TO MR. THOMAS HAYLEY.
Weston, March 14, 1793.
My dear little Critic,—I thank you heartily for your observations, on which I set a higher value, because they have instructed me as much, and have entertained me more, than all the other strictures of our public judges in these matters. Perhaps I am not much more pleased with shameless wolf, &c., than you. But what is to be done, my little man? Coarse as the expressions are, they are no more than equivalent to those of Homer. The invective of the ancients was never tempered with good manners, as your papa can tell you; and my business, you know, is not to be more polite than my author, but to represent him as closely as I can.
Dishonour'd foul I have wiped away, for the reason you give, which is a very just one, and the present reading is this,
Who had dared dishonour thus
The life itself, &c.
Your objection to kindler of the fires of heaven I had the good fortune to anticipate, and expunged the dirty ambiguity some time since, wondering not a little that I had ever admitted it.
The fault you find with the two first verses of Nestor's speech discovers such a degree of just discernment that, but for your papa's assurance to the contrary, I must have suspected him as the author of that remark: much as I should have respected it, if it had been so, I value it, I assure you, my little friend, still more as yours. In the new edition the passage will be found thus altered:
Alas! great sorrow falls on Greece to-day!
Priam, and Priam's sons, with all in Troy—
Oh! how will they exult, and in their hearts
Triumph, once hearing of this broil between
The prime of Greece, in council and in arms!
Where the word reel suggests to you the idea of a drunken mountain, it performs the service to which I destined it. It is a bold metaphor; but justified by one of the sublimest passages in scripture, compared with the sublimity of which even that of Homer suffers humiliation.
It is God himself who, speaking, I think, by the prophet Isaiah, says,
"The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard."[693]
With equal boldness in the same scripture, the poetry of which was never equalled, mountains are said to skip, to break out into singing, and the fields to clap their hands. I intend, therefore, that my Olympus shall be still tipsy.
The accuracy of your last remark, in which you convicted me of a bull, delights me. A fig for all critics but you! The blockheads could not find it. It shall stand thus:—
First spake Polydamus——
Homer was more upon his guard than to commit such a blunder, for he says,
ηρχ' αγορευειν.
And now, my dear little censor, once more accept my thanks. I only regret that your strictures are so few, being just and sensible as they are.
Tell your papa that he shall hear from me soon. Accept mine and my dear invalid's affectionate remembrances.
Ever yours,
W. C.