Note 231 — III. CONVERSATIONS AND PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF WORDSWORTH.

Voss, who lived from Feb. 20, 1751, to March, 1826, was author of the Luise, 'a rural epopaea of simple structure divided into three idyls, which relate the betrothment and marriage of the heroine.' This is a pleasing and very peculiar poem, composed in hexameter verse. 'The charm of the narrative,' says Mr. T., 'consists in the minute description of the local domestic manners of the personages.' The charm consists, I think, in the blending of these manners with the beauty of Nature, and the ease and suitability of the versification. Voss's translation of the Odyssey is praised for being so perfect an imitation of the original. The Greek has been rendered, 'with a fidelity and imitative harmony so admirable, that it suggests to the scholar the original wording, and reflects, as from a mirror, every beauty and every blemish of the ancient poem.' Hist. Survey, pp. 61-68. S. C.