In what I have said I have implied that Cowper is the right model
for the English heroic as applied to a translation of Horace: and
this on the whole I believe to be the case. Horace's
characteristics, as I remarked just now, are ease and terseness, and
both these Cowper possesses, ease in metre, and ease and terseness
in style. Pope, on the other hand, who in some respects would seem
the better representative of Horace, is less easy both in style and
metre, while his terseness is what Horace's terseness is not,
trimness and antithetical smartness. Still, while making Cowper my
pattern as a general rule, I have attempted from time to time to
borrow a grace from Pope, even, when the original gave me no warrant
for the appropriation. If Cowper's verse could be written by Cowper,
it would probably leave nothing to be desired in a translation of
this kind: handled by an inferior workman, it is in danger of
becoming flat, pointless, and insipid: and Horace has many passages
which, if not flat, pointless, or insipid in themselves, are
painfully liable to become so in the hands of a translator. I have
accordingly on various occasions aimed at epigram and pungency when
there was nothing epigrammatic or pungent in the Latin, in full
confidence that any trifling additions which may be made in this way
to the general sum of liveliness will be far more than compensated
by the heavy outgoings which must of necessity be the lot of every
translator, and more particularly of myself. [Footnote: Cowper
himself has some remarks bearing on this point: "That is
epigrammatic and witty in Latin which would be perfectly insipid in
English; and a translator of Bourne would frequently find himself
obliged to supply what is called the turn, which is in fact the most
difficult and the most expensive part of the whole composition, and
could not perhaps, in many instances, be done with any tolerable
success. If a Latin poem is neat, elegant and musical, it is enough;