all the three; that our readers may be enabled to appreciate the justice of our decision. The lines of the poet himself are too common to warrant our transcription. "Nil ergo optabunt homines, &c." "Say then, must man, depriv'd all power of choice, "But, that thou may'st (for still 'tis good to prove "THIS, though to give thyself may'st well suffice:- Would shrink to nothing, were but prudence ours: But man, fond man, exalts thee to the spheres, And clothes thee in the attributes he fears!" Gifford. We now proceed to Mr. Hodgson, who is by no means inferior to his predecessor. "Shall man then nothing ask?"-This rule receiveThe choice of blessings to the Giver leave: He grants us happiness, and not our will; E'en when we hate ourselves, he loves us still. By a blind impulse violently driv'n, We claim a wife, a family, from Heav'n; But Heav'n best knows how vile our wife may be, "Yet "Yet to that God on whom our hopes depend, And Folly wafts their incense to the skies." P. 205. Lastly, we come to the version of Dr. Badham, which we consider as in many points of view, superior to either of those who have gone before him. "What then, does life supply no object, none; Is there No good to ask, No ill to shun? No No more a Goddess, were thy votaries wise, Divine we call thee; and WE MAKE THEE SO!" P. 293. In the thirteenth satire are to be found many spirited and excellent lines; the following perhaps may be considered as the best, nor indeed would they disgrace even Dryden himself in his best mood. "Quondam hoc indigenæ vivebant more, &c." "These dreams might suit the lives our rustics led Wheels, furies, vultures, rocks, unheard-of things, And the gay ghosts were strangers yet to kings! P. 336, From the extracts we have already given, the reader will be enabled to form a sufficient judgment of the merits of the work. Dr. Badham appears to most advantage in those passages in which the keen and caustic indignation of the original demands a proportionate pungency and power in the translator. The ingle couplets are at times inimitable-such as "Mors sola fatetur Quantula sint hominum corpuscula." "Death, death alone makes thoughtless man confess The exquisite description of old age in the tenth satire, is rendered with the utmost fidelity and beauty-this specimen of our translator's talents is too creditable to be omitted. "In youth a sweet diversity we find, And various loveliness with force combin; But But age is all alike; the limbs deny Another organ fails-now sing who may gum Or strike the chord, he hears no more the lay." P. 281. That there occurs too often an awkward and an inharmonious couplet we cannot in justice deny, nor that the meaning of the poet is sometimes oddly enough mistaken; but these mistakes, even when raked together with all the malignity of rivalry are at last but few; and when compared with the beauties with which the work abounds, will scarcely be worthy of consideration. Dr. Badham has been publicly accused, and most unfairly we conceive, of plagiarism from a living translator. Now all the instances which the keenness of contemporary criticism could collect together amount to no more than this-that out of some thousands, a few couplets are to be found with the same rhymes, and about some dozen lines with the same, and those sufficiently common, expressions. Now this cannot, even according to the severest judgment, be construed into plagiarism. The public will judge from the comparative extracts we have given how far the complaint is just. We could wish that the charge had never been made. We are not translators of Juvenal; we can therefore appreciate his merits with fidelity, and his faults with candour. If his translation be not equal as a whole to Mr. Gifford's in elegant sustainment, or to Mr. Hodgson's in dignified harmony, yet inparts it surpasses either, and in those very features which so strongly mark the original, in the keenness of conception, in language of caustic and powerful indignation. Brevity and closeness has been the aim of Dr. Badham throughout; in many instances he has most happily embodied the spirit of his author in a corresponding number of lines in the trauslation; in some his desire of conciseness has led him into ruggedness of rhyme and apparent error of expression. With all its faults however, and they have been sufficiently magnified in other places, this translation has strong claims to notice and approbation. We could with satisfaction entrust it in the hands of a youth who is entering upon the study of Juvenal, as a book which in many cases would approximate to his mind the meaning and spirit of his author, and place them in a stronger point of view, than what might be deemed a more finished and faultless translation. The notes will be found useful in general to the student; and will occasionally present the scholar with much curious and interesting information. Dr. Badhain has read much out of the common course, and has read with effect. We trust that he will proceed in his literary pursuits; and could we venture to present him with a prudential admonition, we should advise him, in his next effort, to enter upon some translation, where he will not interfere with any living rival. BRITISH CATALOGUE. DIVINITY. ART. VII. Four Discourses on the Collects for the four Sundays in Advent. By the Rev. Sir A. Gordon, Bart. pp. 76. 2s. 6d. Stockdale. 1814. These are four pious and rational discourses upon that most awful event, to which our holy Church in the season of Advent directs our attention. The various points which present themselves to the consideration of the preacher, are discussed with sobriety and good sense. The doctrine of a general and eternal judgment is insisted upon with fervency, and defended with effect. The following passage near the conclusion of the last sermon appears to be written in the truest views of Christian Theology. "It further concerns us to consider, that the measures of the sentence to be then pronounced, will be according to the nature and quality of the actions themselves.-The wicked shall go into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal: so that the rewards and punishments of the next life, shall bear a proportion to the good or evil done in this. Nothing can be more clear than what the scriptures express on this matter, as to the degrees of men's good or bad actions, as well as the nature and qualities of them. "For to whomsoever much is given, of him, "shall much be required. He that soweth sparingly shall reap spar"ingly; and he that soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully."— And nothing can be more positive than what our Blessed Lord most |