travelling expenses, I should be very happy if you would set him down at Ithaca. You give us every minutiæ and no circumlocution.' (The end of the letter has been cut away.') Southey expressed himself as follows: 'Keswick, December 14, 1810. 'Dear Sir,-I ought long ago to have thanked you for your little volume. Without comparing the versification to Pope's in point of high finishing, I can truly say that I think it a versification of a better kind-flowing more naturally, less monotonous and therefore less wearying. Charles [Lloyd] I perceive has marked several passages in my copy as imperfect rhymes, I cannot consider them as blemishes; it is from the French that our critics have learnt to condemn them, and a comparison of Here, in spite of its irrelevance, might be quoted a passage from another of Catherine Hutton's infrequent letters to Mr. Lloyd. With reference to Clarkson's History of the Quakers, a work in which Mr. Lloyd naturally took great interest, she wrote wittily, in 1808: 'I have read Clarkson through with great pleasure. Almost he persuades me-not to be a Quaker, but to wish I had been born and bred one.' For much interesting matter concerning Catherine Hutton, the reader is referred to two books by Mrs. C. H. Beale : 'Reminiscences of a Gentlewoman of the Last Century,' and C Catherine Hutton and Her Friends.' their theory of verse with that of other countries would prove that the objection proceeds rather from obtuseness of ear than from delicacy. The only thing I should object to in your lines is when you occasionally pronounce what use has made a mute syllable, for instance: Not unobserved by the noble maid. There is a license which of late years I have never allowed myself. 'I hope you will find leisure to complete what you have begun. The Odyssey is a delightful poem, and the most delightful parts of it are yet to come. And tho' there is a richness and fulness in the Greek hexameter which no English metre can imitate (and least of all the couplet, which I hold to be the very worst possible metre for narration) yet your version represents Homer more faithfully than either Pope or Cowper: the stiffness of the latter is as unlike the original, as the finery of the former. the Odyssey' in 1816; but only the first seven books were printed. At the beginning of the manuscript volume which contains the translation the date on which each of the twenty-four books was finished has been recorded by the author. The composition of the 14,591 lines of which they consist extended over a period of eight years. 223 XIV MR. LLOYD'S 'HORACE 1812-1813 ALTHOUGH intent upon Homer, Mr. Lloyd had dallied also with Horace, and in 1812 he issued, for private circulation, a slender volume in boards: "The Epistles of Horace : Translated into English Verse.' Six of these renderings had appeared from time to time in the 'Gentleman's Magazine,' and Lamb, it will be remembered, had complimented Mr. Lloyd upon one of them (see p. 212), and had urged him to continue his Horatian studies. Hence Mr. Lloyd's volume, when ready, was instantly despatched to London for Lamb's opinion. Lamb replied forthwith: 'India House, Tuesday, 8 Sep., 1812. 'Dear Sir, I return you thanks for your little Book. I am no great Latinist, but you appear to me to have very happily caught the Horatian manner. Some of them I had seen before. What gave me most satisfaction has been the 14th Epistle (its easy and Gentlemanlike beginning, particularly), and perhaps next to that, the Epistle to Augustus, which reads well even after Pope's delightful Imitation of it. What I think the least finish'd is the 18th Epistle. It is a metre which never gave me much pleasure.' I like your eight syllable verses very much. They suit the Epistolary style quite as well as the ten. I am only sorry not to find the Satires in the same volume. I hope we may expect them. I proceed to find some few oversights, if you will indulge me, or what seem so to me, for I have neglected my Latin (and quite lost my Greek) since I left construing it at School. I will take them as I find them mark'd in order.' But here, before turning to the textual comments, may be quoted the Epistle which best pleased the critic-the Fourteenth : TO MY STEWARD Steward of my woods and self-restoring farm, (Despised by thee) which formerly was warm This is the metre: If rightly I know thee, thou wilt not offend, |