In dreadful Secrecy impart they did.
The Auxiliary Verb is here very properly made use of; and it would be a great loss to English Poetry, if it were to be wholly laid aside. In Translations from the Greek and Latin, I believe it wou'd sometimes be impossible to do justice to an Author without this Help: I think the Passage in Homer before us, I mean the two first Lines of the Iliad, are an Instance of this kind. They have been translated by many Persons of late, Dryden,[page 11] Manwaring, Mr. Tickel, and by Mr. Pope twice, and not by any one of 'em, as I apprehend, in the Spirit of Homer. As to Mr. Pope's two Translations, I don't understand why the latter ought to be preferr'd to the former. Mr. Pope's first Translation stood thus.
The Wrath of Peleus' Son, the direful Spring
Of all the Grecian Woes, O Goddess sing.
Mr. Pope had reason to be dissatisfy'd with the O in the second Line, and to reject it; for Homer has nothing of it. But now let us see how the Vacancy is supplied in Mr. Pope's new Translation.
Achilles' Wrath, to Greece the direful Spring
Of Woes un-number'd, Heav'nly Goddess, sing.
Is not Heav'nly as much an Expletive as O, and can either of these Couplets deserve to be plac'd in the Front of the Iliad? I could wish Mr. Pope would return these two Lines once more to the Anvil, and dismiss all Expletives here at least. But enough of Expletives.
I shall now say something of Monosyllables, which seem to be absolutely condemn'd in the second Line of the two Verses just mention'd from Mr. Pope's Essay on Criticism.
And ten low Words oft creep in one dull Line.