we have the far greater poet working no longer against the laws of his art, but with them; and at once his general superiority asserts itself. The strain we hear is in a higher mood than the lovely playfulness of the "Delia:" harsh as the German language is in quality compared with the Greek, like pudding stone against Carrara marble (we will complete the contrast shortly), the perfect congruity between words and feeling, sense and sound, which Goethe's art or inspiration has effected in the Elegy," satisfies the mind and saturates it with pleasure; it reminds us of Keats, with his "music groaning like a god in pain" it is, in short, the lawful instrument, touched by the great master. Is not this what poetry should be to us?

I have dwelt at some length upon this point, because, if the most strenuous advocate for the English (accentual) hexameter advances as his main and sufficient reason that there is no cause why English should not adapt itself to that metre as well as the German does, it is desirable to show how far the German, in the best pieces of its best master, does really adapt itself. Goethe's success in it certainly appears to me not one atom better (as a metrical experiment) than Southey's or Longfellow's, Clough's or Swinburne's the different degrees of natural ability in the men seem to count for nothing in the rhythmical result; and this is exactly what we must find, if one and all are working against the fundamental laws of their art. I have no doubt that had Titian modelled one of his pictures in coloured relief, the work would have been nothing better than an unpleasing curiosity real artists rarely try such tricks; they find their art, when pursued in its most legitimate manner, quite sufficient to engross them; and the number of poems written in pseudoclassical forms by Goethe and his contemporaries is one of the points which give some colour to the criticism made upon the German literature of their time, that it "belongs to an Alexandrian

that, well as the German adapts itself to hexameters, the English, "from its greater rapidity, is in itself better "suited for them." Let me, therefore, take an English specimen or two; which, that Mr. Arnold's view may be presented in the most favourable light, shall be selected from his own picked examples-nay, from those which he has himself, with courage worthy of a sounder cause, contributed in support of his argument:

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; Polydeukes brave with the cestus

Own dear brethren of mine--one parent loved us as infants.

Mr. Arnold remarks, on these lines, that "Dr. Hawtrey's version is suffused "with a pensive grace which is, per

66

haps, rather more Virgilian 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 hexameters.”

I am presently going to be cruel enough to transcribe the "original effect" which Mr. Arnold finds here at least so far reproduced as to make him the advocate for the employment of this metre, that the reader may decide whether it is more truly there (rhythmically) than the effect of Tibullus' elegiacs is in Goethe's. But I quote first a specimen of the lecturer's own accentual hexameter ::

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 sate fifty men, in the ruddy light of the fire;

By their chariots stood the steeds, and champ'd the white barley While their masters sate by the fire, and waited for Morning.

Now, in comparing these typical ex

those of hexameter-to-the-ear, it may be remarked that, whilst Goethe's lines offend one most by the mode in which the metre is made to convert harsh and heavy monosyllables, as long as long can be, into what we are to take for the easy gliding of the dactyl (as his kind du dem Spiele, and ruft nicht so gern), Dr. Hawtrey's are equally vitiated by consisting of little except the dactylic cadence, which makes them, in the long run, as tripping and trivial (in metrical effect) as Longfellow's "Evangeline" "a false gallop of verse," as Touchstone said; not by any means the noble rapidity of Homer. Nor can this be avoided in a language like our own, which accent has ruled for five hundred years; we are hardly capable of dwelling on the second syllable of our words so as to produce a spondee; we do not grow the thing: it is only now and then that Dr. Hawtrey reaches a "dark-eyed" or a "Two, two" (which may pass in a way as real spondees), and we feel at once that these have been reached by a great exercise of tasteful ingenuity; the non-classical reader who looks for nothing but accent, probably dances over them without notice, even if he has been so fortunate as to recognize that the lines have a definite metre at all. Mr. Arnold is alive to this defect; he probably is also aware that a series of dactyls (~|~~~) in English (owing to the general run of our accent), is practically read into a metre of totally different effect, the anapaestic(); and he hence tried to force his own accentual spondees more largely into the verse. But through the impossibility of extemporizing a system of quantity out of materials that take their form and pressure from accent, his hexameter, though by a kind of optical illusion (if he will allow me the phrase), more like the genuine hexameter, in reality reads even less like it (to my ear) than Dr. Hawtrey's, because it reads less like a definite metre at all. We are expected to pronounce, unless a spondaic termination be intended,—(and the fact that here and elsewhere Mr. Arnold's own scansion is subject to a doubt, in

itself demonstrates the nullity of his metre),

Só shone fórth, in front of Troy, by the bed of Xanthus : I

whilst not only to the non-classical reader, but to the reader who is in the secret of the metre intended, the line would more naturally run

