This letter having no date but the week's day, and no postmark, preceded our first symposium; and a memorable night it was in my life's career. A beautiful copy of the folio edition of Chapman's translation of _Homer_ had been lent me. It was the property of Mr. Alsager, the gentleman who for years had contributed no small share of celebrity to the great reputation of the _Times_ newspaper by the masterly manner in which he conducted the money-market department of that journal....
Well then, we were put in possession of the _Homer_ of Chapman, and to work we went, turning to some of the 'famousest' passages, as we had scrappily known them in Pope's version. There was, for instance, that perfect scene of the conversation on Troy wall of the old Senators with Helen, who is pointing out to them the several Greek Captains; with the Senator Antenor's vivid portrait of an orator in Ulysses, beginning at the 237th line of the third book:--
But when the prudent Ithacus did to his counsels rise, He stood a little still, and fix'd upon the earth his eyes, His sceptre moving neither way, but held it formally, Like one that vainly doth affect. Of wrathful quality, And frantic (rashly judging), you would have said he was; But when out of his ample breast he gave his great voice pass, And words that flew about our ears like drifts of winter's snow, None thenceforth might contend with him, though naught admired for show.
The shield and helmet of Diomed, with the accompanying simile, in the opening of the third book; and the prodigious description of Neptune's passage to the Achive ships, in the thirteenth book:--
The woods and all the great hills near trembled beneath the weight Of his immortal-moving feet. Three steps he only took, Before he far-off Ægas reach'd, but with the fourth, it shook With his dread entry.
One scene I could not fail to introduce to him--the shipwreck of Ulysses, in the fifth book of the _Odysseis_, and I had the reward of one of his delighted stares, upon reading the following lines:--
Then forth he came, his both knees falt'ring, both His strong hands hanging down, and all with froth His cheeks and nostrils flowing, voice and breath Spent to all use, and down he sank to death. _The sea had soak'd his heart through_; all his veins His toils had rack'd t'a labouring woman's pains. Dead-weary was he.