A cooler judgment may commit fewer faults, and be more approved in the eyes of one sort of critics: but that warmth of fancy will carry the loudest and most universal applauses which holds the heart of a reader under the strongest enchantment.

Homer not only appears the inventor of poetry, but excels all the inventors of other arts, in this, that he has swallowed up the honour of those who succeeded him.

What he has done admitted no increase, it only left room for contraction or regulation.

He showed all the stretch of fancy at once; and if he has failed in some of his flights, it was but because he attempted everything.

A work of this kind seems like a mighty tree, which rises from the most vigorous seed, is improved with industry, flourishes, and produces the finest fruit: nature and art conspire to raise it; pleasure and profit join to make it valuable: and they who find the justest faults, have only said that a few branches which run luxuriant through a richness of nature, might be lopped into form to give it a more regular appearance.
Having now spoken of the beauties and defects of the original, it remains to treat of the translation, with the same view to the chief characteristic.