 
 To however late an epoch that prophecy be- 
 longs, what a feeling for style, at any rate, it 
 manifests ! And the same thing may be said of 
 the famous Welsh triads. We may put aside all 
 the vexed questions as to their greater or less 
 
 121 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 antiquity, and still what important witness they 
 bear to the genius for literary style of the people 
 who produced them ! 
 
 Now we English undoubtedly exhibit very 
 often the want of sense for style of our German 
 kinsmen. The churchyard lines I just now 
 quoted afford an instance of it ; but the whole 
 branch of our literature, — and a very popular 
 branch it is, our hymnology, — to which those 
 lines are to be referred, is one continued instance 
 of it. Our German kinsmen and we are the 
 great people for hymns. The Germans are very 
 proud of their hymns, and we are very proud of 
 ours ; but it is hard to say which of the two, the 
 German hymn-book or ours, has least poetical 
 worth in itself, or does least to prove genuine 
 poetical power in the people producing it. I 
 have not a word to say against Sir Roundell 
 Palmer's choice and arrangement of materials for 
 his Book of Praise ; I am content to put them on 
 a level (and that is giving them the highest 
 possible rank) with Mr. Palgrave's choice and 
 arrangement of materials for his Golden Treasury ; 
 but yet no sound critic can doubt that, so far as 
 poetry is concerned, while the Golden Treasury 
 is a monument of a nation's strength, the Book of 
 Praise is a monument of a nation's weakness. 
 Only the German race, with its want of quick 
 instinctive tact, of delicate, sure perception, 
 could have invented the hymn as the Germans 
 and we have it ; and our non-German turn for 
 
 122 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 style, — style, of which the very essence is a 
 certain happy fineness and truth of poetical 
 perception, — could not but desert us when our 
 German nature carried us into a kind of com- 
 position which can please only when the per- 
 ception is somewhat blunt. Scarcely any one of 
 us ever judges our hymns fairly, because works 
 of this kind have two sides, — their side for 
 religion and their side for poetry. Everything 
 which has helped a man in his religious life, 
 everything which associates itself in his mind 
 with the growth of that life, is beautiful and 
 venerable to him ; in this way, productions of 
 little or no poetical value, like the German 
 hymns and ours, may come to be regarded as 
 very precious. Their worth in this sense, as 
 means by which we have been edified, I do not 
 for a moment hold cheap ; but there is an 
 edification proper to all our stages of develop- 
 ment, the highest as well as the lowest, and it is 
 for man to press on towards the highest stages 
 of his development, with the certainty that for 
 those stages, too, means of edification will not be 
 found wanting. Now certainly it is a higher 
 state of development when our fineness of per- 
 ception is keen than when it is blunt. And if, 
 — whereas the Semitic genius placed its highest 
 spiritual life in the religious sentiment, and 
 made that the basis of its poetry, — the Indo- 
 European genius places its highest spiritual life 
 in the imaginative reason, and makes that the 
 
 123 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 basis of its poetry, we are none the better for 
 wanting the perception to discern a natural law, 
 which is, after all, like every natural law, irre- 
 sistible ; we are none the better for trying to 
 make ourselves Semitic, when Nature has made 
 us Indo-European, and to shift the basis of our 
 poetry. We may mean well ; all manner of 
 good may happen to us on the road we go ; but 
 we are not on our real right road, the road we 
 must in the end follow. 
 
 That is why, when our hymns betray a 
 false tendency by losing a power which ac- 
 companies the poetical work of our race on our 
 other more suitable lines, the indication thus 
 given is of great value and instructiveness for us. 
 One of our main gifts for poetry deserts us in 
 our hymns, and so gives us a hint as to the one 
 true basis for the spiritual work of an Indo- 
 European people, which the Germans, who have 
 not this particular gift of ours, do not and cannot 
 get in this way, though they may get it in 
 others. It is worth noticing that the master- 
 pieces of the spiritual work of Indo-Europeans, 
 taking the pure religious sentiment, and not the 
 imaginative reason, for their basis, are works like 
 the Imitation, the Dies Irce, the Stabat Mater, — 
 works clothing themselves in the Middle-Age 
 Latin, the genuine native voice of no Indo- 
 European nation. The perfection of their kind, 
 but that kind not perfectly legitimate, they take 
 a language not perfectly legitimate ; as if to 
 
 124 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 show, that when mankind's Semitic age is once 
 passed, the age which produced the great in- 
 comparable monuments of the pure religious 
 sentiment, the books of Job and Isaiah, the 
 Psalms, — works truly to be called inspired, 
 because the same divine power which worked 
 in those who produced them works no longer, 
 — as if to show us, that, after this primitive age, 
 we Indo-Europeans must feel these works with- 
 out attempting to remake them ; and that our 
 poetry, if it tries to make itself simply the 
 organ of the religious sentiment, leaves the true 
 course, and must conceal this by not speaking a 
 living language. The moment it speaks a living 
 language, and still makes itself the organ of 
 the religious sentiment only, as in the German 
 and English hymns, it betrays weakness ; — the 
 weakness of all false tendency. 
 
 But if, by attending to the Germanism in us 
 English and to its works, one has come to doubt 
 whether we, too, are not thorough Germans by 
 genius and with the German deadness to style, 
 one has only to repeat to oneself a line of 
 Milton, — a poet intoxicated with the passion 
 for style as much as Taliesin or Pindar, — to see 
 that we have another side to our genius beside 
 the German one. Whence do we get it ? The 
 Normans may have brought in among us the 
 Latin sense for rhetoric and style, — for, indeed, 
 this sense goes naturally with a high spirit and a 
 strenuousness like theirs, — but the sense for style 
 
 125 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 which English poetry shows is something finer 
 than we could well have got from a people so 
 positive and so little poetical as the Normans ; 
 and it seems to me we may much more plausibly 
 derive it from a root of the poetical Celtic 
 nature in us. 
 
 Its chord of penetrating passion and melan- 
 choly, again, its Titanism as we see it in Byron, 
 — what other European poetry possesses that 
 like the English, and where do we get it from ? 
 The Celts, with their vehement reaction against 
 the despotism of fact, with their sensuous nature, 
 their manifold striving, their adverse destiny, 
 their immense calamities, the Celts are the 
 prime authors of this vein of piercing regret and 
 passion, — of this Titanism in poetry. A famous 
 book, Macpherson's Ossian, carried in the last 
 century this vein like a flood of lava through 
 Europe. I am not going to criticise Mac- 
 pherson's Ossian here. Make the part of what 
 is forged, modern, tawdry, spurious, in the book, 
 as large as you please ; strip Scotland, if you 
 like, of every feather of borrowed plumes which 
 on the strength of Macpherson's Ossian she may 
 have stolen from that vetus et major Scotia, the 
 true home of the Ossianic poetry, Ireland ; I 
 make no objection. But there will still be left 
 in the book a residue with the very soul of the 
 Celtic genius in it, and which has the proud 
 distinction of having brought this soul of the 
 Celtic genius into contact with the genius of the 
 
 126 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 nations of modern Europe, and enriched all our 
 poetry by it. Woody Morven, and echoing 
 Sora, and Selma with its silent halls ! — ^we all 
 owe them a debt of gratitude, and when we are 
 unjust enough to forget it, may the Muse forget 
 us ! Choose any one of the better passages in 
 Macpherson's Ossian and you can see even at 
 this time of day what an apparition of newness 
 and power such a strain must have been to the 
 eighteenth century : — 
 
 ' I have seen the walls of Balclutha, but they 
 were desolate. The fox looked out from the 
 windows, the rank grass of the wall waved round 
 her head. Raise the song of mourning, O bards, 
 over the land of strangers. They have but fallen 
 before us, for one day we must fall. Why dost 
 thou build the hall, son of the winged days ? 
 Thou lookest from thy towers to-day ; yet a few 
 years, and the blast of the desert comes ; it howls 
 in thy empty court, and whistles round thy half- 
 worn shield. Let the blast of the desert come ! 
 we shall be renowned in our day.' 
 
 All Europe felt the power of that melancholy ; 
 but what I wish to point out is, that no nation 
 of Europe so caught in its poetry the passion- 
 ate penetrating accent of the Celtic genius, its 
 strain of Titanism, as the English. Goethe, like 
 Napoleon, felt the spell of Ossian very power- 
 fully, and he quotes a long passage from him in 
 his Werther, But what is there Celtic, turbulent, 
 and Titanic about the German Werther, that 
 
 127 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 amiable, cultivated, and melancholy young man, 
 having jfor his sorrow and suicide the perfectly 
 definite motive that Lotte cannot be his ? Faust, 
 again, has nothing unaccountable, defiant, and 
 Titanic in him ; his knowledge does not bring 
 him the satisfaction he expected from it, and 
 meanwhile he finds himself poor and growing 
 old, and baulked of the palpable enjoyment of 
 life ; and here is the motive for Faust's dis- 
 content. In the most energetic and impetuous 
 of Goethe's creations, — his Prometheus, — it is 
 not Celtic self-will and passion, it is rather the 
 Germanic sense of justice and reason, which 
 revolts against the despotism of Zeus. The 
 German Sehnsucht itself is a wistful, soft, tear- 
 ful longing, rather than a struggling, fierce, 
 passionate one. But the Celtic melancholy is 
 struggling, fierce, passionate ; to catch its note, 
 listen to Llywarch Hen in old age, addressing 
 his crutch : — 
 
 O my crutch ! is it not autumn, when the fern is red, the 
 water-flag yellow ? Have I not hated that which I love ? 
 
 O my crutch ! is it not winter-time now, when men talk 
 together after that they have drunken ? Is not the side of my 
 bed left desolate ? 
 
 O my crutch ! is it not spring, when the cuckoo passes 
 through the air, when the foam sparkles on the sea ? The 
 young maidens no longer love me. 
 
 O my crutch ! is it not the first day of May ? The 
 furrows, are they not shining ; the young corn, is it not 
 springing ? Ah ! the sight of thy handle makes me wroth. 
 
 O my crutch ! stand straight, thou wilt support me the 
 better ; it is very long since I was Llywarch. 
 
 128 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 Behold old age, which makes sport of me, from the hair of 
 my head to my teeth, to my eyes, which women loved. 
 
 The four things I have all my life most hated fall upon me 
 together, — coughing and old age, sickness and sorrow. 
 
 I am old, I am alone, shapeliness and warmth are gone 
 from me ; the couch of honour shall be no more mine ; I am 
 miserable, I am bent on my crutch. 
 
 How evil was the lot allotted to Llywarch, the night when 
 he was brought forth ! sorrows without end, and no deliverance 
 from his burden. 
 
 There is the Titanism of the Celt, his passion- 
 ate, turbulent, indomitable reaction against the 
 despotism of fact ; and of whom does it remind 
 us so much as of Byron .? 
 
 The fire which on my bosom preys 
 Is lone as some volcanic isle ; 
 No torch is kindled at its blaze ; 
 A funeral pile ! 
 
 Or, again : — 
 
 Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, 
 Count o'er thy days from anguish free, 
 And know, whatever thou hast been, 
 'Tis something better not to be. 
 
 One has only to let one's memory begin to fetch 
 passages from Byron striking the same note as 
 that passage from Llywarch Hen, and she will 
 not soon stop. And all Byron's heroes, not so 
 much in collision with outward things, as 
 breaking on some rock of revolt and misery 
 in the depths of their own nature ; Manfred, 
 self-consumed, fighting blindly and passionately 
 with I know not what, having nothing of the 
 VOL. V 129 K 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 consistent development and intelligible motive of 
 Faust, — Manfred, Lara, Cain, what are they but 
 Titanic ? Where in European poetry are we 
 to find this Celtic passion of revolt so warm- 
 breathing, puissant, and sincere ; except perhaps 
 in the creation of a yet greater poet than Byron, 
 but an English poet, too, like Byron, — in the 
 Satan of Milton ? 
 
 What though the field be lost ? 
 All is not lost J the unconquerable will. 
 And study of revenge, immortal hate. 
 And courage never to submit or yield, 
 And what is else not to be overcome. 
 
 There, surely, speaks a genius to whose com- 
 position the Celtic fibre was not wholly a 
 stranger ! 
 
 And as, after noting the Celtic Pindarism or 
 power of style present in our poetry, we noted 
 the German flatness coming in in our hymns, 
 and found here a proof of our compositeness of 
 nature ; so, after noting the Celtic Titanism or 
 power of rebellious passion in our poetry, we 
 may also note the Germanic patience and reason- 
 ableness in it, and get in this way a second 
 proof how mixed a spirit we have. After 
 Llywarch Hen's — 
 
 How evil was the lot allotted to Llywarch, the night when 
 he was brought forth — 
 
 after Byron's — 
 
 Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen — 
 130 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 take this of Southey's, in answer to the question 
 whether he would like to have his youth over 
 again : — 
 
 Do I regret the past ? 
 
 Would I live o'er again 
 
 The morning hours of life ? 
 
 Nay, William, nay, not so ! 
 
 Praise be to God <vho made me what I am. 
 
 Other I would not be. 
 
 There we have the other side of our being ; 
 the Germanic goodness, docility, and fidelity to 
 nature, in place of the Celtic Titanism. 
 
 The Celt's quick feeling for what is noble 
 and distinguished gave his poetry style ; his in- 
 domitable personality gave it pride and passion ; 
 his sensibility and nervous exaltation gave it 
 a better gift still, the gift of rendering with 
 wonderful felicity the magical charm of nature. 
 The forest solitude, the bubbling spring, the 
 wild flowers, are everywhere in romance. They 
 have a mysterious life and grace there ; they 
 are Nature's own children, and utter her secret 
 in a way which makes them something quite 
 different from the woods, waters, and plants of 
 Greek and Latin poetry. Now of this delicate 
 magic, Celtic romance is so pre-eminent a 
 mistress, that it seems impossible to believe the 
 power did not come into romance from the 
 Celts.^ Magic is just the word for it, — the 
 
 ^ Rhyme, — the most striking characteristic of our modern 
 poetry as distinguished from that of the ancients, and a main 
 
 131 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 magic of nature ; not merely the beauty of 
 nature, — that the Greeks and Latins had ; not 
 merely an honest smack of the soil, a faithful 
 realism, — that the Germans had ; but the 
 intimate life of Nature, her weird power and 
 her fairy charm. As the Saxon names of places, 
 with the pleasant wholesome smack of the soil 
 in them, — Weathersfield, Thaxted, Shalford, — 
 are to the Celtic names of places, with their 
 penetrating, lofty beauty, — Velindra, Tyntagel, 
 Caernarvon, — so is the homely realism of 
 German and Norse nature to the fairy -like 
 loveliness of Celtic nature. Gwydion wants a 
 wife for his pupil : ' Well,' says Math, ' we will 
 seek, I and thou, by charms and illusions, to 
 form a wife for him out of flowers. So they 
 took the blossoms of the oak, and the blossoms 
 of the broom, and the blossoms of the meadow- 
 sweet, and produced from them a maiden, the 
 fairest and most graceful that man ever saw. 
 And they baptized her, and gave her the name 
 of Flower-Aspect.' Celtic romance is full of 
 exquisite touches like that, showing the delicacy 
 of the Celt's feeling in these matters, and how 
 deeply Nature lets him come into her secrets. 
 The quick dropping of blood is called 'faster 
 than the fall of the dewdrop from the blade of 
 reed-grass upon the earth, when the dew of 
 
 source, to our poetry, of its magic and charm, of what we call 
 its romantic element, — rhyme itself, all the weight of evidence tend* 
 to show, comes into our poetry from the Celts. 
 
 132 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 June is at the heaviest.' And thus is Olwen 
 described : ' More yellow was her hair than 
 the flower of the broom, and her skin was 
 whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer 
 were her hands and her fingers than the 
 blossoms of the wood-anemony amidst the spray 
 of the meadow fountains.' For loveliness it 
 would be hard to beat that ; and for magical 
 clearness and nearness take the following : — 
 
 ' And in the evening Peredur entered a 
 valley, and at the head of the valley he came to 
 a hermit's cell, and the hermit welcomed him 
 gladly, and there he spent the night. And in 
 the morning he arose, and when he went forth, 
 behold, a shower of snow had fallen the night 
 before, and a hawk had killed a wild-fowl in 
 front of the cell. And the noise of the horse 
 scared the hawk away, and a raven alighted 
 upon the bird. And Peredur stood and com- 
 pared the blackness of the raven, and the 
 whiteness of the snow, and the redness of the 
 blood, to the hair of the lady whom best he 
 loved, which was blacker than the raven, and 
 to her skin, which was whiter than the snow, 
 and to her two cheeks, which were redder than 
 the blood upon the snow appeared to be.' 
 
 And this, which is perhaps less striking, is 
 not less beautiful : — 
 
 ' And early in the day Geraint and Enid left 
 the wood, and they came to an open country, 
 with meadows on one hand and mowers mowing 
 
 133 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 the meadows. And there was a river before 
 them, and the horses bent down and drank the 
 water. And they went up out of the river by 
 a steep bank, and there they met a slender 
 stripling with a satchel about his neck ; and he 
 had a small blue pitcher in his hand, and a bowl 
 on the mouth of the pitcher.' 
 
 And here the landscape, up to this point so 
 Greek in its clear beauty, is suddenly magicalised 
 by the romance touch : — 
 
 ' And they saw a tall tree by the side of the 
 river, one-half of which was in flames from the 
 root to the top, and the other half was green 
 and in full leaf.' 
 
 / Magic is the word to insist upon, — a magic- 
 ally vivid and near interpretation of nature ; 
 since it is this which constitutes the special 
 charm and power of the effect I am calling 
 attention to, and it is for this that the Celt's 
 sensibility gives him a peculiar aptitude. But 
 the matter needs rather fine handling, and it is 
 easy to make mistakes here in our criticism. 
 In the first place, Europe tends constantly to 
 become more and more one community, and 
 we tend to become Europeans instead of merely 
 Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Italians ; so 
 whatever aptitude or felicity one people imparts 
 into spiritual work, gets imitated by the others, 
 and thus tends to become the common property 
 of all. Therefore anything so beautiful and 
 attractive as the jiatural__magic I am speaking 
 134 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 of, is sure, nowadays, if it appears in the pro- 
 ductions of the Celts, or of the English, or of 
 the French, to appear in the productions of 
 the Germans also, or in the productions of the 
 Italians ; but there will be a stamp of perfect- 
 ness and inimitableness about it in the literatures 
 where it is native, which it will not have in the 
 literatures where it is not native. Novalis or 
 Riickert, for instance, have their eye fixed on 
 nature, and have undoubtedly a feeling for 
 natural magic ; a rough-and-ready critic easily 
 credits them and the Germans with the Celtic 
 fineness of tact, the Celtic nearness to Nature 
 and her secret ; but the question is whether the 
 strokes in the German's picture of nature ^ have 
 ever the indefinable delicacy, charm, and perfec- 
 tion of the Celt's touch in the pieces I just now 
 quoted, or of Shakspeare's touch in his daffodil, 
 
 1 Take the following attempt to render the natural magic 
 supposed to pervade Tieck's poetry : — 'In diesen Dichtungen 
 herrscht eine geheimnissvolle Innigkeit, ein sonderbares Einver- 
 standniss mit der Natur, besonders mit der Pflanzen -und Stein- 
 reich. Der Leser fiihlt sich da wie in einem verzauberten 
 Walde ; er hort die unterirdischen Quellen melodisch rauschen ; 
 wildfremde Wunderblumen schauen ihn an mit ihren bunten 
 sehnsuchtigen Augen ; unsichtbare Lippen kussen seine Wangen 
 mit neckender Zartlichkeit ; hohe Pilze, wie goldne Glocken, toaehsen 
 klingend empor am Fusse der B'dume ' ; and so on. Now that stroke 
 of the hohe Pilze, the great funguses, would have been impossible 
 to the tact and delicacy of a born lover of nature like the Celt, 
 and could only have come from a German who has hineinstudirt 
 himself into natural magic. It is a crying false note, which 
 carries us at once out of the world of nature-magic and the breath 
 of the woods, into the world of theatre-magic and the smell of gas 
 and orange-peel. 
 
 I3S 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 Wordsworth's in his cuckoo, Keats's in his 
 Autumn, Obermann's in his mountain birch-tree 
 or his Easter-daisy among the Swiss farms. To 
 decide where the gift for natural magic originally 
 lies, whether it is properly Celtic or Germanic, 
 we must decide this question. 
 
 In the second place, there are many ways 
 of handling nature, and we are here only con- 
 cerned with one of them ; but a rough-and-ready 
 critic imagines that it is all the same so long as 
 nature is handled at all, and fails to draw the 
 needful distinction between modes of handling 
 her. But these modes are many ; I will mention 
 four of them now : there is the conventional way 
 of handling nature, there is the faithful way 
 of handling nature, there is the Greek way of 
 handling nature, there is the magical way of 
 handling nature. In all these three last the eye 
 is on the object, but with a difference ; in the 
 faithful way of handling nature, the eye is on 
 the object, and that is all you can say ; in the 
 Greek, the eye is on the object, but lightness and 
 brightness are added ; in the magical, the eye is 
 on the object, but charm and magic are added. 
 In the conventional way of handling nature, the 
 eye is not on the object ; what that means we all 
 know, we have only to think of our eighteenth- 
 century poetry : — 
 
 As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night — 
 
 to call up any number of instances, j Latin poetry 
 
 136 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 supplies plenty of instances too ; if we put this 
 from Propertius's Hylas : — 
 
 manus heroum . . . 
 MoUia composita litora fronde tegit — 
 
 side by side the line of Theocritus by which it 
 was suggested : — 
 
 \eifmv yap a-^iv e/ceiTO fKyas, o-Tc^dSea-criv oveiap — 
 
 we get at the same moment a good specimen 
 both of the conventional and of the Greek way 
 of handling nature. But from our own poetry 
 we may get specimens of the Greek way of 
 handling nature, as well as of the conventional : 
 for instance, Keats's — 
 
 What little town, by river or seashore, 
 Or mountain-built with quiet citadel. 
 Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn ? 
 
 is Greek, as Greek as a thing from Homer or 
 Theocritus ; it is composed with the eye on the 
 object, a radiancy and light clearness being added. 
 German poetry abounds in specimens of the 
 faithful way of handling nature ; an excellent 
 example is to be found in the stanzas called 
 Zueignung, prefixed to Goethe's poems ; the 
 morning walk, the mist, the dew, the sun, are as 
 faithful as they can be, they are given with the 
 eye on the object, but there the merit of the 
 work, as a handling of nature, stops ; neither 
 Greek radiance nor Celtic magic is added ; the 
 power of these is not what gives the poem in 
 
 ^i7 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 question its merit, but a power of quite another 
 kind, a power of moral and spiritual emotion. 
 But the power of Greek radiance Goethe could 
 give to his handling of nature, and nobly too, as 
 any one who will read his Wanderer^ — the poem 
 in which a wanderer falls in with a peasant 
 woman and her child by their hut, built out of 
 the ruins of a temple near Cuma, — may see. 
 Only the power of natural magic Goethe does 
 not, I think, give ; whereas Keats passes at will 
 from the Greek power to that power which is, 
 as I say, Celtic ; from his — 
 
 What little town, by river or seashore — 
 to his — 
 
 White hawthorn and the pastoral eglantine. 
 Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves — 
 
 or his — 
 
 magic casements, opening on the foam 
 Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn — 
 
 in which the very same note is struck as in those 
 extracts which I quoted from Celtic romance, 
 and struck with authentic and unmistakable 
 power. 
 
 Shakspeare, in handling nature, touches this 
 Celtic note so exquisitely, that perhaps one is 
 inclined to be always looking for the Celtic note 
 in him, and not to recognise his Greek note 
 when it comes. But if one attends well to the 
 difference between the two notes, and bears in 
 
 138 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 mind, to guide one, such things as Virgil's 
 'moss-grown springs and grass softer than 
 sleep ' : — 
 
 Muscosi fontes et somno mollior herba — 
 as his charming flower-gatherer, who — 
 
 Pallentes violas et summa papavera carpens 
 Narcissum et florem jungit bene olentis anethi — 
 
 as his quinces and chestnuts — 
 
 cana legatn tenera lanugine mala 
 Castaneasque nuces 
 
 then, I think, we shall be disposed to say that in 
 Shakspeare's — 
 
 I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, 
 Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows. 
 Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine. 
 With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine — 
 
 it is mainly a Greek note which is struck. 
 Then, again in his — 
 
 look how the floor of heaven 
 Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold ! 
 
 we are at the very point of transition from the 
 Greek note to the Celtic ; there is the Greek 
 clearness and brightness, with the Celtic aerial- 
 ness and magic coming in. Then we have the 
 sheer, inimitable Celtic note in passages like 
 this — 
 
 Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead. 
 By paved fountain or by rushy brook, 
 Or in the beached margent of the sea — 
 
 139 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 or this, the last I will quote : — 
 
 The moon shines bright. In such a night as this, 
 When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees, 
 And they did malce no noise, in such a night 
 Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls — 
 
 in such a night 
 Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew — 
 
 in such a night 
 Stood Dido, with a willow in her hand. 
 Upon the wild sea-hanks, and waved her love 
 To come again to Carthage. 
 
 And those last lines of all are so drenched and 
 intoxicated with the fairy- dew of that natural 
 magic which is our theme, that I cannot do 
 better than end with them. 
 
 And now, with the pieces of evidence in our 
 hand, let us go to those who say it is vain to 
 look for Celtic elements in any Englishman, and 
 let us ask them, first, if they seize what we mean 
 by the power of natural magic in Celtic poetry ; 
 secondly, if English poetry does not eminently 
 exhibit this power ; and, thirdly, where they 
 suppose English poetry got it from ? 
 
 I perceive that I shall be accused of having 
 rather the air, in what I have said, of deny- 
 ing this and that gift to the Germans, and of 
 establishing our difference from them a little 
 ungraciously and at their expense. The truth is, 
 few people have any real care to analyse closely in 
 their criticism ; they merely employ criticism as 
 
 140 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 a means for heaping all praise on what they like, 
 and all blame on what they dislike. Those of 
 us (and they are many) who owe a great debt of 
 gratitude to the German spirit and to German 
 literature, do not like to be told of any powers 
 being lacking there ; we are like the young 
 ladies who think the hero of their novel is only 
 half a hero unless he has all perfections united in 
 him. But nature does not work, either in heroes 
 or races, according to the young ladies' notion. 
 We all are what we are, the hero and the great 
 nation are what they are, by our limitations as 
 well as by our powers, by lacking something as 
 well as by possessing something. It is not always 
 gain to possess this or that gift, or loss to lack 
 this or that gift. Our great, our only first-rate 
 body of contemporary poetry is the German ; 
 the grand business of modern poetry, — a moral 
 interpretation, from an independent point of view, 
 of man and the world, — it is only German poetry, 
 Goethe's poetry, that has, since the Greeks, made 
 much way with. Campbell's power of style, and 
 the natural magic of Keats and Wordsworth, and 
 Byron's Titanic personality, may be wanting to 
 this poetry ; but see what it has accomplished 
 without them ! How much more than Campbell 
 with his power of style, and Keats and Words- 
 worth with their natural magic, and Byron with 
 his Titanic personality ! Why, for the immense 
 serious task it had to perform, the steadiness of 
 German poetry, its going near the ground, its 
 
 141 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 patient fidelity to nature, its using great plainness 
 of speech, poetical drawbacks in one point of 
 view, were safeguards and helps in another. The 
 plainness and earnestness of the two lines I have 
 already quoted from Goethe : — 
 
 Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, 
 
 Sich ein Character in dem Strom der Welt — 
 
 compared with the play and power of Shakspeare's 
 style or Dante's, suggest at once the difference 
 between Goethe's task and theirs, and the fitness 
 of the faithful laborious German spirit for its 
 own task. Dante's task was to set forth the 
 lesson of the world trom the point of view 
 of mediaeval Catholicism ; the basis of spiritual 
 life was given, Dante had not to make this anew. 
 Shakspeare's task was to set forth the spectacle 
 of the world when man's spirit re-awoke to the 
 possession of the world at the Renaissance. The 
 spectacle of human life, left to bear its own 
 significance and tell its own story, but shown in 
 all its fulness, variety, and power, is at that 
 moment the great matter ; but, if we are to press 
 deeper, the basis of spiritual life is still at that 
 time the traditional religion, reformed or un- 
 reformed, of Christendom, and Shakspeare has 
 not to supply a new basis. But when Goethe 
 came, Europe had lost her basis of spiritual life ; 
 she had to find it again ; Goethe's task was, — 
 the inevitable task for the modern poet hence- 
 forth is, — as it was for the Greek poet in the 
 
 142 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 days of Pericles, not to preach a sublime sermon 
 on a given text like Dante, not to exhibit 
 all the kingdoms of human life and the glory of 
 them like Shakspeare, but to interpret human 
 life afresh, and to supply a new spiritual basis to 
 it. This is not only a work for style, eloquence, 
 charm, poetry ; it is a work for science ; and 
 the scientific, serious German spirit, not carried 
 away by this and that intoxication of ear, 
 and eye, and self-will, has peculiar aptitudes 
 for it. 
 
 We, on the other hand, do not necessarily 
 gain by the commixture of elements in us ; 
 we have seen how the clashing of natures in 
 us hampers and embarrasses our behaviour ; we 
 might very likely be more attractive, we might 
 very likely be more successful, if we were all of 
 a piece. Our want of sureness of taste, our 
 eccentricity, come in great measure, no doubt, 
 from our not being all of a piece, from our 
 having no fixed, fatal, spiritual centre of gravity. 
 The Rue de Rivoli is one thing, and Nuremberg 
 is another, and Stonehenge is another ; but we 
 have a turn for all three, and lump them all up 
 together. Mr. Tom Taylor's translations from 
 Breton poetry offer a good example of this 
 mixing ; he has a genuine feeling for these Celtic 
 matters, and often, as in the Evil Tribute oj 
 Nomeno'e\ or in Lord Nann and the Fairy, he is, 
 both in movement and expression, true and 
 appropriate ; but he has a sort of Teutonism 
 
 143 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 and Latinism in him too, and so he cannot 
 forbear mixing with his Celtic strain such 
 disparates as : — 
 
 'Twas mirk, mirk night, and the water bright 
 Troubled and drumlie flowed — 
 
 which is evidently Lowland-Scotchy ; or as : — 
 
 Foregad, but thou'rt an artful hand ! 
 
 which is English-stagey ; or as : — 
 
 To Gradlon's daughter, bright of blee. 
 Her lover he whispered tenderly — 
 Bethink thee, sweet Dahut ! the key ! 
 
 which is Anacreontic in the manner of Tom 
 Moore. Yes, it is not a sheer advantage to 
 have several strings to one's bow ! if we had 
 been all German, we might have had the science 
 of Germany ; if we had been all Celtic, we 
 might have been popular and agreeable ; if 
 we had been all Latinised, we might have 
 governed Ireland as the French govern Alsace, 
 without getting ourselves detested. 'But now we 
 have Germanism enough to make us Philistines, 
 and Normanism enough to make us imperious, 
 and Celtism enough to make us self-conscious 
 and awkward ; but German fidelity to Nature, 
 and Latin precision and clear reason, and Celtic 
 quick-wittedness and spirituality, we fall short 
 of. J Nay, perhaps, if we are doomed to perish 
 (Heaven avert the omen !), we shall perish by 
 our Celtism, by our self-will and want of patience 
 
 144 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 with ideas, our inability to see the way the 
 world is going ; and yet those very Celts, by our 
 affinity with whom we are perishing, will be 
 hating and upbraiding us all the time. 
 
 This is a somewhat unpleasant view to take 
 of the matter ; but if it is true, its being 
 unpleasant does not make it any less true, and we 
 are always the better for seeing the truth. What 
 we here see is not the whole truth, however. 
 So long as this mixed constitution of our nature 
 possesses us, we pay it tribute and serve it ; so 
 soon as we possess it, it pays us tribute and serves 
 us. So long as we are blindly and ignorantly 
 rolled about by the forces of our nature, their 
 contradiction baffles us and lames us ; so soon 
 as we have clearly discerned what they are, 
 and begun to apply to them a law of measure, 
 control, and guidance, they may be made to 
 work for our good and to carry us forward. 
 Then we may have the good of our German 
 part, the good of our Latin part, the good 
 of our Celtic part ; and instead of one part 
 clashing with the other, we may bring it in to 
 continue and perfect the other, when the other 
 has given us all the good it can yield, and by 
 being pressed further, could only give us its 
 faulty excess. Then we may use the German 
 faithfulness to Nature to give us science, and 
 to free us from insolence and self-will ; we may 
 use the Celtic quickness of perception to give 
 us delicacy, and to free us from hardness and 
 
 VOL. V 14s ^ 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 Philistinism ; we may use the Latin decisiveness 
 to give us strenuous clear method, and to free us 
 from fumbling and idling. Already, in their 
 untrained state, these elements give signs, in 
 our life and literature, of their being present 
 in us, and a kind of prophecy of what they 
 could do for us if they were properly observed, 
 trained, and applied. But this they have not 
 yet been ; we ride one force of our nature 
 to death ; Twe will be nothing but Anglo-Saxons 
 in the Old World or in the New ; and when 
 our race has built Bold Street, Liverpool, and 
 pronounced it very good, it hurries across the 
 Atlantic, and builds Nashville, and Jacksonville, 
 and Milledgeville, and thinks it is fulfilling 
 the designs of Providence in an incomparable 
 manner. But true Anglo-Saxons, simply and 
 sincerely rooted in the German nature, we are 
 not and cannot be ; all we have accomplished 
 by our onesidedness is to blur and confuse the 
 natural basis in ourselves altogether, and to 
 become something eccentric, unattractive, and 
 inharmonious.J 
 
 A man of exquisite intelligence and charming 
 character, the late Mr. Cobden, used to fancy 
 that a better acquaintance with the United States 
 was the grand panacea for us ; and once in a 
 speech he bewailed the inattention of our seats 
 of learning to them, and seemed to think that 
 if our ingenuous youth at Oxford were taught 
 a little less about the Ilissus, and a little more 
 
 146 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 about Chicago, we should all be the better for 
 it. Chicago has its claims upon us, no doubt ; 
 but it is evident that from the point of view to 
 which I have been leading, a stimulation of our 
 Anglo -Saxonism, such as is intended by Mr. 
 Cobden's proposal, does not appear the thing 
 most needful for us ; seeing our American 
 brothers themselves have rather, like us, to try 
 and moderate the flame of Anglo - Saxonism in 
 their own breasts, than to ask us to clap the 
 bellows to it in ours. So I am inclined to 
 beseech Oxford, instead of expiating her over- 
 addiction to the Ilissus by lectures on Chicago, 
 to give us an expounder for a still more remote- 
 looking object than the Ilissus, — the Celtic 
 languages and literature. And yet why should 
 I call it remote ? if, as I have been labouring 
 to show, in the spiritual frame of us English 
 ourselves, a Celtic fibre, little as we may have 
 ever thought of tracing it, lives and works. 
 Aliens in speech, in religion, in blood! said Lord 
 Lyndhurst ; the philologists have set him right 
 about the speech, the physiologists about the 
 blood ; and perhaps, taking religion in the wide 
 but true sense of our whole spiritual activity, 
 those who have followed what I have been saying 
 here will think that the Celt is not so wholly 
 alien to us in religion. But, at any rate, let us 
 consider that of the shrunken and diminished 
 remains of this great primitive race, all, with 
 one insignificant exception, belongs to the English 
 
 147 
 
ON THE STUDY OF 
 
 empire ; only Brittany is not ours ; we have 
 Ireland, the Scotch Highlands, Wales, the Isle 
 of Man, Cornwall. They are a part of ourselves, 
 we are deeply interested in knowing them, they 
 are deeply interested in being known by us ; 
 and yet in the great and rich universities of this 
 great and rich country there is no chair of Celtic, 
 there is no study or teaching of Celtic matters ; 
 those who want them must go abroad for them. 
 It is neither right nor reasonable that this should 
 be so. Ireland has had in the last half-century 
 a band of Celtic students, — a band with which 
 death, alas ! has of late been busy, — from whence 
 Oxford or Cambridge might have taken an 
 admirable professor of Celtic ; and with the 
 authority of a university chair, a great Celtic 
 scholar, on a subject little known, and where all 
 would have readily deferred to him, might have 
 by this time doubled our facilities for knowing 
 the Celt, by procuring for this country Celtic 
 documents which were inaccessible here, and 
 preventing the dispersion of others which were 
 accessible. It is not much that the English 
 Government does for science or literature ; but 
 if Eugene O'Curry, from a chair of Celtic at 
 Oxford, had appealed to the Government to get 
 him copies or the originals of the Celtic treasures 
 in the Burgundian Library at Brussels, or in the 
 library of St. Isidore's College at Rome, even 
 the English Government could not well have 
 refused him. The invaluable Irish manuscripts 
 
 148 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 in the Stowe Library the late Sir Robert Peel 
 proposed, in 1849, ^o buy for the British 
 Museum ; Lord Macaulay, one of the trustees 
 of the Museum, declared, with the confident 
 shallowness which makes him so admired by 
 public speakers and leading-article writers, and so 
 intolerable to all searchers for truth, that he saw 
 nothing in the whole collection worth purchasing 
 for the Museum, except the correspondence of 
 Lord Melville on the American war. That is 
 to say, this correspondence of Lord Melville's 
 was the only thing in the collection about which 
 Lord Macaulay himself knew or cared. Perhaps 
 an Oxford or Cambridge professor of Celtic 
 might have been allowed to make his voice 
 heard, on a matter of Celtic manuscripts, even 
 against Lord Macaulay. The manuscripts were 
 bought by Lord Ashburnham, who keeps them 
 shut up, and will let no one consult them (at 
 least up to the date when O'Curry published his 
 Lectures he did so) ' for fear an actual acquaint- 
 ance with their contents should decrease their 
 value as matter of curiosity at some future 
 transfer or sale.' Who knows ? Perhaps an 
 Oxford professor of Celtic might have touched 
 the flinty heart of Lord Ashburnham. 
 
