should imagine to himself the style which his author would probably
have used, had the language into which he is rendered been his own. A
direction which wants nothing but practicability to recommend it. For
suppose six persons, equally qualified for the task, employed to
translate the same Ancient into their own language, with this rule to
guide them. In the event it would be found, that each had fallen on a
manner different from that of all the rest, and by probable inference
it would follow that none had fallen on the right. On the whole,
therefore, as has been said, the translation which partakes equally of
fidelity and liberality, that is close, but not so close as to be
servile, free, but not so free as to be licentious, promises fairest;
and my ambition will be sufficiently gratified, if such of my readers
as are able, and will take the pains to compare me in this respect
with HOMER, shall judge that I have in any measure attained a point so
difficult.

As to energy and harmony, two grand requisites in a translation of
this most energetic and most harmonious of all poets, it is neither my
purpose nor my wish, should I be found deficient in either, or in
both, to shelter myself under an unfilial imputation of blame to my
mother-tongue. Our language is indeed less musical than the Greek, and
there is no language with which I am at all acquainted that is not.
But it is musical enough for the purposes of melodious verse, and if
it seem to fail, on whatsoever occasion, in energy, the blame is due,
not to itself, but to the unskilful manager of it. For so long as
Milton's works, whether his prose or his verse, shall exist, so long
there will be abundant proof that no subject, however important,
however sublime, can demand greater force of expression than is within
the compass of the English language.