REMARKS ON THE TRAGEDY OF HECTOR.
This little cento was, we are informed, originally composed
as an exercise to show the dramatic beauties of
the Iliad. It would be superfluous to offer any opinion
on the merits of the dialogue; but the translation may
have claims on the indulgence of the critical scholar, which
few will probably be disposed to admit.
For the public stage the Tragedy of Hector is obviously
unfit; but as a school drama it perhaps deserves consideration,
and we are acquainted with no piece to which
less objection could be made by parents or masters. The
shortness of it is also a recommendation to the private
amateur, if his knowledge of the original is not extensive
or minute, otherwise he will doubtless be offended at
the liberties of transposition which the compiler has taken,
and find in the second and third acts more of Pope than
of Homer. We cannot dismiss this article without expressing
our regret that the simple and manly topics of the
great poets seem now to be altogether neglected, and the
vagaries of fancy and distorted feeling substituted for those
rational and vigorous compositions of judgment and genius
which held the mirror up to nature.