 At this moment, when the narrow Philis-"" 
 tinism, which has long had things its own way 
 in England, is showing its natural fruits, and 
 we are beginning to feel ashamed, and uneasy, 
 and alarmed at it ; now, when we are becoming 
 
 149 
 
CELTIC LITERATURE 
 
 aware that we have sacrificed to Philistinism 
 culture, and insight, and dignity, and acceptance, 
 and weight among the nations, and hold on 
 events that deeply concern us, and control of the 
 future, and yet that it cannot even give us the 
 fool's paradise it promised us, but is apt to break 
 down, and to leave us with Mr. Roebuck's and 
 Mr. Lowe's laudations of our matchless happi- 
 ness, and the largest circulation in the world 
 assured to the Daily Telegraph, for our only 
 L comfort ; at such a moment it needs some 
 moderation not to be attacking Philistinism by 
 storm, but to mine it through such gradual 
 means as the slow approaches of culture, and the 
 introduction of chairs of Celtic. But the hard 
 unintelligence, which is just now our bane, 
 cannot be conquered by storm ; it must be 
 suppled and reduced by culture, by a growth 
 in the variety, fulness, and sweetness of our 
 spiritual life ; and this end can only be reached 
 by studying things that are outside of ourselves, 
 and by studying them disinterestedly. Let us 
 reunite ourselves with our better mind and with 
 the world through science ; and let it be one 
 of our angelic revenges on the Philistines, who 
 among their other sins are the guilty authors of 
 Fenianism, to found at Oxford a chair of Celtic, 
 and to send, through the gentle ministration of 
 science, a message of peace to Ireland. 
 
 150 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 151 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 .... Nunquamne reponam ? 
 
 It has more than once been suggested to me that 
 I should translate Homer. That is a task for 
 which I have neither the time nor the courage ; 
 but the suggestion led me to regard yet more 
 closely a poet whom I had already long studied, 
 and for one or two years the works of Homer 
 were seldom out of my hands. The study of 
 classical literature is probably on the decline ; 
 but, whatever may be the fate of this study in 
 general, it is certain that, as instruction spreads 
 and the number of readers increases, attention 
 will be more and more directed to the poetry of 
 Homer, not indeed as part of a classical course, 
 but as the most important poetical monument 
 existing. Even within the last ten years two 
 fresh translations of the Iliad have appeared in 
 England : one by a man of great ability and 
 genuine learning. Professor Newman ; the other 
 by Mr. Wright, the conscientious and pains- 
 
 IS3 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 taking translator of Dante. It may saf?ly be 
 asserted that neither of these works will take 
 rank as the standard translation of Homer ; that 
 the task of rendering him will still be attempted 
 by other translators. It may perhaps be possible 
 to render to these some service, to save them 
 some loss of labour, by pointing out rocks on 
 which their predecessors have split, and the 
 right objects on which a translator of Homer 
 should fix his attention. 
 
 It is disputed what aim a translator should 
 propose to himself in dealing with his original. 
 Even this preliminary is not yet settled. On 
 one side it is said that the translation ought to 
 be such ' that the reader should, if possible, 
 forget that it is a translation at all, and be lulled 
 into the illusion that he is reading an original 
 work, — something original' (if the translation 
 be in English), 'from an English hand.' The 
 real original is in this case, it is said, ' taken as a 
 basis on which to rear a poem that shall affect 
 our countrymen as the original may be conceived 
 to have affected its natural hearers.' On the 
 other hand, Mr. Newman, who states the fore- 
 going doctrine only to condemn it, declares that 
 he • aims at precisely the opposite : to retain 
 every peculiarity of the original, so far as he is 
 able, with the greater care the more foreign it may 
 happen to be'' \ so that it may ' never be forgotten 
 that he is imitating, and imitating in a different 
 material.' The translator's • first duty,' says Mr. 
 
 154 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Newman, ' is a historical one, to be faithful.' 
 Probably both sides would agree that the 
 translator's ' first duty is to be faithful ' ; but 
 the question at issue between them is, in what 
 faithfulness consists. 
 
 My one object is to give practical advice to 
 a translator ; and I shall not the least concern 
 myself with theories of translation as such. But 
 I advise the translator not to try ' to rear on the 
 basis of the Iliad, a poem that shall affect our 
 countrymen as the original may be conceived to 
 have affected its natural hearers ' ; and for this 
 simple reason, that we cannot possibly tell how 
 the Iliad ' affected its natural hearers,' It is 
 probably meant merely that he should try to 
 affect Englishmen powerfully, as Homer affected 
 Greeks powerfully ; but this direction is not 
 enough, and can give no real guidance. For all 
 great poets affect their hearers powerfully, but 
 the effect of one poet is one thing, that of 
 another poet another thing : it is our translator's 
 business to reproduce the effect of Homer, and 
 the most powerful emotion of the unlearned 
 English reader can never assure him whether he 
 has rf-produced this, or whether he has produced 
 something else. So, again, he may follow Mr. 
 Newman's directions, he may try to be ' faithful,' 
 he may ' retain every peculiarity of his original ' ; 
 but who is to assure him, who is to assure Mr. 
 Newman himself, that, when he has done this, 
 he has done that for which Mr. Newman 
 
 iSS 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 enjoins this to be done, ' adhered closely to 
 Homer's manner and habit of thought ' ? 
 Evidently the translator needs some more 
 practical directions than these. No one can 
 tell him how Homer affected the Greeks ; but 
 there are those who can tell him how Homer 
 affects them. These are scholars ; who possess, 
 at the same time with knowledge of Greek, 
 adequate poetical taste and feeling. No trans- 
 lation will seem to them of much worth 
 compared with the original ; but they alone 
 can say whether the translation produces more 
 or less the same effect upon them as the original. 
 They are the only competent tribunal in this 
 matter : the Greeks are dead ; the unlearned 
 Englishman has not the data for judging ; and 
 no man can safely confide in his own single 
 judgment of his own work. Let not the trans- 
 lator, then, trust to his notions of what the 
 ancient Greeks would have thought of him ; he 
 will lose himself in the vague. Let him not 
 trust to what the ordinary English reader thinks 
 of him ; he will be taking the blind for his 
 guide. Let him not trust to his own judgment 
 of his own work ; he may be misled by indi- 
 vidual caprices. Let him ask how his work 
 affects those who both know Greek and can 
 appreciate poetry ; whether to read it gives the 
 Provost of Eton, or Professor Thompson at Cam- 
 bridge, or Professor Jowett here in Oxford, at 
 all the same feeling which to read the original 
 
 156 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 gives them. I consider that when Bentlcy said 
 of Pope's translation, ' It was a pretty poem, 
 but must not be called Homer,' the work, in 
 spite of all its power and attractiveness, was 
 judged.^ 
 
 'Di<! av 6 ^povi/jLoi; oplffeiev, — ' as the judicious 
 would determine,' — that is a test to which 
 every one professes himself willing to submit 
 his works. Unhappily, in most cases, no two 
 persons agree as to who ' the judicious ' are. 
 In the present case, the ambiguity is removed : 
 I suppose the translator at one with me as to 
 the tribunal to which alone he should look for 
 judgment ; and he has thus obtained a practical 
 test by which to estimate the real success of his 
 work. How is he to proceed, in order that his 
 work, tried by this test, may be found most 
 successful ? 
 
 First of all, there are certain negative 
 counsels which I will give him. Homer has 
 occupied men's minds so much, such a litera- 
 ture has arisen about him, that every one who 
 approaches him should resolve strictly to limit 
 himself to that which may directly serve the 
 object for which he approaches him. I advise 
 the translator to have nothing to do with the 
 questions, whether Homer ever existed ; whether 
 the poet of the I/iai/ be one or many ; whether 
 the I/iaii be one poem or an Achilleis and 
 an Iliad stuck together ; whether the Christian 
 doctrine of the Atonement is shadowed forth 
 
 157 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 in the Homeric mythology ; whether the 
 Goddess Latona in any way prefigures the Virgin 
 Mary, and so on. These are questions which have 
 been discussed with learning, with ingenuity, 
 nay, with genius ; but they have two incon- 
 veniences, — one general for all who approach 
 them, one particular for the translator. The 
 general inconvenience is that there really exist 
 no data for determining them. The particular 
 inconvenience is that their solution by the 
 translator, even were it possible, could be of no 
 benefit to his translation. 
 
 I advise him, again, not to trouble himself 
 with constructing a special vocabulary for his 
 use in translation ; with excluding a certain class 
 of English words, and with confining himself to 
 another class, in obedience to any theory about 
 the peculiar qualities of Homer's style. Mr. 
 Newman says that ' the entire dialect of Homer 
 being essentially archaic, that of a translator ought 
 to be as much Saxo-Norman as possible, and owe 
 as little as possible to the elements thrown into 
 our language by classical learning.' Mr. New- 
 man is unfortunate in the observance of his own 
 theory ; for I continually find in his translation 
 words of Latin origin, which seem to me quite 
 alien to the simplicity of Homer, — ' responsive,* 
 for instance, which is a favourite word of Mr. 
 Newman, to represent the Homeric d/Act/So/Mvo? : 
 
 Great Hector of the motley helm thus spake to her responsive. 
 But thus responsively to him spake god-like Alexander. 
 
 IS8 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 And the word ' celestial,' again, in the grand 
 address of Zeus to the horses of Achilles, 
 
 You, who are born celestial^ from Eld and Death exempted ! 
 
 seems to me in that place exactly to jar upon 
 the feeling as too bookish. But, apart from the 
 question of Mr. Newman's fidelity to his own 
 theory, such a theory seems to me both dangerous 
 for a translator and false in itself. Dangerous for 
 a translator ; because, wherever one finds such 
 a theory announced (and one finds it pretty 
 often), it is generally followed by an explosion 
 of pedantry ; and pedantry is of all things in the 
 world the most un- Homeric. False in itself; 
 because, in fact, we owe to the Latin element in 
 our language most of that very rapidity and clear 
 decisiveness by which it is contradistinguished 
 from the German, and in sympathy with the 
 languages of Greece and Rome : so that to limit 
 an English translator of Homer to words of 
 Saxon origin is to deprive him of one of his 
 special advantages for translating Homer. In 
 Voss's well-known translation of Homer, it is 
 precisely the qualities of his German language 
 itself, something heavy and trailing both in the 
 structure of its sentences and in the words of 
 which it is composed, which prevent his trans- 
 lation, in spite of the hexameters, in spite of 
 the fidelity, from creating in us the impression 
 created by the Greek, Mr. Newman's prescrip- 
 tion, if followed, would just strip the English 
 
 159 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 translator of the advantage which he has over 
 Voss. 
 
 The frame of mind in which we approach an 
 author influences our correctness of appreciation 
 of him ; and Homer should be approached by a 
 translator in the simplest frame of mind possible. 
 Modern sentiment tries to make the ancient not 
 less than the modern world its own ; but against 
 modern sentiment in its applications to Homer 
 the translator, if he would feel Homer truly — 
 and unless he feels him truly, how can he render 
 him truly ? — cannot be too much on his guard. 
 For example : the writer of an interesting article 
 on English translations of Homer, in the last 
 number of the National Review, quotes, I see, 
 with admiration, a criticism of Mr. Ruskin on 
 the use of the epithet (^ven'foo?, ' life-giving,' in 
 that beautiful passage in the third book of the 
 Iliad, which follows Helen's mention of her 
 brothers Castor and Pollux as alive, though they 
 were in truth dead : 
 
 (OS ^aro * Tovs 8 »jSij /caTe;^ev (^uri^oos ata 
 iv AaKtSai/wvi, aZOi, fftiky iv jrarpiSi yaCrj.^ 
 
 ' The poet,' says Mr. Ruskin, ' has to speak of 
 the earth in sadness ; but he will not let that 
 sadness affect or change his thought of it. No ; 
 though Castor and Pollux be dead, yet the earth 
 is our mother still, — fruitful, life-giving.' This 
 is a just specimen of that sort of application of 
 
 * I/iati, iii. 243. 
 160 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 modern sentiment to the ancients, against which 
 a student, who wishes to feel the ancients truly, 
 cannot too resolutely defend himself. It reminds 
 one, as, alas ! so much of Mr. Ruskin's writing 
 reminds one, of those words of the most delicate 
 of living critics : ' Comme tout genre de com- 
 position a son ecueil particulier, celui du genre 
 romanesque, c'est le faux^ The reader may feel 
 moved as he reads it ; but it is not the less an 
 example of ' le faux ' in criticism ; it is false. 
 It is not true, as to that particular passage, 
 that Homer called the earth ^vo-tfoos, because, 
 ' though he had to speak of the earth in sadness, 
 he would not let that sadness change or affect 
 his thought of it,' but consoled himself by 
 considering that ' the earth is our mother 
 still, — ^fruitful, life-giving.' It is not true, as 
 a matter of general criticism, that this kind 
 of sentimentality, eminently modern, inspires 
 Homer at all. ' From Homer and Polygnotus 
 I every day learn more clearly,' says Goethe, 
 ' that in our life here above ground we have, 
 properly speaking, to enact Hell ' :^ — if the 
 student must absolutely have a key-note to the 
 Iliad, let him take this of Goethe, and see what 
 he can do with it ; it will not, at any rate, like 
 the tender pantheism of Mr. Ruskin, falsify for 
 him the whole strain of Homer. 
 
 These are negative counsels ; I come to the 
 positive. When I say, the translator of Homer 
 
 1 Briefviechsel ztoischen Schiller und Goethe, vi. 230. 
 VOL. V 161 M 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 should above all be penetrated by a sense of four 
 qualities of his author ; — that he is eminently- 
 rapid ; that he is eminently plain and direct, 
 both in the evolution of his thought and in the 
 expression of it, that is, both in his syntax and 
 in his words ; that he is eminently plain and 
 direct in the substance of his thought, that is, 
 in his matter and ideas ; and, finally that he is 
 eminently noble ; — I probably seem to be saying 
 what is too general to be of much service to 
 anybody. Yet it is strictly true that, for want 
 of duly penetrating themselves with the first- 
 named quality of Homer, his rapidity, Cowper 
 and Mr. Wright have failed in rendering him ; 
 that, for want of duly appreciating the second- 
 named quality, his plainness and directness of 
 style and diction. Pope and Mr. Sotheby have 
 failed in rendering him ; that for want of 
 appreciating the third, his plainness and directness 
 of ideas, Chapman has failed in rendering him ; 
 while for want of appreciating the fourth, his 
 nobleness, Mr. Newman, who has clearly seen 
 some of the faults of his predecessors, has yet 
 failed more conspicuously than any of them. 
 
 Coleridge says, in his strange language, speak- 
 ing of the union of the human soul with the 
 divine essence, that this takes place 
 
 Whene'er the mist, which stands 'twixt God and thee, 
 Defecates to a pure transparency ; 
 
 and so, too, it may be said of that union of the 
 
 162 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 translator with his original, which alone can 
 produce a good translation, that it takes place 
 when the mist which stands between them — the 
 mist of alien modes of thinking, speaking, and 
 feeling on the translator's part — ' defecates to a 
 pure transparency,' and disappears. But between 
 Cowper and Homer — (Mr. Wright repeats in 
 the main Cowper's manner, as Mr. Sotheby re- 
 peats Pope's manner, and neither Mr. Wright's 
 translation nor Mr. Sotheby's has, I must be 
 forgiven for saying, any proper reason for 
 existing) — between Cowper and Homer there 
 is interposed the mist of Cowper's elaborate 
 Miltonic manner, entirely alien to the flowing 
 rapidity of Homer ; between Pope and Homer 
 there is interposed the mist of Pope's literary 
 artificial manner, entirely alien to the plain 
 naturalness of Homer's manner ; between Chap- 
 man and Homer there is interposed the mist of 
 the fancifulness of the Elizabethan age, entirely 
 alien to the plain directness of Homer's thought 
 and feeling ; while between Mr. Newman and 
 Homer is interposed a cloud of more than 
 Egyptian thickness, — namely, a manner, in Mr. 
 Newman's version, eminently ignoble, while 
 Homer's manner is eminently noble. 
 
 I do not despair of making all these proposi- 
 tions clear to a student who approaches Homer 
 with a free mind. First, Homer is eminently 
 rapid, and to this rapidity the elaborate movement 
 of Miltonic blank verse is alien. The reputation 
 
 163 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 of Cowper, that most interesting man and ex- 
 cellent poet, does not depend on his translation 
 of Homer ; and in his preface to the second 
 edition, he himself tells us that he felt, — he had 
 too much poetical taste not to feel, — on returning 
 to his own version after six or seven years, ' more 
 dissatisfied with it himself than the most difficult 
 to be pleased of all his judges.' And he was 
 dissatisfied with it for the right reason, — that ' it 
 seemed to him deficient in the grace of ease' Yet 
 he seems to have originally misconceived the 
 manner of Homer so much, that it is no wonder 
 he rendered him amiss. 'The similitude of 
 Milton's manner to that of Homer is such,' he 
 says, ' that no person familiar with both can read 
 either without being reminded of the other ; 
 and it is in those breaks and pauses to which 
 the numbers of the English poet are so much 
 indebted, both for their dignity and variety, that 
 he chiefly copies the Grecian.' It would be 
 more true to say : ' The unlikeness of Milton's 
 manner to that of Homer is such, that no person 
 familiar with both can read either without being 
 struck with his difference from the other ; and 
 it is in his breaks and pauses that the English 
 poet is most unlike the Grecian.' 
 
 The inversion and pregnant conciseness of 
 Milton or Dante are, doubtless, most impressive 
 qualities of style ; but they are the very opposites 
 of the directness and flowingness of Homer, 
 which he keeps alike in passages of the simplest 
 
 164 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 narrative, and in those of the deepest emotion. 
 Not only, for example, are these lines of Cowper 
 un-Homeric : — 
 
 So numerous seemed those fires the banks between 
 Of Xanthus, blazing, and the fleet of Greece 
 In prospect all of Troy ; 
 
 where the position of the word ' blazing ' gives 
 an entirely un-Homeric movement to this simple 
 passage, describing the fires of the Trojan camp 
 outside of Troy ; but the following lines, in that 
 very highly-wrought passage where the horse of 
 Achilles answers his master's reproaches for 
 having left Patroclus on the field of battle, are 
 equally un-Homeric : — 
 
 For not through sloth or tardiness on us 
 Aught chargeable, have Ilium's sons thine arms 
 Stript from Patroclus' shoulders ; but a God 
 Matchless in battle, offspring of bright-haired 
 Latona, him contending in the van 
 Slew, for the glory of the chief of Troy. 
 
 Here even the first inversion, ' have Ilium's sons 
 thine arms Stript from Patroclus' shoulders,' gives 
 the reader a sense of a movement not Homeric ; 
 and the second inversion, ' a God him contending 
 in the van Slew,' gives this sense ten times 
 stronger. Instead of moving on without check, 
 as in reading the original, the reader twice finds 
 himself, in reading the translation, brought up 
 and checked. Homer moves with the same 
 simplicity and rapidity in the highly-wrought as 
 in the simple passage. 
 
 i6s 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 It is in vain that Cowper insists on his 
 fidelity : ' my chief boast is that I have adhered 
 closely to my original ' : — ' the matter found in 
 me, whether the reader like it or not, is found 
 also in Homer ; and the matter not found in 
 me, how much soever the reader may admire it, 
 is found only in Mr. -Pope.' To suppose that it 
 infidelity to an original to give its matter, unless 
 you at the same time give its manner ; or, rather, 
 to suppose that you can really give its matter at 
 all, unless you can give its manner, is just the 
 mistake of our pre-Raphaelite school of painters, 
 who do not understand that the peculiar effect 
 of nature resides in the whole and not in the 
 parts. So the peculiar effect of a poet resides in 
 his manner and movement, not in his words 
 taken separately. It is well known how con- 
 scientiously literal is Cowper in his translation 
 of Homer. It is well known how extravagantly 
 free is Pope. 
 
 So let it be ! 
 Portents and prodigies are lost on me : 
 
 that is Pope's rendering of the words, 
 
 tSjavde, Ti fwi Odvarov fiavrevtai ; ovSe t£ o-e xprj' ^ 
 
 Xanthus, why prophesiest thou my death to me ? thou needest 
 not at all : — 
 
 yet, on the whole. Pope's translation of the I/iad 
 is more Homeric than Cowper's, for it is more 
 rapid. 
 
 1 !/iad, xi\. 420. 
 166 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Pope's movement, however, though rapid, is 
 not of the same kind as Homer's ; and here I 
 come to the real objection to rhyme in a transla- 
 tion of Homer. It is commonly said that rhyme 
 is to be abandoned in a translation of Homer, 
 because ' the exigences of rhyme,' to quote Mr. 
 Newman, 'positively forbid faithfulness' ; because 
 ' a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme,' 
 to quote Cowper, ' is impossible.' This, however, 
 is merely an accidental objection to rhyme. If 
 this were all, it might be supposed, that if rhymes 
 were more abundant. Homer could be adequately 
 translated in rhyme. But this is not so ; there 
 is a deeper, a substantial objection to rhyme in a 
 translation of Homer. It is, that rhyme inevitably 
 tends to pair lines which in the original are 
 independent, and thus the movement of the poem 
 is changed. In these lines of Chapman, for 
 instance, from Sarpedon's speech to Glaucus, in 
 the twelfth book of the Iliad : — 
 
 O friend, if keeping back 
 Would keep back age from us, and death, and that we might 
 
 not wrack 
 In this life's human sea at all, but that deferring now 
 We shunned death ever, — nor would I half this vain vator 
 
 show, 
 Nor glorify a folly so, to wish thee to advance ; 
 But since we must go, though not here, and that besides the 
 
 chance 
 Proposed now, there are infinite fates, etc. 
 
 Here the necessity of making the line. 
 
 Nor glorify a folly so, to wish thee to advance, 
 167 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 rhyme with the line which follows it, entirely 
 changes and spoils the movement of the passage. 
 
 ovre Ktv avT^s tfl irpiirouTi yxo)(ot/ti;v, 
 ovTt Kf <T^ (rreXKoifii j'-a-xt^ *S Kv^idvupav" * 
 
 Neither would I myself go forth to fight with the foremost, 
 Nor would I urge thee on to enter the glorious battle, 
 
 says Homer ; there he stops, and begins an 
 opposed movement : 
 
 vvv 8 — e/j/iTTjs yap K^pts f^oTatriv davarom — 
 But — for a thousand fates of death stand close to us always — 
 
 This line, in which Homer wishes to go away 
 with the most marked rapidity from the line 
 before. Chapman is forced, by the necessity of 
 rhyming, intimately to connect with the line 
 before. 
 
 But since we must go, though not here, and that besides the 
 chance — 
 
 The moment the word chance strikes our ear, we 
 are irresistibly carried back to advance and to the 
 whole previous line, which, according to Homer's 
 own feeling, we ought to have left behind us 
 entirely, and to be moving farther and farther 
 away from. 
 
 Rhyme certainly, by intensifying antithesis, 
 can intensify separation, and this is precisely 
 what Pope does ; but this balanced rhetorical 
 antithesis, though very effective, is entirely un- 
 Homeric. And this is what I mean by saying 
 
 ^ Iliad, zii. 324. 
 168 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 that Pope fails to render Homer, because he does 
 not render his plainness and directness of style 
 and diction. Where Homer marks separation 
 by moving away. Pope marks it by antithesis. 
 No passage could show this better than the 
 passage I have just quoted, on which I will pause 
 for a moment. 
 
 Robert Wood, whose Essay on the Genius of 
 Homer is mentioned by Goethe as one of the 
 books which fell into his hands when his powers 
 were first developing themselves, aild strongly 
 interested him, relates of this passage a striking 
 story. He says that in 1762, at the end of the 
 Seven Years' War, being then Under-Secretary 
 of State, he was directed to wait upon the 
 President of the Council, Lord Granville, a few 
 days before he died, with the preliminary articles 
 of the Treaty of Paris. ' I found him,' he con- 
 tinues, ' so languid, that I proposed postponing 
 my business for another time ; but he insisted 
 that I should stay, saying, it could not prolong 
 his life to neglect his duty ; and repeating the 
 following passage out of Sarpedon's speech, he 
 dwelled with particular emphasis on the third 
 line, which recalled to his mind the distinguishing 
 part he had taken in public affairs : — 
 
 S irerov, ei fiikv yap iroXejuov wept rovSe <f>vy6vTe 
 
 aiel 8rj iJxX,\oip,ev dyqpti} r dOavdrta te 
 
 iacTiO'd , ovTe K€V avrhi ivt irpiaroKri /toj(ot/iHji',^ 
 
 1 These are the words on which Lord Granville ' dwelled with 
 particular emphasis.' 
 
 169 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 ovTt Kt ere oreAAot/ti /i^xT/v es KvStdvupav' 
 vvv 8' — e/iirijs yap Kijpes If^eoroo-tv Oavdroio 
 avpiai, as ovk eoTi <l>vyea> fSporhv ov8 viraXv^ai — 
 
 lOfUV. 
 
 His Lordship repeated the last word several 
 times with a calm and determinate resignation ; 
 and, after a serious pause of some minutes, he 
 desired to hear the Treaty read, to which he 
 listened with great attention, and recovered 
 spirits enough to declare the approbation of a 
 dying statesman (I use his own words) " on the 
 most glorious war, and most honourable peace, 
 this nation ever saw." ' ^ 
 
 I quote this story, first, because it is interesting 
 as exhibiting the English aristocracy at its very 
 height of culture, lofty spirit, and greatness, 
 towards the middle of the last century. I quote 
 it, secondly, because it seems to me to illustrate 
 Goethe's saying which I mentioned, that our life, 
 in Homer's view of it, represents a conflict and a 
 hell ; and it brings out, too, what there is tonic 
 and fortifying in this doctrine. I quote it, 
 lastly, because it shows that the passage is just 
 one of those in translating which Pope will be at 
 his best, a passage of strong emotion and oratorical 
 movement, not of simple narrative or description. 
 
 Pope translates the passage thus : — 
 
 Could all our care elude the gloomy grave 
 Which claims no less the fearful than the brave, 
 
 1 Robert Wood, Eisay on the Original Ginius and Writings of 
 Homer, London, 1775, p. vii. 
 
 170 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 For lust of feme I should not vainly dare 
 In fighting fields, nor urge thy soul to war : 
 But since, alas ! ignoble age must come, 
 Disease, and death's inexorable doom ; 
 The life which others pay, let us bestow. 
 And give to fame what we to nature owe. 
 
 Nothing could better exhibit Pope's prodigious 
 talent, and nothing, too, could be better in its 
 own way. But, as Bentley said, " You must not 
 call it Homer.' One feels that Homer's thought 
 has passed through a literary and rhetorical 
 crucible, and come out highly intellectualised ; 
 come out in a form which strongly impresses us, 
 indeed, but which no longer impresses us in the 
 same way as when it was uttered by Homer. 
 The antithesis of the last two lines — 
 
 The life which others pay, let us bestow. 
 And give to feme what we to nature owe — 
 
 is excellent, and is just suited to Pope's heroic 
 couplet ; but neither the antithesis itself, nor 
 the couplet which conveys it, is suited to the 
 feeling or to the movement of the Homeric toiiev. 
 A literary and intellectualised language is, 
 however, in its own way well suited to grand 
 matters ; and Pope, with a language of this kind 
 and his own admirable talent, comes off well 
 enough as long as he has passion, or oratory, or a 
 great crisis to deal with. Even here, as I have 
 been pointing out, he does not render Homer ; 
 but he and his style are in themselves strong. 
 It is when he comes to level passages, passages 
 
 171 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 of narrative or description, that he and his style 
 are sorely tried, and prove themselves weak. A 
 perfectly plain direct style can of course convey 
 the simplest matter as naturally as the grandest ; 
 indeed, it must be harder for it, one would say, 
 to convey a grand matter worthily and nobly, 
 than to convey a common matter, as alone such 
 a matter should be conveyed, plainly and simply. 
 But the style of Rasselas is incomparably better 
 fitted to describe a sage philosophising than a 
 soldier lighting his camp-fire. The style of 
 Pope is not the style of Rasselas ; but it is 
 equally a literary style, equally unfitted to 
 describe a simple matter with the plain natural- 
 ness of Homer, 
 
 Every one knows the passage at the end of 
 the eighth book of the Iliad, where the fires of 
 the Trojan encampment are likened to the stars. 
 It is very far from my wish to hold Pope up to 
 ridicule, so I shall not quote the commencement 
 of the passage, which in the original is of great 
 and celebrated beauty, and in translating which 
 Pope has been singularly and notoriously fortu- 
 nate. But the latter part of the passage, where 
 Homer leaves the stars, and comes to the Trojan 
 fires, treats of the plainest, most matter-of-fact 
 subject possible, and deals with this, as Homer 
 always deals with every subject, in the plainest 
 and most straightforward style. 'So many in 
 number, between the ships and the streams of 
 Xanthus, shone forth in front of Troy the fires 
 
 172 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 kindled by the Trojans. There were kindled a 
 thousand fires in the plain ; and by each one 
 there sat fifty men in the light of the blazing 
 fire. And the horses, munching white barley 
 and rye, and standing by the chariots, waited for 
 the bright-throned Morning.' ^ 
 
 In Pope's translation, this plain story becomes 
 the following : — 
 
 So many flames before proud Ilion blaze, 
 
 And brighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays ; 
 
 The long reflections of the distant fires 
 
 Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires. 
 
 A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild. 
 
 And shoot a shady lustre o'er the field. 
 
 P'uU fifty guards each flaming pile attend. 
 
 Whose umbered arms, by fits, thick flashes send ; 
 
 Loud neigh the coursers o'er their heaps of corn, 
 
 And ardent warriors wait the rising morn. 
 
 It is for passages of this sort, which, after all, 
 form the bulk of a narrative poem, that Pope's 
 style is so bad. In elevated passages he is 
 powerful, as Homer is powerful, though not in 
 the same way ; but in plain narrative, where 
 Homer is still powerful and delightful. Pope, by 
 the inherent fault of his style, is ineffective and 
 out of taste. Wordsworth says somewhere, that 
 wherever Virgil seems to have composed ' with 
 his eye on the object,' Dryden fails to render 
 him. JHomer invariably composes ' with his eye 
 on the oBject,' whether the object be a moral or 
 a material one : Pope composes with his eye on 
 
 ^ Iliad, viii. 560. 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 his style, into which he translates his object, 
 whatever it is. That, therefore, which Homer 
 conveys to us immediately. Pope conveys to us 
 through a medium. He aims at turning Homer's 
 sentiments pointedly and rhetorically ; at investing 
 Homer's description with ornament and dignity. 
 A sentiment may be changed by being put into 
 a pointed and oratorical form, yet may still be 
 very effective in that form ; but a description, 
 the moment it takes its eyes off that which it is 
 to describe, and begins to think of ornamenting 
 itself, is worthlessj 
 
 Therefore, I say, the translator of Homer 
 should penetrate himself with a sense of the 
 plainness and directness of Homer's style ; of 
 the simplicity with which Homer's thought 
 is evolved and expressed. He has Pope's fate 
 before his eyes, to show him what a divorce may 
 be created even between the most gifted trans- 
 lator and Homer by an artificial evolution of 
 thought and a literary cast of style. 
 
 Chapman's style is not artificial and literary 
 like Pope's, nor his movement elaborate and 
 self-retarding like the Miltonic movement of 
 Cowper. He is plain-spoken, fresh, vigorous, 
 and, to a certain degree, rapid ; and all these are 
 Homeric qualities. I cannot say that I think 
 the movement of his fourteen-syllable line, which 
 has been so much commended, Homeric ; but 
 on this point I shall have more to say by and by, 
 when I come to speak of Mr. Newman's metrical 
 
 174 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 exploits. But it is not distinctly anti-Homeric, 
 like the movement of Milton's blank verse ; and 
 it has a rapidity of its own. Chapman's diction, 
 too, is generally good, that is, appropriate to 
 Homer ; above all, the syntactical character of 
 his style is appropriate. With these meri^ts, 
 what prevents his translation from being a 
 satisfactory version of Homer ? Is it merely the 
 want of literal faithfulness to his original, imposed 
 upon him, it is said, by the exigences of rhyme ? 
 Has this celebrated version, which has so many 
 advantages, no other and deeper defect than that ? 
 Its author is a poet, and a poet, too, of the 
 Elizabethan age ; the golden age of English 
 literature as it is called, and on the whole 
 truly called ; for, whatever be the defects of 
 Elizabethan literature (and they are great), we 
 have no development of our literature to com- 
 pare with it for vigour and richness. This age, 
 too, showed what it could do in translating, by 
 producing a masterpiece, its version of the Bible. 
 Chapman's translation has often been praised 
 as eminently Homeric. Keats's fine sonnet in 
 its honour every one knows ; but Keats could 
 not read the original, and therefore could not 
 really judge the translation. Coleridge, in 
 praising Chapman's version, says at the same 
 time, ' It will give you small idea of Homer.' 
 But the grave authority of Mr. Hallam pro- 
 nounces this translation to be ' often exceedingly 
 Homeric ' ; and its latest editor boldly declares 
 
 I7S 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 that by what, with a deplorable style, he calls 
 ' his own innative Homeric genius,' Chapman 
 ' has thoroughly identified himself with Homer'; 
 and that 'we pardon him even for his digres- 
 sions, for they are such as we feel Homer himself 
 would have written.' 
 