So shone forth, | in front of Troy, by the béd of Xanthus :

where, except by the arrangement of the words, one would in fact hardly recognize that we were not, like M. Jourdain, speaking prose without knowing it. Between | thát and the ships is similarly inverted in accentual quantity; we have to scan the line as we go to escape the Between that | and the ships which the "natural man can hardly avoid, all the chairs of poetry in Europe notwithstanding. Numerous firés, where one must compel into a marked dissyllable a word which is barely more than monosyllabic, as we presently have to read chariots into a full dactyl: In the plain, There sate, accent again inverted that short words may be prosodized into long... Well! if writers so accomplished in verse and in Greek as Dr. Hawtrey and Mr. Arnold cannot give us a more genuine or readable metre than this, I fear the cause of the accentual hexameter must be considered as in difficulties. And if now we hear Rome speak-much more Greece-may we not regard that cause as definitely over ?—

Or, if Homer be so high that, like Shakespeare, he must be looked to rather as a star than as a beacon, take the metre, lastly, in late hands and an artificial literary period, and ask whether any of these accentual hexameters are one degree nearer the Theocritean rhythm than they are to the deep-sea music of the Iliad or the Georgics?

Αλλ' ἀφίκου τύ ποτ ̓ ἄμμε, καὶ ἐξεῖς οὐδὲν ἔλασσον·

τὴν γλαυκὰν δὲ θάλασσαν ἔα ποτὶ χέρσον ὀρεχθῆν·

ἅδιον ἐν τὤντρῳ παρ' ἐμὶν τὴν νύκτα διαξεῖς. ἐντὶ δάφναι τηνεί, ἐντὶ ῥαδιναὶ κυπάρισσοι, ἐντὶ μέλας κισσὸς, ἔντ ̓ ἄμπελος & γλυκύκαρπος ἐντὶ ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ, τό μοι ὁ πολυδένδρεος Αἴτνα λευκᾶς ἐκ χιόνος, ποτὸν ἀμβρόσιον, προΐητι. Τίς κἄν τῶνδε θάλασσαν ἔχειν ἢ κύμαθ' ἕλοιτο ;

Alas! this is surely quite another music from that which even Goethe has given us; we could almost worship the poet who can sing with so exquisite an instrument; we are ready to say with Endymion

By thee will I sit

For ever let our fate stop here !

and we feel it would be inhuman to set once more the performance of our English friends against that original for which (putting Mr. Arnold's argument at the lowest, the most modest, point of urgency) he would fain persuade us that he has produced a fair, a moderate, an endurable substitute.

I am sorry to have had to quote so much Greek; but, when Greek metres are in question, it would have been only beating the air, and unjust to the accomplished critic towards whom I regret here to find myself in antagonism, not to confront the accentual hexameter with the quantitative. Absolutely baseless as his theory-nay, even injurious as a radically wrong direction given to our poetry by one of its very few authoritative judges-must, however, seem to me, when we look at it as a real approximation to Homer or Virgil, it is very unlikely that Mr. Arnold would have brought it forward without what at least seemed to him a powerful

ingly be found in his "Lectures." Upon various grounds (most of which have been here noticed), he holds the proper English metres severally inapplicable to a satisfactory translation of Homer. But what is a satisfactory translation? "It is disputed," he very justly begins by saying, "what aim a "translator should propose to himself "in dealing with his original." Several such aims are then discussed, and dismissed with the remark, that " my one object is to give practical advice to a "translator; and I shall not the least concern myself with theories of trans"lation as such." I fail to perceive how "theories" here differ from "aims," and suppose that the last sentence quoted may be intended as a concession to the "practical" spirit of the age; anyhow, Mr. Arnold presently prescribes

the aim which he thinks the translator should work towards-defining it thus:

"Let him ask how his work affects "those who both know Greek, and can appreciate poetry." This Mr. Arnold considers a clear and practical piece of advice; this is an unambiguous tribunal; and it is with a view to such judges-the late Dr. Hawtrey, Dr. Thompson, of Trinity, and Mr. Jowett, of Balliol, being named as examplesthat he proceeds to elect the English hexameter as the sole admissible metre ; --with what results we have just seen.

Now I am sure that even Mr. Arnold cannot think with more reverence than I do of the eminent friends above named, nor esteem their judgment more highly. But-unless we suppose that the translator is to have the same privilege of friendship, and that the judges would be willing to exercise it in his favour upon the manuscript laid before them -I am unable to see how he can find any practical assistance from the tribunal. To ask oneself what Professor or Mr. is likely to think of the translation upon one's writing-table, appears to me just as unmeaning a question as that which Mr. Arnold may have heard often raised at Oxford ten years

