Description | Taylor has read Herschel's Book 2 [of 'The Iliad'] but wished to read it again before replying. His ignorance precludes any criticisms of it as a translation, and he feels the same way about it as Book 1, which Herschel sent in May 1862. He is impressed with the melodiousness of the verse in Book 2, and the Catalogue affords the best opportunity by varying English diction with Greek names. In any verse a mixture of languages will make a more varied melody. In [John] Milton's master roll of the devils, which Taylor thinks imitates Homer, the names are similarly effective, while [Edmund] Spenser uses classical names, quoting an appropriate section [from 'Amoretti and Epithalamion']. He has long thought that composite languages have advantages for verse: 'Mixed races & crossed breeds of men make superior Nations & it may be from some analogous causes that they make superior languages'. He had written the foregoing before finding that domestic anxieties were pressing upon Herschel and the moment was wrong to send a literary letter. He hopes that these anxieties are at an end and he does not like to leave his thanks for the book any longer. |