THE

ILIAD OF HOMER

RENDERED INTO ENGLISH BLANK VERSE.

BY

EDWARD EARL OF DERBY.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

NEW-YORK:

CHARLES SCRIBNER & Co., 124 GRAND STREET.

1865.

PREFACE.

IN the spring of 1862 I was induced, at the request of some personal friends, to print, for private circulation only, a small volume of

Translations of Poems Ancient and Modern, in which was included the first Book of the Iliad. The opinions expressed by some competent judges of the degree of success which had attended this "attempt to infuse into an almost literal English version something of the spirit, as well as the simplicity, of the great original,"* were sufficiently favourable to encourage me to continue the work which I had begun. It has afforded me, in the intervals of more urgent business, an unfailing, and constantly increasing source of interest; and it is not without a feeling of regret at the completion of my task, and

* Introduction to unpublished volume.