being reformed,-" What would our founder," who lived in the fourteenth century, "have thought of allowing an Australian to compete for a fellowship?" Every one knows that such questions are simply (though most honestly) put in order that the inaudible and inacessible tribunal may give a reply which shall echo the inquirer's own prepossession. "By confining the fellowship to persons born in Rutlandshire he cer"tainly intended to exclude persons "born in Victoria." May I be permitted to conjecture that Mr. Arnold's ingeniously-framed court of appeal, by the nature of things, can only have been evoked by him in a similar manner? Can we not be allowed to doubt whether Dr. Hawtrey (were he still spared to English scholarship), Dr. Thompson, and Mr. Jowett, would avow themselves equally compliant towards the metre in which the picture of the Trojans in camp has been rendered? Might we not, with equal ease (if they will excuse a similar license of conjecture), imagine these excellent judges saying, "At least give us an English translation in a genuine native rhythm; spare us the jolts of the German hexameter, or the jig of the English; we find both equally wearisome and anti-poetical; the greater our familiarity with the ancient metre (if you will have it so), the less can we endure this caricature of its external form, this letter without the spirit of antiquity. The writer in Macmillan's Magazine has urged some strong arguments against your theory; we are not sure whether he has not disposed of it. And why," we may even fancy them

going on, "select scholars as the ultimate tribunal ? It is true that they can judge of the fidelity shown; but this is only saying in another way that the translation should be accurate, upon which every one is agreed. Like any other artist, like the poet himself, the translator writes for the general public; scholars can read the original for themselves the great object is, to attract those who wish to know, or would be the better for knowing, something of the Iliad or the Eneid. We are all at one about fidelity; to be pedantic, dull, or affected are the deadly sins in a translator; the end of ends in poetry is pleasure; make your version attractive; give English people a readable Homer."

The reader will see that, following Mr. Arnold's example, I also have made. a reference to his tribunal, and that now the judges, naturally enough (though quite without consciousness on their part), return an answer conformable to the sentiments of the present writer. Seriously, in the words above, I have briefly stated the aim which it seems to me the translator from the Greek or Latin poetry should in general keep before him. To produce a version which shall interest those who cannot read the original at all, or cannot read it with pleasure, and which shall at the same time possess the greatest degree of faithfulness maintainable under this condition, appears to me that aim. How far Mr. Conington has attained it, with a few words upon the importance of it when attained, is left for our further consideration.

CHAPTER XXVI.

MRS. MORGAN.

I BELIEVE that Mr. Betts, in his ignorance, actually thought that Arthur's work at St. Mary's would be lighter than that at Balliol. It is impossible that Arthur could have thought so, but he may have thought that some change in the form of his eager activity would amount to a kind of rest: for of rest, consisting of actual quiescence, he was utterly incapable. It was known to but very few, of whom his father was one, that on several occasions he had fainted. The first doctor he had consulted on this alarming sympton, had spoken so very gravely of the symptoms that he had found it necessary at last to tell his father, which he did the day before James arrived at Silcote. Another doctor, however, had given a more cheering account; there had been no recurrence of the symptoms; and here he was fairly installed lord and master of the new regime.

:

His buildings were not quite finished, but his boys were due. He had been three days there, and in those three days there had been some fifty waking hours: and, in that time, if Arthur had evolved from his steam-engine brain one scheme for making matters better, he had evolved fifty one an hour certainly. He was a little anxious about his appearance; the glass told him that he looked younger than a great many schoolboys. He found himself, therefore, uncommonly apt to stand on his dignity this evening; but there was no one to show off on except poor Algy, and he was no use. Any one could bully him.

However, he walked across the moon

THE HILLYARS AND THE

It was a pleasant house, opening out of the cloisters, and looking down on the lake. The children were in bed. He found his brother reading in his handsome crimson-furnished study. He was glad to see his dear old friend so well-housed and comfortable after his troubles; and he said—

"How do you think you shall like this new life, Algernon?"

"Not at all," was the reply.

His

This was scarcely encouraging. brother did not seem inclined for talking. as well go and see how the matron was getting on; and so he went towards the dormitory, where he expected to find her busy. There was a light in one of the sixth-form studies, and he directed his feet that way. "I wonder where she is, and what she is like," he asked himself. "By the bye, they say that she is something very superior."

It occurred to him that he might

Here she was at last, putting one of the sixth-form boys' studies tidy: a most remarkable-looking woman indeed. As Arthur saw the face, it was the face of a woman who had been beautiful: a very powerful and resolute face even now. She was quite grey, and wore her hair banded back into a knot behind. Her dress was grey, of a somewhat superior texture, and she wore a long grey shawl, which nearly covered everything, pinned close up to her throat; hair, shawl, and gown all nearly the same colour. She had no ornaments about her except a white cross, which hung at her side; and Arthur, seeing a lady before him, immediately took off his cap, and made his best bow all the schoolmasterism knocked out of him at once. She crossed her arms on her bosom, and bowed reve