[Footnote C: To show how very weak and inconclusive the arguments of Chatterton’s new Editor are on this head, I shall cite but one passage, from which the reader may form a judgment of all the other illustrations with which he has decorated the _Battle of Hastings_:
----“Siere de Broque an arrowe longe lett _flie_, Intending Herewaldus to have sleyne; It _miss’d_, but hytte Edardus on the eye, And at his pole came out with horrid payne.”
------ὀϊστὸν ἀπὸ νευρῆφιν ἴαλλεν Ἕκτορος ἀντικρὺ, βαλέειν δὲ ἑ ἵετο θυμός· Καὶ τοῦ μέν ῥ’ ἀφάμαρθ’ ὁ δ’ ἀμύμονα Γοργυθίωνα Υἱὸν ἐῢν Πριάμοιο, κατὰ στῆθος βάλεν ἰῷ.
“He said, and twang’d the string, the weapon _flies_ “At _Hector_’s breast, and sings along the skies; “He _miss’d_ the mark, but pierc’d Gorgythio’s heart.”
“The imitation here seems to be very apparent, but it is the imitation of Homer, and not of Pope; both Homer and Rowley express the intention of the archer, which is dropped by the translator of the Greek poet.” Chatterton’s _Poems_, quarto, p. 83. Edit. Milles.
To my apprehension, the intention of the archer is very clearly expressed in Pope’s lines; but it is unnecessary to contest that point, for lo! thus has old Chapman translated the same passage:
“This said, another arrow forth from his stiffe string he sent “At Hector, _whom he long’d to wound_; but still amisse it went; “His shaft smit faire Gorgythion.”
Of such reasoning is the new Commentary on Chatterton’s poems composed.]
I do not however rest the matter here. What are we to conclude, if in Chatterton’s imitations of Homer, we discover some circumstances that exist in Pope’s translation, of which but very faint traces appear in the original Greek? Such, I believe, may be found. It is observable, that in all the similies we meet with many of the very rhymes that Pope has used. Will this Commentator contend, that the learned Rowley not only understood Homer, at a time when his contemporaries had scarcely heard of his name, but also foresaw in the reign of Edward IV. those additional graces with which Mr. Pope would embellish him three hundred years afterwards?
III. The Anachronisms come next under our consideration. Of these also the modern-antique compositions which we are now examining, afford a very plentiful supply; and not a little has been the labour of the reverend Commentator to do away their force. The first that I have happened to light upon is in the tragedy of _Ella_, p. 212: