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Thus Hector spoke; the Trojans shouted loud,
Then from the yoke the sweating steeds they loosed,
And tethered each beside their several cars.
Next from the city speedily they brought
Oxen and sheep, the luscious wine procured,
Brought bread from out their houses, and good store
Of fuel gathered. Wafted from the plain
The winds to heaven the savoury odours bore.
Full of proud hopes, upon the pass of war

All night they camped, and frequent blazed their fires.
As when in heaven around the glittering moon
The stars shine bright amid the breathless air,
And every crag and every jutting peak
Stands boldly forth, and every forest glade.
Ev'n to the gates of heaven is opened wide
The boundless sky; shines each particular star
Distinct; joy fills the gazing shepherd's heart;
So bright, so thickly scattered o'er the plain
Before the walls of Troy, between the ships
And Xanthus' stream, the Trojans' watchfires blazed.
A thousand fires burnt brightly, and round each

Sat fifty warriors in the ruddy glare;

With store of provender before them laid,

Barley and rye, the tethered horses stood

Beside the cars, and waited for the morn.' (Bk. viii. 1. 643.) Lord Derby has rightly avoided any comparison of the Trojan host to the sea, and the particular distinction of each star brings out the full force of apiтрeжéа. If he has failed to render exactly the words which tell of the sudden clearing of the sky, his failure is shared by Mr. Tennyson and Mr. Wright, while Mr. Norgate's usual ruggedness neutralises the effect of his accuracy.

Not a few among the readers of this translation may be tempted to think that Lord Derby's care has been chiefly devoted to a finished rendering of the Homeric similes; but that his happiest efforts are not confined to such passages is amply proved by the truly splendid lines which describe the onset of Hector on the defences of the Achæans with the huge rock in his hands, at the close of the twelfth Book of the Iliad:'Close to the gate he stood, and planting firm His foot to give his arm its utmost power, Full on the middle dashed the mighty mass. The hinges both gave way: the ponderous stone Fell inwards: widely gap'd the opening gates; Nor might the bars within the blow sustain : This way and that the severed portals flew Before the crashing missile. Dark as night His lowering brow, great Hector sprang within;

Bright flashed the brazen armour on his breast,
As through the gates, two jav'lins in his hand,
He sprang the gods except, no power might meet
That onset; blazed his eyes with lurid fire.
Then to the Trojans, turning to the throng,
He called aloud to scale the lofty wall.'

No doubt even here it would be possible to fasten on a few expressions which do not strictly represent those of the original. Homer speaks of Hector not as wishing to give his arm its utmost power, but as anxious that his weapon should not fall short of its mark, and again he describes the hinges not merely as giving way, but as torn off by the force of the blow. But these are really no defects, while the lines bring before us the marvellous succession of terrific images, each heightening the effect of that which has gone before, until we feel that no other English translation has thus enabled us to enter into the full spirit of Homer himself.

Of all the splendid incidents in the Iliad few are more magnificent than the arming of Achilles: and the original has lost little of its power, its grace, and its beauty in Lord Derby's hands:

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'Thick as the snow-flakes that from heaven descend
Before the sky-born Boreas' chilling blast,

So thick outpouring from the ships, the stream

Of helmets polished bright, and bossy shields

And breastplates firmly brac'd, and ashen spears:

Their brightness flashed to heaven, and laughed the earth
Beneath the brazen glare. Loud rang the tramp

Of armèd men, Achilles in the midst,

The godlike chief, in dazzling arms arrayed.

His teeth were gnashing audibly: his eye

Blazed with the light of fire; but in his heart

Was grief unbearable.'

The breastplate wrought by Hephaestus in the far-off Eastern land covers his broad chest; his silver-studded sword is flung over his shoulder. From his vast shield there gleams

'A light refulgent as the full orbed moon;

Or as to seamen o'er the wave is borne

The watch-fire's light, which high among the hills
Some shepherd kindles in his lonely fold,

As they reluctant by the stormy winds

Far from their friends are o'er the waters driven.
So from Achilles' shield bright, richly wrought,
The light was thrown.

The weighty helm he raised

And placed it on his head; the plumèd helm
Shone like a star, and waved the hairs of gold,
Thick set by Vulcan in the gleaming crest.

Then all the arms Achilles proved, to know
If well they fitted to his graceful limbs.
Like wings they seemed to lift him from the ground.'
(Bk. xix. 1. 432.)

In the struggle which immediately follows, gods and men, powers human and superhuman, are mingled together in one wild turmoil. In Mr. Grote's judgment the idea of such a conflict led the poet to indulge in fantastic conceptions which are either bewildering or oppressive: but there is a point of view from which this mighty battle becomes the most wonderful portion of the Iliad, and throws a singular light on the origin of the poem. But the uncouthness of the images, if uncouth they be, nowhere breaks the even flow and sustained vigour of Lord Derby's translation. From the struggle, in which the river complains that his lovely stream is filled with 'dead, and cannot pour its current to the sea,' we are carried to the last fight, at the close of which we see Achilles trampling on the corpse of the bravest and best of all the Ilian heroes:'Loose hung his glossy hair, and in the dust

Was laid that noble head, so graceful once,'

while, hoping against hope, his wife Andromache was making ready for his victorious return. The sudden rush of footsteps, and the sounds of irrepressible grief, rouse her fears :

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6 Then from the house she rushed like one distract,
With beating heart; and with her went her maids;
But when the tower she reached, where stood the crowd,
And mounted on the wall and looked around,

And saw the body trailing in the dust,

Which the fleet steeds were dragging to the ships,

A sudden darkness overspread her eyes.

