ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER.

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been,

Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold :

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told,

That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne ;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene,

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold :
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies,
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes

He star'd at the Pacific 20-and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise —

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.21

-

20" He stared at the Pacific," &c.-" Stared" has been thought by some too violent, but it is precisely the word required by the occasion. The Spaniard was too original and ardent a man either to look, or to affect to look, coldly superior to it. His "eagle eyes" are from life, as may be seen by Titian's portrait of him.

The public are indebted to Mr. Charles Knight for a cheap reprint of the Homer of Chapman.

21" Silent, upon a peak in Darien.”—A most fit line to conclude our volume. We leave the reader standing upon it, with all the illimitable world of thought and feeling before him, to which his imagination will have been brought, while journeying through these "realms of gold."

London:

Printed by STEWART and MURRAY,

Old Bailey.