 I confess that I can never read twenty lines 
 of Chapman's version without recurring to 
 Bentley's cry, ' This is not Homer ! ' and that 
 from a deeper cause than any unfaithfulness 
 occasioned by the fetters of rhyme. 
 
 I said that there were four things which 
 eminently distinguished Homer, and with a 
 sense of which Homer's translator should pene- 
 trate himself as fully as possible. One of these 
 four things was, the plainness and directness of 
 Homer's ideas. I have just been speaking of 
 the plainness and directness of his style ; but 
 the plainness and directness of the contents of 
 his style, of his ideas themselves, is not less 
 remarkable. But as eminently as Homer is 
 plain, so eminently is the Elizabethan literature 
 in general, and Chapman in particular, fanciful. 
 Steeped in humours and fantasticality up to its 
 very lips, the Elizabethan age, newly arrived at 
 the free use of the human faculties after their 
 long term of bondage, and delighting to exercise 
 them freely, suffers from its own extravagance in 
 this first exercise of them, can hardly bring 
 itself to see an object quietly or to describe it 
 temperately. Happily, in the translation of the 
 
 176 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Bible, the sacred character- of their original 
 inspired the translators with such respect that 
 they did not dare to give the rein to their own 
 fancies in dealing with it. But, in dealing with 
 works of profane literature, in dealing with 
 poetical works above all, which highly stimu- 
 lated them, one may say that the minds of the 
 Elizabethan translators were too active ; that 
 they could not forbear importing so much of 
 their own, and this of a most peculiar and 
 Elizabethan character, into their original, that 
 they effaced the character of the original itself. 
 
 Take merely the opening pages to Chap- 
 man's translation, the introductory verses, and 
 the dedications. You will find : — 
 
 An Anagram of the name of our Dread Prince, 
 My most gracious and sacred Maecenas, 
 Henry, Prince of Wales, 
 Our Sunn, Heyr, Peace, Life, — 
 
 Henry, son of James the First, to whom the 
 work is dedicated. Then comes an address. 
 
 To the sacred Fountain of Princes, 
 Sole Empress of Beauty and Virtue, Anne, Queen 
 Of England, etc. 
 
 All the Middle Age, with its grotesqueness, 
 its conceits, its irrationality, is still in these 
 opening pages ; they by themselves are sufficient 
 to indicate to us what a gulf divides Chapman 
 from the 'clearest-souled' of poets, from Homer; 
 almost as great a gulf as that which divides 
 
 VOL. V 177 N 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 him from Voltaire. Pope has been sneered at 
 for saying that Chapman writes 'somewhat as 
 one might imagine Homer himself to have 
 'written before he arrived at years of discretion.' 
 But the remark is excellent : Homer expresses 
 himself like a man of adult reason. Chapman 
 like a man whose reason has not yet cleared 
 itself. For instance, if Homer had had to say 
 of a poet, that he hoped his merit was now 
 about to be fully established in the opinion of 
 good judges, he was as incapable of saying this 
 as Chapman says it, — ' Though truth in her 
 very nakedness sits in so deep a pit, that from 
 Gades to Aurora, and Ganges, few eyes can 
 sound her, I hope yet those few here will so 
 discover and confirm that the date being out of 
 her darkness in this morning of our poet, he 
 shall now gird his temples with the sun,* — I say, 
 Homer was as incapable of saying this in that 
 manner, as Voltaire himself would have been. 
 Homer, indeed, has actually an affinity with 
 Voltaire in the unrivalled clearness and straight- 
 forwardness of his thinking ; in the way in 
 which he keeps to one thought at a time, and 
 puts that thought forth in its complete natural 
 plainness, instead of being led away from it by 
 some fancy striking him in connection with it, 
 and being beguiled to wander off with this 
 fancy till his original thought, in its natural 
 reality, knows him no more. What could 
 better show us how gifted a race was this Greek 
 
 178 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 race ? The same member of it has not only 
 the power of profoundly touching that natural 
 heart of humanity which it is Voltaire's weakness 
 that he cannot reach, but can also address the 
 understanding with all Voltaire's admirable 
 simplicity and rationality. 
 
 My limits will not allow me to do more than 
 shortly illustrate, from Chapman's version of the 
 Iliad, what I mean when I speak of this vital 
 difference between Homer and an Elizabethan 
 poet in the quality of their thought ; between 
 the plain simplicity of the thought of the one, 
 and the curious complexity of the thought of 
 the other. As in Pope's case, I carefully abstain 
 from choosing passages for the express purpose 
 of making Chapman appear ridiculous ; Chap- 
 man, like Pope, merits in himself all respect, 
 though he too, like Pope, fails to render Homer. 
 
 In that tonic speech of Sarpedon, of which I 
 have said so much. Homer, you may remember, 
 has : — 
 
 «i li\v yap TTokefiov Trepl TovSe <f>vy6vre 
 aUl &ri iJxX.\oifJi,€v dyrjpio t dOavano re 
 itraard , — 
 
 if indeed, but once this battle avoided, 
 We were for ever to live virithout growing old and immortal. 
 
 Chapman cannot be satisfied with this, but must 
 
 add a fancy to it : — 
 
 if keeping back 
 Would keep back age from us, and death, and that we might 
 
 not wrack 
 In this life's human sea at all; 
 
 179 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 and so on. Again ; in another passage which 
 I have before quoted, where Zeus says to the 
 horses of Peleus, 
 
 T( cr<f>&i So/Mv ILriXfji avaKTt 
 dvrjTif ; iifieis 8 (crrbv dyrjput t ddavaru rt'^ 
 
 Why gave wc you to royal Peleus, to a mortal? but ye 
 are without old age, and immortal. 
 
 Chapman sophisticates this into : — 
 
 Why gave we you t' a mortal king, when immortality 
 And incapacity of age so dignifies your states? 
 
 Again ; in the speech of Achilles to his horses, 
 where Achilles, according to Homer, says 
 simply, 'Take heed that ye bring your master 
 safe back to the host of the Danaans, in some 
 other sort than the last time, when the battle is 
 ended,' Chapman sophisticates this into : — 
 
 When with bloody for this day's fast observed^ revenge shall yield 
 Our heart satiety^ bring us off. 
 
 In Hector's famous speech, again, at his parting 
 from Andromache, Homer makes him say : 
 ' Nor does my own heart so bid me ' (to keep 
 safe behind the walls), 'since I have learned to 
 be staunch always, and to fight among the fore- 
 most of the Trojans, busy on behalf of my 
 father's great glory, and my own.'* In Chap- 
 man's hands this becomes : — 
 
 The spirit I first did breathe 
 Did never teach me that ; much less, since the contempt of 
 death 
 
 1 J Had, xvii. 443. * Iliad, vi. 444. 
 
 180 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Was settled in me, and my mind knew what a worthy was. 
 Whose office is to lead in fight, and give no danger pass 
 Without improvement. In this fire must Hector's trial shine : 
 Here must his country, father, friends, be in him made divine. 
 
 You see how ingeniously Homer's'plain thought 
 is tormented, as the French would say, here. 
 Homer goes on : ' For well I know this in my 
 mind and in my heart, the day will be, when 
 sacred Troy shall perish ' : — 
 
 «ro-eTat ^fiap, or av ttot oX-dXy 'lAtos tp^. 
 
 Chapman makes this : — 
 
 And such a stormy day shall come, in mind and soul I know. 
 When sacred Troy shall shed her towers, for tears of overthrow. 
 
 I might go on for ever, but I could not give you 
 a better illustration than this last, of what I 
 mean by saying that the Elizabethan poet fails 
 to render Homer because he cannot forbear to 
 interpose a play of thought between his object 
 and its expression. Chapman translates his 
 object into Elizabethan, as Pope translates it into 
 the Augustan of Queen Anne ; both convey it to us 
 through a medium. Homer, on the other hand, 
 sees his object and conveys it to us immediately. 
 And yet, in spite of this perfect plainness and 
 directness of Homer's style, in spite of this 
 perfect plainness and directness of his ideas, he 
 is eminently noble ; he works as entirely in the 
 grand style, he is as grandiose, as Phidias, or 
 Dante, or Michael Angelo. This is what makes 
 his translators despair. 'To give relief,' says 
 
 i8i 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Cowper, ' to prosaic subjects ' (such as dressing, 
 eating, drinking, harnessing, travelling, going to 
 bed), that is to treat such subjects nobly, in 
 the grand style, 'without seeming unreasonably 
 tumid, is extremely difficult.' It is difficult, 
 but Homer has done it. Homer is precisely 
 the incomparable poet he is, because he has done 
 it. His translator must not be tumid, must not 
 be artificial, must not be literary ; true : but 
 then also he must not be commonplace, must 
 not be ignoble. I have shown you how 
 translators of Homer fail by wanting rapidity, 
 by wanting simplicity of style, by wanting 
 plainness of thought : in a second lecture I will 
 show you how a translator fails by wanting 
 nobility. 
 
 II 
 
 I must repeat what I said in beginning, that 
 the translator of Homer ought steadily to keep 
 in mind where lies the real test of the success of 
 his translation, what judges he is to try to 
 satisfy. He is to try to satisfy scholars, because 
 scholars alone have the means of really judging 
 him. A scholar may be a pedant, it is true, and 
 then his judgment will be worthless ; but a 
 scholar may also have poetical feeling, and then 
 he can judge him truly ; whereas all the poetical 
 feeling in the world will not enable a man who 
 is not a scholar to judge him truly. For the 
 
 182 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 translator is to reproduce Homer, and the 
 scholar alone has the means of knowing that 
 Homer who is to be reproduced. He knows 
 him but imperfectly, for he is separated from 
 him by time, race, and language ; but he alone 
 knows him at all. Yet people speak as if there 
 were two real tribunals in this matter, — the 
 scholar's tribunal, and that of the general public. 
 They speak as if the scholar's judgment was one 
 thing, and the general public's judgment another ; 
 both with their shortcomings, both with their 
 liability to error ; but both to be regarded by 
 the translator. The translator who makes verbal 
 literalness his chief care ' will,' says a writer in 
 the National Review whom I have already 
 quoted, ' be appreciated by the scholar 
 accustomed to test a translation rigidly by 
 comparison with the original, to look perhaps 
 with excessive care to finish in detail rather 
 than boldness and general effect, and find pardon 
 even for a version that seems bare and bold, so 
 it be scholastic and faithful. But, if the scholar 
 in judging a translation looks to detail rather 
 than to general effect, he judges it pedantically 
 and ill. The appeal, however, lies not from the 
 pedantic scholar to the general public, which 
 can only like or dislike Chapman's version, or 
 Pope's, or Mr. Newman's, but cannot judge 
 them ; it lies from the pedantic scholar to the 
 scholar who is not pedantic, who knows that 
 Homer is Homer by his general effect, and not 
 
 183 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 by his single words, and who demands but one 
 thing in a translation, — that it shall, as nearly as 
 possible, reproduce for him the general effect of 
 Homer. This, then, remains the one proper aim 
 of the translator : to reproduce on the intelligent 
 scholar, as nearly as possible, the general effect of 
 Homer. Except so far as he reproduces this, he 
 loses his labour, even though he may make a 
 spirited Iliad of his own, like Pope, or translate 
 Homer's Iliad word for word, like Mr. Newman. 
 If his proper aim were to stimulate in any 
 manner possible the general public, he might be 
 right in following Pope's example ; if his proper 
 aim were to help schoolboys to construe Homer, 
 he might be right in following Mr. Newman's. 
 But it is not : his proper aim is, I repeat it yet once 
 more, to reproduce on the intelligent scholar, as 
 nearly as he can, the general effect of Homer. 
 
 When, therefore, Cowper says, ' My chief 
 boast is that I have adhered closely to my 
 original ' ; when Mr. Newman says, ' My aim is 
 to retain every peculiarity of the original, to be 
 faithful, exactly as is the case with the draughts- 
 man of the Elgin marbles ' ; their real judge 
 only replies : ' It may be so : reproduce then 
 upon us, reproduce the effect of Homer, as a good 
 copy reproduces the effect of the Elgin marbles.' 
 
 When, again, Mr. Newman tells us that ' by 
 an exhaustive process of argument and experiment * 
 he has found a metre which is at once the metre 
 of ' the modern Greek epic,' and a metre * like 
 
 184 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 in moral genius ' to Homer's metre, his judge has 
 still but the same answer for him : ' It may be 
 so ; reproduce then on our ear something of the 
 effect produced by the movement of Homer.' 
 
 But what is the general effect which Homer 
 produces on Mr. Newman himself? because, 
 when we know this, we shall know whether 
 he and his judges are agreed at the outset, 
 whether we may expect him, if he can reproduce 
 the effect he feels, if his hand does not betray 
 him in the execution, to satisfy his judges 
 and to succeed. If, however, Mr. Newman's 
 impression from Homer is something quite 
 different from that of his judges, then it can 
 hardly be expected that any amount of labour 
 or talent will enable him to reproduce for them 
 their Homer. 
 
 Mr. Newman does not leave us in doubt 
 as to the general effect which Homer makes 
 upon him. As I have told you what is the 
 general effect which Homer makes upon me, — 
 that of a most rapidly moving poet, that of 
 a poet most plain and direct in his style, that of 
 a poet most plain and direct in his ideas, that 
 of a poet eminently noble, — so Mr. Newman 
 tells us his general impression of Homer. 
 pHomer's style,' he says, 'is dire c t, popula r, 
 ^rcibl^ quaint, flowing, gar ruYousJl Agam : 
 
 omer rises^'and' sinKs with his subject, is 
 rosaic when it is tame, is low when it is 
 mean.T 
 
 '^ 185 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 I lay my finger on four words in these two 
 sentences of Mr. Newman, and I say that the 
 man who could apply those words to Homer 
 can never render Homer truly. The four words 
 are these : quaint, garrulous, prosaic, low. Search 
 the English language for a word which does not 
 apply to Homer, and you could not fix on a 
 better than quaint, unless perhaps you fixed on 
 one of the other three. 
 
 Again ; ' to translate Homer suitably,' says 
 Mr. Newman, ' we need a diction sufficiently 
 antiquated to obtain pardon of the reader for 
 its frequent homeliness.' ' I am concerned,' 
 he says again, ' with the artistic problem of 
 attaining a plausible aspect of moderate antiquity, 
 while remaining easily intelligible.' And again, 
 he speaks of 'the more antiquated style suited 
 to this subject.' Quaint ! antiquated ! — but to 
 whom ? Sir Thomas Browne is quaint, and 
 the diction of Chaucer is antiquated : does Mr. 
 Newman suppose that Homer seemed quaint 
 to Sophocles, when he read him, as Sir Thomas 
 Browne seems quaint to us, when we read him ? 
 or that Homer's diction seemed antiquated to 
 Sophocles, as Chaucer's diction seems antiquated 
 to us ? But we cannot really know, I confess, 
 how Homer seemed to Sophocles : well then, 
 to those who can tell us how he seems to them, 
 to the living scholar, to our only present witness 
 on this matter, — does Homer make on the 
 Provost of Eton, when he reads him, the im- 
 
 i86 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 pression of a poet quaint and antiquated ? does 
 he make this impression on Professor Thompson, 
 or Professor Jowett ? When Shakspeare says, 
 ' The princes orgulous^ meaning ' the proud 
 princes,' we say, ' This is antiquated ' ; when he 
 says of the Trojan gates, that they 
 
 With massy staples 
 And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts 
 Sperr up the sons of Troy, 
 
 we say, 'This is both quaint and antiquated.' 
 But does Homer ever compose in a language 
 which produces on the scholar at all the same 
 impression as this language which I have quoted 
 from Shakspeare ? Never once. Shakspeare 
 is quaint and antiquated in the lines which 
 I have just quoted ; but Shakspeare — need I 
 say it ? — can compose, when he likes, when he 
 is at his best, in a language perfectly simple, 
 perfectly intelligible ; in a language which, 
 in spite of the two centuries and a half which 
 part its author from us, stops us or surprises 
 us as little as the language of a contemporary. 
 And Homer has not Shakspeare's variations : 
 Homer always composes as Shakspeare composes 
 at his best ; Homer is always simple and in- 
 telligible, as Shakspeare is often ; Homer is 
 never quaint and antiquated, as Shakspeare is 
 sometimes. 
 
 When Mr. Newman says that Homer is 
 garrulous, he seems, perhaps, to depart less 
 
 187 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 widely from the common opinion than when 
 he calls him quaint ; for is there not Horace's 
 authority for asserting that * the good Homer 
 sometimes nods,' bonus dormitat Homerus ? and a 
 great many people have come, from the currency 
 of this well-known criticism, to represent Homer 
 to themselves as a diffuse old man, with the 
 full-stocked mind, but also with the occasional 
 slips and weaknesses of old age. Horace has 
 said better things than his ' bonus dormitat 
 Homerus ' ; but he never meant by this, as 
 I need not remind any one who knows the 
 passage, that Homer was garrulous, or any- 
 thing of the kind. Instead, however, of either 
 discussing what Horace meant, or discussing 
 Homer's garrulity as a general question, I 
 prefer to bring to my mind some style 
 which is garrulous, and to ask myself, to 
 ask you, whether anything at all of the 
 impression made by that style is ever made 
 by the style of Homer. The mediasval 
 romancers, for instance, are garrulous ; the 
 following, to take out of a thousand instances 
 the first which comes to hand, is in a garrulous 
 manner. It is from the romance of Richard 
 Cceur de Lion. 
 
 Of my tale be not a-wondered ! 
 The French says he slew an hundred 
 (Whereof is made this English saw) 
 Or he rested him any thraw. 
 Him followed many an English knight 
 That eagerly holp him for to fight, — 
 l88 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 and so on. Now the manner of that composition 
 I call garrulous ; every one will feel it to be 
 garrulous ; every one will understand what is 
 meant when it is called garrulous. Then I 
 ask the scholar, — does Homer's manner ever 
 make upon you, I do not say, the same im- 
 pression of its garrulity as that passage, but does 
 it make, ever for one moment, an impression 
 in the slightest way resembling, in the remotest 
 degree akin to, the impression made by that 
 passage of the mediaeval poet ? I have no fear 
 of the answer. 
 
 I follow the same method with Mr. Newman's 
 two other epithets, prosaic and low. ' Homer 
 rises and sinks with his subject,' says Mr. 
 Newman ; • is prosaic when it is tame, is low 
 when it is mean.' First I say. Homer is never, 
 in any sense, to be with truth called prosaic ; 
 he is never to be called low. He does not rise 
 and sink with his subject ; on the contrary, his 
 manner invests his subject, whatever his subject 
 be, with nobleness. Then I look for an author 
 of whom it may with truth be said, that he 
 ' rises and sinks with his subject, is prosaic when 
 it is tame, is low when it is mean.' Defoe 
 is eminently such an author ; of Defoe's manner 
 it may with perfect precision be said, that it 
 follows his matter ; his lifelike composition 
 takes its character from the facts which it 
 conveys, not from the nobleness of the composer. 
 In Moll Flanders and Colonel Jack, Defoe is 
 
 i8g 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 undoubtedly prosaic when his subject is tame, 
 low when his subject is mean. Does Homer's 
 manner in the Iliad, I ask the scholar, ever make 
 upon him an impression at all like the impression 
 made by Defoe's manner in Moll Flanders and 
 Colonel Jackf Does it not, on the contrary, 
 leave him with an impression of nobleness, even 
 when it deals with Thersites or with Irus ? 
 
 Well then. Homer is neither quaint, nor 
 garrulous, nor prosaic, nor mean : and Mr. 
 Newman, in seeing him so, sees him differently 
 from those who are to judge Mr. Newman's 
 rendering of him. By pointing out how a 
 wrong conception of Homer affects Mr. New- 
 man's translation, I hope to place in still clearer 
 light those four cardinal truths which I pronounce 
 essential for him who would have a right con- 
 ception of Homer ; that Homer is rapid, that 
 he is plain and direct in word and style, that he 
 is plain and direct in his ideas, and that he is 
 noble. 
 
 Mr. Newman says that in fixing on a style 
 for suitably rendering Homer, as he conceives 
 him, he 'alights on the delicate line which 
 separates the quaint from the grotesque.' ' I 
 ought to be quaint,' he says, ' I ought not to be 
 grotesque.' This is a most unfortunate sentence. 
 Mr. Newman is grotesque, which he himself 
 says he ought not to be ; and he ought not to be 
 quaint, which he himself says he ought to be. 
 
 ' No two persons will agree,' says Mr. 
 190 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Newman, ' as to where the quaint ends and the 
 grotesque begins ' ; and perhaps this is true. 
 But, in order to avoid all ambiguity in the use 
 of the two words, it is enough to say, that most 
 persons would call an expression which produced 
 on them a very strong sense of its incongruity, 
 and which violently surprised them, grotesque ; 
 and an expression, which produced on them a 
 slighter sense of its incongruity, and which more 
 gently surprised them, quaint. Using the two 
 words in this manner, I say, that when Mr. 
 Newman translates Helen's words to Hector in 
 the sixth book, 
 
 AaE/o kix£io, Kwhs KaKOft.rixdvov, oK/ouoeo-OT/s,^ — 
 
 O, brother thou of me, who am a mischief-working vixen, 
 A numbing horror, — 
 
 he is grotesque ; that is, he expresses himself in 
 a manner which produces on us a very strong 
 sense of its incongruity, and which violently 
 surprises us. I say, again, that when Mr. 
 Newman translates the common line, 
 
 Tijv S* ^/xetySer eireira fieyai KopvdaloXos Ektu/), — 
 
 Great Hector of the motley helm then spake to her re- 
 sponsive, — 
 
 or the common expression ivKv/jfuSei 'Aj^atot, 
 ' dapper-greaved Achaians,' he is quaint ; that is, 
 he expresses himself in a manner which produces 
 on us a slighter sense of incongruity, and which 
 
 1 J/iaJ, vi. 344.. 
 191 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 more gently surprises us. But violent and gentle 
 surprise are alike far from the scholar's spirit 
 when he reads in Homer kwo^ KaKOfia}j(avov, or, 
 KopvdaloXoi "ISiKTiop, or, ii)Kvi]/ii,Sei 'A^otot. These 
 expressions no more seem odd to him than the 
 simplest expressions in English. He is not more 
 checked by any feeling of strangeness, strong or 
 weak, when he reads them, than when he reads 
 in an English book ' the painted savage,' or, 
 'the phlegmatic Dutchman.' Mr. Newman's 
 renderings of them must, therefore, be wrong 
 expressions in a translation of Homer, because 
 they excite in the scholar, their only competent 
 judge, a feeling quite alien to that excited in him 
 by what they profess to render. 
 
 Mr. Newman, by expressions of this kind, is 
 false to his original in two ways. He is false to 
 him inasmuch as he is ignoble ; for a noble air, 
 and a grotesque air, the air of the address, 
 
 Aatp c/Mio, Kvvhi KaKOfi-q^avov, OKpvo&TOTji, — 
 
 and the air of the address, 
 
 O, brother thou of me, who am a mischief-working vixen, 
 A numbing horror, — 
 
 are just contrary the one to the other : and he is 
 false to him inasmuch as he is odd ; for an odd 
 diction like Mr. Newman's, and a perfectly plain 
 natural diction like Homer's, — ' dapper-greavcd 
 Achaians' and eO/wjj/xtSe? 'Axaiol, — are also just 
 contrary the one to the other. Where, indeed, 
 
 192 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Mr. Newman got his diction, with whom he 
 can have lived, what can be his test of antiquity 
 and rarity for words, are questions which I ask 
 myself with bewilderment. He has prefixed to 
 his translation a list of what he calls ' the more 
 antiquated or rarer words ' which he has used. 
 In this list appear, on the one hand, such words 
 as doughty, g^i^ly, lusty, noisome, ravin, which are 
 familiar, one would think, to all the world ; on 
 the other hand, such words as bragly, meaning, 
 Mr. Newman tells us, ' proudly fine ' ; bulkin, 
 'a calf ; plump, 'a mass' ; and so on. 'I am 
 concerned,' says Mr. Newman, ' with the artistic 
 problem of attaining a plausible aspect of moder- 
 ate antiquity, while remaining easily intelligible.' 
 But it seems to me that lusty is not antiquated : 
 and that bragly is not a word readily understood. 
 That this word, indeed, and bulkin, may have 
 * a plausible aspect of moderate antiquity,' I 
 admit ; but that they are ' easily intelligible,' 
 I deny. 
 
 Mr, Newman's syntax has, I say it with 
 pleasure, a much more Homeric cast than his 
 vocabulary ; his syntax, the mode in which his 
 thought is evolved, although not the actual 
 words in which it is expressed, seems to me right 
 in its general character, and the best feature of 
 his version. It is not artificial or rhetorical like 
 Cowper's syntax or Pope's : it is simple, direct, 
 and natural, and so far it is like Homer's. It 
 fails, however, just where, from the inherent 
 
 VOL, V 193 o 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 fault of Mr. Newman's conception of Homer, 
 one might expect it to fail, — it fails in nobleness. 
 It presents the thought in a way which is some- 
 thing more than unconstrained, — over-familiar ; 
 something more than easy, — free and easy. In 
 this respect it is like the movement of Mr. 
 Newman's version, like his rhythm, for this, too, 
 fails, in spite of some good qualities, by not 
 being noble enough ; this, while it avoids the 
 faults of being slow and elaborate, falls into a 
 fault in the opposite direction, and is slip-shod. 
 Homer presents his thought naturally ; but when 
 Mr. Newman has — 
 
 A thousand fires along the plain, / say^ that night were 
 burning, — 
 
 he presents his thought familiarly ; in a style 
 which may be the genuine style of ballad-poetry, 
 but which is not the style of Homer. Homer 
 moves freely ; but when Mr. Newman has — 
 
 Infatuate ! O that thou wert lord to some other army,^ — 
 
 he gives himself too much freedom ; he leaves 
 us too much to do for his rhythm ourselves, 
 instead of giving to us a rhythm like Homer's, 
 
 1 From the reproachful answer of Ulysses to Agamemnon, who 
 had proposed an abandonment of their expedition. This is one of 
 the ' tonic ' passages of the Iliad, so I quote it : — 
 
 ' Ah, unworthy king, some other inglorious army 
 Should'st thou command, not rule over us, whose portion for ever 
 Zeus hath made it, from youth right up to age, to be winding 
 Skeins of grievous wars, till every soul of us perish.' 
 
 Iliad, xiv. 84. 
 194 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 easy indeed, but mastering our ear with a fulness 
 of power which is irresistible. 
 
 I said that a certain style might be the genuine 
 style of ballad-poetry, but yet not the style of 
 Homer. The analogy of the ballad is ever 
 present to Mr. Newman's thoughts in considering 
 Homer ; and perhaps nothing has more caused 
 his faults than this analogy, — this popular, but, 
 it is time to say, this erroneous analogy. ' The 
 moral qualities of Homer's style,' says Mr. 
 Newman, ' being like to those of the English 
 ballad, we need a metre of the same genius. 
 Only those metres, which by the very possession 
 of these qualities are liable to degenerate into 
 doggerel, are suitable to reproduce the ancient 
 epic' 'The style of Homer,' he says, in a 
 passage which I have before quoted, ' is direct, 
 popular, forcible, quaint, flowing, garrulous : in 
 all these respects it is similar to the old English 
 ballad.' Mr. Newman, I need not say, is by no 
 means alone in this opinion. ' The most really 
 and truly Homeric of all the creations of the 
 English muse is,' says Mr. Newman's critic in 
 the National Review, ' the ballad-poetry of ancient 
 times ; and the association between metre and 
 subject is one that it would be true wisdom to 
 preserve.' ' It is confessed,' says Chapman's last 
 editor, Mr. Hooper, 'that the fourteen-syllable 
 verse' (that is, a ballad-verse) 'is peculiarly 
 fitting for Homeric translation.' And the editor 
 of Dr. Maginn's clever and popular Homeric 
 
 195 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Ballads assumes it as one of his author's greatest 
 and most undisputable merits, that he was 
 ' the first who consciously realised to himself 
 the truth that Greek ballads can be really 
 represented in English only by a similar 
 measure.' 
 
 This proposition that Homer's poetry is ballad- 
 poetry, analogous to the well-known ballad-poetry 
 of the English and other nations, has a certain 
 small portion of truth in it, and at one time 
 probably served a useful purpose, when it was 
 employed to discredit the artificial and literary 
 manner in which Pope and his school rendered 
 Homer. But it has been so extravagantly over- 
 used, the mistake which it was useful in combat- 
 ing has so entirely lost the public favour, that it 
 is now much more important to insist on the 
 large part of error contained in it, than to extol 
 its small part of truth. It is time to say plainly 
 that, whatever the admirers of our old ballads 
 may think, the supreme form of epic poetry, the 
 genuine Homeric mould, is not the form of the 
 Ballad of Lord Bateman. I have myself shown 
 the broad difference between Milton's manner 
 and Homer's ; but, after a course of Mr. Newman 
 and Dr. Maginn, I turn round in desperation 
 upon them and upon the balladists who have 
 misled them, and I exclaim : ' Compared with 
 you, Milton is Homer's double ; there is, what- 
 ever you may think, ten thousand times more of 
 the real strain of Homer in — 
 
 196 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Blind Thamyris, and blind Maeonides, 
 And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old, — 
 
 than in — 
 
 Now Christ thee save, thou proud porter. 
 Now Christ thee save and see,i — 
 
 or in — 
 
 While the tinker did dine, he had plenty of wine.^ 
 
 For Homer is not only rapid in movement, 
 simple in style, plain in language, natural in 
 thought ; he is also, and above all, noble. I have 
 advised the translator not to go into the vexed 
 question of Homer's identity. Yet I will just 
 remind him that the grand argument — or rather, 
 not argument, for the matter aiFords no data for 
 arguing, but the grand source from which con- 
 viction, as we read the Iliad, keeps pressing in 
 upon us, that there is one poet of the Iliad, one 
 Homer — is precisely this nobleness of the poet, 
 this grand manner ; we feel that the analogy 
 drawn from other joint compositions does not 
 hold good here, because those works do not bear, 
 like the Iliad, the magic stamp of a master ; and 
 the moment you have anything less than a master- 
 work, the co-operation or consolidation of several 
 poets becomes possible, for talent is not un- 
 common ; the moment you have much less than 
 a masterwork, they become easy, for mediocrity 
 is everywhere. I can imagine fifty Bradies 
 
 1 From the ballad of King Estmere, in Percy's Reliques «/" 
 Ancient English Poetry, i. 69 (edit, of 1 767). 
 * Reliques, i. 241. 
 
 197 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 joined with as many Tates to make the New 
 Version of the Psalms. I can imagine several 
 poets having contributed to any one of the old 
 English ballads in Percy's collection. I can 
 imagine several poets, possessing, like Chapman, 
 the Elizabethan vigour and the Elizabethan 
 mannerism, united with Chapman to produce his 
 version of the Iliad. I can imagine several poets, 
 with the literary knack of the twelfth century, 
 united to produce the Nibelungen hay in the form 
 in which we have it, — a work which the 
 Germans, in their joy at discovering a national 
 epic of their own, have rated vastly higher than 
 it deserves. And lastly, though Mr. Newman's 
 translation of Homer bears the strong mark of 
 his own idiosyncrasy, yet I can imagine Mr. 
 Newman and a school of adepts trained by him 
 in his art of poetry, jointly producing that work, 
 so that Aristarchus himself should have difficulty 
 in pronouncing which line was the master's, and 
 which a pupil's. But I cannot imagine several 
 poets, or one poet, joined with Dante in the com- 
 position of his Inferno^ though many poets have 
 taken for their subject a descent into Hell. 
 Many artists, again, have represented Moses ; 
 but there is only one Moses of Michael Angelo. 
 So the insurmountable obstacle to believing the 
 Iliad a consolidated work of several poets is this : 
 that the work of great masters is unique ; and 
 the Iliad has a great master's genuine stamp, and 
 that stamp is the grand style. 
 
 198 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Poets who cannot work in the grand style 
 instinctively seek a style in which their com- 
 parative inferiority may feel itself at ease, a 
 manner which may be, so to speak, indulgent 
 to their inequalities. The ballad-style offers to 
 an epic poet, quite unable to fill the canvas 
 of Homer, or Dante, or Milton, a canvas which 
 he is capable of filling. The ballad-measure is 
 quite able to give due effect to the vigour and 
 spirit which its employer, when at his very 
 best, may be able to exhibit ; and, when he is 
 not at his best, when he is a little trivial, or a 
 little dull, it will not betray him, it will not 
 bring out his weaknesses into broad relief This 
 is a convenience ; but it is a convenience which 
 the ballad-style purchases by resigning all pre- 
 tensions to the highest, to the grand manner. 
 It is true of its movement, as it is not true of 
 Homer's, that it is ' liable to degenerate into 
 doggerel.' It is true of its ' moral qualities,' as 
 it is not true of Homer's, that ' quaintness ' and 
 ' garrulity ' are among them. It is true of its 
 employers, as it is not true of Homer, that they 
 ' rise and sink with their subject, are prosaic 
 when it is tame, are low when it is mean.' For 
 this reason the ballad-style and the ballad-measure 
 are eminently ///appropriate to render Homer. 
 Homer's manner and movement are always both 
 noble and powerful : the ballad manner and 
 movement are often either jaunty and smart, so not 
 noble ; or jog-trot and humdrum, so not powerful. 
 
 199 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 The Nibelungen Lay affords a good illustration 
 of the qualities of the ballad-manner. Based on 
 grand traditions, which had found expression in 
 a grand lyric poetry, the German epic poem of 
 the Nibelungen Lay, though it is interesting, and 
 though it has good passages, is itself anything 
 rather than a grand poem. It is a poem of 
 which the composer is, to speak the truth, a 
 very ordinary mortal, and often, therefore, like 
 other ordinary mortals, very prosy. It is in a 
 measure which eminently adapts itself to this 
 commonplace personality of its composer, which 
 has much the movement of the well-known 
 measures of Tate and Brady, and can jog on, 
 for hundreds of lines at a time, with a level ease 
 which reminds one of Sheridan's saying that 
 easy writing may be often such hard reading. 
 But, instead of occupying myself with the 
 Nibelungen Lay, I prefer to look at the ballad- 
 style as directly applied to Homer, in Chapman's 
 version and Mr. Newman's, and in the Ilomerk 
 Ballads of Dr. Maginn. 
 
 First I take Chapman. I have already shown 
 that Chapman's conceits are un-Homeric, and 
 that his rhyme is un-Homeric; I will now 
 show how his manner and movement are un- 
 Homeric. Chapman's diction, I have said, is 
 generally good ; but it must be called good with 
 this reserve, that, though it has Homer's plain- 
 ness and directness, it often offends him who 
 knows Homer, by wanting Homer's nobleness. 
 
 200 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 In a passage which I have already quoted, the 
 address of Zeus to the horses of Achilles, where 
 Homer has — 
 
 a SeiAio, Ti (Tfjitoi 80/X6V llrjkTJ'i avaKTi 
 dvrjT<ff, vfifts 8 ea-rhv ayripm t aOavdrut re ; 
 ^ iva SvcTTjjvowt fUT avSpda-iv a\ye e^qrov ; ^ 
 
 Chapman has — 
 
 'Poor wretched beasts^ said he, 
 ' Why gave we you to a mortal king, when immortality 
 And incapacity of age so dignifies your states ? 
 Was it to haste ^ the miseries poured out on human fates ? ' 
 
 There are many faults in this rendering of 
 Chapman's, but what I particularly wish to 
 notice in it is the expression ' Poor wretched 
 beasts' for 5 &t\<». This expression just illustrates 
 the difference between the ballad-manner and 
 Homer's. The ballad - manner — Chapman's 
 manner — is, I say, pitched sensibly lower than 
 Homer's. The ballad-manner requires that an 
 expression shall be plain and natural, and then 
 it asks no more. Homer's manner requires that 
 an expression shall be plain and natural, but it 
 also requires that it shall be noble. S. Beikco is 
 as plain, as simple as * Poor wretched beasts ' ; 
 but it is also noble, which ' Poor wretched 
 beasts ' is not. ' Poor wretched beasts ' is, in 
 truth, a little over-familiar, but this is no objec- 
 tion to it for the ballad-manner ; it is good 
 
 1 liiad, xvii. 44.3. 
 