Backward she fell, and gasped her spirit away.

Far off were flung the adornments of her head,

The net, the fillet, and the woven bands.' (Bk. xxii. 1. 550.) The closing scenes of the poem are rendered with great beauty. The victory of Achilles is achieved: but his very success only makes him feel the more how vain a thing is the life of mortal man. His own heart is full of grief, grief for the loss of his friend, grief for his kinsfolk who must soon bemoan him at home; but before him kneels a weak and aged man smitten down with an anguish deeper still. Moved by a generous impulse,

'He rose, and with his hand the aged sire
He raised, and thus with gentle words addressed:
"Alas! what sorrows, poor old man, are thine?

How could'st thou venture to the Grecian ships
Alone, and to the presence of the man
Whose hand hath slain so many of thy sons,
Many and brave? An iron heart is thine;

But sit thou on this seat; and in our hearts,

Though filled with grief, let us that grief suppress.

For woful lamentation nought avails.

Such is the thread the Gods for mortals spin." (xxiv. 613.) So but a little while after the last rites had been paid to the body of Patroclus, the chieftains of Ilion gather round the funeral pile of Hector. Priam is there, and Hecuba, and Andromache, and Paris, the cause of all their grief and ruin : but yet another stood near, with a heart riven by a more biting pain,

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The daughter of the gods, divinely tall,

And most divinely fair.'

It was meet that the lay of Ilion should close with parting words of love from her whose fatal gift of beauty had deluged the earth with blood:

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Hector, of all my brethren dearest thou!

True, godlike Paris claims me as his wife,

Who bore me hither. Would I then had died!
But twenty years have passed, since here I came,
And left my native land; yet ne'er from thee
I heard one scornful, one degrading word;
And when from others I have borne reproach,
Thy brothers, sisters, or thy brothers' wives,
Or mother (for thy sire was ever kind,

Ev'n as a father,) thou hast checked them still
With tender feeling and with gentle words.'

We have followed Lord Derby through some portions of a poem which the judgment of the ancient and the modern world pronounces the finest epic ever written, and we do not hesitate to say that his translation is one which conveys no unworthy or inadequate idea of the original. Its great merit is, as we observed in commencing these remarks, that it can be read with pleasure; and although the matchless art with which Pope handled the heroic couplet makes his translation of the Homeric poems unapproachable in its own form, yet Lord Derby has given to England a version far more closely allied to the original and superior to any that has yet been attempted in the blank verse of our language. We hope that restored health and continued leisure may induce him to turn for further recreation to the charming pages of the Odyssey,' and that in two or three years more he may complete a task which deserves to give him a lasting place in our literature.

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ART. VI.—1. A Collection of the Judgments of the Privy Council in Cases of Doctrine and Discipline, from 1840 to 1864; with an Historical Account of the Appellate Jurisdiction of the Church of England, prepared under the direction of the Bishop of London. By the Hon. GEORGE C. BRODRICK, Barrister-at-law, and Fellow of Merton College; and the Rev. W. H. FREMANTLE, Chaplain to the Bishop of London, and late Fellow of All Souls College. London: 1865.

2. The Crown in Council on Essays and Reviews, in a Letter to an Anglican Friend. By HENRY EDWARD MANNING, D.D. London: 1864.

3. The Convocation and the Crown in Council, a Second Letter to an Anglican Friend. By HENRY EDWARD MANNING, D.D. London: 1864.

THE starting point of the Reformation of the Church in England was an ecclesiastical appeal; and the first result of that great revolution was to transfer the jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical suit from a sacerdotal tribunal to the authority of the Crown. Nor was the occasion unworthy of the effect. For what question could better stir the minds of men than the constitution of that Court, whose supreme decisions governed not only their marriages and their wills, but their consciences and their religious rights? What jurisdiction could be more solemn than that of the mediæval Church, whose sanction lay not only in the infliction of temporal penalties, but in the punishment and excommunion of the soul of man? The mere indication of what that jurisdiction once was suffices to mark the contrast between the Ecclesiastical Courts of the sixteenth and of the nineteenth centuries. The matrimonial and testamentary branches of their ancient authority are at length transferred to the Queen's Judges; and although they still retain the power of entertaining suits for the subtraction of church rate and the correction of clerks, decrees enforced by ecclesiastical censures alone would be idle weapons if they were not backed by a control over the temporalities of the Establishment. In these suits it may, and does, occasionally, happen that the doctrines preached or the ceremonies used by the ministers of the urch are judicially examined. The Ecclesiastical Court is the base on which the discipline of the Church rests,

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