So silent fountains, from a rock’s tall head,
In sable streams soft-trickling waters shed.
Iliad ix. 19.
His clanging armour rung.
Iliad xii. 94.
Fear on their cheek, and horror in their eye.
Iliad xv. 4.
The blaze of armour flash’d against the day.
Iliad xvii. 736.
As when the piercing blasts of Boreas blow.
Iliad xix. 380.
And like the moon, the broad refulgent shield
Blaz’d with long rays, and gleam’d athwart the field.
Iliad xix. 402.
No—could our swiftness o’er the winds prevail,
Or beat the pinions of the western gale,
All were in vain——
Iliad xix. 460.
The humid sweat from ev’ry pore descends.
Iliad xxiii. 829.
Redundant epithets, such as humid, in the last citation, are by Quintilian disallowed to orators, but indulged to poets[42]; because his favourite poets, in a few instances, are reduced to such epithets for the sake of versification. For instance, Prata canis albicant pruinis, of Horace, and liquidos fontes, of Virgil.
As an apology for such careless expressions, it may well suffice, that Pope, in submitting to be a translator, acts below his genius. In a translation, it is hard to require the same spirit or accuracy, that is chearfully bestowed on an original work. And to support the reputation of this author, I shall give some instances from Virgil and Horace, more faulty by redundancy than any of those above mentioned: