And ran into the dark herself to hide ;
(Rich jewels in the dark are soonest spied)
Unto her was he led, or rather, drawn
By those white limbs which sparkled through the lawn," &c.

How much more truly is this in the genuine nature of woman, and therefore how much more lovely to a healthy mind than either those outrageous personifications of ill-timed chastity, so common in romances ten or twelve years ago, or that unrestrained prostitution of the person which seems considered so venial by Percy B. Shelley and Co. -The two lines

"Then standing at the door she turn'd about As loth to see Leander going out :"

contain a pretty illustration of the extreme of love:-some of our diluting modern writers would have spun out this light touch to a fine length. What a brilliant fancy shines out in the following verses :

"The men of wealthy Sestos, every year,
For his sake, whom their goddess held so dear,
Rose-cheek'd Adonis, kept a solemn feast;
Thither resorted many a wand'red guest

DEDICATION.

To the greatest genius born since the glorious day of Michel-Agnolo,

HENRY FUSELI, ESQ. A. M.

AND P. P. ROY. ACAD.

who, in his embodied conception of Hero and Leander, has raised mortal passion to the sublime, by its burning intensity, this little revival is offered, as an unworthy but sincere testimony of the deepest admiration for the diversified powers of his mind and art.

The Binder will cut, out this leaf and place it before the

Preface.

1

To meet their loves :-such as had none at all,
Came lovers home from that great festival.

For every street, like to a firmament,

Glister'd with breathing stars,

But far above the loveliest Hero shin'd,
And stole away th' enchanted gazer's mind :

*

Nor that night-wandering, pale, and watery star,
(When yawning dragons draw her whirling car,
From Latmos' mount, up to the gloomy sky,
Where crown'd with blazing light and majesty
She proudly sits) more over-rules the flood,
Than she the hearts of those that near her stood."

But this preface swells apace, and the conclusion seems to retire before me as I advance like an ignis fatuus. Chapman's portion still hangs on my hands, but I shall dispatch him in a few words, both on account of what has been heretofore said of him in the preface to his Hymns of Homer, and for the sake of the reader, who has been all-too-long amused with vain speeches in the cold portico of our theatre. It appears almost idle to point out where the supplement commences, as the style of our noble English Homer quickly betrays itself*.-His crowds of bold and violent figures, which jostle one another in their turbulent birth,-his swelling fancies, and his dry, square, axioms, giving the lie, as it were, to his enthusiasm. The usual metaphor of thoughts "flowing from the brain" can never be used in writing of Chapman's inventive process. His images and conceptions spout forth as from the crater of a volcano, hurling in the blast, at once, bright fire and dusky smoke, -live coals and dry ashes. The English language has not a more unequal poet:-one instant finds him familiar, low, -bolting inelegant conceits, and gross hyperboles; the next, soaring aloft in bardic majesty, full of true passion and vigorous feelings. In his most pathetic scenes he suddenly strikes us into ice, with a philo

* The following allusion to Chapman's share in the present translation, occurs in "England's Mourning Garment," &c. [1606.]

"Neither doth Coryn, full of worth and wit,
That finisht dead Musæus' gracious song,
With grace as great, and words and verse as fit,
Chide meager death for doing vertue wrong."