ADVERTISEMENT. IN the investigation of the history of the literature of a country, it is highly interesting to trace and observe the progress of poetical translation. In works of this nature," the English writers of the sixteenth and the greatest part of the seventeenth century seem to have had no other care than, in Denham's phrase, to translate language into language, and to have placed their whole merit in presenting a literal and servile transcript of their original." The observations on this subject of the writer from whom the above extract is taken, demand great attention, from the sound judgment and correct taste which he has displayed throughout his work. There were however even in that age, * See An Essay on the Principles of Translation. he remarks afterwards, some writers who manifested a better taste in poetical translation; and to exemplify this, passages are cited with due praise from the version of Lucan's Pharsalia by May, and of the Metamorphoses of Ovid by Sandys. The following specimens, which are translations from some of the Latin poets, and which were written during the seventeenth century will present a very favourable idea of the abilities of other writers in this species of composition; with whose productions the general mass of readers is but little acquainted from the rarity of the books in which they are contained. That the oblivion which has overtaken many of the works of these authors is altogether undeserved, I shall not assert; but in translation, it will be confest that they are worthy of more praise and notice than they have hitherto obtained. Fidelity has been scarcely ever sacrificed to paraphrase; and in many passages peculiar felicity has been displayed by them. A negligence of, and inattention to the accuracy of rime is a fault of which they are, doubtless, often guilty.—The reader will also find interspersed some translations in French written during the same century, which are extracted from some scarce collections with which I have been fortunate enough to meet. Concerning the smaller poems at the end of the volume I have scarcely any thing to observe. The translations or rather imitations from the Greek are from the Anthologia*. But, after repeated trials, I am It might be shown, if this were the proper place, how much many writers have been indebted to the Greek Anthologia. I have only time to notice that the following beautiful lines of Angerianus are imitated from a more beautiful epigram of Asclepiades which begins: Αὐτοῦ μοι στέφανοι παρὰ δικλίσι ταῖσδε κρεμαστοί Ante fores madida sic sic pendete corollæ, At quum per niveam cervicem influxerit humor, A singular coincidence of idea with the above, in a stanza of some verses by Mr. Sheridan, has been observed by Mr. Moore in his Anacreon. And thou, stony grot, in thy arch mayst preserve obliged to confess that the apexsia so peculiar to the species of composition in that collection defies all translation. It was suggested that it would be proper to insert the Greek originals: but I have scarcely ever noted the places in Jacob's collection, where they were found; and they will easily occur to the mind of the classical reader. The Latin alcaic stanzas in p.123 are a translation from the first part of the fourteenth canzone of Petrarch, beginning Chiare, fresche, e dolci acque. The Greek verses in p. 129 are translated from a Spanish Ode of Father Luis de Leon on the introduction of the Moors. Of this there is an animated version by Mr. Southey, in his " Letters written during a short residence in Spain and Portugal," which he has allowed me to transcribe, and which will be found in the Appendix. In p. 140 the beginning of the Amphitryon of Moliere is translated into Greek Iambics; many passages of which comedy, it may be observed, bear a more striking resemblance to parts of Aristophanes, than to Plautus. |