CHAPTER XIX.
TRANSLATIONS AND PAMPHLETS.
The best of my unpublished MSS.

of any size or consequence is perhaps my translation of Book Alpha of the Iliad, quite literal and in its original metre of hexameters: hitherto I have failed to find a publisher kind enough to lose by it; for there are already at least twelve English versions of Homer unread, perhaps unreadable.

Still, some day I don't despair to gain an enterprising Sosius; for my literal and hexametrical translation is almost what Carthusians used to call "a crib," and perhaps some day the School Board or their organ, Mr.Joseph Hughes's _Practical Teacher_, may adopt my version.

Its origin and history is this: finding winter evenings in the country wearisome to my homeflock, I used to read to them profusely and discursively.

Amongst other books, a literary daughter suggested Pope's Homer; which, as I read, after a little while, I found to be so very free and incorrect a translation (if my memory served me rightly) that I resolved to see what I could do by reading from the original Greek in its own (English) metre.