Here all that does of Xanthus stream remain,
Creeps a small brook along the dusty plain.
While careless and securely on they pass,
The Phrygian guide forbids to press the grass;
This place, he said, for ever sacred keep,
For here the sacred bones of Hector sleep:
Then warns him to observe, where rudely cast,
Disjointed stones lay broken and defac’d.
Rowe’s Lucan.
Yet the Pharsalia by Rowe is, on the whole, one of the best of the modern translations of the classics. Though sometimes diffuse and paraphrastical, it is in general faithful to the sense of the original; the language is animated, the verse correct and melodious; and when we consider the extent of the work, it is not unjustly characterised by Dr. Johnson, as “one of the greatest productions of English poetry.”