 ^ All the editions which I have seen have 'haste,' but the 
 right reading must certainly be ' taste.' 
 
 201 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 enough for the old English ballad, good enough 
 for the Nibelungen Lay, good enough for Chap- 
 man's Iliad, good enough for Mr. Newman's 
 Iliad, good enough for Dr. Maginn's Homeric 
 Ballads ; but it is not good enough for Homer. 
 
 To feel that Chapman's measure, though 
 natural, is not Homeric ; that, though toler- 
 ably rapid, it has not Homer's rapidity ; that 
 it has a jogging rapidity rather than a flowing 
 rapidity ; and a movement familiar rather than 
 nobly easy, one has only, I think, to read half a 
 dozen lines in any part of his version. I prefer 
 to keep as much as possible to passages which 
 I have already noticed, so I will quote the con- 
 clusion of the nineteenth book, where Achilles 
 answers his horse Xanthus, who has prophesied 
 his death to him.^ 
 
 Achilles, far in rage. 
 Thus answered him : — It fits not thee thus proudly to 
 
 presage 
 My overthrow. I know myself it is my fete to fell 
 Thus far from Phthia ; yet that fate shall feil to vent her gall 
 Till mine vent thousands. — These words said, he fell to horrid 
 
 deeds, 
 Gave dreadful signal, and forthright made fly his one-hoofed 
 
 steeds. 
 
 For what regards the manner of this passage, 
 the words ' Achilles Thus answered him,' and ' I 
 know myself it is my fate to fall Thus far from 
 Phthia,' are in Homer's manner, and all the rest 
 is out of it. But for what regards its movement, 
 
 * I/iad, xix. 419. 
 202 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 who, after being jolted by Chapman through 
 such verse as this, — 
 
 These words said, he fell to horrid deeds, 
 Gave dreadful signal, and forthright made fly his one-hoofed 
 steeds, 
 
 who does not feel the vital difference of the 
 movement of Homer, — 
 
 ^ pa, Kal iv Trpiorois Idxw ex^ fiiovvxas iirirovi ? 
 
 To pass from Chapman to Dr. Maginn. His 
 Homeric Ballads are vigorous and genuine poems 
 in their own way ; they are not one continual 
 falsetto, like the pinchbeck Roman Ballads of 
 Lord Macaulay ; but just because they are 
 ballads in their manner and movement, just 
 because, to use the words of his applauding 
 editor. Dr. Maginn has ' consciously realised to 
 himself the truth that Greek ballads can be 
 really represented in English only by a similar 
 manner,' — just for this very reason they are not 
 at all Homeric, they have not the least in the 
 world the manner of Homer. There is a 
 celebrated incident in the nineteenth book of the 
 Odyssey, the recognition by the old nurse 
 Eurycleia of a scar on the leg of her master 
 Ulysses, who has entered his own hall as an 
 unknown wanderer, and whose feet she has been 
 set to wash. ' Then she came near,' says Homer, 
 ' and began to wash her master ; and straightway 
 she recognised a scar which he had got in 
 former days from the white tusk of a wild boar, 
 
 203 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 when he went to Parnassus unto Autolycus and 
 the sons of Autolycus, his mother's father and 
 brethren.' ' This, ' really represented ' by Dr. 
 Maginn, in ' a measure similar ' to Homer's, 
 becomes : — 
 
 And scarcely had she begun to wash 
 Ere she was aware of the grisly gash 
 
 Above his knee that lay. 
 It was a wound from a wild-boar's tooth. 
 All on Parnassus' slope, 
 
 Where he went to hunt in the days of his youth 
 With his mother's sire, — 
 
 and so on. That is the true ballad-manner, no 
 one can deny ; ' all on Parnassus' slope ' is, I was 
 going to say, the true ballad-slang ; but never 
 again shall I be able to read, 
 
 vtfe o ap axra-ov lovcra ava)(p eov avriKa it fr/vm 
 
 without having the detestable dance of Dr. 
 Maginn's — 
 
 And scarcely had she begun to wash 
 Ere she was aware of the grisly gash, — 
 
 jigging in my ears, to spoil the effect of Homer, 
 and to torture me. To apply that manner and 
 that rhythm to Homer's incidents, is not to 
 imitate Homer, but to travesty him. 
 
 Lastly I come to Mr. Newman. His 
 rhythm, like Chapman's and Dr. Maginn's, is a 
 ballad-rhythm, but with a modification of his 
 
 1 Odyssey, xix. 392. 
 204 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 own. ' Holding it,' he tells us, ' as an axiom, 
 that rhyme must be abandoned,' he found, on 
 abandoning it, ' an unpleasant void until he gave 
 a double ending to the verse.' In short, instead 
 of saying, 
 
 Good people all with one accord 
 Give ear unto my tale^ — 
 
 Mr. Newman would say. 
 
 Good people all with one accord 
 Give ear unto my story. 
 
 A recent American writer ^ gravely observes that 
 for his countrymen this rhythm has a dis- 
 advantage in being like the rhythm of the 
 American national air Yankee Doodle, and thus 
 provoking ludicrous associations. Yankee Doodle 
 is not our national air : for us Mr. Newman's 
 rhythm has not this disadvantage. He him- 
 self gives us several plausible reasons why this 
 rhythm of his really ought to be successful : let 
 us examine how far it is successful. 
 
 Mr. Newman joins to a bad rhythm so bad a 
 diction that it is difficult to distinguish exactly 
 whether in any given passage it is his words or 
 his measure which produces a total impression 
 of such an unpleasant kind. But with a little 
 attention we may analyse our total impression, 
 and find the share which each element has in 
 producing it. To take the passage which I 
 
 1 Mr. Marsh, in his Lectures on the English Language, New York, 
 i860, p. 520. 
 
 205 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 have so often mentioned, Sarpedon's speech to 
 Glaucus, Mr. Newman translates this as 
 follows : — 
 
 gentle friend ! if thou and I, from this encounter 'scaping, 
 Hereafter might forever be from Eld and Death exempted 
 
 As heavenly gods, not I in sooth would fight among the 
 
 foremost, 
 Nor liefly thee would I advance to man-ennobling battle. 
 Now, — sith ten thousand shapes of Death do any-gait pursue us 
 Which never mortal may evade, though sly of foot and 
 
 nimble ; — 
 Onward ! and glory let us earn, or glory yield to some one. — 
 
 Could all our care elude the gloomy grave 
 Which claims no less the fearful than the brave — 
 
 1 am not going to quote Pope's version over 
 again, but I must remark in passing, how much 
 more, with all Pope's radical difference of manner 
 from Homer, it gives us of the real effect of 
 
 tl jjxv yap, iroXifwv irepl rovSe <j>vy6vTi — 
 
 than Mr. Newman's lines. And now, why are 
 Mr. Newman's lines faulty ? They are faulty, 
 first, because, as a matter of diction, the expres- 
 sions ' O gentle friend,' ' eld,' ' in sooth,' ' liefly,' 
 ' advance,' ' man-ennobling,' ' sith,' ' any-gait,' and 
 ' sly of foot,' are all bad ; some of them worse 
 than others, but all bad : that is, they all of 
 them as here used excite in the scholar, their 
 sole judge, — excite, I will boldly affirm, in Pro- 
 fessor Thompson or Professor Jowett, — a feeling 
 totally different from that excited in them by 
 the words of Homer which these expressions 
 
 206 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 profess to render. The lines are faulty, secondly, 
 because, as a matter of rhythm, any and every 
 line among them has to the ear of the same 
 judges (I affirm it with equal boldness) a move- 
 ment as unlike Homer's movement in the 
 corresponding line as the single words are unlike 
 
 Homer's words. ovre xe o-e ariXXoi/ju tiayjt)v e? 
 
 KvSidveipav, — ' Nor liefly thee would I advance to 
 man-ennobling battle' ; — for whose ears do those 
 two rhythms produce impressions of, to use Mr. 
 Newman's own words, ' similar moral genius ' ? 
 
 I will by no means make search in Mr, 
 Newman's version for passages likely to raise 
 a laugh ; that search, alas ! would be far too 
 easy. I will quote but one other passage from 
 him, and that a passage where the diction is com- 
 paratively inoffensive, in order that disapproval 
 of the words may not unfairly heighten dis- 
 approval of the rhythm. The end of the 
 nineteenth book, the answer of Achilles to his 
 horse Xanthus, Mr. Newman gives thus : — 
 
 ' Chestnut ! why bodest death to me ? from thee this was 
 
 not needed. 
 Myself right surely know also, that 't is my doom to perish, 
 From mother and from father dear apart, in Troy ; but never 
 Pause will I make of war, until the Trojans be glutted.' 
 He spake, and yelling, held afront the single- hoofed horses. 
 
 Here Mr. Newman calls Xanthus Chestnut, 
 indeed, as he calls Balius Spotted, and Podarga 
 Spry-foot; which is as if a Frenchman were to 
 call Miss Nightingale Mdlle. Rossignol, or Mr. 
 
 207 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Bright M. Clair. And several other expressions, 
 too, — ' yelling,' ' held afront,' ' single-hoofed,' — 
 leave, to say the very least, much to be desired. 
 Still, for Mr. Newman, the diction of this 
 passage is pure. All the more clearly appears 
 the profound vice of a rhythm, which, with 
 comparatively few faults of words, can leave a 
 sense of such incurable alienation from Homer's 
 manner as, ' Myself right surely know also that 
 'tis my doom to perish,' — compared with the 
 
 60 vv Toi olBa Kal avrov, o fwi fiopo^ ivOdS' oXAadai 
 
 of Homer. 
 
 But so deeply seated is the difference between 
 the ballad- manner and Homer's, that even a 
 man of the highest powers, even a man of the 
 greatest vigour of spirit and of true genius, — the 
 Coryphaeus of balladists, Sir Walter Scott, — fails 
 with a manner of this kind to produce an effect 
 at all like the effect of Homer. ' I am not so 
 rash,' declares Mr. Newman, ' as to say that if 
 freedom be given to rhyme as in Walter Scott's 
 poetry,' — Walter Scott, * by far the most 
 Homeric of our poets,' as in another place he 
 calls him, — * a genius may not arise who will 
 translate Homer into the melodies of Marmion.' 
 ' The truly classical and the truly romantic,' says 
 Dr. Maginn, 'are one; the moss- trooping 
 Nestor reappears in the moss-trooping heroes 
 of Percy's Reliques ' ; and a description by Scott, 
 which he quotes, he calls ' graphic, and therefore 
 Homeric' He forgets our fourth axiom, — 
 
 208 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 that Homer is not only graphic ; he is also 
 noble, and has the grand style. Human nature 
 under like circumstances is probably in all ages 
 much the same ; and so far it may be said that 
 ■• the truly classical and the truly romantic are 
 one ' ; but it is of little use to tell us this, 
 because we know the human nature of other 
 ages only through the representations of them 
 which have come down to us, and the classical 
 and the romantic modes of representation are so 
 far from being ' one,' that they remain eternally 
 distinct, and have created for us a separation 
 between the two worlds which they respectively 
 represent. Therefore to call Nestor the ' moss- 
 trooping Nestor ' is absurd, because, though 
 Nestor may possibly have been much the same 
 sort of man as many a moss-trooper, he has yet 
 come to us through a mode of representation so 
 unlike that of Percy's Reliques, that, instead of 
 * reappearing in the moss-trooping heroes ' of 
 these poems, he exists in our imagination as 
 something utterly unlike them, and as belonging 
 to another world. So the Greeks in Shakspeare's 
 Troilus and Cressida are no longer the Greeks 
 whom we have known in Homer, because they 
 come to us through a mode of representation of 
 the romantic world. But I must not forget 
 Scott. 
 
 I suppose that when Scott is in what may 
 be called full ballad swing, no one will hesi- 
 tate to pronounce his manner neither Homeric 
 
 VOL. v 209 p 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 nor the grand manner. When he says, for 
 instance, 
 
 I do not rhyme to that dull elf 
 Who cannot image to himself,^ 
 
 and so on, any scholar will feel that this is not 
 Homer's manner. But let us take Scott's poetry 
 at its best ; and when it is at its best, it is 
 undoubtedly very good indeed : — 
 
 Tunstall lies dead upon the field, 
 His life-blood stains the spotless shield ; 
 Edmund is down, — my life is reft, — 
 The Admiral alone is left. 
 Let Stanley charge with spur of fire, — 
 With Chester charge, and Lancashire, 
 Full upon Scotland's central host. 
 Or victory and England's lost.^ 
 
 That is, no doubt, as vigorous as possible, as 
 spirited as possible ; it is exceedingly fine poetry. 
 And still I say, it is not in the grand manner, 
 and therefore it is not like Homer's poetry. 
 Now, how shall I make him who doubts this 
 feel that I say true ; that these lines of Scott 
 are essentially neither in Homer's style nor in 
 the grand style ? I may point out to him that 
 the movement of Scott's lines, while it is rapid, 
 is also at the same time what the French 
 call saccade, its rapidity is 'jerky'; whereas 
 Homer's rapidity is a flowing rapidity. But this 
 is something external and material ; it is but 
 the outward and visible sign of an inward and 
 
 * Marmion, canto vi. 38. ' Marmion, canto vi. 29. 
 
 210 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 spiritual diversity. I may discuss what, in the 
 abstract, constitutes the grand style ; but that 
 sort of general discussion never much helps our 
 judgment of particular instances. I may say 
 that the presence or absence of the grand style 
 can only be spiritually discerned ; and this is 
 true, but to plead this looks like evading the 
 difficulty. My best way is to take eminent 
 specimens of the grand style, and to put them 
 side by side with this of Scott. For example, 
 when Homer says : — 
 
 aAAa, c/i/A,os, 6dve koi (Tv' thj 6Xv(j>vpeai ovrtoi j ■ 
 Kardave Koi HdrpoKkos, oirep irko iroWhv d/jxiviov,^ 
 
 that is in the grand style. When Virgil 
 says : — 
 
 Disce, puer, virtutem ex me verutnque laborem, 
 Fortunatn ex aliis,^ 
 
 that is in the grand style. When Dante 
 says : — 
 
 Lascio lo fele, et vo pei dolci potni 
 Promessi a me per lo verace Duca ; 
 Ma fino al centro pria convien ch' io tomi,* 
 
 ^ ' Be content, good friend, die also thou ! why lamentest thou 
 thyself on this wise ? Patroclus, too, died, who was a far better 
 than thou.' — I/iad, xxi. io6. 
 
 2 ' From me, young man, learn nobleness of soul and true effort : 
 learn success from others.' — ^neid, xii. 435. 
 
 * 'I leave the gall of bitterness, and I go for the apples of 
 sweetness promised unto me by my faithful Guide ; but far as the 
 centre it behoves me first to fall.' — Hell, xvi. 61. 
 
 21 1 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 that is in the grand style. When Milton says : — 
 
 His form had yet not lost 
 All her original brightness, nor appeared 
 Less than archangel ruined, and the excess 
 Of glory obscured,^ 
 
 that, finally, is in the grand style. Now let any 
 one, after repeating to himself these four passages, 
 repeat again the passage of Scott, and he will 
 perceive that there is something in style which 
 the four first have in common, and which the 
 last is without ; and this something is precisely 
 the grand manner. It is no disrespect to Scott 
 to say that he does not attain to this manner in 
 his poetry ; to say so, is merely to say that he is 
 not among the five or six supreme poets of the 
 world. Among these he is not ; but, being a 
 man of far greater powers than the ballad-poets, 
 he has tried to give to their instrument a compass 
 and an elevation which it does not naturally 
 possess, in order to enable him to come nearer 
 to the effect of the instrument used by the great 
 epic poets, — an instrument which he felt he 
 could not truly use, — and in this attempt he has 
 but imperfectly succeeded. The poetic style of 
 Scott is — (it becomes necessary to say so when it 
 is proposed to 'translate Homer into the melodies 
 oiMarmion') — it is, tried by the highest standards, 
 a bastard epic style ; and that is why, out of his 
 own powerful hands, it has had so little success. 
 
 * Paradise Lost, i. 591. 
 212 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 It is a less natural, and therefore a less good style, _ 
 than the original ballad -style ; while it shares 
 with the ballad -style the inherent incapacity 
 of rising into the grand style, of adequately 
 rendering Homer. Scott is certainly at his best 
 in his battles. Of Homer you could not say 
 this ; he is not better in his battles than else- 
 where ; but even between the battle-pieces of 
 the two there exists all the difference which 
 there is between an able work and a masterpiece. 
 
 Tunstall lies dead upon the field, 
 His life-blood stains the spotless shield : 
 Edmund is down, — my life is reft, — 
 The Admiral alone is left. 
 
 — ' For not in the hands of Diomede the son of 
 Tydeus rages the spear, to ward off destruction 
 from the JDanaans ; neither as yet have I heard 
 the voice of the son of Atreus, shouting out of 
 his hated mouth ; but the voice of Hector the 
 slayer of men bursts round me, as he cheers on 
 the Trojans ; and they with their yellings fill all 
 the plain, overcoming the Achaians in the battle.' 
 — I protest that, to my feeling. Homer's per- 
 formance, even through that pale and far-off 
 shadow of a prose translation, still has a hundred 
 times more of the grand manner about it, than 
 the original poetry of Scott. 
 
 Well, then, the ballad-manner and the ballad- 
 measure, whether in the hands of the old ballad 
 poets, or arranged by Chapman, or arranged by 
 Mr. Newman, or, even, arranged by Sir Walter 
 
 213 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Scott, cannot worthily render Homer. And for 
 one reason : Homer is plain, so are they ; Homer 
 is natural, so are they ; Homer is spirited, so are 
 they ; but Homer is sustainedly noble, and they 
 are not. Homer and they are both of them 
 natural, and therefore touching and stirring ; but 
 the grand style, which is Homer's, is something 
 more than touching and stirring ; it can form 
 the character, it is edifying. The old English 
 balladist may stir Sir Philip Sidney's heart like a 
 trumpet, and this is much : but Homer, but the 
 few artists in the grand style, can do more ; they 
 can refine the raw natural man, they can trans- 
 mute him. So it is not without cause that I 
 say, and say again, to the translator of Homer : 
 ' Never for a moment suffer yourself to forget 
 our fourth fundamental proposition. Homer is 
 noble.' For it is seen how large a share this 
 nobleness has ia producing that general effect of 
 his, which it is the main business of a translator 
 to reproduce. 
 
 I shall have to try your patience yet once 
 more upon this subject, and then my task will 
 be completed. I have shown what the four 
 axioms respecting Homer which I have laid 
 down, exclude, what they bid a translator not to 
 do ; I have still to show what they supply, what 
 positive help they can give to the translator in 
 his work. I will even, with their aid, myself 
 try my fortune with some of those passages of 
 Homer which I have already noticed ; not 
 
 214 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 indeed with any confidence that I more than 
 others can succeed in adequately rendering 
 Homer, but in the hope of satisfying competent 
 judges, in the hope of making it clear to the 
 future translator, that I at any rate follow a right 
 method, and that, in coming short, I come short 
 from weakness of execution, not from original 
 vice of design. This is why I have so long 
 occupied myself with Mr. Newman's version ; 
 that, apart from all faults of execution, his 
 original design was wrong, and that he has done 
 us the good service of declaring that design in 
 its naked wrongness. [To bad practice he has 
 prefixed the bad theory^hich made the practice 
 bad ; he has given us a false theory in his preface, 
 and he has exemplified the bad effects of that 
 false theory in his translation^ It is because his 
 starting-point is so bad thatne runs so badly ; 
 and to save others from taking so false a starting- 
 point, may be to save them from running so 
 futile a course. 
 
 Mr. Newman, indeed, says in his preface, that 
 if any one dislikes his translation, ' he has his 
 easy remedy ; to keep aloof from it.' But Mr. 
 Newman is a writer of considerable and deserved 
 reputation ; he is also a Professor of the University 
 of London, an institution which by its position 
 and by its merits acquires every year greater 
 importance. It would be a very grave thing if 
 the authority of so eminent a Professor led his 
 students to misconceive entirely the chief work 
 
 2IS 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 of the Greek world ; that work which, whatever 
 the other works of classical antiquity have to 
 give us, gives it more abundantly than they all. 
 The eccentricity too, the arbitrariness, of which 
 Mr. Newman's conception of Homer offers so 
 signal an example, are not a peculiar failing of 
 Mr. Newman's own ; in varying degrees they 
 are the great defect of English intellect, the great 
 blemish of English literature. Our literature of 
 the eighteenth century, the literature of the 
 school of Dryden, Addison, Pope, Johnson, is 
 a long reaction against this eccentricity, this 
 arbitrariness ; that reaction perished by its own 
 faults, and its enemies are left once more masters 
 of the field. It is much more likely that any 
 new English version of Homer will have Mr. 
 Newman's faults than Pope's. Our present 
 literature, which is very far, certainly, from 
 having the spirit and power of Elizabethan 
 genius, yet has in its own way these faults, 
 eccentricity and arbitrariness, quite as much as 
 the Elizabethan literature ever had. They are 
 the cause that, while upon none, perhaps, of the 
 modern literatures has so great' a sum of force 
 been expended as upon the English literature, 
 at the present hour this literature, regarded not 
 as an object of mere literary interest but as a 
 living intellectual instrument, ranks only third 
 in European effect and importance among the 
 literatures of Europe ; it ranks after the litera- 
 tures of France and Germany. Of these two 
 
 216 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 literatures, as of the intellect of Europe in 
 general, the main effort, for now many years, 
 has been a critical effort ; the endeavour, in all 
 branches of knowledge, theology, philosophy, 
 history, art, science, — to see the object as in 
 itself it really is. But, owing to the presence in 
 English literature of this eccentric and arbitrary 
 spirit, owing to the strong tendency of English 
 writers to bring to the consideration of their 
 object some individual fancy, almost the last 
 thing for which one would come to English 
 literature is just that very thing which now 
 Europe most desires — criticism. It is useful to 
 notice any signal manifestation of those faults, 
 which thus limit and impair the action of our 
 literature. And therefore I have pointed out 
 how widely, in translating Homer, a man even 
 of real ability and learning may go astray, unless 
 he brings to the study of this clearest of poets 
 one quality in which our English authors, with 
 all their great gifts, are apt to be somewhat 
 wanting — simple lucidity of mind. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Homer is rapid in his movement. Homer is 
 plain in his words and style. Homer is simple 
 in his ideas. Homer is noble in his manner. 
 Cowper renders him ill because he is slow in his 
 
 217 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 movement, and elaborate in his style ; Pope 
 renders him ill because he is artificial both in 
 his style and in his words ; Chapman renders 
 him ill because he is fantastic in his ideas ; Mr. 
 Newman renders him ill because he is odd in 
 his words and ignoble in his manner. All four 
 translators diverge from their original at other 
 points besides those named ; but it is at the points 
 thus named that their divergence is greatest. 
 For instance, Cowper's diction is not as Homer's 
 diction, nor his nobleness as Homer's nobleness ; 
 but it is in movement and grammatical style that 
 he is most unlike Homer. Pope's rapidity is not 
 of the same sort as Homer's rapidity, nor are his 
 plainness of ideas and his nobleness as Homer's 
 plainness of ideas and nobleness : but it is in the 
 artificial character of his style and diction that he 
 is most unlike Homer. Chapman's movement, 
 words, style, and manner, are often far enough 
 from resembling Homer's movement, words, 
 style, and manner ; but it is the fantasticality of 
 his ideas which puts him farthest from resembling 
 Homer. Mr. Newman's movement, grammatical 
 style, and ideas, are a thousand times in strong 
 contrast with Homer's ; still it is by the oddness 
 of his diction and the ignobleness of his manner 
 that he contrasts with Homer the most violently. 
 Therefore the translator must not say to 
 himself : ' Cowper is noble. Pope is rapid. 
 Chapman has a good diction, Mr. Newman has 
 a good cast of sentence ; I will avoid Cowper's 
 
 3l8 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 slowness, Pope's artificiality, Chapman's conceits, 
 Mr. Newman's oddity ; I will take Cowper's 
 dignified manner. Pope's impetuous movement, 
 Chapman's vocabulary, Mr. Newman's syntax, 
 and so make a perfect translation of Homer.' 
 Undoubtedly in certain points the versions of 
 Chapman, Cowper, Pope, and Mr. Newman, all 
 of them have merit ; some of them very high 
 merit, others a lower merit ; but even in these 
 points they have none of them precisely the same 
 kind of merit as Homer, and therefore the new 
 translator, even if he can imitate them in their 
 good points, will still not satisfy his judge, the 
 scholar, who asks him for Homer and Homer's 
 kind of merit, or, at least, for as much of them 
 as it is possible to give. 
 
 So the translator really has no good model 
 before him for any part of his work, and has to 
 invent everything for himself. He is to be 
 rapid in movement, plain in speech, simple in 
 thought, and noble ; and homo he is to be either 
 rapid, or plain, or simple, or noble, no one yet 
 has shown him. I shall try to-day to establish 
 some practical suggestions which may help the 
 translator of Homer's poetry to comply with the 
 four grand requirements which we make of him. 
 
 His version is to be rapid ; and of course, to 
 make a man's poetry rapid, as to make it noble, 
 nothing can serve him so much as to have, in his 
 own nature, rapidity and nobleness. // is the 
 spirit that quickeneth ; and no one will so well 
 
 219 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 render Homer's swift-flowing movement as he 
 who has himself something of the swift-moving 
 spirit of Homer. Yet even this is not quite 
 enough. Pope certainly had a quick and darting 
 spirit, as he had, also, real nobleness ; yet Pope 
 does not render the movement of Homer. To 
 render this the translator must have, besides his 
 natural qualifications, an appropriate metre. 
 
 I have sufficiently shown why I think all 
 forms of our ballad-metre unsuited to Homer. 
 It seems to me to be beyond question that, for 
 epic poetry, only three metres can seriously claim 
 to be accounted capable of the grand style. Two 
 of these will at once occur to every one, — the 
 ten-syllable, or so-called heroic, couplet, and blank 
 verse. I do not add to these the Spenserian stanza, 
 although Dr. Maginn, whose metrical eccentri- 
 cities I have already criticised, pronounces this 
 stanza the one right measure for a translation of 
 Homer. It is enough to observe, that if Pope's 
 couplet, with the simple system of correspond- 
 ences that its rhymes introduce, changes the 
 movement of Homer, in which no such corre- 
 spondences are found, and is therefore a bad 
 measure for a translator of Homer to employ, 
 Spenser's stanza, with its far more intricate 
 system of correspondences, must change Homer's 
 movement far more profoundly, and must there- 
 fore be for the translator a far worse measure 
 than the couplet of Pope. Yet I will say, at the 
 same time, that the verse of Spenser is more fluid, 
 
 220 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 slips more easily and quickly along, than the 
 verse of almost any other English poet. 
 
 By this the northern wagoner had set 
 His seven-fold team behind the steadfast star 
 That was in ocean waves yet never wet, 
 But firm is fixt, and sendeth light from far 
 To all that in the wide deep wandering are.^ 
 
 One cannot but feel that English verse has not 
 often moved with the fluidity and sweet ease of 
 these lines. It is possible that it may have been 
 this quality of Spenser's poetry which made Dr. 
 Maginn think that the stanza of The Faery Queen 
 must be a good measure for rendering Homer. 
 This it is not : Spenser's verse is fluid and rapid, 
 no doubt, but there are more ways than one 
 of being fluid and rapid, and Homer is fluid 
 and rapid in quite another way than Spenser. 
 Spenser's manner is no more Homeric than is the 
 manner of the one modern inheritor of Spenser's 
 beautiful gift, — ^the poet, who evidently caught 
 from Spenser his sweet and easy-slipping move- 
 ment, and who has exquisitely employed it ; a 
 Spenserian genius, nay, a genius by natural 
 endowment richer probably than even Spenser ; 
 that light which shines so unexpected and without 
 fellow in our century, an Elizabethan born too 
 late, the early lost and admirably gifted Keats. 
 
 I say then that there are really but three 
 metres, — the ten-syllable couplet, blank verse, 
 and a third metre which I will not yet name, 
 
 1 The Faery Queen, canto ii. stanza i. 
 221 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 but which is neither the Spenserian stanza nor 
 any form of ballad-verse, — between which, as 
 vehicles for Homer's poetry, the translator has 
 to make his choice. Every one will at once 
 remember a thousand passages in which both 
 the ten -syllable couplet and blank verse prove 
 themselves to have nobleness. Undoubtedly the 
 movement and manner of this, — 
 
 Still raise for good the supplicating voice, 
 
 But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice, — 
 
 are noble. Undoubtedly, the movement and 
 manner of this, — 
 
 High on a throne of royal state, which far 
 Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, — 
 
 are noble also. But the first is in a rhymed 
 metre ; and the unfitness of a rhymed metre for 
 rendering Homer I have already shown. I will 
 observe, too, that the fine couplet which I have 
 quoted comes out of a satire, a didactic poem ; 
 and that it is in didactic poetry that the 
 ten-syllable couplet has most successfully essayed 
 the grand style. In narrative poetry this metre 
 has succeeded best when it essayed a sensibly 
 lower style, the style of Chaucer, for instance ; 
 whose narrative manner, though a very good 
 and sound manner, is certainly neither the grand 
 manner nor the manner of Homer. 
 
 The rhymed ten-syllable couplet being thus 
 excluded, blank verse offers itself for the 
 translator's use. The first kind of blank verse 
 
 222 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 which naturally occurs to us is the blank verse 
 of Milton, which has been employed, with more 
 or less modification, by Mr. Gary in translating 
 Dante, by Gowper, and by Mr. Wright in 
 translating Homer. How noble this metre is in 
 Milton's hands, how completely it shows itself 
 capable of the grand, nay, of the grandest, style, 
 I need not say. To this metre, as used in the 
 Paradise Lost, our country owes the glory of 
 having produced one of the only two poetical 
 works in the grand style which are to be found 
 in the modern languages ; the Divine Comedy 
 of Dante is the other. England and Italy here 
 stand alone ; Spain, France, and Germany have 
 produced great poets, but neither Galderon, nor 
 Gorneille, nor Schiller, nor even Goethe, has 
 produced a body of poetry in the true grand 
 style, in the sense in which the style of the body 
 of Homer's poetry, or Pindar's, or Sophocles's, is 
 grand. But Dante has, and so has Milton ; and 
 in this respect Milton possesses a distinction 
 which even Shakspeare, undoubtedly the supreme 
 poetical power in our literature, does not share 
 with him. Not a tragedy of Shakspeare but 
 contains passages in the worst of all styles, the 
 affected style ; and the grand style, although it 
 may be harsh, or obscure, or cumbrous, or over- 
 laboured, is never affected. In spite, therefore, 
 of objections which may justly be urged against 
 the plan and treatment of the Paradise Lost, in 
 spite of its possessing, certainly, a far less 
 
 223 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 enthralling force of interest to attract and to 
 carry forward the reader than the Iliad or the 
 Divine Comedy, it fully deserves, it can never lose, 
 its immense reputation ; for, like the Iliad and 
 the Divine Comedy, nay, in some respects to a 
 higher degree than either of them, it is in the 
 grand style. 
 
 But the grandeur of Milton is one thing, and 
 the grandeur of Homer is another. Homer's 
 movement, I have said again and again, is a flow- 
 ing, a rapid movement ; Milton's, on the other 
 hand, is a laboured, a self-retarding movement. 
 In each case, the movement, the metrical cast, 
 corresponds with the mode of evolution of the 
 thought, with the syntactical cast, and is indeed 
 determined by it. Milton charges himself so full 
 with thought, imagination, knowledge, that his 
 style will hardly contain them. He is too full- 
 stored to show us in much detail one conception, 
 one piece of knowledge ; he just shows it to us 
 in a pregnant allusive way, and then he presses 
 on to another ; and all this fulness, this pressure, 
 this condensation, this self-constraint, enters into 
 his movement, and makes it what it is, — noble, 
 but difficult and austere. Homer is quite dif- 
 ferent ; he says a thing, and says it to the end, 
 and then begins another, while Milton is trying 
 to press a thousand things into one. So that 
 whereas, in reading Milton, you never lose the 
 sense of laborious and condensed fulness, in read- 
 ing Homer you never lose the sense of flowing 
 
 224 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 and abounding ease. With Milton line runs into 
 line, and all is straitly bound together : with 
 Homer line runs off from line, and all hurries 
 away onward. Homer begins, Mfiviv aeiSe ®ed, — at 
 the second word announcing the proposed action : 
 Milton begins : — 
 
 Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
 Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
 Brought death into the world, and all our woe, 
 With loss of Eden, till one greater Man 
 Restore us, and regain the blissful seat. 
 Sing, heavenly muse. *■ 
 
 So chary of a sentence is he, so resolute not to 
 let it escape him till he has crowded into it all 
 he can, that it is not till the thirty-ninth word 
 in the sentence that he will give us the key to 
 it, the word of action, the verb. Milton says : — 
 
 O for that warning voice, which he, who saw 
 The Apocalypse, heard cry in heaven aloud. 
 
 He is not satisfied, unless he can tell us, all 
 in one sentence, and without permitting himself 
 to actually mention the name, that the man who 
 heard the warning voice was the same man who 
 saw the Apocalypse. Homer would have said, 
 ' O for that warning voice, which JoAn heard,' 
 — and if it had suited him to say that John also 
 saw the Apocalypse, he would have given us 
 that in another sentence. The effect of this 
 allusive and compressed manner of Milton is, 
 I need not say, often very powerful; and it is 
 an effect which other great poets have often 
 VOL. v 225 Q 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 sought to obtain much in the same way : Dante 
 is full of it, Horace is full of it ; but wherever 
 it exists, it is always an un-Homeric effect. 
 ' The losses of the heavens,' says Horace, ' fresh 
 moons speedily repair ; we, when we have gone 
 down where the pious iEneas, where the rich 
 Tullus and Ancus are, — pulvis et umbra sumus.' ^ 
 He never actually says where we go to ; he only 
 indicates it by saying that it is that place where 
 iEneas, Tullus, and Ancus are. But Homer, 
 when he has to speak of going down to the grave, 
 
 says, definitely, e? 'HXvo-tov irehLov . . . oddvaToi 
 
 ire/jr^ova-iv,^ — ' The immortals shall send thee to 
 the Filysian plain ' ; and it is not till after he has 
 definitely said this, that he adds, that it is there 
 that the abode of departed worthies is placed : 
 odt ^av6o<s 'VaBd/iav6vi, — ' Where the yellow-haired 
 Rhadamanthus is.' Again ; Horace, having to 
 say that punishment sooner or later overtakes 
 crime, says it thus : — 
 
 Raro antecedentem scelestum 
 Deseruit pede Poena claudo. * 
 
 The thought itself of these lines is familiar 
 enough to Homer and Hesiod ; but neither 
 Homer nor Hesiod, in expressing it, could 
 possibly have so complicated its expression as 
 Horace complicates it, and purposely complicates 
 it, by his use of the word deseruit. I say that 
 
 1 Odes, IV. vii. 13. " Odyssey, iv. 563. 
 
 3 Odes, III. ii. 31. 
 
 226 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 this complicated evolution of the thought neces- 
 sarily complicates the movement and rhythm 
 of a poet ; and that the Miltonic blank verse, 
 of course the first model of blank verse which 
 suggests itself to an English translator of Homer, 
 bears the strongest marks of such complication, 
 and is therefore entirely unfit to render Homer. 
 
