just entered on it, and therefore can at present say little about it. It is a very creditable one in itself, and may I but acquit myself of it with sufficiency, it will do me honour. The commentator's part however is a new one to me, and one that I little thought to appear in. Remember your promise that I shall see you in the spring. The Hall has been full of company ever since. you went, and at present my Catharina is there singing and playing like an angel. LETTER CXLVII. To JOSEPH HILL, Esqr. MY DEAR FRIEND, W. C. Nov. 14, 1791. I have waited and wished for your opinion with the feelings that belong to the value I have for it, and am very happy to find it so favorable. In my table-drawer I treasure up a bundle of suffrages, sent me by those of whose approbation `VOL. 3. Ꮓ I was most ambitious, and shall presently insert yours among them. I know not why we should quarrel with compound epithets ; it is certain, at least, they are as agreeable to the genius of our language as to that of the Greek, which is sufficiently proved by their being admitted into our common and colloquial dialect. Blackeyed, nut-brown, crook-shanked, hump-backed, are all compound epithets, and, together with a thousand other such, are used continually, even by those who profess a dislike to such combinations in poetry. Why then do they treat with so much familiarity, a thing that they say disgusts them? I doubt if they could give this question a reasonable answer; unless they should answer it by confessing themselves unreasonable. I have made a considerable progress in the translation of Milton's Latin poems. I give them as opportunity offers, all the variety of measure that I can. Some I render in heroic rhyme, some in stanzas, some in seven, and some in eight syllable measure, and some in blank-verse. They will altogether, I hope, make an agreeable miscellany for the English reader. They are certainly good in themselves, and cannot fail to please, but by the fault of their two cordials; for what can better deserve that name than the cordial approbation of two such readers, as your brother, the bishop, and your good friend and neighbour the clergyman? The former I have ever esteemed and honored with the justest cause, and am as ready to honour and esteem the latter as you can wish me to be, and as his wishes and talents deserve. Do I hate a parson? Heaven forbid! I love you all when you are good for any thing, and as to the rest, I would mend them if I could, and that is the worst of my intentions towards them. I heard above a month since that this first edi tion of my work was at that time nearly sold. It will not therefore, I presume, be long before I must go to press again. This I mention merely from an earnest desire to avail myself of all other strictures that either your good neighbour, Lord Bagot, the bishop, or yourself, πάντων ἐκπαγλότατ ̓ ἀνδρῶν, may happen to have made, and will be so good as to favour me with. Those of the good Evander contained in your last have served me well, and I have already in the three different places referred to, accommodated the text to them. And this I have done in one instance even a little against the biass of my own opinion. Ἐλθὼν σὺν πλεόνεσσι ἐγὼ δέ κεν αυτὸς ἕλωμαι The sense I had given of these words is the sense in which an old sholiast has understood them, as appears in Clarke's note in loco. Clarke indeed prefers the other, but it does not appear plain to me that he does it with good reason against the judgment of a very antient commentator, and a Grecian. And I am the rather inclined to this persuasion because Achilles himself seems to have apprehended that Agamemon would not content himself with Briscis only, when he says, But I have OTHER precious things on board, Of THESE take NONE away without my leave, &c. It is certain that the words are ambiguous, and that the sense of them depends altogether on the punctuation. But I am always under the correction of so able a critic as your neigbour, and have altered, as I say, my version accordingly. I As to Milton, the die is cast. I am engaged, have bargained with Johnson, and cannot recede. should otherwise have been glad to do as you advise, to make the translation of his Latin and Italian, part of another volume; for, with such an addition, I have nearly as much verse in my budget as would be required for the purpose. This squabble, in the mean time, between Fuseli and Boydell does not interest me at all; let it terminate as it may, I have only to perform my job, and leave the event to be decided by the combatants. Suave mari magno turbantibus æquora ventis |