Letters Concerning Poetical Translations / And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c.

SIR ,
am now going to obey your Commands; but you must let me do it in my own way, that is, write as much, or as little at a time as I may have an Inclination to, and just as things offer themselves. After this manner you may receive in a few Letters, all that I have said to you about poetical Translations, and the resemblance there is between Virgil's and Milton's Versification, and some other Matters of the same nature.
To begin with the Business of Translation.
Whoever sits down to translate a Poet, ought in the first place to consider his Author's peculiar Stile ; for without this, tho' the Translation may be very good in all other respects, it will hardly deserve the Name of a Translation.
The Stile is rapid , when several Relatives, each at the head of a separate Sentence, are governed by one Antecedent, or several Verbs by one Nominative Case, to the close of the Period.
Thus in Homer :
Goddess, sing the pernicious Anger of Achilles ,
which brought infinite Woes to the Grecians ,
and sent many valiant Souls of Heroes to Hell,
and gave their Bodies to the Dogs, and to the
Fowls of the Air.