n him
as great and true thinking, as much Theosophy or Light upon the
hidden things, as there is in Virgil for example. I doubt he was
an initiate, to understand in that life and with his conscious
mind the truths that make men free. Plato did not altogether
approve of him; and where Plato dared lead, we others need not
fear to follow. I think the great Master-Poets of the world have
been such because, with supreme insight into the hidden, they
presented a great Master-Symbol of the Human Soul. I believe
that in the Iliad Homer gives us nothing of that sort; and that
therefore, in a certain sense, he is constantly over-rated. He
pays the penalty of his over-whelming reputation: his fame is
chiefly in the mouths of those who know him not at all, and
use their hats for speaking-trumpets. We have in English no
approximately decent translation of him. Someone said that Pope
served him as Puck served Bully Bottom, what time Peter Quince
was moved to cry: "Bless thee Bottom, how thou art translated!"
It is not so; to call Pope an ass would be to wrong a faithful
and patient quadruped; than which Pope was as much greater in
intellect as he was less in all qualities that call for true
respect. Yet often we applaud Homer, only upon a knowledge of
Pope; and it is safe to say that if you love Pope you would
loathe Homer. Pope held that water should manifest, so to say,
through Kew or Versailles fountains; but it was essentially to
be from the Kitchen-tap--or even from the sewer. Homer was more
familiar with it thundering on the precipices, or lisping on the
yellow sands of time-forgotten Mediterranean islands. Which
pronunciation do you prefer for his often-recurring and famous
sea-epithet: the thunder-on-the-precipices of
_poluphloisboio thalasses,_
or the lisping-on-the-sands of
_ poluphleesbeeo thalassace?_
(pardon the attempted phonetics).--For truly there are advocates
of either; but neither I suppose would have appealed much to
Mr. Pope.
As to his sty