It is not without reason that this elegant Roman has been thought the most difficult to be translated of all the classics. The translator must not only be master of his sentiments, but also of his peculiar way of expressing them. He must have acquired a style correct without labour, and copious without redundancy. The difficulty is not so much to give his sense, as to give it in such language as Tully himself would have spoken, had he been an Englishman. To follow him in a verbal translation, is to catch his words only, and lose his spirit.

This literal timidity, if we may so express it, where the translator cautiously moves from word to word, for fear of going astray, is still the more unpardonable, as Cicero himself has given us directions to the contrary. "Nec tamen exprimi verbum e verbo necesse erit, ut interpretes indiserti solent." His example also, as well as his precept, teaches us to avoid this error. What liberties does he not take with Plato, Euripides, and others! Their sentiments remain their own, but their language is always expressed in the manner of Cicero. The translator before us has fallen into the error of which we have been complaining; so that Cicero appears in this English dress, not unlike some disguised hero in romance who, though concealed in the garb of a peasant, still moves with an air of superior dignity.

These Tusculan disputations were composed by Cicero when, under the dictatorship of Cæsar, he was excluded from any share in the administration; at which time, as he informs us, he was obliged to substitute retirement and study, for scenes of more active employment. The work is divided into five books; the first of which teaches us how to contemn the terrors of death, and to look upon it as a blessing rather than an evil. The second, to support pain and affliction with a manly fortitude. The third and fourth, to moderate all our complaints and uneasiness under

the accidents of life. The fifth, to evince the sufficiency of virtue to make man happy. It was Cicero's custom, in his leisure hours, to take some friends with him into the country, where (to use the words of this very incompetent translator) "he used to order one to propose something which he would have discussed. I disputed (says Tully) on that either sitting or walking. I have compiled the schools, as the Greeks call them, of five days, in as many books; it was in this manner. When he who was the hearer had said what he thought proper, I disputed against him. To give you a better notion of our disputations, I will not barely give you an account of them, but represent them to you as they were carried on.”

Perhaps there never was a finer or more spirited dialogue, conducted with greater ease, or managed with more impartiality than this, in the original. After having silenced the objections which his antagonist had brought against his doctrine, of death's being no evil, Cicero finally establishes it, with that spirit and energy which his present translator has very impotently endeavoured to preserve: let the reader judge for himself, from the following specimen.

"Should it indeed be our case to know the time appointed by God for us to die, let us prepare ourselves for it with a pleasant and grateful mind, as those who are delivered from a jail, and eased from their fetters, to go back to their eternal and (without dispute) their own habitation; or to be divested of all sense and trouble. But should we not be acquainted with this decree, yet should we be so disposed as to look on that last hour as happy for us, though shocking to our friends; and never imagine that to be an evil, which is an appointment of the immortal Gods, or of Nature, the common parent of all. For it is not by hazard, or without design, that we have a being here; but doubtless there is a certain power concerned for human nature,

which would neither have produced nor provided for a being, which, after having gone through the labours of life, was to fall into an eternal evil by death. Let us rather infer, that we have a retreat and haven prepared for us, which I wish we could make for with crowded sails; but though the winds should not serve, yet we shall of course gain it, though somewhat later."

The exordium of the third book is, in the original, one of the finest passages in all antiquity. Let us see how it reads here. "What reason shall I assign, Brutus, why, as we consist of soul and body, the art of curing and preserving the body should be so much sought after, and the invention of it, as being so useful, should be ascribed to the immortal Gods; but the medicine of the soul should neither be the object of inquiry, whilst it was unknown, nor so much improved after its discovery, nor so well received or approved of by some, disagreeable, and looked on with an envious eye by many others? Is it because the soul judges of the pains and disorders of the body, but we do not form any judgment of the soul by the body? Hence it comes that the soul never judgeth of itself, but when that by which itself is judged is in a bad state. Had nature given us faculties for discerning and viewing herself, and could we go through life by keeping our eye on her our best guide, no one certainly would be in want of philosophy or learning. But as it is, she has furnished us only with some few sparks, which we soon so extinguish by bad morals and depraved customs, that the light of nature is quite put out. The seeds of virtue are connatural to our constitutions, and were they suffered to come to maturity, would naturally conduct us to a happy life; but now, as soon as we are born, and received into the world, we are instantly familiarized to all kinds of depravity and wrong opinions; so that we may be said almost to suck in error with our nurse's milk. When

we return to our parents, and are put into the hands of tutors and governors, we imbibe so many errors, that truth gives place to falsehood, and nature herself to established opinion. To these we may add the poets, who, on account of the appearance they exhibit of learning and wisdom, are heard, read, and got by heart, and make a deep impression on our minds. But when to these are added the people who are, as it were, one great body of instructors, and the multitude who declare unanimously for vice, then are we altogether overwhelmed with bad opinions, and revolt entirely from nature; so that they seem to deprive us of our best guide, who have ascribed all greatness, worth, and excellence, to honour, and power, and popular glory, which indeed every excellent man aims at: but whilst he pursues that only true honesty which nature has in view, he finds himself busied in arrant trifles, and in pursuit of no conspicuous form of virtue, but a shadowy representation of glory. For glory is a real and express substance, not a mere shadow. It consists in the united praise of good men, the free voice of those who form true judgments of excellent virtue it is as it were the very echo of virtue, which being generally the attendant on laudable actions, should not be slighted by good men. But popular fame, which would pretend to imitate it, is hasty and inconsiderate, and gencrally commends wicked and immoral actions, and taints the appearance and beauty of the other, by assuming the resemblance of honesty. By not being able to discover the difference of these, some men, ignorant of real excellence, and in what it consists, have been the destruction of their country, or of themselves. And thus the best men have erred, not so much in their intentions, as by a mistaken conduct."

The classical reader will perceive that the spirit of the original is, in a manner, totally extinguished in this trans

lation. Indeed,such is the "gentleman's" obscurity in some places, such are his mistakes of his author's meaning in others; such is the meanness, affectation, and impropriety of his language throughout, that it is really matter of surprise to us, how such a work came into print; especially when we take the poetry into the account, which is below all criticism, and even contempt.

In short, the present performance is so totally destitute of every kind of merit, which might serve to qualify our censure, that we cannot avoid concluding with Cicero, upon another occasion: "Obsecro, abjiciamus ista, et semi-liberi saltem simus; quod assequemur et tacendo et latendo.")

XII.-MASSEY'S OVID'S FASTI.

[From the Critical Review, 1758. "Ovid's Fasti; or, the Roman Sacred Calendar. Translated into English Verse, with Explanatory Notes. By William Massey.”(2) 8vo.]

It was no bad remark of a celebrated French lady, (3) that a bad translator was like an ignorant footman, whose blundering messages disgraced his master by the awkwardness of the delivery, and frequently turned compliment into abuse, and politeness into rusticity. We cannot indeed see an ancient elegant writer mangled and misrepresented by the doers into English, without some degree of indig

(1) [For a detail of the very distressing circumstances under which Goldsmith wrote this and the three preceding articles, see Life, vol. i. p. 285. This anonymous translation, though destitute of every kind of merit, was actually reprinted so recently as 1828." See Lowndes's Bibliographer's Manual. vol. i. p. 425.]

(2) [Many years master of a boarding-school at Wandsworth, in Surrey.] (3) Madame de la Fayette.