your able present; a stranger who stands in need of friendship and protection; a Scythian by birth, who has left his country and family, to live with us, and see the wonders of Greece. I would fain point out to him the shortest way of being acquainted with every thing and every body worth knowing here; and for this purpose, I have brought him to you. If I have any knowledge of Solon, I may presume he will treat him hospitably, pay him public honours, and adopt him as a citizen of Greece. "And now, Anacharsis, you have seen Solon, and in him every thing. He is Athens, he is Greece. You are no longer a stranger here. All men know, all men love you. So much depends upon this good old man. Living with him, you will soon forget Scythia." How much Solon was pleased with the present which Toxaris had made him, was soon proved by the strict friendship which was formed between them, and the profit which in the sequel Anacharsis derived from his services and instructions. No 60. SATURDAY, JULY 6. Solutis gratia zonis. HORAT. Graceful with ease, and loose without neglect, Ir is the peculiar hardship of my undertaking, that, while Homer was sometimes allowed to sleep, I can at no time take a nap, without great danger to the interests of my Paper; unless, indeed, I have the luck to dream of something that may turn to the profit of my readers. Those authors who are judged of in the gross, have a much better chance with the public. In the scope of a volume, they may sleep through a dozen pages, provided they awake to some purpose at last. It is thus that, in a very extensive prospect, a few barren spots serve to brighten the effect of the rest; but, in an acre of garden-ground, we require throughout a rich and cultivated appearance. The privilege, however, which I enjoy, of flying from one subject to another, as it may suit the occasional complexion of my thoughts, I consider as a great relief to the severity of this duty; for, while in an almost unbounded tract of country we are at liberty to fix upon the happiest spots, we have certainly less to plead in excuse for our miscarriages. I am now going to say something on the subject of translation, for which I should feel it necessary to offer no further apology to my readers, than that it VOL. XLIII. happens to come into my head, were it not for the advantage of my paper to place before them the circumstance which put me upon this consideration. The other day, during my last visit to London, as I was reading the paper in the coffee-house, a person, that had very much the appearance of a compositor, entered the room, and put into my hands a packet directed to SIMON OLIVE-BRANCH. Upon opening it, I found it to contain proposals for a new translation of the Æneid of Virgil, together with one or two specimens, on which, with some compliment to the clearness of my judgement, I was requested to pronounce my opinion. As I was not given to understand where I might find the author, or how I might privately convey to him my sentiments, I concluded him to be among my readers, and that, accordingly, he chose to be conversed with through the channel of my paper. I am pleased with this mode of consulting me, and confess I would always choose rather, on a grave subject, to converse with my pen than with my lips; for, as it is my custom to be long in collecting myself, before I can deliver my thoughts with ease, I have no chance in an oral contest with the declaimers of the present hour. The literary present, of which I have been speaking, was the more agreeable to me, as, on the principles on which I reason, in regard to the general character of any particular period, it exhibits, as far as it goes, a testimony to the honour of the times; for I consider that a spirit and taste in poetical labours, as long as they hold a place in our minds, are a proof that we are not yet abandoned by that vigorous relish, and that keen sensibility, which belong to a lively and sound organization, and which, in the history of all nations, I perceive, do gradually desert them, when they have passed the consummation of their fortunes, and begin to measure back their steps through that returning scale, by which all human greatness is humbled. It is with nations, as it is with individuals: in the florid stages of youth, when the spring of the mind is unworn, and the spirits and health are sound, the resources of real life are hardly enough for the exercise of its powers; the bounds of truth and existence are broken, and the stores of fiction are called in to supply the deficiency. As age advances, the mind narrows itself to the range of actual objects, and finds a sufficient exertion in the common topics and occurrences of life. At length the season of decay arrives, and the date of more limited activity: what remains of force and vigour, is expended on the means of preservation; and existence itself is object sufficient for the efforts of extreme decrepitude. While the works, therefore, of imagination, preserve their esteem in this country, and the higher Poetry has still a train of votaries sufficient to maintain her dignity, I consider that ominous moment at some distance, whence the period of our national decay is to be dated. The close of the eighteenth century will have produced English translations of two of the most celebrated poems in the world, which, if we refuse to admit them as testimonies to the genius of the age, we must at least accept as proofs of a yet-prevailing taste for the sublimer kinds of poetry. If there be genius, however, in catching the spirit of a great original writer, in transfusing that spirit into a new language; in sustaining a correspondent dignity of expression, and elevation of manner, through so different a medium; in taking to pieces the whole structure of his language, and building it up again with new materials, which materials we have also to shape and adjust to the purposes of our new edifice; if there be genius in all this, there is genius in the work of an accomplished translator. It has been sensibly observed, that to comprehend perfectly the extent and value of another's abilities, a portion of those abilities was necessary in the judge. "Ut enim de pictore, sculptore, fictore, nisi artifex judicare, ita nisi sapiens non potest perspicere sapientem." If, therefore, simply to qualify us to taste and appreciate them in others, such a participation be necessary, a much larger share, surely, must be required to represent them with fidelity and justice. Were it asked, therefore, what qualifications were requisite for a translator of Homer, nothing less could be demanded, than a perfect knowledge of the two languages with which he is concerned, and a sympathy of feeling and conception with the great original. An Englishman has a stronger interest in asserting the dignity and difficulty of translation, than the native of any other country, inasmuch as his own language contains the most arduous attempts and most successful specimens. The French, it is true, have not been insensible to the advantages to be derived from this direction of literary industry: they understood that the deficiencies of a language were only to be ascertained by comparing its strength with that of others: but together with what profit they derived from the labours of translation, they made also this unwelcome discovery, that there was something of constraint and formality in the genius of their language; something court-bred and precise in its character and complexion, which rendered it of cast unfit for the great representations of general nature, and the sublime simplicity of the higher poetry. We have nothing of the Greek and Roman labour in this kind, of any importance, unless we can a |