'The note by my father, that originally headed his blank verse translation from the Iliad beginning 'He ceased, and sea-like roar'd the Trojan host, 'ran: "Some, and among these one at least of our best and greatest, have endeavoured to give us the Iliad in English hexameters, and by what appears to me their failure have gone far to prove the impossibility of the task [...]" [...] This was written after reading Sir John Herschel's "Book I. of the Iliad translated in the Hexameter Metre," Cornhill Magazine, May 1862.'