 If blank verse is used in translating Homer, 
 it must be a blank verse of which English 
 poetry, naturally swayed much by Milton's 
 treatment of this metre, offers at present hardly 
 any examples. It must not be Cowper's blank 
 verse, who has studied Milton's pregnant manner 
 with such effect, that, having to say of Mr. 
 Throckmorton that he spares his avenue, al- 
 though it is the fashion with other people to cut 
 down theirs, he says that Benevolus ' reprieves 
 The obsolete prolixity of shade.' It must not 
 be Mr. Tennyson's blank verse. 
 
 For all experience is an arch, wherethrough 
 Gleams that untravelled world, whose distance fades 
 For ever and for ever, as we gaze. 
 
 It is no blame to the thought of those lines, 
 which belongs to another order of ideas than 
 Homer's, but it is true, that Homer would 
 certainly have said of them, ' It is to consider 
 too curiously to consider so.' It is no blame to 
 their rhythm, which belongs to another order of 
 movement than Homer's, but it is true that 
 these three lines by themselves take up nearly as 
 
 227 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 much time as a whole book of the Iliad. No ; 
 the blank verse used in rendering Homer must 
 be a blank verse of which perhaps the best 
 specimens are to be found in some of the most 
 rapid passages of Shakspeare's plays, — a blank 
 verse which does not dovetail its lines into one 
 another, and which habitually ends its lines with 
 monosyllables. Such a blank verse might no 
 doubt be very rapid in its movement, and might 
 perfectly adapt itself to a thought plainly and 
 directly evolved ; and it would be interesting to 
 see it well applied to Homer. But the trans- 
 lator who determines to use it, must not conceal 
 from himself that in order to pour Homer into 
 the mould of this metre, he will have entirely 
 to break him up and melt him down, with the 
 hope of then successfully composing him afresh ; 
 and this is a process which is full of risks. It 
 may, no doubt, be the real Homer that issues 
 new from it ; it is not certain beforehand that 
 it cannot be the real Homer, as it is certain that 
 from the mould of Pope's couplet or Cowper's 
 Miltonic verse it cannot be the real Homer that 
 will issue : still, the chances of disappointment 
 are great. The result of such an attempt to 
 renovate the old poet may be an iEson : but it 
 may also, and more probably will, be a Pelias. 
 
 When I say this, I point to the metre which 
 seems to me to give the translator the best 
 chance of preserving the general effect of 
 Homer, — that third metre which I have not yet 
 
 228 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 expressly named, the hexameter. I know all 
 that is said against the use of hexameters in 
 English poetry ; but it comes only to this, that, 
 among us, they have not yet been used on 
 any considerable scale with success. Sohitur 
 ambulando: this is an objection which can best 
 be met by producing good English hexameters. 
 And there is no reason in the nature of the 
 English language why it should not adapt itself 
 to hexameters as well as the German language 
 does ; nay, the English language, from its 
 greater rapidity, is in itself better suited than the 
 German for them. The hexameter, whether 
 alone or with the pentameter, possesses a move- 
 ment, an expression, which no metre hitherto 
 in common use amongst us possesses, and which 
 I am convinced English poetry, as our mental 
 wants multiply, will not always be content to 
 forego. Applied to Homer, i this metre affords 
 to the translator the immense support of keep- 
 ing him more nearly than any other metre to 
 Homer's movement ; and, since a poet's move- 
 ment makes so large a part of his general effect, 
 and to reproduce this general effect is at once 
 the translator's indispensable business and so 
 difHcult for him, it is a great thing to have this 
 part of your model's general effect already given 
 you in your metre, instead of having to get it 
 entirely for yourself. 
 
 These are general considerations ; but there 
 are also one or two particular considerations 
 
 229 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 which confirm me in the opinion that for trans- 
 lating Homer into English verse the hexameter 
 should be used. The most successful attempt 
 hitherto made at rendering Homer into English, 
 the attempt in which Homer's general effect has 
 been best retained, is an attempt made in the 
 hexameter measure. It is a version of the 
 famous lines in the third book of the Iliad, 
 which end with that mention of Castor and 
 Pollux from which Mr. Ruskin extracts the 
 sentimental consolation already noticed by me. 
 The author is the accomplished Provost of Eton, 
 Dr. Hawtrey ; and this performance of his must 
 be my excuse for having taken the liberty to 
 single him out for mention, as one of the natural 
 judges of a translation of Homer, along with 
 Professor Thompson and Professor Jowett, whose 
 connection with Greek literature is official. 
 The passage is short ; ^ and Dr. Hawtrey's 
 
 • So short, that I quote it entire : — 
 
 Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia ; 
 Known to me well are the faces of all ; their names I remember ; 
 Two, two only remain, whom I see not among the commanders. 
 Castor fleet in the car, — Polydeulces brave with the cestus, — 
 Own dear brethren of mine,— one parent loved us as infants. 
 Are they not here in the host, from the shores of loved Lacedsemon, 
 Or, though they came with the rest in ships that bound through 
 
 the waters. 
 Dare they not enter the fight or stand in the council of Heroes, 
 All for fear of the shame and the taunts my crime has awakened ? 
 So said she ; — they long since in Earth's soft arms were reposing, 
 There, in their own dear land, their Fatherland, Lacedzemon. 
 English Hexameter Translatiom i London, 1847 ; p. 242. 
 
 I have changed Dr. Hawtrey's • Kastor,' ' Lakedaimon,' back 
 
 230 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 version of it is suffused with a pensive grace 
 which is, perhaps, rather more VirgiUan than 
 Homeric ; still it is (the one version of any part 
 of the Iliad which in some degree reproduces for 
 me the original effect of Homer : it is the best, 
 and it is in hexametersT) 
 
 This is one of the particular considerations 
 that incline me to prefer the hexameter, for 
 translating Homer, to our established metres. 
 There is another. Most of you, probably, have 
 some knowledge of a poem by Mr. Clough, The 
 Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich, a long-vacation pastoral, 
 in hexameters. The general merits of that 
 poem I am not going to discuss ; it is a serio- 
 
 to the familiar ' Castor,' ' Lacedasmon,' in obedience to my own 
 rule that everything odd is to be avoided in rendering Homer, the 
 most natural and least odd of poets. I see Mr. Newman's critic 
 in the National Review urges our generation to bear with the 
 unnatural effect of these rewritten Greek names, in the hope that 
 by this means the effect of them may have to the next generation 
 become natural. For my part, I feel no disposition to pass all my 
 own life in the wilderness of pedantry, in order that a posterity 
 which I shall never see may one day enter an orthographical 
 Canaan ; and, after all, the real question is this : whether our 
 living apprehension of the Greek world is more checked by 
 meeting in an English book about the Greeks, names not spelt 
 letter for letter as in the original Greek, or by meeting names 
 which make us rub our eyes and call out, ' How exceedingly odd ! ' 
 The Latin names of the Greek deities raise in most cases the 
 idea of quite distinct personages from the personages whose idea 
 is raised by the Greek names. Hera and Juno are actually, to 
 every scholar's imagination, two different people. So in all 
 these cases the Latin names must, at any inconvenience, be 
 abandoned when we are dealing with the Greek world. But I 
 think it can be in the sensitive imagination of Mr. Grote only, 
 that 'Thucydides' raises the idea of a different man from 
 OovKvStSijs. 
 
 231 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 comic poem, and, therefore, of essentially 
 different nature from the Iliad. Still in two 
 things it is,[mpre than any other English poem 
 which I can call to mind, like the Iliad : in the 
 rapidity of its movement, and the plainness and 
 directness of its style!] The thought in this 
 poem is often curious and subtle, and that is not 
 Homeric ; the diction is often grotesque, and 
 that is not Homeric. Still, by its rapidity of 
 movement, and plain and direct manner of pre- 
 senting the thought however curious in itself, this 
 poem, which being as I say a serio-comic poem, 
 has a right to be grotesque, is grotesque truly, not, 
 like Mr. Newman's version of the Iliad, falsely. 
 Mr, Clough's odd epithets, ' The grave man nick- 
 named Adam,' ' The hairy Aldrich,' and so on, 
 grow vitally and appear naturally in their place ; 
 while Mr. Newman's ' dapper-greaved Achaians,' 
 and ' motley-helmed Hector,' have all the air of 
 being mechanically elaborated and artificially 
 stuck in, Mr. Clough's hexameters are exces- 
 sively, needlessly rough ; still, owing to the 
 native rapidity of this measure, and to the 
 directness of style which so well allies itself with 
 it, his composition produces a sense in the reader 
 which Homer's composition also produces, and 
 which Homer's translator ought to reproduce, — 
 the sense of having, within short limits of time, 
 a large portion of human life presented to him, 
 instead of a small portion. 
 
 Mr. Clough's hexameters are, as I have just 
 232 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 said, too rough and irregular ; and indeed a good 
 model, on any considerable scale, of this metre, 
 the English translator will nowhere find. He 
 must not follow the model oiFered by Mr. 
 Longfellow in his pleasing and popular poem of 
 Evangeline ; for the merit of the manner and 
 movement of Evangeline, when they are at their 
 best, is to be tenderly elegant ; and their fault, 
 when they are at their worst, is to be lumbering ; 
 but Homer's defect is not lumberingness, neither 
 is tender elegance his excellence. The lumber- 
 ing effect of most English hexameters is caused 
 by their being much too dactylic ; ^ the translator 
 must learn to use spondees freely. Mr. Clough 
 has done this, but he has not sufficiently ob- 
 served another rule which the translator cannot 
 follow too strictly ; and that is, to have no lines 
 which will not, as it is familiarly said, read 
 themselves. This is of the last importance for 
 rhythms with which the ear of the English 
 public is not thoroughly acquainted. Lord 
 Redesdale, in two papers on the subject of Greek 
 and Roman metres, has fsome good remarks on 
 the outrageous disregard of quantity in which 
 English verse, trusting to its force of accent, is 
 apt to indulge itself. The predominance of 
 
 1 For instance ; in a version (I believe, by the late Mr. 
 Lockhart) of Homer's description of the parting of Hector and 
 Andromache, there occurs, in the first five lines, but one spondee 
 besides the necessary spondees in the sixth place ; in the corre- 
 sponding five lines of Homer there occur ten. See English Hexameter 
 Translations, 244, 
 
 233 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 accent in our language is so great, that it would 
 be pedantic not to avail one's self of it ; and 
 Lord Redesdale suggests rules which might 
 easily be pushed too far. Still, it is undeniable 
 that in English hexameters we generally force 
 the quantity far too much ; we rely on justifica- 
 tion by accent with a security which is excessive. 
 But not only do we abuse accent by shortening 
 long syllables and lengthening short ones ; we 
 perpetually commit a far worse fault, by requir- 
 ing the removal of the accent from its natural 
 place to an unnatural one, in order to make our 
 line scan. This is a fault, even when our metre 
 is one which every English reader knows, and 
 when he can see what we want and can correct 
 the rhythm according to our wish ; although it 
 is a fault which a great master may sometimes 
 commit knowingly to produce a desired effect, 
 as Milton changes the natural accent on the 
 word Tiresias in the line : — 
 
 And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old ; 
 
 and then it ceases to be a fault, and becomes a 
 beauty. But it is a real fault, when Chapman 
 has : — 
 
 By him the golden -throned Queen slept, the Queen of 
 Deities ; 
 
 for in this line, to make it scan, you have to 
 take away the accent from the word Queen, on 
 which it naturally falls, and to place it on throned, 
 
 234 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 which would naturally be unaccented ; and yet, 
 after all, you get no peculiar effect or beauty of 
 cadence to reward you. It is a real fault, when 
 Mr. Newman has : — 
 
 Infatuate ! O that thou wert lord to some other army — 
 
 for here again the reader is required, not for any 
 special advantage to himself, but simply to save 
 Mr. Newman trouble, to place the accent on 
 the insignificant word wert, where it has no 
 business whatever. But it is still a greater fault, 
 when Spenser has (to take a striking instance) : — 
 
 Wot ye why his mother with a veil hath covered his face ? 
 
 for a hexameter ; because here not only is the 
 reader causelessly required to make havoc with 
 the natural accentuation of the line in order to 
 get it to run as a hexameter ; but also he, in nine 
 cases out of ten, will be utterly at a loss how 
 to perform the process required, and the line 
 will remain a mere monster for him. I repeat, 
 it is advisable to construct all verses so that 
 by reading them naturally — that is, according 
 to the sense and legitimate accent, — the reader 
 gets the right rhythm ; but, for English 
 hexameters, that they be so constructed is 
 indispensable. 
 
 If the hexameter best helps the translator to 
 the Homeric rapidity, what style may best help 
 him to the Homeric plainness and directness ? 
 It is the merit of a metre appropriate to your 
 
 23S 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 subject, that it in some degree suggests and 
 carries with itself a style appropriate to the 
 subject ; the elaborate and self-retarding style, 
 which comes so naturally when your metre is the 
 Miltonic blank verse, does not come naturally 
 with the hexameter ; is, indeed, alien to it. 
 On the other hand, the hexameter has a natural 
 dignity which repels both the jaunty style and 
 the jot-trot style, to both of which the ballad- 
 measure so easily lends itself. These are great 
 advantages ; and, perhaps, it is nearly enough 
 to say to the translator who uses the hexameter 
 that he cannot too religiously follow, in style, 
 the inspiration of his metre. He will find that 
 a loose and idiomatic grammar — a grammar 
 which follows the essential rather than the 
 formal logic of the thought — allies itself excel- 
 lently with the hexameter ; and that, while this 
 sort of grammar ensures plainness and natural- 
 ness, it by no means comes short in nobleness. 
 It is difficult to pronounce, certainly, what is 
 idiomatic in the ancient literature of a language 
 which, though still spoken, has long since 
 entirely adopted, as modern Greek has adopted, 
 modern idioms. Still one may, I think, 
 clearly perceive that Homer's grammatical style 
 is idiomatic, — that it may even be called, 
 not improperly, a loose grammatical style.^ 
 
 1 See, for instance, in the Iliad, the loose construction of oore, 
 xvii. 658 ; that of iSoito, xvii. 681 ; that of o'ti, xviii. 209 ; and 
 the elliptical construction at xix. 42, 43 ; also the idiomatic 
 construction of eyrbv o8« Trapaa-xtlv, xix. 140. These instances are 
 
 236 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Examples, however, of what I mean by a loose 
 grammatical style, will be of more use to the 
 translator if taken from English poetry than if 
 taken from Homer. I call it, then, a loose and 
 idiomatic grammar which Shakspeare uses in 
 the last line of the following three : — 
 
 He's here in double trust : 
 First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, 
 Strong both against the deed; — 
 
 or in this : — 
 
 Wit, whither wilt f 
 
 What Shakspeare means is perfectly clear, clearer, 
 probably, than if he had said it in a more formal 
 and regular manner ; but his grammar is loose 
 and idiomatic, because he leaves out the subject 
 of the verb ' wilt ' in the second passage quoted, 
 and because, in the first, a prodigious addition to 
 the sentence has to be, as we used to say in our 
 old Latin grammar days, understood^ before the 
 word ' both ' can be properly parsed. So, again. 
 Chapman's grammar is loose and idiomatic where 
 he says : — 
 
 Even share hath he that keeps his tent, and he to field doth go, — 
 
 because he leaves out, in the second clause, the 
 relative which in formal writing would be 
 required. But Chapman here does not lose 
 dignity by this idiomatic way of expressing 
 himself, any more than Shakspeare loses it by 
 
 all taken within a range of a thousand lines ; any one may easily 
 multiply them for himself. 
 
 237 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 neglecting to confer on ' both ' the blessings of a 
 regular government : neither loses dignity, but 
 each gives that impression of a plain, direct, and 
 natural mode of speaking, vi^hich Homer, too, 
 gives, and which it is so important, as I say, that 
 Homer's translator should succeed in giving. 
 Cowper calls blank verse ' a style further re- 
 moved than rhyme from the vernacular idiom, 
 both in the language itself and in the arrangement 
 of it ' ; and just in proportion as blank verse is 
 removed from the vernacular idiom, from that 
 idiomatic style which is of all styles the plainest 
 and most natural, blank verse is unsuited to 
 render Homer. 
 
 Shakspeare is not only idiomatic in his 
 grammar or style, he is also idiomatic in his 
 words or diction ; and here, too, his example 
 is valuable for the translator of Homer. The 
 translator must not, indeed, allow himself all 
 the liberty that Shakspeare allows himself; for 
 Shakspeare sometimes uses expressions which 
 pass perfectly well as he uses them, because 
 Shakspeare thinks so fast and so powerfully, that 
 in reading him we are borne over single words 
 as by a mighty current ; but, if our mind were 
 less excited, — and who may rely on exciting our 
 mind like Shakspeare ? — they would check us. 
 ' To grunt and sweat under a weary load ' ; — that 
 does perfectly well where it comes in Shakspeare ; 
 but if the translator of Homer, who will hardly 
 have wound our minds up to the pitch at which 
 
 238 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 these words of Hamlet find them, were to 
 employ, when he has to speak of one of Homer's 
 heroes under the load of calamity, this figure of 
 ' grunting ' and ' sweating,* we should say, He 
 Newmanises, and his diction would offend us. 
 For he is to be noble ; and no plea of wishing 
 to be plain and natural can get him excused from 
 being this : only, as he is to be also, like Homer, 
 perfectly simple and free from artificiality, and 
 as the use of idiomatic expressions undoubtedly 
 gives this effect,^ he should be as idiomatic as he 
 can be without ceasing to be noble. Therefore 
 the idiomatic language of Shakspeare — such 
 language as, ' prate of his whereabout ' ; 'Jump the 
 life to come ; ' ' the damnation of his taking-off^ ; 
 ' his quietus make with a bare bodkin ' — should be 
 carefully observed by the translator of Homer, 
 although in every case he will have to decide for 
 himself whether the use, by him, of Shakspeare's 
 liberty, will or will not clash with his indispens- 
 able duty of nobleness. He will find one English 
 book and one only, where, as in the I/iad itself, 
 perfect plainness of speech is allied with perfect 
 
 1 Our knowledge of Homer's Greek is hardly such as to enable 
 us to pronounce quite confidently what is idiomatic in his diction, 
 and what is not, any more than in his grammar ; but I seem to 
 myself clearly to recognise an idiomatic stamp in such expressions 
 as ToXvTreveiv iroA,e/ious, xiv. 86 ; <j)dos ev v-qecra-iv Oiq-gs, xvi. 94 ; 
 Tiv Old) d(77racrt(us avriov yovv Kdfj,\j/€iv, xix. 71 ; KX.oroireveLv, xix. 
 149 ; and many others. The first-quoted expression, roXvirevetv 
 dfyyakeovs TroXefwvs, seems to me to have just about the same degree 
 of freedom as the 'jump the life to come,' or the ' sAuJ!e off this 
 mortal coil,' of Shakspeare. 
 
 239 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 nobleness ; and that book is the Bible. No one 
 could see this more clearly than Pope saw it : 
 'This pure and noble simplicity,' he says, 'is 
 nowhere in such perfection as in the Scripture 
 and Homer ' : yet even with Pope a woman is a 
 ' fair,' a father is a ' sire,' and an old man a 
 ' reverend sage,' and so on through all the 
 phrases of that pseudo - Augustan, and most 
 unbiblical, vocabulary. The Bible, however, is 
 undoubtedly the grand mine of diction for the 
 translator of Homer ; and, if he knows how to 
 discriminate truly between what will suit him 
 and what will not, the Bible may afford him 
 also invaluable lessons of style. 
 
 I said that Homer, besides being plain in style 
 and diction, was plain in the quality of his 
 thought. It is possible that a thought may be 
 expressed with idiomatic plainness, and yet not be 
 in itself a plain thought. For example, in Mr. 
 Clough's poem, already mentioned, the style and 
 diction is almost always idiomatic and plain, but 
 the thought itself is often of a quality which is 
 not plain ; it is curious. But the grand instance 
 of the union of idiomatic expression with curious 
 or difficult thought is in Shakspeare's poetry. 
 Such, indeed, is the force and power of Shak- 
 speare's idiomatic expression, that it gives an 
 effect of clearness and vividness even to a thought 
 which is imperfect and incoherent ; for instance, 
 when Hamlet says : — 
 
 To take arms against a sea of troubles, — 
 240 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 the figure there is undoubtedly most faulty, it by 
 no means runs on four legs ; but the thing is 
 said so freely and idiomatically, that it passes. 
 This, however, is not a point to which I now 
 want to call your attention ; I want you to 
 remark, in Shakspeare and others, only that 
 which we may directly apply to Homer, I say, 
 then, that in Shakspeare the thought is often, 
 while most idiomatically uttered, nay, while 
 good and sound in itself, yet of a quality which 
 is curious and difficult ; and that this quality of 
 thought is something entirely un-Homeric. For 
 example, when Lady Macbeth says : — 
 
 Memory, the warder of the brain, 
 Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason 
 A limbeck only, — 
 
 this figure is a perfectly sound and correct figure, 
 no doubt ; Mr. Knight even calls it a ' happy ' 
 figure ; but it is a difficult figure : Homer would 
 not have used it. Again, when Lady Macbeth 
 says : — 
 
 When you durst do it, then you were a man ; 
 And, to be more than what you were, you would 
 Be so much more the man, — 
 
 the thought in the two last of these lines is, 
 when you spize it, a perfectly clear thought, and 
 a fine thought ; but it is a curious thought : 
 Homer would not have used it. These are 
 favourable instances of the union of plain style 
 and words with a thought not plain in quality ; 
 VOL, v 241 R 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 but take stronger instances of this union, — let 
 the thought be not only not plain in quality, but 
 highly fanciful : and you have the Elizabethan 
 conceits ; you have, in spite of idiomatic style 
 and idiomatic diction, everything which is most 
 un- Homeric ; you have such atrocities as this 
 of Chapman : — 
 
 Fate shall fail to vent her gall 
 Till mine vent thousands. 
 
 I say, the poets of a nation which has produced 
 such conceit as that, must purify themselves seven 
 times in the fire before they can hope to render 
 Homer. They must expel their nature with a fork, 
 and keep crying to one another night and day : 
 ' Homer not only moves rapidly, not only speaks 
 idiomatically; he is, 2\.%o^freefromfancifulness.^ 
 
 So essentially characteristic of Homer is his 
 plainness and naturalness of thought, that to thie 
 preservation of this in his own version the 
 translator must without scruple sacrifice, where 
 it is necessary, verbal fidelity to his original, 
 rather than run any risk of producing, by literal- 
 ness, an odd and unnatural effect. The double 
 epithets so constantly occurring in Homer must 
 be dealt with according to this rule ; these 
 epithets come quite naturally in Homer's poetry ; 
 in English poetry they, in nine cases out of ten, 
 come, when literally rendered, quite unnaturally. 
 I will not now discuss why this is so, I assume 
 it as an indisputable fact that it is so ; that 
 
 242 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Homer's it^pdirav av6pd>irwv comes to the reader as 
 something perfectly natural, while Mr. New- 
 man's ' voice-dividing mortals ' comes to him as 
 something perfectly unnatural. Well then, as 
 it is Homer's general effect which we are to 
 reproduce, it is to be false to Homer to be so 
 verbally faithful to him as that we lose this 
 effect : and by the English translator Homer's 
 double epithets must be, in many places, re- 
 nounced altogether ; in all places where they are 
 rendered, rendered by equivalents which come 
 naturally. Instead of rendering ©en ravvTreirXe by 
 Mr. Newman's 'Thetis trailing -robed,' which 
 brings to one's mind long petticoats sweeping a 
 dirty pavement, the translator must render the 
 Greek by English words which come as naturally 
 to us as Milton's words when he says, ' Let 
 gorgeous Tragedy With sceptred pall come 
 sweeping by.' Instead of rendering /xavvxa^ 
 "ir-jTov; by Chapman's ' one-hoofed steeds,' or Mr. 
 Newman's ' single-hoofed horses,' he must speak 
 of horses in a way which surprises us as little as 
 Shakspeare surprises us when he says, ' Gallop 
 apace, you fiery -footed steeds.' Instead of 
 rendering fiektrjBia 6v/mv by ' life as honey 
 pleasant,' he must characterise life with the 
 simple pathos of Gray's ' warm precincts of the 
 cheerful day.' Instead of converting -n-oiov a-e eVo? 
 <f)vyev epKoi oZovTcav ; into the portentous remon- 
 strance, ' Betwixt the outwork of thy teeth what 
 word hath slipt ? ' he must remonstrate in 
 
 243 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 English as straightforward as this of St. Peter, 
 ' Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be 
 unto thee ' ; or as this of the disciples, ' What is 
 this that he saith, a little while ? we cannot tell 
 what he saith.' Homer's Greek, in each of the 
 places quoted, reads as naturally as any of those 
 English passages : the expression no more calls 
 away the attention from the sense in the Greek 
 than in the English. But when, in order to 
 render literally in English one of Homer's 
 double epithets, a strange unfamiliar adjective is 
 invented, — such as 'voice-dividing' for fiepo->lr, — 
 an improper share of the reader's attention is 
 necessarily diverted to this ancillary word, to 
 this word which Homer never intended should 
 receive so much notice ; and a total effect quite 
 different from Homer's is thus produced. There- 
 fore Mr. Newman, though he does not purposely 
 import, like Chapman, conceits of his own into 
 the I/iad, does actually import them ; for the 
 result of his singular diction is to raise ideas, 
 and odd ideas, not raised by the corresponding 
 diction in Homer ; and Chapman himself does 
 no more. Cowper says : ' I have cautiously 
 avoided all terms of new invention, with an 
 abundance of which persons of more ingenuity 
 than judgment have not enriched our language 
 but encumbered it' ; and this criticism so exactly 
 hits the diction of Mr. Newman, that one is 
 irresistibly led to imagine his present appearance 
 in the flesh to be at least his second. 
 
 244 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 A translator cannot well have a Homeric 
 rapidity, style, diction, and quality of thought, 
 without at the same time having what is the 
 result of these in Homer, — nobleness. There- 
 fore I do not attempt to lay down any rules 
 for obtaining this effect of nobleness, — the effect, 
 too, of all others the most impalpable, the most 
 irreducible to rule, and which most depends 
 on the individual personality of the artist. So 
 I proceed at once to give you, in conclusion, 
 one or two passages in which I have tried 
 to follow those principles of Homeric transla- 
 tion which I have laid down. I give them, 
 it must be remembered, not as specimens of 
 perfect translation, but as specimens of an 
 attempt to translate Homer on certain prin- 
 ciples ; specimens which may very aptly illus- 
 trate those principles by falling short as well as 
 by succeeding. 
 
 I take first a passage of which I have already 
 spoken, the comparison of the Trojan fires to 
 the stars. The first part of that passage is, I 
 have said, of splendid beauty ; and to begin 
 with a lame version of that would be the 
 height of imprudence in me. It is the last 
 and more level part with which I shall con- 
 cern myself I have already quoted Cowper's 
 version of this part in order to show you how 
 unlike his stiff and Miltonic manner of telling 
 a plain story is to Homer's easy and rapid 
 
 manner : — 
 
 245 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 So numerous seemed those fires the bank between 
 Of Xanthus, blazing, and the fleet of Greece, 
 In prospect all of Troy — 
 
 I need not continue to the end. I have also 
 quoted Pope's version of it, to show you how 
 unlike his ornate and artificial manner is to 
 Homer's plain and natural manner : — 
 
 So many flames before proud Ilion blaze, 
 
 And brighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays ; 
 
 The long reflections of the distant fires 
 
 Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires, — 
 
 and much more of the same kind. I want to 
 show you that it is possible, in a plain passage 
 of this sort, to keep Homer's simplicity without 
 being heavy and dull ; and to keep his dignity 
 without bringing in pomp and ornament. 'As 
 numerous as are the stars on a clear night,' 
 says Homer, 
 
 So shone forth, in front of Troy, by the bed of Xanthus, 
 
 Between that and the ships, the Trojans' numerous fires. 
 
 In the plain there were kindled a thousand fires : by each one 
 
 There sat fifty men, in the ruddy light of the fire : 
 
 By their chariots stood the steeds, and champed the white 
 
 barley 
 While their masters sat by the fire, and waited for Morning. 
 
 Here, in order to keep Homer's effect of perfect 
 plainness and directness, I repeat the word ' fires ' 
 as he repeats m-vpa, without scruple ; although 
 in a more elaborate and literary style of poetry 
 this recurrence of the same word would be 
 a fault to be avoided. I omit the epithet of 
 Morning, and, whereas Homer says that the 
 
 246 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 steeds ' waited for Morning,' I prefer to attribute 
 this expectation of Morning to the master 
 and not to the horse. Very likely in this 
 particular, as in any other single particular, 
 I may be wrong : what I wish you to remark is 
 my endeavour after absolute plainness of speech, 
 my care to avoid anything which may the 
 least check or surprise the reader, whom Homer 
 does not check or surprise. Homer's lively 
 personal familiarity with war, and with the war- 
 horse as his master's companion, is such that, 
 as it seems to me, his attributing to the one 
 the other's feelings comes to us quite naturally ; 
 but, from a poet without this familiarity, the 
 attribution strikes as a little unnatural ; and 
 therefore, as everything the least unnatural is 
 un-Homeric, I avoid it. 
 
 Again, in the address of Zeus to the horses of 
 Achilles, Cowper has : — 
 
 Jove saw their grief with pity, and his brows 
 j^Shaking, within himself thus, pensive, said. 
 
 ' Ah hapless pair ! wherefore by gift divine 
 Were ye to Peleus given, a mortal king, 
 Yourselves immortal and from age exempt ? ' 
 
 There is no want of dignity here, as in the 
 versions of Chapman and Mr. Newman, which 
 I have already quoted ; but the whole effect 
 is much too slow. Take Pope : — 
 
 Nor Jove disdained to cast a pitying look 
 While thus relenting to the steeds he spoke. 
 ' Unhappy coursers of immortal strain ! 
 247 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Exempt from age and deathless now in vain ; 
 Did we your race on mortal man bestow 
 Only, alas ! to share in mortal woe ? ' 
 
 Here there is no want either of dignity or rapidity, 
 but all is too artificial. ' Nor Jove disdained,' 
 for instance, is a very artificial and literary way 
 of rendering Homer's words, and so is, ' coursers 
 of immortal strain.' 
 
 fivpofievb) S' apa tu ye iSwv eXerjire Kpoficdi/, — 
 
 And with pity the son of Saturn saw them bewailing. 
 
 And he shook his head, and thus addressed his own bosom : — 
 
 ' Ah, unhappy pair, to Peleus why did we give you 
 To a mortal ? but ye are without old age and immortal. 
 Was it that ye, with man, might have your thousands of 
 
 sorrows ? 
 For than man, indeed, there breathes no wretcheder creature 
 Of all living things, that on earth are breathing and moving.' 
 
 Here I will observe that the use of 'own,' in 
 the second line, for the last syllable of a dactyl, 
 and the use of 'To a,' in the fourth, for a 
 complete spondee, though they do not, I think, 
 actually spoil the run of the hexameter, are yet 
 undoubtedly instances of that over-reliance on 
 accent, and too free disregard of quantity, which 
 Lord Redesdale visits with just reprehension.^ 
 
 1 It must be remembered, however, that, if we disregard quantity 
 too much in constructing English hexameters, we also disregard 
 accent too much in reading Greek hexameters. We read every 
 Greek dactyl so as to make a pure dactyl of it ; but, to a Greek, 
 the accent must have hindered many dactyls from sounding 
 as pure dactyls. When we read oidA.os tjnros, for instance, or 
 atyt^xoio, the dactyl in each of these cases is made by us as pure 
 a dactyl as ' Tityre,' or ' dignity ' ; but to a Greek it was not so. 
 To him aioXos must have been nearly as impure a dactyl as 'death- 
 
 248 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 I now take two longer passages in order to 
 try my method more fully ; but I still keep to 
 passages which have already come under our 
 notice. I quoted Chapman's version of some 
 passages in the speech of Hector at his parting 
 with Andromache. One astounding conceit will 
 probably still be in your remembrance, — 
 
 When sacred Troy shall shed her tmv'rs for tears of overthrow, — • 
 
 as a translation of 6r av ttot oXtoXy "I\io? iprj. I will 
 quote a few lines which may give you, also, the 
 keynote to the Anglo -Augustan manner of 
 rendering this passage and to the Miltonic 
 manner of rendering it. What Mr. Newman's 
 manner of rendering it would be, you can by 
 this time sufficiently imagine for yourselves. 
 Mr. Wright, — to quote for once from his 
 meritorious version instead of Cowper's, whose 
 strong and weak points are those of Mr. Wright 
 also, — Mr. Wright begins his version of this 
 passage thus : — 
 
 destined ' is to us ; and aiytdx nearly as impure as the • dressed his 
 own ' of my text. Nor, I think, does this right mode of pronouncing 
 the two words at all spoil the run of the line as a hexameter. The 
 effect of aioA-Aos iVn-os (or something like that), though not »«r 
 effect, is not a disagreeable one. On the other hand, KopvdaioXos 
 as a paroxytonon, although it has the respectable authority of 
 Liddell and Scott's Lexicon (following Heyne), is certainly wrong ; 
 for then the word cannot be pronounced without throwing an 
 accent on the first syllable as well as the third, and fikyws 
 Ko/>/)v6atdA.A,os "Ekto)/} would have been to a Greek as intoler- 
 able an ending for a hexameter line as • accurst orphanhood-destined 
 houses' would be to us. The best authorities, accordingly, accent 
 KopvOaCoXoi as a proparoxytonon. 
 
 249 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 All these thy anxious cares are also mine, 
 Partner beloved ; but how could I endure 
 The scorn of Trojans and their long-robed wives, 
 Should they behold their Hector shrink from war. 
 And act the coward's part ? Nor doth my soul 
 Prompt the base thought. 
 
 Ex pede Herculem : you see just what the manner 
 is. Mr. Sotheby, on the other hand (to take a 
 disciple of Pope instead of Pope himself), begins 
 thus : — 
 
 * What moves thee, moves my mind,' brave Hector said, 
 ' Yet Troy's upbraiding scorn I deeply dread, 
 If, like a slave, where chiefs with chiefs engage, 
 The warrior Hector fears the war to wage. 
 Not thus my heart inclines.' 
 
 From that specimen, too, you can easily divine 
 what, with such a manner, will become of the 
 whole passage. But Homer has neither 
 
 What moves thee, moves my mind, — 
 
 nor has he 
 
 All these thy anxious cares are also mine. 
 rl Kai efiOL raoe ■Travra ixxAti, -yvvat aAAa /wiA aiviiK, — 
 
 that is what Homer has, that is his style and 
 movement, if one could but catch it. Andro- 
 mache, as you know, has been entreating Hector 
 to defend Troy from within the walls, instead of 
 exposing his life, and, with his own life, the 
 safety of all those dearest to him, by fighting in 
 the open plain. Hector replies : — 
 
 Woman, I too take thought for this ; but then I bethink me 
 What the Trojan men and Trojan women might murmur, 
 
 250 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 If like a coward I skulked behind, apart from the battle. 
 
