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."
Here you see it is the Anger of Achilles, that does all that is mentioned in three or four Lines. Now if the Translator does not nicely observe Homer's Stile in this Passage, all the Fire of Homer will be lost. For Example: "O Heavenly Goddess, sing the Wrath of the Son of Peleus, the fatal Source of all the Woes of the Grecians, that Wrath which sent the Souls of many Heroes to Pluto's gloomy Empire, while their Bodies lay upon the Shore, and were torn by devouring Dogs, and hungry Vultures."
Here you see the Spirit of Homer evaporates; and in what immediately follows, if the Stile of Homer is not nicely attended to, if any great matter is added or left out, Homer will be fought for in vain in the Translation. He always hurries on as fast as possible, as Horace justly observes, semper ad eventum festinat; and that is the reason why he introduces his first Speech without any Connection, by a sudden Transition; and why he so often brings in his [τòν δ’ απαμηβόμενος]: He has not patience to stay to work his Speeches artfully into the Subject.
Here you see what is a rapid Stile. I will now[page 3] shew you what is quite the contrary, that is, a majestic one. To instance in Virgil: "Arms and the Man I sing; the first who from the Shores of Troy (the Fugitive of Heav'n) came to Italy and the Lavinian Coast." Here you perceive the Subject-matter is retarded by the Inversion of the Phrase, and by that Parenthesis, the Fugitive of Heaven all which occasions Delay; and Delay (as a learned Writer upon a Passage of this nature in Tasso observes) is the Property of Majesty: For which Reason when Virgil represents Dido in her greatest Pomp, it is,
—Reginam cunctantem ad limina primi