But the culminating point is here. After
this--whatever ripening process may have been at work unseen--what
is chiefly visible is the slow stiffening of the imaginative power,
the slow withdrawal of the insight into the soul of things, and a
descent--[Greek: ablaechros mala tsios]--"soft as soft can be,"
to the euthanasy of a death that was like sleep.
The impression produced by Wordsworth's reperusal of Virgil in
1814-16 was a deep and lasting one. In 1829-30 he devoted much time
and labour to a translation of the first three books of the _AEneid_,
and it is interesting to note the gradual modification of his views
as to the true method of rendering poetry.
"I have long been persuaded," he writes to Lord Lonsdale in 1829,
"that Milton formed his blank verse upon the model of the _Georgics_
and the _AEneid_, and I am so much struck with this resemblance, that
I should, have attempted Virgil in blank verse, had I not been
persuaded that no ancient author can with advantage be so rendered.
Their religion, their warfare, their course of action and feeling,
are too remote from modern interest to allow it. We require every
possible help and attraction of sound in our language to smooth the
way for the admission of things so remote from our present concerns.
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