 Nor would my own heart let me ; my heart, which has bid 
 
 me be valiant 
 Always, and always fighting among the first of the Trojans, 
 Busy for Priam's fame and my own, in spite of the future. 
 For that day will come, my soul is assured of its coming. 
 It will come, when sacred Troy shall go to destruction, 
 Troy, and warlike Priam too, and the people of Priam. 
 And yet not that grief, which then will be, of the Trojans, 
 Moves me so much — not Hecuba's grief, nor! Priam my father's. 
 Nor my brethren's, many and brave, who then will be lying 
 In the bloody dust, beneath the feet of their foemen — 
 As thy grief, when, in tears, some brazen-coated Achaian 
 Shall transport thee away, and the day of thy freedom be 
 
 ended. 
 Then, perhaps, thou shalt work at the loom of another, in 
 
 Argos, 
 Or bear pails to the well of Messeis, or Hypereia, 
 Sorely against thy will, by strong Necessity's order. 
 And some man may say, as he looks and sees thy tears falling : 
 See, the wife of Hector., that great pre-eminent captain 
 Of the horsemen of Troy, in the day they fought for their city. 
 So some man will say ; and then thy grief will redouble 
 At thy want of a man like me, to save thee from bondage. 
 But let me be dead, and the earth be mounded above me. 
 Ere I hear thy cries, and thy captivity told of. 
 
 The main question, whether or no this version 
 reproduces for him the movement and general 
 effect of Homer better than other versions^ of 
 the same passage, I leave for the judgment of 
 the scholar. But the particular points, in which 
 the operation of my own rules is manifested, are 
 as follows. In the second line I leave out the 
 epithet of the Trojan women, ekKecniri-jrKov<!, 
 
 '^ Dr. Hawtrey also has translated this passage ; but here, he 
 has not, I think, been so successful as in his ' Helen on the walls 
 of Troy.' 
 
 2SI 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 altogether. In the sixth line I put in five words, 
 ' in spite of the future,' which are in the original 
 by implication only, and are not there actually 
 expressed. This I do, because Homer, as I have 
 before said, is so remote from one who reads him 
 in English, that the English translator must be 
 even plainer, if possible, and more unambiguous 
 than Homer himself ; the connection of meaning 
 must be even more distinctly marked in the 
 translation than in the original. For in the 
 Greek language itself there is something which 
 brings one nearer to Homer, which gives one a 
 clue to his thought, which makes a hint enough ; 
 but in the English language this sense of near- 
 ness, this clue, is gone ; hints are insufficient, 
 everything must be stated with full distinctness. 
 In the ninth line Homer's epithet for Priam is 
 ivfjbfieXieo, — ' armed with good ashen spear,' say 
 the dictionaries ; ' ashen-speared,' translates Mr. 
 Newman, following his own rule to ' retain 
 every peculiarity of his original,' — I say, on the 
 other hand, that eu/i/teXta) has not the effect of 
 a ' peculiarity ' in the original, while ' ashen- 
 speared ' has the effect of a ' peculiarity' in 
 English ; and ' warlike ' is as marking an 
 equivalent as I dare give for ivfi/ie\lo>, for fear of 
 disturbing the balance of expression in Homer's 
 sentence. In the fourteenth line, again, I 
 translate x'''^«°X*™»'<»»' by ' brazen-coated.' Mr. 
 Newman, meaning to be perfectly literal, trans- 
 lates it by ' brazen-cloaked,' an expression which 
 
 252 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 comes to the reader oddly and unnaturally, 
 while Homer's word comes to him quite 
 naturally ; but I venture to go as near to a 
 literal rendering as 'brazen-coated,' because a 
 'coat of brass' is familiar to us all from the 
 Bible, and familiar, too, as distinctly specified in 
 connection with the wearer. Finally, let me 
 further illustrate from the twentieth line the 
 value which I attach, in a question of diction, to 
 the authority of the Bible. The word 'pre- 
 eminent ' occurs in that line ; I was a little in 
 doubt whether that was not too bookish an 
 expression to be used in rendering Homer, as I 
 can imagine Mr, Newman to have been a little 
 in doubt whether his ' responsively accosted ' for 
 d/jbeifiofievoi; trpoai^r], was not too bookish an expres- 
 sion. Let us both, I say, consult our Bibles : 
 Mr. Newman will nowhere find it in his Bible 
 that David, for instance, ' responsively accosted 
 Goliath ' ; but I do find in mine that ' the right 
 hand of the Lord hath the pre-eminence ' ; and 
 forthwith I use ' pre-eminent,' without scruple. 
 My Bibliolatry is perhaps excessive ; and no 
 doubt a true poetic feeling is the Homeric 
 translator's best guide in the use of words ; but 
 where this feeling does not exist, or is at fault, 
 I think he cannot do better than take for a 
 mechanical guide Cruden's Concordance. To be 
 sure, here as elsewhere, the consulter must know 
 how to consult, — must know how very slight a 
 variation of word or circumstance makes the 
 
 253 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 difference between an authority in his favour and 
 an authority which gives him no countenance at 
 all ; for instance, the ' Great simpleton ! ' (for /teya 
 vv'ino<}) of Mr. Newman, and the ' Thou fool ! ' 
 of the Bible, are something alike ; but ' Thou 
 fool ! ' is very grand, and ' Great simpleton ! ' is 
 an atrocity. So, too. Chapman's * Poor wretched 
 beasts ' is pitched many degrees too low ; but 
 Shakspeare's ' Poor venomous fool, Be angry and 
 despatch ! ' is in the grand style. 
 
 One more piece of translation and I have 
 done. I will take the passage in which both 
 Chapman and Mr. Newman have already so 
 much excited our astonishment, the passage at 
 the end of the nineteenth book of the I/iad, the 
 dialogue between Achilles and his horse Xanthus, 
 after the death of Patroclus. Achilles begins : — 
 
 ' Xanthus and Balius both, ye far-famed seed of Podarga ! 
 See that ye bring your master home to the host of the Argives 
 In some other sort than your last, when the battle is ended ; 
 And not leave him behind, a corpse on the plain, like 
 
 Patroclus.' 
 Then, from beneath the yoke, the fleet horse Xanthus 
 
 addressed him : 
 Sudden he bowed his head, and all his mane, as he bowed it. 
 Streamed to the ground by the yoke, escaping from under the 
 
 collar ; 
 And he was given a voice by the white-armed Goddess Hera. 
 ' Truly, yet this time will we save thee, mighty Achilles ! 
 But thy day of death is at hand ; nor shall we be the reason — 
 No, but the will of heaven, and Fate's invincible power. 
 For by no slow pace or want of swiftness of ours 
 Did the Trojans obtain to strip the arms from Patroclus ; 
 But that prince among Gods, the son of the lovely-haired Leto, 
 
 2S4 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Slew him fighting in front of the fray, and glorified Hector. 
 But, for us, we vie in speed with the breath of the West- Wind, 
 Which, men say, is the fleetest of winds ; 't is thou who art 
 
 fated 
 To lie low in death, by the hand of a God and a Mortal.' 
 
 Thus far he ; and here his voice was stopped by the Furies. 
 Then, with a troubled heart, the swift Achilles addressed him : 
 
 ' Why dost thou prophesy so my death to me, Xanthus ? 
 It needs not. 
 I of myself know well, that here I am destined to perish. 
 Far from my father and mother dear : for all that I will not 
 Stay this hand from fight, till the Trojans are utterly routed.' 
 
 So he spake, and drove with a cry his steeds into battle. 
 
 Here the only particular remark which I will 
 make is, that in the fourth and eighth line the 
 grammar is what I call a loose and idiomatic 
 grammar. In writing a regular and literary 
 style, one would in the fourth line have to 
 repeat, before ' leave ' the words ' that ye ' from 
 the second line, and to insert the word 'do' ; and 
 in the eighth line one would not use such an 
 expression as ' he was given a voice.' But I will 
 make one general remark on the character of 
 my own translations, as I have made so many on 
 that of the translations of others. It is, that 
 over the graver passages there is shed an air 
 somewhat too strenuous and severe, by com- 
 parison with that lovely ease and sweetness which 
 Homer, for all his noble and masculine way of 
 thinking, never loses. 
 
 Here I stop. I have said so much, because I 
 think that the task of translating Homer into 
 English verse both will be re -attempted, and 
 
 255 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 may be re-attempted successfully. There are 
 great works composed of parts so disparate that 
 one translator is not likely to have the requisite 
 gifts for poetically rendering all of them. Such 
 are the works of Shakspeare, and Goethe's Faust; 
 and these it is best to attempt to render in prose 
 only. People praise Tieck and Schlegel's version 
 of Shakspeare : I, for my part, would sooner read 
 Shakspeare in the French prose translation, and 
 that is saying a great deal ; but in the German 
 poets' hands Shakspeare so often gets, especially 
 where he is humorous, an air of what the French 
 call niaiserie I and can anything be more un- 
 Shakspearian than that ? Again ; Mr, Hayward's 
 prose translation of the first part of Faust — so 
 good that it makes one regret Mr. Hayward 
 should have abandoned the line of translation for 
 a kind of literature which is, to say the least, 
 somewhat slight — is not likely to be surpassed 
 by any translation in verse. But poems like the 
 Iliad, which, in the main, are in one manner, 
 may hope to find a poetical translator so gifted 
 and so trained as to be able to learn that one 
 manner, and to reproduce it. Only, the poet 
 who would reproduce this must cultivate in 
 himself a Greek virtue by no means common 
 among the moderns in general, and the English 
 in particular, — moderation. For Homer has not 
 only the English vigour, he has the Greek grace ; 
 and when one observes the bolstering, rollicking 
 way in which his English admirers — even men 
 
 256 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 of genius, like the late Professor Wilson — love 
 to talk of Homer and his poetry, one cannot 
 help feeling that there is no very deep community 
 of nature between them and the object of their 
 enthusiasm. ' It is very well, my good friends,' 
 I always imagine Homer saying to them : if he 
 could hear them : ' you do me a great deal of 
 honour, but somehow or other you praise me too 
 like barbarians.' For Homer's grandeur is not the 
 mixed and turbid grandeur of the great poets of 
 the north, of the authors of Othello and Faust ; 
 it is a perfect, a lovely grandeur. Certainly his 
 poetry has all the energy and power of the poetry 
 of our ruder climates ; but it has, besides, the 
 pure lines of an Ionian horizon, the liquid clear- 
 ness of an Ionian sky. 
 
 LAST WORDS 
 
 Multi, qui persequuntur me, et tribulant me : a testimoniis 
 non declinavi. 
 
 BuFFON, the great French naturalist, imposed on 
 himself the rule of steadily abstaining from all 
 answer to attacks made upon him. 'Je n'ai 
 jamais repondu a aucune critique,' he said to 
 one of his friends who, on the occasion of a 
 certain criticism, was eager to take up arms in 
 his behalf; 'je n'ai jamais repondu a aucune 
 critique, et je garderai le meme silence sur 
 VOL. v 257 s 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 celle-ci.' On another occasion, when accused of 
 plagiarism, and pressed by his friends to answer, 
 ' II vaut mieux,' he said, ' laisser ces mauvaises 
 gens dans I'incertitude.' Even when reply to an 
 attack was made successfully, he disapproved of 
 it, he regretted that those he esteemed should 
 make it. Montesquieu, more sensitive to criti- 
 cism than BufFon, had answered, and successfully 
 answered, an attack made upon his great work, 
 the Esprit des Lois, by the Gazetier yanseniste. 
 This Jansenist Gazetteer was a periodical of those 
 times, — a periodical such as other times, also, 
 have occasionally seen, — very pretentious, very 
 aggressive, and, when the point to be seized was 
 at all a delicate one, very apt to miss it. ' Not- 
 withstanding this example,' said BufFon, — who, 
 as well as Montesquieu, had been attacked by 
 the Jansenist Gazetteer, — ' notwithstanding this 
 example, I think I may promise my course 
 will be different. I shall not answer a single 
 word.' 
 
 And to any one who has noticed the bane- 
 ful effects of controversy, with all its train of 
 personal rivalries and hatreds, on men of letters 
 or men of science ; to any one who has observed 
 how it tends to impair, not only their dignity 
 and repose, but their productive force, their 
 genuine activity ; how it always checks the free 
 play of the spirit, and often ends by stopping it 
 altogether ; it can hardly seem doubtful, that 
 the rule thus imposed on himself by BufFon was 
 
 258 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 a wise one. His own career, indeed, admirably 
 shows the wisdom of it. That career was as 
 glorious as it was serene ; but it owed to its 
 serenity no small part of its glory. The regu- 
 larity and completeness with which he gradually 
 built up the great work which he had designed, 
 the air of equable majesty which he shed over 
 it, struck powerfully the imagination of his 
 contemporaries, and surrounded BufFon's fame 
 with a peculiar respect and dignity. ' He is,* 
 said Frederick the Great of him, ' the man who 
 has best deserved the great celebrity which he 
 has acquired.' And this regularity of production, 
 this equableness of temper, he maintained by his 
 resolute disdain of personal controversy. 
 
 BufFon's example seems to me worthy of all 
 imitation, and in my humble way I mean 
 always to follow it. I never have replied, I 
 never will reply, to any literary assailant ; in 
 such encounters tempers are lost, the world 
 laughs, and truth is not served. Least of all 
 should I think of using this Chair as a place 
 from which to carry on such a conflict. But 
 when a learned and estimable man thinks he 
 has reason to complain of language used by me 
 in this Chair, — when he attributes to me inten- 
 tions and feelings towards him which are far 
 from my heart, I owe him some explanation, — 
 and I am bound, too, to make the explanation 
 as public as the words which gave offence. 
 This is the reason why I revert once more to 
 
 259 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 the subject of translating Homer. But being 
 thus brought back to that subject, and not wish- 
 ing to occupy you solely with an explanation 
 which, after all, is Mr. Newman's affair 
 and mine, not the public's, I shall take the 
 opportunity, — not certainly to enter into any 
 conflict with any one, — but to try to establish 
 our old friend, the coming translator of Homer, 
 yet a little firmer in the positions which I hope 
 we have now secured for him ; to protect him 
 against the danger of relaxing, in the confusion 
 of dispute, his attention to those matters which 
 alone I consider important for him ; to save him 
 from losing sight, in the dust of the attacks 
 delivered over it, of the real body of Patroclus. 
 He will, probably, when he arrives, requite my 
 solicitude very ill, and be in haste to disown his 
 benefactor ; but my interest in him is so sincere 
 that I can disregard his probable ingratitude. 
 
 First, however, for the explanation. Mr. 
 Newman has published a reply to the remarks 
 which I made on his translation of the Iliad. 
 He seems to think that the respect which at the 
 outset of those remarks I professed for him must 
 have been professed ironically ; he says that I 
 use ' forms of attack against him which he does not 
 know how to characterise ' ; that I ' speak scorn- 
 fully' of him, treat him with 'gratuitous insult, 
 gratuitous rancour ' ; that I ' propagate slanders ' 
 against him, that I wish to ' damage him with 
 my readers,' to ' stimulate my readers to despise ' 
 
 260 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 him. He is entirely mistaken. I respect Mr. 
 Newman sincerely ; I respect him as one of the 
 few learned men we have, one of the few who 
 love learning for its own sake ; this respect for him 
 I had before I read his translation of the Iliad, 
 I retained it while I was commenting on that 
 translation, I have not lost it after reading his 
 reply. Any vivacities of expression which may 
 have given him pain I sincerely regret, and can 
 only assure him that I used them without a 
 thought of insult or rancour. When I took 
 the liberty of creating the verb to Neivmanise, 
 my intentions were no more rancorous than if I 
 had said to Miltonise ; when I exclaimed, in my 
 astonishment at his vocabulary, ' With whom can 
 Mr. Newman have lived ? ' I meant merely to 
 convey, in a familiar form of speech, the sense 
 of bewilderment one has at finding a person to 
 whom words one thought all the world knew 
 seem strange, and words one thought entirely 
 strange, intelligible. Yet this simple expression 
 of my bewilderment Mr. Newman construes 
 into an accusation that he is ' often guilty of 
 keeping low company,' and says that I shall 
 ' never want a stone to throw at him.' And 
 what is stranger still, one of his friends gravely 
 tells me that Mr. Newman 'lived with the 
 fellows of Balliol.' As if that made Mr. 
 Newman's glossary less inexplicable to me ! As 
 if he could have got his glossary from the 
 fellows of Balliol ! As if I could believe that 
 
 261 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 the members of that distinguished society — of 
 whose discourse, not so many years afterwards, I 
 myself was an unworthy hearer — were in Mr. 
 Newman's time so far removed from the Attic 
 purity of speech which we all of us admired, 
 that when one of them called a calf a bulkin, 
 the rest ' easily understood ' him ; or, when he 
 wanted to say that a newspaper -article was 
 ' proudly fine,' it mattered little whether he said 
 it was that or bragly I No ; his having lived 
 with the fellows of Balliol does not explain Mr. 
 Newman's glossary to me. I will no longer ask 
 ' with whom he can have lived,' since that 
 gives him offence ; but I must still declare that 
 where he got his test of rarity or intelligibility 
 for words is a mystery to me. 
 
 That, however, does not prevent me from 
 entertaining a very sincere respect for Mr. 
 Newman, and since he doubts it, I am glad to 
 reiterate my expression of it. But the truth of 
 the matter is this : I unfeignedly admire Mr. 
 Newman's ability and learning ; but I think in 
 his translation of Homer he has employed that 
 ability and learning quite amiss. I think he has 
 chosen quite the wrong field for turning his 
 ability and learning to account. I think that in 
 England, partly from the want of an Academy, 
 partly from a national habit of intellect to which 
 that want of an Academy is itself due, there 
 exists too little of what I may call a public force 
 of correct literary opinion, possessing within 
 
 262 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 certain limits a clear sense of what is right and 
 wrong, sound and unsound, and sharply recalling 
 men of ability and learning from any flagrant 
 misdirection of these their advantages. I think, 
 even, that in our country a powerful misdirection 
 of this kind is often more likely to subjugate and 
 pervert opinion than to be checked and corrected 
 by it.^ Hence a chaos of false tendencies, wasted 
 efforts, impotent conclusions, works which ought 
 never to have been undertaken. Any one who 
 can introduce a little order into this chaos by 
 establishing in any quarter a single sound rule of 
 criticism, a single rule which clearly marks what 
 is right as right, and what is wrong as wrong, 
 does a good deed ; and his deed is so much the 
 better the greater force he counteracts of learning 
 and ability applied to thicken the chaos. Of 
 course no one can be sure that he has fixed any 
 such rules ; he can only do his best to fix them ; 
 but somewhere or other, in the literary opinion 
 of Europe, if not in the literary opinion of one 
 nation, in fifty years, if not in five, there is a 
 final judgment on these matters, and the critic's 
 work will at last stand or fall by its true merits. 
 
 1 ' It is the fact, that scholars of fastidious refinement, but of a 
 judgment which I think far more masculine than Mr. Arnold's, 
 have passed a most encouraging sentence on large specimens of my 
 translation. I at present count eight such names.' — 'Before 
 venturing to print, I sought to ascertain how unlearned women and 
 children would accept my verses. I could boast how children and 
 half-educated women have extolled them, how greedily a working 
 man has inquired for them, without knowing who was the translator.' 
 — Mr. Newman's Reply, pp. 2, 12, 13. 
 
 263 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Meanwhile, the charge of having in one 
 instance misapplied his powers, of having once 
 followed a false tendency, is no such grievous 
 charge to bring against a man ; it does not 
 exclude a great respect for himself personally, or 
 for his powers in the happier manifestation of 
 them. False tendency is, I have said, an evil to 
 which the artist or the man of letters in England 
 is peculiarly prone ; but everywhere in our time 
 he is liable to it, — the greatest as well as the 
 humblest. ' The first beginnings of my Wilhelm 
 Meister,' says Goethe, ' arose out of an obscure 
 sense of the great truth that man will often 
 attempt something for which nature has denied 
 him the proper powers, will undertake and 
 practise something in which he cannot become 
 skilled. An inward feeling warns him to desist ' 
 (yes, but there are, unhappily, cases of absolute 
 judicial blindness !), 'nevertheless he cannot get 
 clear in himself about it, and is driven along a 
 false road to a false goal, without knowing how 
 it is with him. To this we may refer every- 
 thing which goes by the name of false tendency, 
 dilettanteism, and so on. A great many men 
 waste in this way the fairest portion of their 
 lives, and fall at last into wonderful delusion.' 
 Yet after all, — Goethe adds, — it sometimes 
 happens that even on this false road a man finds, 
 not indeed that which he sought, but something 
 which is good and useful for him ; ' like Saul, 
 the son of Kish, who went forth to look for his 
 
 264 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 father's asses, and found a kingdom.' And thus 
 false tendency as well as true, vain effort as well 
 as fruitful, go together to produce that great 
 movement of life, to present that immense and 
 magic spectacle of human affairs, which from 
 boyhood to old age fascinates the gaze of every 
 man of imagination, and which would be his 
 terror, if it were not at the same time his delight. 
 
 So Mr. Newman may see how widespread a 
 danger it is, to which he has, as I think, in 
 setting himself to translate Homer, fallen a prey. 
 He may be well satisfied if he can escape from it 
 by paying it the tribute of a single work only. 
 He may judge how unlikely it is that I should 
 ' despise ' him for once falling a prey to it. I 
 know far too well how exposed to it we all are ; 
 how exposed to it I myself am. At this very 
 moment, for example, I am fresh from reading 
 Mr. Newman's Reply to my Lectures, a reply 
 full of that erudition in which (as I am so often 
 and so good-naturedly reminded, but indeed I 
 know it without being reminded) Mr. Newman 
 is immeasurably my superior. Well, the demon 
 that pushes us all to our ruin is even now 
 prompting me to follow Mr. Newman into a 
 discussion about the digamma, and I know not 
 what providence holds me back. And some 
 day, I have no doubt, I shall lecture on the 
 language of the Berbers, and give him his entire 
 revenge. 
 
 But Mr. Newman does not confine himself to 
 265 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 complaints on his own behalf, he complains on 
 Homer's behalf too. He says that my ' state- 
 ments about Greek literature are against the 
 most notorious and elementary fact ' ; that I ' do 
 a public wrong to literature by publishing them ' ; 
 and that the Professors to whom I appealed in 
 my three Lectures, ' would only lose credit if 
 they sanctioned the use I make of their names.' 
 He does these eminent men the kindness of 
 adding, however, that ' whether they are pleased 
 with this parading of their names in behalf of 
 paradoxical error, he may well doubt,' and that 
 ' until they endorse it themselves, he shall treat 
 my process as a piece of forgery.' He proceeds 
 to discuss my statements at great length, and 
 with an erudition and ingenuity which nobody 
 can admire more than I do. And he ends by 
 saying that my ignorance is great. 
 
 Alas ! that is very true. Much as Mr. 
 Newman was mistaken when he talked of my 
 rancour, he is entirely right when he talks of 
 my ignorance. And yet, perverse as it seems 
 to say so, I sometimes find myself wishing, 
 when dealing with these matters of poetical 
 criticism, that my ignorance were even greater 
 than it is. To handle these matters properly 
 there is needed a poise so perfect that the least 
 overweight in any direction tends to destroy the 
 balance. Temper destroys it, a crotchet destroys 
 it, even erudition may destroy it. To press to 
 the sense of the thing itself with which one is 
 
 266 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 dealing, not to go ofF on some collateral issue 
 about the thing, is the hardest matter in the 
 world. The 'thing itself with which one is 
 here dealing, — the critical perception of poetic 
 truth, — is of all things the most volatile, elusive, 
 and evanescent ; by even pressing too impetuously 
 after it, one runs the risk of losing it. The 
 critic of poetry should have the finest tact, the 
 nicest moderation, the most free, flexible, and 
 elastic spirit imaginable ; he should be indeed 
 the ' ondoyant et divers,' the undulating and 
 diverse being of Montaigne. The less he can 
 deal with his object simply and freely, the 
 more things he has to take into account in 
 dealing with it, — the more, in short, he has to 
 encumber himself, — so much the greater force 
 of spirit he needs to retain his elasticity. But 
 one cannot exactly have this greater force by 
 wishing for it ; so, for the force of spirit one 
 has, the load put upon it is often heavier than 
 it will well bear. The late Duke of Wellington 
 said of a certain peer that ' it was a great pity 
 his education had been so far too much for 
 his abilities.' In like manner, one often sees 
 erudition out of all proportion to its owner's 
 critical faculty. Little as I know, therefore, I 
 am always apprehensive, in dealing with poetry, 
 lest even that little should prove ' too much for 
 my abilities.' 
 
 With this consciousness of my own lack of 
 learning, — nay, with this sort of acquiescence in 
 
 267 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 it, with this belief that for the labourer in the 
 field of poetical criticism learning has its dis- 
 advantages, — I am not likely to dispute with 
 Mr. Newman about matters of erudition. All 
 that he says on these matters in his Reply I 
 read with great interest: in general I agree 
 with him ; but only, I am sorry to say, up to a 
 certain point. Like all learned men, accustomed 
 to desire definite rules, he draws his conclusions 
 too absolutely ; he wants to include too much 
 under his rules ; he does not quite perceive that 
 in poetical criticism the shade, the fine dis- 
 tinction, is everything ; and that, when he has 
 once missed this, in all he says he is in truth 
 but beating the air. For instance : because I 
 think Homer noble, he imagines I must think 
 him elegant ; and in fact he says in plain words 
 that I do think him so, — that to me Homer 
 seems 'pervadingly elegant.' But he does not. 
 Virgil is elegant, — 'pervadingly elegant,' — even 
 in passages of the highest emotion : 
 
 O, ubi campi, 
 Spercheosque, et virginibus bacchata Lacaenis 
 Taygeta ! ^ 
 
 Even there Virgil, though of a divine elegance, 
 is still elegant : but Homer is not elegant ; the 
 word is quite a wrong one to apply to him, and 
 Mr. Newman is quite right in blaming any one 
 
 1 ' O for the fields of Thessaly and the streams of Spercheios ! 
 O for the hills alive with the dances of the Laconian maidens, 
 the hills of Taygetus ! ' — Georgics, ii. 486. 
 
 268 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 he finds so applying it. Again ; arguing against 
 my assertion that Homer is not quaint, he says : 
 ' It is quaint to call waves wet, milk white, blood 
 dusky, horses single-hoofed, words winged, Vulcan 
 Lohfoot (KvWoTToBiwv), a spear /ongshadowy,' and so 
 on. I find I know not how many distinctions 
 to draw here. I do not think it quaint to call 
 waves wet, or milk white, or words winged; 
 but I do think it quaint to call horses single- 
 hoofed, or Vulcan Lobfoot, or a spear longshadowy. 
 As to calling blood dusky, I do not feel quite 
 sure ; I will tell Mr. Newman my opinion 
 when I see the passage in which he calls it so. 
 But then, again, because it is quaint to call 
 Vulcan Lobfoot, I cannot admit that it was quaint 
 to call him TLvKKoiroUmv; nor that, because it is 
 quaint to call a spear longshadowy, it was quaint 
 to call it SoTuxoiTKiov. Here Mr. Newman's 
 erudition misleads him : he knows the literal 
 value of the Greek so well, that he thinks his 
 literal rendering identical with the Greek, and 
 that the Greek must stand or fall along with his 
 rendering. But the real question is, not whether 
 he has given us, so to speak, full change for the 
 Greek, but how he gives us our change : we 
 want it in gold, and he gives it us in copper. 
 Again : ' It is quaint,' says Mr. Newman, ' to 
 address a young friend as "O Pippin !" — it is 
 quaint to compare Ajax to an ass whom boys are 
 belabouring.' Here, too, Mr. Newman goes 
 much too fast, and his category of quaintness is 
 
 269 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 too comprehensive. To address a young friend 
 as ' O Pippin ! ' is, I cordially agree with him, 
 very quaint ; although I do not think it was 
 quaint in Sarpedon to address Glaucus as & iritrov: 
 but in comparing, whether in Greek or in 
 English, Ajax to an ass whom boys are be- 
 labouring, I do not see that there is of necessity 
 anything quaint at all. Again ; because I said 
 that eld, lief, in sooth, and other words, are, as 
 Mr. Newman uses them in certain places, bad 
 words, he imagines that I must mean to stamp 
 these words with an absolute reprobation ; and 
 because I said that ' my Bibliolatry is exces- 
 sive,' he imagines that I brand all words as 
 ignoble which are not in the Bible. Nothing 
 of the kind : there are no such absolute rules 
 to be laid down in these matters. The Bible 
 vocabulary is to be used as an assistance, not as 
 an authority. Of the words which, placed 
 where Mr. Newman places them, I have called 
 bad words, every one may be excellent in some 
 other place. Take eld, for instance : when 
 Shakspeare, reproaching man with the depend- 
 ence in which his youth is passed, says : — 
 
 all thy blessed youth 
 Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms 
 Of palsied eld, . . . 
 
 it seems to me that eld comes in excellently 
 there, in a passage of curious meditation ; but 
 when Mr. Newman renders ayijpo} t adavdrm re 
 
 270 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 by * from Eld and Death exempted,' it seems to 
 me he infuses a tinge of quaintness into the 
 transparent simplicity of Homer's expression, 
 and so I call eld a bad word in that place. 
 
 Once more. Mr. Newman lays it down as a 
 general rule that ' many of Homer's energetic 
 descriptions are expressed in coarse physical 
 words.' He goes on : ' I give one illustration, 
 — ^Tpwes irpovTv^av aoKKee<i. Cowper, misled by the 
 ignis fatuus of " stateliness," renders it absurdly : — 
 
 ' The powers of Ilium gave the first assault 
 Embattled close ; 
 
 but it is, strictly, "The Trojans knocked forward 
 (or, thumped, butted forward) in close pack'' 
 The verb is too coarse for later polished prose, 
 and even the adjective is very strong {packed 
 together). I believe, that "forward in pack the 
 Trojans pitched," would not be really unfaithful 
 to the Homeric colour ; and I maintain, that 
 "forward in mass the Trojans pitched," would be 
 an irreprovable rendering.' He actually gives 
 us all that as if it were a piece of scientific 
 deduction ; and as if, at the end, he had arrived 
 at an incontrovertible conclusion. But, in truth, 
 one cannot settle these matters quite in this 
 way. Mr. Newman's general rule may be true 
 or false (I dislike to meddle with general rules), 
 but every part in what follows must stand or 
 fall by itself, and its soundness or unsoundness 
 has nothing at all to do with the truth or 
 
 271 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 falsehood of Mr. Newman's general rule. He 
 first gives, as a strict rendering of the Greek, 
 'The Trojans knocked forward (or, thumped, 
 butted forward), in close pack.' I need not say 
 that, as a ' strict rendering of the Greek,' this is 
 good, — all Mr, Newman's 'strict renderings 
 of the Greek ' are sure to be, as such, good ; 
 but ' in close pack,' for aoWeei, seems to me to 
 be what Mr. Newman's renderings are not 
 always, — an excellent poetical rendering of the 
 Greek ; a thousand times better, certainly, than 
 Cowper's ' embattled close.' Well, but Mr. 
 Newman goes on : ' I believe that, " forward in 
 pack the Trojans pitched," would not be really 
 unfaithful to the Homeric colour.' Here, I say, 
 the Homeric colour is half washed out of Mr. 
 Newman's happy rendering of ooWe'e? ; while in 
 ' pitched ' for irpovrvyfrav, the literal fidelity of the 
 first rendering is gone, while certainly no Homeric 
 colour has come in its place. Finally, Mr. 
 Newman concludes : ' I maintain that " forward 
 in mass the Trojans pitched," would be an 
 irreprovable rendering.' Here, in what Mr. 
 Newman fancies his final moment of triumph, 
 Homeric colour and literal fidelity have alike 
 abandoned him altogether ; the last stage of his 
 translation is much worse than the second, and 
 immeasurably worse than the first. 
 
 All this to show that a looser, easier method 
 than Mr. Newman's must be taken, if we are 
 to arrive at any good result in these questions. 
 
 272 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 I now go on to follow Mr. Newman a little 
 further, not at all as wishing to dispute with 
 him, but as seeking (and this is the true fruit 
 we may gather from criticisms upon us) to gain 
 hints from him for the establishment of some 
 useful truth about our subject, even when I 
 think him wrong. I still retain, I confess, my 
 conviction that Homer's characteristic qualities 
 are rapidity of movement, plainness of words 
 and style, simplicity and directness of ideas, 
 and, above all, nobleness, the grand manner. 
 Whenever Mr. Newman drops a word, awakens 
 a train of thought, which leads me to see any 
 of these characteristics more clearly, I am grate- 
 ful to him ; and one or two suggestions of 
 this kind which he affords, are all that now, — 
 having expressed my sorrow that he should 
 have misconceived my feelings towards him, 
 and pointed out what I think the vice of his 
 method of criticism, — I have to notice in his 
 Reply. 
 
 Such a suggestion I find in Mr. Newman's 
 remarks on my assertion that the translator of 
 Homer must not adopt a quaint and antiquated 
 style in rendering him, because the impression 
 which Homer makes upon the living scholar 
 is not that of a poet quaint and antiquated, but 
 that of a poet perfectly simple, perfectly in- 
 telligible. I added that we cannot, I confess, 
 really know how Homer seemed to Sophocles, 
 but that it is impossible to me to believe that 
 
 VOL. V 273 T 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 he seemed to him quaint and antiquated. Mr. 
 Newman asserts, on the other hand, that I am 
 absurdly wrong here ; that Homer seemed ' out 
 and out ' quaint and antiquated to the Athenians ; 
 that 'every sentence of him was more or less 
 antiquated to Sophocles, who could no more 
 help feeling at every instant the foreign and 
 antiquated character of the poetry than an Eng- 
 lishman can help feeling the same in reading 
 Burns's poems.' And not only does Mr. Newman 
 say this, but he has managed thoroughly to 
 convince some of his readers of it. ' Homer's 
 Greek,' says one of them, ' certainly seemed 
 antiquated to the historical times of Greece. 
 Mr. Newman, taking a far broader historical 
 and philological view than Mr. Arnold, stoutly 
 maintains that it did seem so.' And another 
 says : ' Doubtless Homer's dialect and diction 
 were as hard and obscure to a later Attic Greek 
 as Chaucer to an Englishman of our day.' 
 
 Mr. Newman goes on to say, that not only 
 was Homer antiquated relatively to Pericles, but 
 he is antiquated to the living scholar ; and, 
 indeed, is in himself ' absolutely antique, being 
 the poet of a barbarian age.' He tells us of 
 his ' inexhaustible quaintnesses,' of his ' very 
 eccentric diction ' ; and he infers, of course, 
 that he is perfectly right in rendering him 
 in a quaint and antiquated style. 
 
 Now this question, — whether or no Homer 
 seemed quaint and antiquated to Sophocles, — 
 
 274 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 I call a delightful question to raise. It is not a 
 barren verbal dispute ; it is a question ' drenched 
 in matter,' to use an expression of Bacon ; a 
 question full of flesh and blood, and of which 
 the scrutiny, though I still think we cannot 
 settle it absolutely, may yet give us a directly 
 useful result. To scrutinise it may lead us to 
 see more clearly what sort of a style a modern 
 translator of Homer ought to adopt. 
 
 Homer's verses were some of the first words 
 which a young Athenian heard. He heard them 
 from his mother or his nurse before he went to 
 school ; and at school, when he went there, he 
 was constantly occupied with them. So much 
 did he hear of them that Socrates proposes, in 
 the interests of morality, to have selections from 
 Homer made, and placed in the hands of mothers 
 and nurses, jn his model republic ; in order that, 
 of an author with whom they were sure to be so 
 perpetually conversant, the young might learn 
 only those parts which might do them good. 
 His language was as familiar to Sophocles, we 
 may be quite sure, as the language of the Bible 
 is to us. 
 
 Nay, more. Homer's language was not, of 
 course, in the time of Sophocles, the spoken or 
 written language of ordinary life, any more than 
 the language of the Bible, any more than the 
 language of poetry, is with us ; but for one great 
 species of composition — epic poetry — it was still 
 the current language ; it was the language in 
 
 275 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 which every one who made that sort of poetry 
 composed. Every one at Athens who dabbled 
 in epic poetry, not only understood Homer's 
 language, — he possessed it. He possessed it as 
 every one who dabbles in poetry with us, possesses 
 what may be called the poetical vocabulary, as 
 distinguished from the vocabulary of common 
 speech and of modern prose : I mean, such 
 expressions as perchance for perhaps, spake for 
 spoke, aye for ever, don for put on, charmed for 
 charmed, and thousands of others. 
 
