In a late translation of the Georgies by Mr Sotheby, a work of very high merit, and by far the best that has yet appeared of that Poem, this passage receives a fine improvement, by the substitution of an apostrophe, for the simple narrative: Yes! lovely Spring! when rose the world to birth, And no bleak gale on infant nature blew. When herds first drank the light; from earth's rude bed When first to beasts the wilds and woods were given, In the two following lines, Horace inculcates a striking moral truth; but the figure in which it is conveyed, has nothing of dignity : Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas MALHERBE has given to the same sentiment a high portion of tenderness, and even sublimity: Le pauvre en sa cabane, où le chaume le couvre, Est sujet à ses loix; Et la garde qui veille aux barrieres du Louvre, CICERO writes thus to Trebatius, Ep. ad fam. lib. 7. ep. 17. Tanquam enim syngrapham ad Imperatorem, non epistolam attulisses, sic pecuniâ ablatâ domum redire properabas; nec tibi in mentem veniebat, eos ipsos qui cum syngraphis venissent Alexandriam, nullum adhuc nummum auferre potuisse. The passage is thus translated by Melmoth, b. 2. l. 12. "One would have imagined indeed, you had carried a bill of exchange upon Cæsar, instead of a letter of recom"mendation: As you seemed to think you "had nothing more to do, than to receive your money, and to hasten home again. "But money, my friend, is not so easily acquired; and I could name some of our acquaintance, who have been obliged to “travel as far as Alexandria in pursuit of it, without having yet been able to obtain From the modern allusion, barrieres du Louvre, this passage, strictly speaking, falls under the description of imitation, rather than of translation. See postea, ch. xi. The expres even their just demands." The sions, " money, my friend, is not so easily acquired," and, "I could name some of our “acquaintance," are not to be found in the original; but they have an obvious connection with the ideas of the original: they increase their force, while, at the same time, they give ease and spirit to the whole passage. I question much if a licence so unbounded as the following is justifiable, on the principle of giving either ease or spirit to the original. In Lucian's Dialogue Timon, Gnathonides, after being beaten by Timon, says to him, Δὲ φιλοσκώμμων σύ γε· ἀλλα πᾶ τὸ συμπό σιον ; ὡς καίόν τι σοι ἆσμα τῶν νεοδιδάκτων διθυράμ βών ἥκω κομίζων. "You were always fond of a joke-but "where is the banquet ? for I have brought you a new dithirambic song, which I have lately learned." In Dryden's Lucian, "translated by se"veral eminent hands," this passage is thus translated: " Ah! Lord, Sir, I see you keep up your old merry humour still; you love dearly to rally and break a jest. "Well but have you got a noble supper for 66 us, and plenty of delicious inspiring cla"ret? Hark ye, Timon, I've got a virgin song for ye, just new composed, and smells "of the gamut: "Twill make your heart "dance within you, old boy. A very pret 66 66 ty she-player, I vow to Gad, that I have an interest in, taught it me this morning." THERE is both ease and spirit in this translation; but the licence which the translator has assumed, of superadding to the ideas of the original, is beyond all bounds. AN equal degree of judgment is requisite when the translator assumes the liberty of retrenching the ideas of the original. AFTER the fatal horse had been admitted within the walls of Troy, Virgil thus de scribes the coming on of that night which was to witness the destruction of the city: Vertitur interea cœlum, et ruit oceano nox, Involvens umbrá magnâ terramque polumque, THE principal effect attributed to the night, in this description, and certainly the most interesting, is its concealment of the treachery of the Greeks. Add to this, the beauty which the picture acquires from this association of natural with moral effects. How inexcusable then must Mr Dryden appear, who, in his translation, has suppressed the Myrmidonumque dolos altogether ? Mean time the rapid heav'ns roll'd down the light, Our men secure, &c. OGILBY, with less of the spirit of poetry, has done more justice to the original : Meanwhile night rose from sea, whose spreading shade |