 I might go to Burns and Chaucer, and, taking 
 words and passages from them, ask if they 
 afforded any parallel to a language so familiar 
 and so possessed. But this I will not do, for 
 Mr. Newman himself supplies me with what he 
 thinks a fair parallel, in its effect upon us, to the 
 language of Homer in its effect upon Sophocles. 
 He says that such words as mon, londis, lihbard, 
 withouten, muchel, give us a tolerable but in- 
 complete notion of this parallel ; and he finally 
 exhibits the parallel in all its clearness, by this 
 poetical specimen : — 
 
 Dat mon, quhich hauldeth Kyngis af 
 
 Londis yn feo, niver 
 (I tell 'e) feereth aught ; sith hee 
 Doth hauld hys londis yver. 
 
 Now, does Mr. Newman really think that 
 Sophocles could, as he says, ' no more help feel- 
 ing at every instant the foreign and antiquated 
 character of Homer, than an Englishman can 
 
 276 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 help feeling the same in hearing ' these lines ? 
 Is he quite sure of it ? He says he is ; he will 
 not allow of any doubt or hesitation in the 
 matter. I had confessed we could not really 
 know how Homer seemed to Sophocles ; — ' Let 
 Mr. Arnold confess for himself,' cries Mr. 
 Newman, ' and not for me, who know perfectly 
 well.' And this is what he knows ! 
 
 Mr. Newman says, however, that I ' play 
 fallaciously on the words familiar and unfamiliar'; 
 that ' Homer's words may have been familiar to 
 the Athenians {i.e. often heard) even when they 
 were either not understood by them or else, being 
 understood, were yet felt and known to be utterly 
 foreign. Let my renderings,' he continues, ' be 
 heard, as Pope or even Cowper has been heard, 
 and no one will be " surprised." ' 
 
 But the whole question is here. The trans- 
 lator must not assume that to have taken place 
 which has not taken place, although, perhaps, 
 he may wish it to have taken place, — ^namely, 
 that his diction is become an established possession 
 of the minds of men, and therefore is, in its 
 proper place, familiar to them, will not ' surprise ' 
 them. If Homer's language was familiar, — that 
 is, often heard, — then to this language words 
 like londis and libbard, which are not familiar, 
 offer, for the translator's purpose, no parallel. 
 For some purpose of the philologer they may 
 offer a parallel to it ; for the translator's purpose 
 they offer none. The question is not, whether 
 
 277 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 a diction is antiquated for current speech, but 
 whether it is antiquated for that particular 
 purpose for which it is employed. A diction 
 that is antiquated for common speech and 
 common prose, may very well not be antiquated 
 for poetry or certain special kinds of prose. 
 ' Peradventure there shall be ten found there,' is 
 not antiquated for Biblical prose, though for 
 conversation or for a newspaper it is antiquated. 
 ' The trumpet spake not to the armed throng,' 
 is not antiquated for poetry, although we should 
 not write in a letter, ' he spake to me,' or say, 
 ' the British soldier is armed with the Enfield 
 rifle.' But when language is antiquated for that 
 particular purpose for which it is employed, — as 
 numbers of Chaucer's words, for instance, are 
 antiquated for poetry, — such language is a bad 
 representative of language which, like Homer's, 
 was never antiquated for that particular purpose 
 for which it was employed. I imagine that 
 IIijXT/iaSea) for IliyXetSov, in Homer, no more 
 sounded antiquated to Sophocles than armed for 
 arm'd, in Milton, sounds antiquated to us ; but 
 Mr. Newman's withouten and muchel do sound to 
 us antiquated, even for poetry, and therefore they 
 do not correspond in their effect upon us with 
 Homer's words in their effect upon Sophocles. 
 When Chaucer, who uses such words, is to pass 
 current amongst us, to be familiar to us, as 
 Homer was familiar to the Athenians, he has to 
 be modernised, as Wordsworth and others set to 
 
 278 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 work to modernise him ; but an Athenian no 
 more needed to have Homer modernised, than 
 we need to have the Bible modernised, or 
 Wordsworth himself. 
 
 Therefore, when Mr. Newman's words bragly, 
 bulkin, and the rest, are an established posses- 
 sion of our minds, as Homer's words were an 
 established possession of an Athenian's mind, he 
 may use them ; but not till then. Chaucer's 
 words, the words of Burns, great poets as these 
 were, are yet not thus an established possession of 
 an Englishman's mind, and therefore they must 
 not be used in rendering Homer into English. 
 
 Mr. Newman has been misled just by doing 
 that which his admirer praises him for doing, by 
 taking a ' far broader historical and philological 
 view than ' mine. Precisely because he has 
 done this, and has applied the 'philological 
 view ' where it was not applicable, but where 
 the ' poetical view ' alone was rightly applicable, 
 he has fallen into error. 
 
 It is the same with him in his remarks on 
 the difficulty and obscurity of Homer. Homer, 
 I say, is perfectly plain in speech, simple, and 
 intelligible. And I infer from this that his 
 translator, too, ought to be perfectly plain in 
 speech, simple, and intelligible ; ought not to 
 say, for instance, in rendering 
 
 otrre kc ai arkWoiiu fMXi]V h KvSidveipav . . . 
 
 ' Nor liefly thee would I advance to man- 
 
 279 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 ennobling battle,' — and things of that kind. Mr. 
 Newman hands me a list of some twenty hard 
 words, invokes Buttman, Mr. Maiden, and 
 M. Benfey, and asks me if I think myself wiser 
 than all the world of Greek scholars, and if I am 
 ready to supply the deficiencies of Liddell and 
 Scott's Lexicon ! But here, again, Mr, Newman 
 errs by not perceiving that the question is one 
 not of scholarship, but of a poetical translation 
 of Homer. This, I say, should be perfectly 
 simple and intelligible. He replies by telling 
 me that aZa)6<i, etKhrohe<i, and avydx6ei<i are hard 
 words. Well, but what does he infer from that ? 
 That the poetical translation, in his rendering 
 of them, is to give us a sense of the difficulties 
 of the scholar, and so is to make his translation 
 obscure ? If he does not mean that, how, by 
 bringing forward these hard words, does he 
 touch the question whether an English version 
 of Homer should be plain or not plain ? If 
 Homer's poetry, as poetry, is in its general effect 
 on the poetical reader perfectly simple and in- 
 telligible, the uncertainty of the scholar about 
 the true meaning of certain words can never 
 change this general effect. Rather will the 
 poetry of Homer make us forget his philology, 
 than his philology make us forget his poetry. 
 It may even be affirmed that every one who 
 reads Homer perpetually for the sake of enjoy- 
 ing his poetry (and no one who does not so read 
 him will ever translate him well), comes at last 
 
 280 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 to form a perfectly clear sense in his own mind 
 for every important word in Homer, such as 
 aSivoi, or rjKl^aTo<i, whatever the scholar's doubts 
 about the word may be. And this sense is 
 present to his mind with perfect clearness and 
 fulness, whenever the word recurs, although as 
 a scholar he may know that he cannot be sure 
 whether this sense is the right one or not. But 
 poetically he feels clearly about the word, 
 although philologically he may not. The 
 scholar in him may hesitate, like the father in 
 Sheridan's play ; but the reader of poetry in 
 him is, like the governor, fixed. The same 
 thing happens to us with our own language. 
 How many words occur in the Bible, for 
 instance, to which thousands of hearers do not 
 feel sure they attach the precise real meaning ; 
 but they make out a meaning for them out of 
 what materials they have at hand ; and the 
 words, heard over and over again, come to 
 convey this meaning with a certainty which 
 poetically is adequate, though not philologi- 
 cally. How many have attached a clear and 
 poetically adequate sense to ' the beam ' and 
 ' the moie,' though not precisely the right one ! 
 How clearly, again, have readers got a sense 
 from Milton's words, ' grate on their scrannel 
 pipes,' who yet might have been puzzled to 
 write a commentary on the word scrannel for 
 the dictionary ! So we get a clear sense from 
 dSti/os as an epithet for grief, after often meeting 
 
 281 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 with it and finding out all we can about it, even 
 though that all be philologically insufficient ; 
 so we get a clear sense from elxiiroBe^ as an 
 epithet for cows. And this his clear poetical 
 sense about the words, not his philological 
 uncertainties about them, is what the translator 
 has to convey. Words like bragly and bulkin 
 offer no parallel to these words ; because the 
 reader, from his entire want of familiarity with 
 the words bragly and bulkin, has no clear sense of 
 them poetically. 
 
 Perplexed by his knowledge of the philo- 
 logical aspect of Homer's language, encumbered 
 by his own learning, Mr. Newman, I say, 
 misses the poetical aspect, misses that with 
 which alone we are here concerned. ' Homer 
 is odd,' he persists, fixing his eyes on his own 
 philological analysis of iimw^, and /*6/>o^, and 
 ILvKKo'rroUwv, and not on these words in their 
 synthetic character ; — -just as Professor Max 
 Miiller, going a little farther back, and fixing 
 his attention on the elementary value of the 
 word Ovydrvp, might say Homer was ' odd ' for 
 using that word ; — ' if the whole Greek nation, 
 by long familiarity, had become inobservant of 
 Homer's oddities,' — of the oddities of this ' noble 
 barbarian,' as Mr. Newman elsewhere calls him, 
 this ' noble barbarian ' with the ' lively eye of 
 the savage,' — ' that would be no fault of mine. 
 That would not justify Mr. Arnold's blame 
 of me for rendering the words correctly.' 
 
 282 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Correctly, — ah, but what is correctness in this 
 case ? This correctness of his is the very rock 
 on which Mr. Newman has split. He is so 
 correct that at last he finds peculiarity every- 
 where. The true knowledge of Homer becomes 
 at last, in his eyes, a knowledge of Homer's 
 ' peculiarities, pleasant and unpleasant.' Learned 
 men know these * peculiarities,' and Homer is 
 to be translated because the unlearned are im- 
 patient to know them too. ' That,' he exclaims, 
 ' is just why people want to read an English 
 Homer, — to know all his oddities, just as learned 
 men do.'' Here I am obliged to shake my head, 
 and to declare that, in spite of all my respect for 
 Mr. Newman, I cannot go these lengths with 
 him. He talks of my ' monomaniac fancy that 
 there is nothing quaint or antique in Homer.' 
 Terrible learning, — I cannot help in my turn 
 exclaiming, — terrible learning, which discovers 
 so much ! 
 
 Here, then, I take my leave of Mr. Newman, 
 retaining my opinion that his version of Homer 
 is spoiled by his making Homer odd and 
 ignoble ; but having, I hope, sufficient love for 
 literature to be able to canvass works without 
 thinking of persons, and to hold this or that 
 production cheap, while retaining a sincere 
 respect, on other grounds, for its author. 
 
 In fulfilment of my promise to take this 
 opportunity for giving the translator of Homer 
 a little further advice, I proceed to notice one 
 
 283 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 or two other criticisms which I find, in like 
 manner, suggestive ; which give us an oppor- 
 tunity, that is, of seeing more clearly, as we look 
 into them, the true principles on which transla- 
 tion of Homer should rest. This is all I seek 
 in criticisms ; and, perhaps (as I have already 
 said) it is only as one seeks a positive result of 
 this kind, that one can get any fruit from them. 
 Seeking a negative result from them, — personal 
 altercation and wrangling, — one gets no fruit ; 
 seeking a positive result, — the elucidation and 
 establishment of one's ideas, — one may get 
 much. Even bad criticisms may thus be made 
 suggestive and fruitful. I declared, in a former 
 lecture on this subject, my conviction that 
 criticism is not the strong point of our 
 national literature. Well, even the bad criti- 
 cisms on our present topic which I meet with, 
 serve to illustrate this conviction for me. And 
 thus one is enabled, even in reading remarks 
 which for Homeric criticism, for their immediate 
 subject, have no value, — which are far too 
 personal in spirit, far too immoderate in temper, 
 and far too heavy-handed in style, for the delicate 
 matter they have to treat, — still to gain light 
 and confirmation for a serious idea, and to follow 
 the Baconian injunction, semper aliquid addiscere, 
 always to be adding to one's stock of observation 
 and knowledge. Yes, even when we have to do 
 with writers who, — to quote the words of an 
 exquisite critic, the master of us all in criticism, 
 
 284 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 M. Sainte-Beuve, — remind us, when they handle 
 such subjects as our present, of ' Romans of the 
 fourth or fifth century, coming to hold forth, 
 all at random, in African style, on papers found 
 in the desk of Augustus, Mascenas, or Pollio,' — 
 even then we may instruct ourselves if we may 
 regard ideas and not persons ; even then we may 
 enable ourselves to say, with the same critic 
 describing the effect made upon him by 
 D'Argenson's Memoirs : ' My taste is revolted, 
 but I learn something ; — Je suis choque mats je 
 suis instruitJ 
 
 But let us pass to criticisms which are 
 suggestive directly and not thus indirectly only, 
 — criticisms by examining which we may be 
 brought nearer to what immediately interests 
 us, — the right way of translating Homer. 
 
 I said that Homer did not rise and sink with 
 his subject, was never to be called prosaic and 
 low. This gives surprise to many persons, who 
 object that parts of the Iliad are certainly 
 pitched lower than others, and who remind 
 me of a number of absolutely level passages in 
 Homer. But I never denied that a subject must 
 rise and sink, that it must have its elevated and 
 its level regions ; all I deny is, that a poet can 
 be said to rise and sink when all that he, as a 
 poet, can do, is perfectly well done ; when he 
 is perfectly sound and good, that is, perfect as 
 a poet, in the level regions of his subject as 
 well as in its elevated regions. Indeed, what 
 
 285 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 distinguishes the greatest masters of poetry from 
 all others is, that they are perfectly sound and 
 poetical in these level regions of their subject, — 
 in these regions which are the great difficulty 
 of all poets but the very greatest, which they 
 never quite know what to do with. A poet 
 may sink in these regions by being falsely grand 
 as well as by being low ; he sinks, in short, 
 whenever he does not treat his matter, whatever 
 it is, in a perfectly good and poetic way. But, 
 so long as he treats it in this way, he cannot 
 be said to sink, whatever his matter may do. A 
 passage of the simplest narrative is quoted to me 
 from Homer : — 
 
 Syrpnivev Se licacrrov eTTOij^Ojuevos iveea'criv, 
 
 Mot^Atjv t«, TXavKov re, MeSovra re, Qep<rlX.o')(ov re. . .^ 
 
 and I am asked, whether Homer does not sink 
 there ; whether he ' can have intended such lines 
 as those for poetry ? ' My answer is : Those 
 lines are very good poetry indeed, poetry of the 
 best class, in that place. But when Wordsworth, 
 having to narrate a very plain matter, tries not to 
 sink in narrating it, tries, in short, to be what is 
 falsely called poetical, he does sink, although he 
 sinks by being pompous, not by being low. 
 
 Onward we drove beneath the Castle ; caught, 
 While crossing Magdalen Bridge, a glimpse of Cam, 
 And at the Hoop alighted, famous inn. 
 
 That last line shows excellently how a poet may 
 
 1 Iliad, xvii. 216. 
 286 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 sink with his subject by resolving not to sink 
 with it. A page or two farther on, the subject 
 rises to grandeur, and then Wordsworth is nobly 
 worthy of it : — 
 
 The antechapel, where the statue stood 
 Of Newton with his prism and silent face. 
 The marble index of a mind for ever 
 Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone. 
 
 But the supreme poet is he who is thoroughly 
 sound and poetical, alike when his subject is 
 grand, and when it is plain : with him the 
 subject may sink, but never the poet. But a 
 Dutch painter does not rise and sink with his 
 subject, — Defoe, in Moll Flanders, does not rise 
 and sink with his subject, — in so far as an artist 
 cannot be said to sink who is sound in his treat- 
 ment of his subject, however plain it is : yet 
 Defoe, yet a Dutch painter, may in one sense be 
 said to sink with their subject, because though 
 sound in their treatment of it, they are not 
 poetical, — poetical in the true, not the false sense 
 of the word ; because, in fact, they are not in 
 the grand style. Homer can in no sense be said 
 to sink with his subject, because his soundness 
 has something more than literal naturalness 
 about it ; because his soundness is the soundness 
 of Homer, of a great epic poet ; because, in fact, 
 he is in the grand style. So he sheds over the 
 simplest matter he touches the charm of his 
 grand manner ; he makes everything noble. 
 Nothing has raised more questioning among my 
 
 287 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 critics than these words, — noble, the grand style. 
 People complain that I do not define these words 
 sufficiently, that I do not tell them enough 
 about them. ' The grand style, — but what is 
 the grand style ? ' — they cry ; some with an 
 inclination to believe in it, but puzzled ; others 
 mockingly and with incredulity, Alas ! the 
 grand style is the last matter in the world for 
 verbal definition to deal with adequately. One 
 may say of it as is said of faith : ' One must feel 
 it in order to know what it is.' But, as of faith, 
 so too one may say of nobleness, of the grand 
 style : ' Woe to those who know it not ! ' Yet 
 this expression, though indefinable, has a charm ; 
 one is the better for considering it ; bonum est, 
 nos hie esse; nay, one loves to try to explain it, 
 though one knows that one must speak imper- 
 fectly. For those, then, who ask the question, — 
 What is the grand style ? — with sincerity, I will 
 try to make some answer, inadequate as it must 
 be. For those who ask it mockingly I have no 
 answer, except to repeat to them, with com- 
 passionate sorrow, the Gospel words : Moriemini 
 in peccatis vestris, — Ye shall die in your sins. 
 
 But let me, at any rate, have the pleasure of 
 again giving, before I begin to try and define 
 the grand style, a specimen of what it is. 
 
 Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole, 
 More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged 
 To hoarse or mute, though fall'n on evil days, 
 On evil days though fell'n, and evil tongues. . . . 
 288 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 There is the grand style in perfection ; and any 
 one who has a sense for it, will feel it a thousand 
 times better from repeating those lines than from 
 hearing anything I can say about it. 
 
 Let us try, however, what can be said, con- 
 trolling what we say by examples. I think it 
 will be found that the grand style arises in 
 poetry, when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats 
 with simplicity or with severity a serious subject. I 
 think this definition will be found to cover all 
 instances of the grand style in poetry which 
 present themselves. I think it will be found to 
 exclude all poetry which is not in the grand 
 style. And I think it contains no terms which 
 are obscure, which themselves need defining. 
 Even those who do not understand what is 
 meant by calling poetry noble, will understand, 
 I imagine, what is meant by speaking of a noble 
 nature in a man. But the noble or powerful 
 nature — the bedeutendes individuum of Goethe — is 
 not enough. For instance, Mr. Newman has 
 zeal for learning, zeal for thinking, zeal for 
 liberty, and all these things are noble, they 
 ennoble a man ; but he has not the poetical 
 gift : there must be the poetical gift, the ' divine 
 faculty,' also. And, besides all this, the subject 
 must be a serious one (for it is only by a kind of 
 license that we can speak of the grand style in 
 comedy) ; and it must be treated with simplicity 
 or severity. Here is the great difficulty : the poets 
 of the world have been many ; there has been 
 
 VOL. v 289 u 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 wanting neither abundance of poetical gift nor 
 abundance of noble natures ; but a poetical gift 
 so happy, in a noble nature so circumstanced and 
 trained, that the result is a continuous style, 
 perfect in simplicity or perfect in severity, has 
 been extremely rare. One poet has had the 
 gifts of nature and faculty in unequalled fulness, 
 without the circumstances and training which 
 make this sustained perfection of style possible. 
 Of other poets, some have caught this perfect 
 strain now and then, in short pieces or single 
 lines, but have not been able to maintain it 
 through considerable works ; others have com- 
 posed all their productions in a style which, 
 by comparison with the best, one must call 
 secondary. 
 
 The best model of the grand style simple is 
 Homer ; perhaps the best model of the grand 
 style severe is Milton. But Dante is remarkable 
 for affording admirable examples of both styles ; 
 he has the grand style which arises from sim- 
 plicity, and he has the grand style which arises 
 from severity ; and from him I will illustrate them 
 both. In a former lecture I pointed out what that 
 severity of poetical style is, which comes from 
 saying a thing with a kind of intense compres- 
 sion, or in an allusive, brief, almost haughty 
 way, as if the poet's mind were charged with so 
 many and such grave matters, that he would not 
 deign to treat any one of them explicitly. Of 
 this severity the last line of the following stanza 
 
 290 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 of the Purgatory is a good example. Dante has 
 been telling Forese that Virgil had guided him 
 through Hell, and he goes on : — 
 
 Indi m' han tratto su gli suoi conforti, 
 Salendo e rigirando la Montagna 
 Che drizza voi che ii mondo fece torti. ^ 
 
 'Thence hath his comforting aid led me up, 
 climbing and circling the Mountain, which 
 straightens you whom the world made crooked. ' These 
 last words, ' la Montagna che drizza voi che il 
 mondo fece torti^ — ' the Mountain which straightens 
 you whom the world made crookedl — for the 
 Mountain of Purgatory, I call an excellent 
 specimen of the grand style in severity, where 
 the poet's mind is too full charged to suffer him 
 to speak more explicitly. But the very next 
 stanza is a beautiful specimen of the grand style 
 in simplicity, where a noble nature and a poetical 
 gift unite to utter a thing with the most limpid 
 plainness and clearness : — 
 
 Tanto dice di farmi sua compagna 
 Ch' io sar6 la dove fia Beatrice ; 
 Quivi convien che senza lui rimagna.^ 
 
 ' So long,' Dante continues, ' so long he (Virgil) 
 saith he will bear me company, until I shall 
 be there where Beatrice is ; there it behoves 
 that without him I remain.' But the noble 
 simplicity of that in the Italian no words ot 
 mine can render. 
 
 1 Purgatory, xxiii. 124. * Ibid, xxiii. 127. 
 
 291 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Both these styles, the simple and the severe, 
 are truly grand ; the severe seems, perhaps, the 
 grandest, so long as we attend most to the great 
 personality, to the noble nature, in the poet its 
 author ; the simple seems the grandest when we 
 attend most to the exquisite faculty, to the 
 poetical gift. But the simple is no doubt to be 
 preferred. It is the more magical : in the other 
 there is something intellectual, something which 
 gives scope for a play of thought which may exist 
 where the poetical gift is either wanting or pre- 
 sent in only inferior degree : the severe is much 
 more imitable, and this a little spoils its charm. 
 A kind of semblance of this style keeps Young 
 going, one may say, through all the nine parts 
 of that most indifferent production, the Night 
 Thoughts. But the grand style in simplicity is 
 inimitable : 
 
 OVK eyiVT OVT A(aK(8(f> irapa TlrjXei, 
 ovre Trap dvrideip KaSjLup' Aeyovrai ^av ^pormv 
 o\/3ov VTreprarov ot crxeiv, ot re Kal xpycrafaruKtav 
 p^kTrofixvav kv opei Mo«rav, Kal ev «rTain5Aots 
 oibv Orj/SaiS . . . ^ 
 
 There is a limpidness in that, a want of salient 
 points to seize and transfer, which makes imitation 
 impossible, except by a genius akin to the genius 
 which produced it. 
 
 1 ' A secure time fell to the lot neither of Peleus the son of 
 ^acus, nor of the godlike Cadmus ; howbeit these are said to have 
 had, of all mortals, the supreme of happiness, who heard the golden- 
 snooded Muses sing, one of them on the mountain (Pelion), the 
 other in seven-gated Thebes.' 
 
 292 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Greek simplicity and Greek grace are in- 
 imitable ; but it is said that the Iliad may still 
 be ballad-poetry while infinitely superior to all 
 other ballads, and that, iin my specimens of 
 English ballad-poetry, I have been unfair. Well, 
 no doubt there are better things in English 
 ballad-poetry than 
 
 Now Christ thee save, thou proud porter, . . . 
 
 but the real strength of a chain, they say, is the 
 strength of its weakest link ; and what I was 
 trying to show you was, that the English ballad- 
 style is not an instrument of enough compass 
 and force to correspond to the Greek hexameter ; 
 that, owing to an inherent weakness in it as 
 an epic style, it easily runs into one of two faults, 
 — either it is prosaic and humdrum, or, trying 
 to avoid that fault, and to make itself lively 
 {se faire vif), it becomes pert and jaunty. To 
 show that, the passage about King Adland's 
 porter serves very well. But these degradations 
 are not proper to a true epic instrument, such 
 as the Greek hexameter. 
 
 You may say, if you like, when you find 
 Homer's verse, even in describing the plainest 
 matter, neither humdrum nor jaunty, that this 
 is because he is so incomparably better a poet 
 than other balladists, because he is Homer. 
 But take the whole range of Greek epic poetry, 
 — take the later poets, the poets of the last ages 
 of this poetry, many of them most indifferent, 
 
 293 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 — Coluthus, Tryphiodorus, Quintus of Smyrna, 
 Nonnus. Never will you find in this instrument 
 of the hexameter, even in their hands, the vices 
 of the ballad-style in the weak moments of this 
 last : everywhere the hexameter — a noble, a 
 truly epical instrument — rather resists the weak- 
 ness of its employer than leads itself to it. 
 Quintus of Smyrna is a poet of merit, but 
 certainly not a poet of a high order ; with him, 
 too, epic poetry, whether in the character of its 
 prosody or in that of its diction, is no longer 
 the epic poetry of earlier and better times, 
 nor epic poetry as again restored by Nonnus : 
 but even in Quintus of Smyrna, I say, the 
 hexameter is still the hexameter ; it is a style 
 which the ballad-style, even in the hands of 
 better poets, cannot rival. And in the hands 
 of inferior poets, the ballad-style sinks to vices 
 of which the hexameter, even in the hands of 
 a Tryphiodorus, never can become guilty. 
 
 But a critic, whom it is impossible to read 
 without pleasure, and the disguise of whose 
 initials I am sure I may be allowed to penetrate, 
 — Mr. Spedding, — says that he ' denies altogether 
 that the metrical movement of the English 
 hexameter has any resemblance to that of the 
 Greek.' Of course, in that case, if the two 
 metres in no respect correspond, praise accorded 
 to the Greek hexameter as an epical instrument 
 will not extend to the English. Mr. Spedding 
 seeks to establish his proposition by pointing out 
 
 294 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 that the system of accentuation differs in the 
 English and in the Virgilian hexameter ; that 
 in the first, the accent and the long syllable 
 (or what has to do duty as such) coincide, in 
 the second they do not. He says that we cannot 
 be so sure of the accent with which Greek verse 
 should be read as of that with which Latin 
 should ; but that the lines of Homer in which 
 the accent and the long syllable coincide, as in 
 the English hexameter, are certainly very rare. 
 He suggests a type of English hexameter in 
 agreement with the Virgilian model, and formed 
 on the supposition that * quantity is as distinguish- 
 able in English as in Latin or Greek by any 
 ear that will attend to it.' Of the truth of this 
 supposition he entertains no doubt. The new 
 hexameter will, Mr. Spedding thinks, at least 
 have the merit of resembling, in its metrical 
 movement, the classical hexameter, which merit 
 the ordinary English hexameter has not. But 
 even with this improved hexameter he is 
 not satisfied ; and he goes on, first to sug- 
 gest other metres for rendering Homer, and 
 finally to suggest that rendering Homer is 
 impossible. 
 
 A scholar to whom all who admire Lucretius 
 owe a large debt of gratitude, — Mr. Munro, — 
 has replied to Mr. Spedding. Mr. Munro 
 declares that ' the accent of the old Greeks and 
 Romans resembled our accent only in name, 
 in reality was essentially different ' ; that ' our 
 
 29s 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 English reading of Homer and Virgil has in 
 itself no meaning' ; and that ' accent has nothing 
 to do with the Virgilian hexameter.' If this be 
 so, of course the merit which Mr. Spedding 
 attributes to his own hexameter, of really corre- 
 sponding with the Virgilian hexameter, has no 
 existence. Again ; in contradiction to Mr. 
 Spedding's assertion that lines in which (in our 
 reading of them) the accent and the long syllable 
 coincide,^ as in the ordinary English hexameter, 
 are ' rare even in Homer,' Mr, Munro declares 
 that such lines, ' instead of being rare, are among 
 the very commonest types of Homeric rhythm.' 
 Mr. Spedding asserts that ' quantity is as dis- 
 tinguishable in English as in Latin or Greek by 
 any ear that will attend to it ' ; but Mr. Munro 
 replies, that in English ' neither his ear nor his 
 reason recognises any real distinction of quantity 
 except that which is produced by accentuated 
 and unaccentuated syllables.' He therefore 
 arrives at the conclusion that in constructing 
 English hexameters, ' quantity must be utterly 
 discarded ; and longer or shorter unaccentuated 
 syllables can have no meaning, except so far as 
 they may be made to produce sweeter or harsher 
 sounds in the hands of a master.' 
 
 It is not for me to interpose between two 
 such combatants ; and indeed my way lies, not 
 up the highroad where they are contending, but 
 
 ^ Lines such as the first of the Odyssey ; 
 avSpa /lot ivvetre, Mowra, iroA.vrpoirov, os juaXa iroAAa . . . 
 296 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 along a bypath. With the absolute truth of 
 their general propositions respecting accent and 
 quantity, I have nothing to do ; it is most 
 interesting and instructive to me to hear such 
 propositions discussed, when it is Mr. Munro or 
 Mr. Spedding who discusses them ; but I have 
 strictly limited myself in these Lectures to the 
 humble function of giving practical advice to 
 the translator of Homer. He, I still think, 
 must not follow so confidently, as makers of 
 English hexameters have hitherto followed, Mr. 
 Munro's maxim, — quantity may be utterly discarded. 
 He must not, like Mr. Longfellow, make seven- 
 teen a dactyl in spite of all the length of its last 
 syllable, even though he can plead that in 
 counting we lay the accent on the first syllable 
 of this word. He may be far from attaining 
 Mr. Spedding's nicety of ear ; — may be unable 
 to feel that ' while quantity is a dactyl, quiddity is 
 a tribrach,' and that ' rapidly is a word to which 
 we find no parallel in Latin ' ; — but I think he 
 must bring himself to distinguish, with Mr. 
 Spedding, between ' tK oVr-wearied eyelid,' and 
 ' the wearied eyelid,' as being, the one a correct 
 ending for a hexameter, the other an ending 
 with a false quantity in it ; instead of finding, 
 with Mr. Munro, that this distinction ' conveys 
 to his mind no intelligible idea.' He must 
 temper his belief in Mr. Munro's dictum, — 
 quantity must be utterly discarded, — by mixing 
 with it a belief in this other dictum of the same 
 
 297 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 author, — two or more consonants take longer time in 
 enunciating than one} 
 
 Criticism is so apt in general to be vague and 
 impalpable, that when it gives us a solid and 
 definite possession, such as is Mr. Spedding's 
 parallel of the Virgilian and the English hexa- 
 meter with their difference of accentuation dis- 
 tinctly marked, we cannot be too grateful to it. 
 It is in the way in which Mr. Spedding pro- 
 ceeds to press his conclusions from the parallel 
 which he has drawn out, that his criticism seems 
 to me to come a little short. Here even he, I 
 think, shows (if he will allow me to say so) a 
 little of that want of pliancy and suppleness so 
 common among critics, but so dangerous to their 
 
 ^ Substantially, however, in the question at issue between Mr. 
 Munro and Mr. Spedding, I agree with Mr. Munro. By the 
 italicised words in the following sentence, ' The rhythm of the 
 Virgilian hexameter depends entirely on ceesura, pause, and a due 
 arrangement of words,' he has touched, it seems to me, in the 
 constitution of this hexameter, the central point, which Mr. 
 Spedding misses. The accent, or heightened tone, of Virgil in 
 reading his own hexameters, was probably far from being the same 
 thing as the accent or stress with which we read them. The 
 general effect of each line, in Virgil's mouth, was probably therefore 
 something widely different from what Mr. Spedding assumes it to 
 have been : an ancient's accentual reading was something which 
 allowed the metrical beat of the Latin line to be far more percept- 
 ible than our accentual reading allows it to be. 
 
 On the question as to the real rhythm of the ancient hexameter, 
 Mr. Newman has in his Repl^ a page quite admirable for force and 
 precision. Here he is in his element, and his ability and acuteness 
 have their proper scope. But it is true that the modern reading of 
 the ancient hexameter is what the modern hexameter has to imitate, 
 and that the English reading of the Virgilian hexameter is as Mr. 
 Spedding describes it. Why this reading has not been imitated by 
 the English hexameter, I have tried to point out in the text. 
 
 298 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 criticism ; he is a little too absolute in imposing 
 his metrical laws : he too much forgets the 
 excellent maxim of Menander, so applicable to 
 literary criticism : — 
 
 /caAov ot vofwi <r<l)o8p euriv' 6 S opiav Tovs votiov^ 
 kiav OKpipSi, (rvKO<f>dvTr]S <f)alveTai' 
 
 ' Laws are admirable things ; but he who keeps 
 his eye too closely fixed upon them, runs the 
 risk of becoming' — let us say, a purist. Mr. 
 Spedding is probably mistaken in supposing that 
 Virgil pronounced his hexameters as Mr. Spedding 
 pronounces them. He is almost certainly mis- 
 taken in supposing that Homer pronounced his 
 hexameters as Mr. Spedding pronounces Virgil's. 
 But this, as I have said, is not a question for us 
 to treat ; all we are here concerned with is the 
 imitation, by the English hexameter, of the 
 ancient hexameter m its effect upon us moderns. 
 Suppose we concede to Mr. Spedding that his 
 parallel proves our accentuation of the English 
 and of the Virgilian hexameter to be different : 
 what are we to conclude from that ; how will a 
 criticism — not a formal, but a substantial criticism 
 — deal with such a fact as that ? Will it infer, 
 as Mr. Spedding infers, that the English hexa- 
 meter, therefore, must not pretend to reproduce 
 better than other rhythms the movement of 
 Homer's hexameter for us, — that there can be 
 no correspondence at all between the movement 
 of these two hexameters, — that if we want to 
 
 299 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 have such a correspondence, we must abandon 
 the current English hexameter altogether, and 
 adopt in its place a new hexameter of Mr. 
 Spedding's Anglo -Latin type, — substitute for 
 lines like the 
 
 Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia . . . 
 
 of Dr. Hawtrey, lines like the 
 
 Procession, complex melodies, pause, quantity, accent. 
 After Virgilian precedent and practice, in order . . . 
 
 of Mr. Spedding ? To infer this, is to go, as I 
 have complained of Mr. Newman for sometimes 
 going, a great deal too fast. I think prudent 
 criticism must certainly recognise, in the current 
 English hexameter, a fact which cannot so 
 lightly be set aside ; it must acknowledge that 
 by this hexameter the English ear, the genius 
 of the English language, have, in their own 
 way, adopted, have translated for themselves the 
 Homeric hexameter, and that a rhythm which 
 has thus grown up, which is thus, in a manner, 
 the production of nature, has in its general type 
 something necessary and inevitable, something 
 which admits change only within narrow limits, 
 which precludes change that is sweeping and 
 essential. I think, therefore, the prudent critic 
 will regard Mr. Spedding's proposed revolution 
 as simply impracticable. He will feel that in 
 English poetry the hexameter, if used at all, 
 must be, in the main, the English hexameter 
 now current. He will perceive that its having 
 
 300 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 come into existence as the representative of the 
 Homeric hexameter proves it to have, for the 
 English ear, a certain correspondence with the 
 Homeric hexameter, although this correspond- 
 ence may be, from the difference of the Greek 
 and English languages, necessarily incomplete. 
 This incompleteness he will endeavour,^ as he 
 may find or fancy himself able, gradually some- 
 what to lessen through minor changes, suggested 
 by the ancient hexameter, but respecting the 
 general constitution of the modern : the notion 
 of making it disappear altogether by the critic's 
 inventing in his closet a new constitution of his 
 own for the English hexameter, he will judge to 
 be a chimerical dream. 
 
 When, therefore, Mr. Spedding objects to the 
 
 1 Such a minor change I have attempted by occasionally 
 shifting, in the first foot of the hexameter, the accent from the 
 first syllable to the second. In the current English hexameter, it 
 is on the first. Mr. Spedding, who proposes radically to subvert 
 the constitution of this hexameter, seems not to understand that 
 any one can propose to modify it partially ; he can comprehend 
 revolution in this metre, but not reform. Accordingly he asks me 
 how I can bring myself to say, '5«tween that and the ships,' or 
 ' There sat fifty men ' ; or how I can reconcile such forcing of the 
 accent with my own rule, that ' hexameters must read themselves! 
 Presently he says that he cannot believe I do pronounce these 
 words so, but that he thinks I leave out the accent in the first foot 
 altogether, and thus get a hexameter with only five accents. He 
 will pardon me : I pronounce, as I suppose he himself does, if he 
 reads the words naturally, ' Between that and the ships,' and ' there 
 sat fifty men.' Mr. Spedding is familiar enough with this accent 
 on the second syllable in Virgil's hexameters ; in ' et te montosa,' 
 or 'Ve/oces jaculo.' Such a change is an attempt to relieve the 
 monotony of the current English hexameter by occasionally 
 altering the position of one of its accents ; it is not an attempt to 
 
 301 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 English hexameter, that it imperfectly represents 
 the movement of the ancient hexameters, I 
 answer : We must work with the tools we have. 
 The received English type, in its general outlines, 
 is, for England, the necessary given type of this 
 metre ; it is by rendering the metrical beat of 
 its pattern, not by rendering the accentual beat 
 of it, that the English language has adapted the 
 Greek hexameter. To render the metrical beat 
 of its pattern is something ; by effecting so much 
 as this the English hexameter puts itself in 
 closer relations with its original, it comes nearer 
 to its movement than any other metre which 
 does not even effect so much as this ; but Mr. 
 Spedding is dissatisfied with it for not effecting 
 more still, for not rendering the accentual beat 
 too. If he asks me why the English hexameter 
 has not tried to render this too, why it has 
 confined itself to rendering the metrical beat, 
 why^ in short, it is itself, and not Mr. Spedding's 
 
 make a wholly new English hexameter by habitually altering the 
 position of four of them. Very likely it is an unsuccessful attempt ; 
 but at any rate it does not violate what I think is the fundamental 
 rule for English hexameters, — that they be such as to read themselves 
 without necessitating, on the reader's part, any non-natural putting- 
 on or taking-off accent. Hexameters like these of Mr. Longfellow, 
 
 ' In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware's waters,' 
 
 and, 
 
 •As if they fain would appease the Dryads, whose haunts they 
 molested,' 
 
 violate this rule ; and they are very common. I think the blemish 
 of Mr. Dart's recent meritorious version of the Iliad is that it 
 contains too many of them. 
 
 302 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 new hexameter, — that is a question which I, 
 whose only business is to give practical advice to 
 a translator, am not bound to answer ; but I will 
 not decline to answer it nevertheless. I will 
 suggest to Mr, Spedding that, as I have already 
 said, the modern hexameter is merely an attempt 
 to imitate the effect of the ancient hexameter, as 
 read by us moderns ; that the great object of its 
 imitation has been the hexameter of Homer ; 
 that of this hexameter such lines as those which 
 Mr. Spedding declares to be so rare, even in 
 Homer, but which are in truth so common, — 
 lines in which the quantity and the reader's accent 
 coincide, — are, for the English reader, just from 
 that simplicity (for him) of rhythm which 
 they owe to this coincidence, the master-type ; 
 that so much is this the case, that one may again 
 and again notice an English reader of Homer, in 
 reading lines where his Virgilian accent would 
 not coincide with the quantity, abandoning this 
 accent, and reading the lines (as we say) by 
 quantity^ reading them as if he were scanning 
 them ; while foreigners neglect our Virgilian 
 accent even in reading Virgil, read even Virgil 
 by quantity, making the accents coincide with 
 the long syllables. And no doubt the hexameter 
 of a kindred language, the German, based on this 
 mode of reading the ancient hexameter, has had 
 a powerful influence upon the type of its English 
 fellow. But all this shows how extremely power- 
 ful accent is for us moderns, since we find not 
 
 303 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 even Greek and Latin quantity perceptible 
 enough without it. Yet in these languages, 
 where we have been accustomed always to look 
 for it, it is far more perceptible to us Englishmen 
 than in our own language, where we have not 
 been accustomed to look for it. And here is 
 the true reason why Mr. Spedding's hexameter 
 is not and cannot be the current English 
 hexameter, even though it is based on the 
 accentuation which Englishmen give to all 
 Virgil's lines, and to many of Homer's, — that 
 the quantity which in Greek or Latin words we 
 feel, or imagine we feel, even though it be 
 unsupported by accent, we do not feel or imagine 
 we feel in English words when it is thus unsup- 
 ported. For example, in repeating the Latin line 
 
 Ipsa tibi hlzndos /undent cunabula flores, 
 
 an Englishman feels the length of the second 
 syllable of /undent, although he lays the accent on 
 the first ; but in repeating Mr. Spedding's line, 
 
 Softly Cometh slumber closing th' o'erwearied eyelid, 
 
 the English ear, full of the accent on the first 
 syllable of closing, has really no sense at all of 
 any length in its second. The metrical beat of 
 the line is thus quite destroyed. 
 
 So when Mr. Spedding proposes a new 
 Anglo- Virgilian hexameter he proposes an im- 
 possibility ; when he ' denies altogether that the 
 metrical movement of the English hexameter 
 
 304 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 has any resemblance to that of the Greek,' he 
 denies too much ; when he declares that, ' were 
 every other metre impossible, an attempt to 
 translate Homer into English hexameters might 
 be permitted, but that such an attempt he himself 
 would never read^ he exhibits, it seems to me, a 
 little of that obduracy and over-vehemence in 
 liking and disliking, — a remnant, I suppose, of 
 our insular ferocity, — to which English criticism 
 is so prone. He ought to be enchanted to meet 
 with a good attempt in any metre, even though 
 he would never have advised it, even though its 
 success be contrary to all his expectations ; for it 
 is the critic's first duty — prior even to his duty 
 of stigmatising what is bad — to welcome everything 
 that is good. In welcoming this, he must at all 
 times,be ready, like the Christian convert, even 
 to burn what he used to worship, and to worship 
 what he used to burn. Nay, but he need not 
 be thus inconsistent in welcoming it ; he may 
 retain all his principles : principles endure, 
 circumstances change ; absolute success is one 
 thing, relative success another. Relative success 
 may take place under the most diverse conditions ; 
 and it is in appreciating the good in even relative 
 success, it is in taking into account the change 
 of circumstances, that the critic's judgment is 
 tested, that his versatility must display itself 
 He is to keep his idea of the best, of perfection, 
 and at the same time to be willingly accessible 
 to every second best which offers itself. So 
 VOL. v 305 ^ 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 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,^ although I still think 
 the stanza unfit to render Homer thoroughly 
 well, — although I still think other metres fit 
 to render him better. So I concede to Mr. 
 Spedding that every form of translation, prose or 
 verse, must more or less break up Homer in 
 order to reproduce him ; but then I urge that 
 that form which needs to break him up least is 
 
 ^ 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 j 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, howeveri 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. 
 
 306 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 to be preferred. So I concede to him that the 
 test proposed by me for the translator — a com- 
 petent scholar's judgment whether the translation 
 more or less reproduces for him the effect of 
 the original — is not perfectly satisfactory ; but I 
 adopt it as the best we can get, as the only 
 test capable of being really applied ; for Mr. 
 Spedding's proposed substitute — the translations 
 making the same effect, more or less, upon the 
 unlearned which the original makes upon the 
 scholar — is a test which can never really be 
 applied at all. These two impressions — that of 
 the scholar, and that of the unlearned reader — 
 can, practically, never be accurately compared ; 
 they are, and must remain, like those lines we 
 read of in Euclid, which, though produced ever 
 so far, can never meet. So, again, I concede 
 that a good verse -translation of Homer, or, 
 indeed, of any poet, is very difficult, and that a 
 good prose-translation is much easier ; but then 
 I urge that a verse-translation, while giving the 
 pleasure which Pope's has given, might at the 
 same time render Homer more faithfully than 
 Pope's ; and that this being possible, we ought 
 not to cease wishing for a source of pleasure 
 which no prose- translation can ever hope to 
 rival. 
 
 Wishing for such a verse-translation of Homer, 
 believing that rhythms have natural tendencies 
 which, within certain limits, inevitably govern 
 them ; having little faith, therefore, that rhythms 
 
 307 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 which have manifested tendencies utterly un- 
 Homeric can so change themselves as to become 
 well adapted for rendering Homer, — I have 
 looked about for the rhythm which seems to 
 depart least from the tendencies of Homer's 
 rhythm. Such a rhythm I think may be found 
 in the English hexameter, somewhat modified. 
 I look with hope towards continued attempts at 
 perfecting and employing this rhythm ; but my 
 belief in the immediate success of such attempts 
 is far less confident than has been supposed. 
 Between the recognition of this rhythm as ideally 
 the best, and the recommendation of it to the 
 translator for instant practical use, there must 
 come all that consideration of circumstances, all 
 that pliancy in foregoing, under the pressure of 
 certain difficulties, the absolute best, which I 
 have said is so indispensable to the critic. The 
 hexameter is, comparatively, still unfamiliar in 
 England ; many people have a great dislike to 
 it. A certain degree of unfamiliarity, a certain 
 degree of dislike, arc obstacles with which it is 
 not wise to contend. It is difficult to say at 
 present whether the dislike to this rhythm is so 
 strong and so wide-spread that it will prevent its 
 ever becoming thoroughly familiar. I think 
 not, but it is too soon to decide. I am inclined 
 to think that the dislike of it is rather among 
 the professional critics than among the general 
 public ; I think the reception which Mr. Long- 
 fellow's Evangeline has met with indicates this. 
 
 308 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 I think that even now, if a version of the Iliad 
 in English hexameters were made by a poet 
 who, like Mr. Longfellow, has that indefinable 
 quality which renders him popular, — something 
 attractive in his talent, which communicates itself 
 to his verses, — it would have a great success 
 among the general public. Yet a version of 
 Homer in hexameters of the Evangeline type 
 would not satisfy the judicious, nor is the definite 
 establishment of this type to be desired ; and 
 one would regret that Mr. Longfellow should, 
 even to popularise the hexameter, give the 
 immense labour required for a translation of 
 Homer, when one could not wish his work to 
 stand. Rather it is to be wished that by the 
 efforts of poets like Mr. Longfellow in original 
 poetry, and the efforts of less distinguished poets 
 in the task of translation, the hexameter may 
 gradually be made familiar to the ear of the 
 English public ; at the same time that there 
 gradually arises, out of all these efforts, an im- 
 proved type of this rhythm ; a type which some 
 man of genius may sign with the final stamp, 
 and employ in rendering Homer ; a hexameter 
 which may be as superior to Vosse's as Shak- 
 speare's blank verse is superior to Schiller's. I 
 am inclined to believe that all this travail will 
 actually take place, because I believe that modern 
 poetry is actually in want of such an instrument 
 as the hexameter. 
 
 In the meantime, whether this rhythm be 
 309 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 destined to success or not, let us steadily keep in 
 mind what originally made us turn to it. We 
 turned to it because we required certain Homeric 
 characteristics in a translation of Homer, and 
 because all other rhythms seemed to find, from 
 different causes, great difficulties in satisfying 
 this our requirement. If the hexameter is im- 
 possible, if one of these other rhythms must be 
 used, let us keep this rhythm always in mind of 
 our requirements and of its own faults, let us 
 compel it to get rid of these latter as much as 
 possible. It may be necessary to have recourse 
 to blank verse ; but then blank verse must de- 
 Cowperise itself, must get rid of the habits of stiff 
 self- retardation which make it say ^ Not fewer 
 shone,' for ' So many shone.'' Homer moves swiftly : 
 blank verse can move swiftly if it likes, but it 
 must remember that the movement of such 
 lines as 
 
 A thousand fires were burning, and by each . . . 
 
 is just the slow movement which makes us despair 
 of it. Homer moves with noble ease : blank 
 verse must not be suffered to forget that the 
 movement of 
 
 Came they not over from sweet Lacedaemon . . . 
 
 is ungainly. Homer's expression of his thought 
 is simple as light : we know how blank verse 
 affects such locutions as 
 
 While the steeds mouthed their corn aloof . . . 
 310 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 and such modes of expressing one's thought are 
 sophisticated and artificial. 
 
 One sees how needful it is to direct incessantly 
 the English translator's attention to the essential 
 characteristics of Homer's poetry, when so accom- 
 plished a person as Mr. Spedding, recognising 
 these characteristics as indeed Homer's, admitting 
 them to be essential, is led by the ingrained 
 habits and tendencies of English blank verse thus 
 repeatedly to lose sight of them in translating 
 even a few lines. One sees this yet more clearly, 
 when Mr. Spedding, taking me to task for saying 
 that the blank verse used for rendering Homer 
 'must not be Mr. Tennyson's blank verse,' 
 declares that in most of Mr. Tennyson's blank 
 verse all Homer's essential characteristics — 
 'rapidity of movement, plainness of words and 
 style, simplicity and directness of ideas, and, above 
 all, nobleness of manner — are as conspicuous as 
 in Homer himself.' This shows, it seems to me, 
 how hard it is for English readers of poetry, even 
 the most accomplished, to feel deeply and per- 
 manently what Greek plainness of thought and 
 Greek simplicity of expression really are : they 
 admit the importance of these qualities in a 
 general way, but they have no ever-present sense 
 of them ; and they easily attribute them to any 
 poetry which has other excellent qualities, and 
 which they very much admire. No doubt there 
 are plainer things in Mr. Tennyson's poetry than 
 the three lines I quoted ; in choosing them, as 
 
 3" 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 in choosing a specimen of ballad-poetry, I wished 
 to bring out clearly, by a strong instance, the 
 qualities of thought and style to which I was 
 calling attention ; but when Mr. Spedding talks 
 of a plainness of thought like Homer s, of a plain- 
 ness of speech like Homer's, and says that he finds 
 these constantly in Mr. Tennyson's poetry, I 
 answer that these I do not find there at all. Mr. 
 Tennyson is a most distinguished and charming 
 poet ; but the very essential characteristic of his 
 poetry is, it seems to me, an extreme subtlety 
 and curious elaborateness of thought, an extreme 
 subtlety and curious elaborateness of expression. 
 In the best and most characteristic productions 
 of his genius, these characteristics are most 
 prominent. They are marked characteristics, as 
 we have seen, of the Elizabethan poets ; they are 
 marked, though not the essential, characteristics 
 of Shakspeare himself. Under the influences of 
 the nineteenth century, under wholly new condi- 
 tions of thought and culture, they manifest them- 
 selves in Mr. Tennyson's poetry in a wholly new 
 way. But they are still there. The essential 
 bent of his poetry is towards such expressions as — 
 
 Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars ; 
 
 O'er the sun's bright eye 
 Drew the vast eyelid of an inky cloud ; 
 
 When the cairned mountain was a shadow, sunned 
 The world to peace ^gain ; 
 
 The fresh young captains flashed their glittering teeth, 
 The huge bush-bearded barons heaved and blew ; 
 312 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 He bared the knotted column of his throat, 
 The massive square of his heroic breast, 
 And arms on which the standing muscle sloped 
 As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone. 
 Running too vehemently to break upon it. 
 
 And this way of speaking is the least plain, the 
 most un-Homeric, which can possibly be conceived. 
 Homer presents his thought to you just as it 
 wells from the source of his mind : Mr. Tennyson 
 carefully distils his thought before he will part 
 with it. Hence comes, in the expression of the 
 thought, a heightened and elaborate air. In 
 Homer's poetry it is all natural thoughts in 
 natural words ; in Mr. Tennyson's poetry it is 
 all distilled thoughts in distilled words. Exactly 
 this heightening and elaboration may be observed 
 in Mr. Spedding's 
 
 While the steeds mouthed their corn aloof, 
 
 (an expression which might have been Mr. 
 Tennyson's) on which I have already commented ; 
 and to one who is penetrated with a sense of the 
 real simplicity of Homer, this subtle sophistication 
 of the thought is, I think, very perceptible even 
 in such lines as these, — 
 
 And drunk delight of battle with my peers. 
 Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy, — 
 
 which I have seen quoted as perfectly Homeric. 
 Perfect simplicity can be obtained only by a 
 genius of which perfect simplicity is an essential 
 characteristic. 
 
 313 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 So true is this, that when a genius essentially 
 subtle, or a genius which, from whatever cause, 
 is in its essence not truly and broadly simple, 
 determines to be perfectly plain, determines not 
 to admit a shade of subtlety or curiosity into 
 its expression, it cannot ever then attain real 
 simplicity ; it can only attain a semblance of 
 simplicity.^ French criticism, richer in its 
 vocabulary than ours, has invented a useful word 
 to distinguish this semblance (often very beautiful 
 and valuable) from the real quality. The real 
 quality it calls simplicite, the semblance simplesse. 
 The one is natural simplicity, the other is artificial 
 simplicity. What is called simplicity in the 
 productions of a genius essentially not simple, is, 
 in truth, simplesse. The two are distinguishable 
 from one another the moment they appear in 
 company. For instance, let us take the opening 
 of the narrative in Wordsworth's Michael : — 
 
 Upon the forest-side in Grasmere Vale 
 There dwelt a shepherd, Michael was his name ; 
 An old man, stout of heart, and strong of limb. 
 His bodily frame had been from youth to age 
 Of an unusual strength ; his mind was keen, 
 Intense, and frugal, apt for all alFairs ; 
 And in his shepherd's calling he was prompt 
 And watchful more than ordinary men. 
 
 ^ I speak of poetic genius as employing itself upon narrative or 
 dramatic poetry, — poetry in which the poet has to go out of 
 himself and to create. In lyrical poetry, in the direct expression 
 of personal feeling, the most subtle genius may, under the momentary 
 pressure of passion, express itself simply. Even here, however, the 
 native tendency will generally be discernible. 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 Now let us take the opening of the narrative in 
 Mr. Tennyson's Dora : — 
 
 With Farmer Allan at the farm abode 
 William and Dora. William was his son, 
 And she his niece. He often looked at them, 
 And often thought, ' I'll make them man and wife.' 
 
 The simplicity of the first of these passages is 
 simplicite ; that of the second, simplesse. Let us 
 take the end of the same two poems : first, of 
 Michael : — 
 
 The cottage which was named the Evening Star 
 
 Is gone, — the ploughshare has been through the ground 
 
 On which it stood ; great changes have been wrought 
 
 In all the neighbourhood : yet the oak is left 
 
 That grew beside their door : and the remains 
 
 Of the unfinished sheepfold may be seen 
 
 Beside the boisterous brook of Green-head Ghyll, 
 
 And now, of Dora : — 
 
 So those four abode 
 Within one house together ; and as years 
 Went forward, Mary took another mate : 
 But Dora lived unmarried till her death. 
 
 A heedless critic may call both of these 
 passages simple if he will. Simple, in a certain 
 sense, they both are ; but between the simplicity 
 of the two there is all the difi^rence that there 
 is between the simplicity of Homer and the 
 simplicity of Moschus. 
 
 But — whether the hexameter establish itselt 
 or not, whether a truly simple and rapid blank 
 verse be obtained or not, as the vehicle for a 
 standard English translation of Homer — I feel 
 
 315 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 sure that this vehicle will not be furnished by 
 the ballad-form. On this question about the 
 ballad-character of Homer's poetry, I see that 
 Professor Blackie proposes a compromise : he 
 suggests that those who say Homer's poetry is 
 pure ballad-poetry, and those who deny that it 
 is ballad-poetry at all, should split the difference 
 between them ; that it should be agreed that 
 Homer's poems are ballads a little^ but not so 
 much as some have said. I am very sensible to 
 the courtesy of the terms in which Mr. Blackie 
 invites me to this compromise ; but I cannot, I 
 am sorry to say, accept it ; I cannot allow that 
 Homer's poetry is ballad-poetry at all. A want 
 of capacity for sustained nobleness seems to me 
 inherent in the ballad -form, when employed 
 for epic poetry. The more we examine this 
 proposition, the more certain, I think, will it 
 become to us. Let us but observe how a great 
 poet, having to deliver a narrative very weighty 
 and serious, instinctively shrinks from the ballad- 
 form as from a form not commensurate with his 
 subject-matter, a form too narrow and shallow 
 for it, and seeks for a form which has more 
 amplitude and impressiveness. Every one knows 
 the Lucy Gray and the Ruth of Wordsworth. 
 Both poems are excellent ; but the subject- 
 matter of the narrative of Ruth is much more 
 weighty and impressive to the poet's own feeling 
 than that of the narrative of Lucy Gray, for which 
 latter, in its unpretending simplicity, the ballad- 
 
 316 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 form is quite adequate. Wordsworth, at the 
 time he composed Ruth, — his great time, his 
 annus mirabilis, about 1800, — strove to be simple ; 
 it was his mission to be simple ; he loved the 
 ballad -form, he clung to it, because it was 
 simple. Even in Ruth he tried, one may say, 
 to use it ; he would have used it if he could : 
 but the gravity of his matter is too much for 
 this somewhat slight form ; he is obliged to 
 give to his form more amplitude, more august- 
 ness, to shake out its folds. 
 
 The wretched parents all that night 
 
 Went shouting far and wide ; 
 But there was neither sound nor sight 
 
 To serve them for a guide. 
 
 That is beautiful, no doubt, and the form is 
 adequate to the subject-matter. But take this, 
 on the other hand : — 
 
 I, too, have passed her on the hills, 
 Setting her little water-mills 
 
 By spouts and fountains wild ; 
 Such small machinery as she turned, 
 Ere she had wept, ere she had mourned, 
 
 A young and happy child. 
 
 Who does not perceive how the greater fulness 
 and weight of his matter has here compelled the 
 true and feeling poet to adopt a form of more 
 volume than the simple ballad-form ? 
 
 It is of narrative poetry that I am speaking ; 
 the question is about the use of the ballad-form 
 for this. I say that for this poetry (when in the 
 
 317 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 grand style, as Homer's is) the ballad-form is 
 entirely inadequate ; and that Homer's translator 
 must not adopt it, because it even leads him, by 
 its own weakness, away from the grand style 
 rather than towards it. We must remember 
 that the matter of narrative poetry stands in a 
 different relation to the vehicle which conveys 
 it, — is not so independent of this vehicle, so 
 absorbing and powerful in itself, — as the matter 
 of purely emotional poetry. When there comes 
 in poetry what I may call the lyrical cry, this 
 transfigures everything, makes everything grand ; 
 the simplest form may be here even an advantage, 
 because the flame of the emotion glows through 
 and through it more easily. To go again for an 
 illustration to Wordsworth ; — our great poet, 
 since Milton, by his performance, as Keats, I 
 think, is our great poet by his gift and promise ; 
 — in one of his stanzas to the Cuckoo, we have : — 
 
 And I can listen to thee yet ; 
 
 Can lie upon the plain 
 And listen, till I do beget 
 
 That golden time again. 
 
 Here the lyrical cry, though taking the simple 
 ballad-form, is as grand as the lyrical cry coming 
 in poetry of an ampler form, as grand as the 
 
 An innocent life, yet for astray ! 
 
 of Kuth ; as the 
 
 There is a comfort in the strength of love 
 3i8 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 of Michael. In this way, by the occurrence 
 of this lyrical cry, the ballad-poets themselves 
 rise sometimes, though not so often as one might 
 perhaps have hoped, to the grand style. 
 
 O lang, lang may their ladies sit, 
 Wi' their fans into their hand, 
 Or ere they see Sir Patrick Spence 
 Come sailing to the land. 
 
 O lang, lang may the ladies stand, 
 Wi ' their gold combs in their hair. 
 Waiting for their ain dear lords, 
 For they'll see them nae mair. 
 
 But from this impressiveness of the ballad-form, 
 when its subject-matter fills it over and over 
 again, — ^is, indeed, in itself, all in all, — one must 
 not infer its effectiveness when its subject-matter 
 is not thus overpowering, in the great body of 
 a narrative. 
 
 But, after all. Homer is not a better poet 
 than the balladists, because he has taken in 
 the hexameter a better instrument ; he took 
 this instrument because he was a different poet 
 from them ; so different, — not only so much 
 better, but so essentially different, — that he is 
 not to be classed with them at all. Poets receive 
 their distinctive character, not from their subject, 
 but from their application to that subject of the 
 ideas (to quote the Excursion) 
 
 On God, on Nature, and on human life, 
 
 which they have acquired for themselves. In 
 
 319 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 the ballad-poets in general, as in men of a rude 
 and early stage of the world, in whom their 
 humanity is not yet variously and fully developed, 
 the stock of these ideas is scanty, and the ideas 
 themselves not very effective or profound. From 
 them the narrative itself is the great matter, 
 not the spirit and significance which underlies 
 the narrative. Even in later times of richly 
 developed life and thought, poets appear who 
 have what may be called a balladisfs mind ; in 
 whom a fresh and lively curiosity for the outward 
 spectacle of the world is much more strong than 
 their sense of the inward significance of that 
 spectacle. When they apply ideas to their 
 narrative of human events, you feel that they 
 are, so to speak, travelling out of their own 
 province : in the best of them you feel this 
 perceptibly, but in those of a lower order you 
 feel it very strongly. Even Sir Walter Scott's 
 efforts of this kind, — even, for instance, the 
 
 Breathes there the man with soul so dead, 
 
 or the 
 
 O woman ! in our hours of ease, — 
 
 even these leave, I think, as high poetry, much 
 to be desired ; far more than the same poet's 
 descriptions of a hunt or a battle. But Lord 
 Macaulay's 
 
 Then out spake brave Horatius, 
 
 The captain of the gate : 
 ' To all the men upon this earth 
 
 Death cometh soon or late,' 
 320 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 (and here, since I have been reproached with 
 undervaluing Lord Macaulay's Lays of Ancient 
 Rome, let me frankly say that, to my mind, 
 a man's power to detect the ring of false metal 
 in those Lays is a good measure of his fitness 
 to give an opinion about poetical matters at all), 
 — I say. Lord Macaulay's 
 
 To all the men upon this earth 
 Death cometh soon or late, 
 
 it is hard to read without a cry of pain. But 
 with Homer it is very different. This ' noble 
 barbarian,' this ' savage with the lively eye,' — 
 whose verse, Mr. Newman thinks, would affect 
 us, if we could hear the living Homer, ' like an 
 elegant and simple melody from an African of 
 the Gold Coast,' — is never more at home, never 
 more nobly himself, than in applying profound 
 ideas to his narrative. As a poet he belongs 
 — narrative as is his poetry, and early as is 
 his date — to an incomparably more developed 
 spiritual and intellectual order than the balladists, 
 or than Scott and Macaulay ; he is here as much 
 to be distinguished from them, and in the 
 same way, as Milton is to be distinguished 
 from them. He is, indeed, rather to be classed 
 with Milton than with the balladists and 
 Scott ; for what he has in common with 
 Milton — the noble and profound application 
 of ideas to life — is the most essential part of 
 poetic greatness. The most essentially grand 
 VOL. v 321 Y 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 and characteristic things of Homer are such 
 things as — 
 
 ctXtjv S' of oviro) T6S emxOovios Pporhs aXXos, 
 dvSpbs 7rai8o<^di'oio xoTt crrojjui x^^P opeyecrdai,^ 
 
 or as — 
 
 KOI a-e, yipov, rh irplv /iev aKOVOfuv ok^iov eivai,^ 
 
 or as 
 
 MS yap iTTiKkiaKravTO dioi SiiXotcTi PptyrouTiv, 
 ^(oeiv d.)(yvp,eyovs ' avrol Se T OKT/Sees tlcnv, 
 
 and of these the tone is given, far better than 
 by any thing of the balladists, by such things 
 as the 
 
 lo no piangeva : si dentro impietrai : 
 Piangevan elli ... * 
 
 of Dante ; or the 
 
 Fall'n Cherub ! to be weak is miserable 
 
 of Milton. 
 
 I suppose I must, before I conclude, say 
 a word or two about my own hexameters ; and 
 yet really, on such a topic, I am almost ashamed 
 
 1 'And I have endured — the like whereof no soul upon the earth 
 hath yet endured — to carry to my lips the hand of him who slew 
 my child.' — I/iaJ, xxiv. 505. 
 
 ^ ' Nay and thou too, old man, in times past wert, as we hear, 
 happy.' — //;W, xxiv. 543. In the original this line, for mingled 
 pathos and dignity, is perhaps without a rival even in Homer. 
 
 8 ' For so have the gods spun our destiny to us wretched mortals, 
 — that we should live in sorrow ; but they themselves are without 
 trouble.' — I/iad, xxiv. 525. 
 
 * ' I wept not : so of stone grew I within : — tiey wept.' — Hell, 
 xxxiii. 49 (Carlyle's Translation, slightly altered). 
 
 322 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 to trouble you. From those perishable objects 
 I feel, I can truly say, a most Oriental detach- 
 ment. You yourselves are witnesses how little 
 importance, when I offered them to you, I 
 claimed for them, — how humble a function 
 I designed them to fill. I offered them, not as 
 specimens of a competing translation of Homer, 
 but as illustrations of certain canons which I 
 had been trying to establish for Homer's poetry. 
 I said that these canons they might very well 
 illustrate by failing as well as by succeeding : 
 if they illustrate them in any manner, I am 
 satisfied. I was thinking of the future translator 
 of Homer, and trying to let him see as clearly 
 as possible what I meant by the combination 
 of characteristics which I assigned to Homer's 
 poetry, — by saying that this poetry was at once 
 rapid in movement, plain in words and style, 
 simple and direct in its ideas, and noble in 
 manner. I do not suppose that my own hexa- 
 meters are rapid in movement, plain in words 
 and style, simple and direct in their ideas, and 
 noble in manner ; but I am in hopes that a 
 translator, reading them with a genuine interest 
 in his subject, and without the slightest grain 
 of personal feeling, may see more clearly, as 
 he reads them, what I mean by saying that 
 Homer's poetry is all these. I am in hopes 
 that he may be able to seize more distinctly, 
 when he has before him my 
 
 So shone forth, in front of Troy, by the bed of the Xanthus, 
 
 323 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 or my 
 
 Ah, unhappy pair, to Peleus why did we give you ! 
 
 or my 
 
 So he spake, and drove with a cry his steeds into battle, 
 
 the exact points which I wish him to avoid in 
 Cowper's 
 
 So numerous seemed those fires the banks between, 
 
 or in Pope's 
 
 Unhappy coursers of immortal strain, 
 
 or in Mr. Newman's 
 
 He spake, and, yelling, held a-front his single-hoofed horses. 
 
 At the same time there may be innumerable points 
 in mine which he ought to avoid also. Of the 
 merit of his own compositions no composer can 
 be admitted the judge. 
 
 But thus humbly useful to the future trans- 
 lator I still hope my hexameters may prove ; 
 and he it is, above all, whom one has to regard. 
 The general public carries away little from 
 discussions of this kind, except some vague 
 notion that one advocates English hexameters, 
 or that one has attacked Mr. Newman, On 
 the mind of an adversary one never makes the 
 faintest impression. Mr. Newman reads all one 
 can say about diction, and his last word on the 
 subject is, that he ' regards it as a question about 
 to open hereafter, whether a translator of Homer 
 ought not to adopt the old dissyllabic landis^ 
 
 324 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 houndis, hartis' (for lands, hounds, harts), and 
 also ' the final en of the plural of verbs (we 
 dancen, they singen, etc.),' which 'still subsists 
 in Lancashire.' A certain critic reads all one 
 can say about style, and at the end of it arrives 
 at the inference that, 'after all, there is some 
 style grander than the grand style itself, since 
 Shakspeare has not the grand manner, and yet 
 has the supremacy over Milton ' ; another critic 
 reads all one can say about rhythm, and the 
 result is, that he thinks Scott's rhythm, in the 
 description of the death of Marmion, all the 
 better for being saccade, because the dying 
 ejaculations of Marmion were likely to be 
 'jerky.' How vain to rise up early, and to 
 take rest late, from any zeal for proving to 
 Mr. Newman that he must not, in translating 
 Homer, say houndis and dancen ; or to the first of 
 the two critics above quoted, that one poet may 
 be a greater poetical force than another, and yet 
 have a more unequal style ; or to the second, 
 that the best art, having to represent the death 
 of a hero, does not set about imitating his dying 
 noises ! Such critics, however, provide for an 
 opponent's vivacity the charming excuse ofifered 
 by Rivarol for his, when he was reproached with 
 giving offence by it: — 'Ah!' he exclaimed, 
 * no one considers how much pain every man of 
 taste has had to suffer, before he ever inflicts any.' 
 It is for the future translator that one must 
 work. The successful translator of Homer will 
 
 325 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 have (or he cannot succeed) that true sense for 
 his subject, and that disinterested love of it, 
 which are, both of them, so rare in literature, and 
 so precious ; he will not be led off by any false 
 scent ; he will have an eye for the real matter, 
 and, where he thinks he may find any indication 
 of this, no hint will be too slight for him, no 
 shade will be too fine, no imperfections will 
 turn him aside, — he will go before his adviser's 
 thought, and help it out with his own. This is 
 the sort of student that a critic of Homer should 
 always have in his thoughts ; but students of 
 this sort are indeed rare. 
 
 And how, then, can I help being reminded 
 what a student of this sort we have just lost in 
 Mr. Clough, whose name I have already men- 
 tioned in these lectures ? He, too, was busy with 
 Homer ; but it is not on that account that I 
 now speak of him. Nor do I speak of him in 
 order to call attention to his qualities and powers 
 in general, admirable as these were. I mention 
 him because, in so eminent a degree, he pos- 
 sessed these two invaluable literary qualities, — a 
 true sense for his object of study, and a single- 
 hearted care for it. He had both ; but he had 
 the second even more eminently than the first. 
 He greatly developed the first through means of 
 the second. In the study of art, poetry, or 
 philosophy, he had the most undivided and 
 disinterested love for his object in itself, the 
 greatest aversion to mixing up with it anything 
 
 326 
 
ON TRANSLATING HOMER 
 
 accidental or personal. His interest was in 
 literature itself ; and it was this which gave so 
 rare a stamp to his character, which kept him so 
 free from all taint of littleness. In the saturnalia 
 of ignoble personal passions, of which the 
 struggle for literary success, in old and crowded 
 communities, offers so sad a spectacle, he never 
 mingled. He had not yet traduced his friends, 
 nor flattered his enemies, nor disparaged what 
 he admired, nor praised what he despised. 
 Those who knew him well had the conviction 
 that, even with time, these literary arts would 
 never be his. His poem, of which I before 
 spoke, has some admirable Homeric qualities ; — 
 out-of-doors freshness, life, naturalness, buoyant 
 rapidity. Some of the expressions in that poem, 
 — ' Dangerous Corrievreckan . . . Where roads are 
 unknown to Loch Nevish,' — come back now to my 
 ear with the true Homeric ring. But that in 
 him of which I think oftenest is the Homeric 
 simplicity of his literary life. 
 
 END OF VOL. V. 
 
 Printid by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh.