Infelix vidi: stetit hoc miserabilis ipso

Ecce loco: (et quærit vestigia siqua supersint.)

Metam. l. 11.

In the above example, the solantia tollite verba is translated with peculiar felicity, "Silent be all sounds of comfort;" as are these words, Nec quo prius ore nitebat, “Which, oh! but ill express'd his forme "and beautie." "No mortal bands could "force his stay," has no strictly corresponding sentiment in the original. It is a happy amplification; which shews that Sandys knew what freedom was allowed to a poetical translator, and could avail himself of it.

FROM the time of Sandys, who published his translation of the Metamorphoses of Ovid, in 1626, there does not appear to have been much improvement in the art of translating poetry till the age of Dryden * :

In the poetical works of Milton, we find many noble imitations of detached passages of the ancient classics; but there is nothing that can be termed a translation, unless an

for though Sir John Denham has thought proper to pay a high compliment to Fanshaw on his translation of the Pastor Fido, terming him the inventor of " a new and "nobler way of translation, we find nothing in that performance which should entitle it to more praise than the Metamorphoses by Sandys, and the Pharsalia by May t.

English version of Horace's Ode to Pyrrha; which it is probable the author meant as a whimsical experiment of the effect of a strict conformity in English both to the expression and measure of the Latin. See this singular composition in the Appendix, NO. 2,

That servile path thou nobly dost decline,
Of tracing word by word, and line by line.
A new and nobler way thou dost pursue,

To make translations and translators too:
They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame;

True to his sense, but truer to his fame.

DENHAM to SIR R. FANSHAW,

+ One of the best passages of Fanshaw's translation of the Pastor Fido, is the celebrated apostrophe to Spring:

BUT it was to Dryden that poetical translation owed a complete emancipation from her fetters; and exulting in her new liberty, the danger now was, that she should run

Spring, the year's youth, fair mother of new flowers,
New leaves, new loves, drawn by the winged hours,
Thou art return'd; but the felicity

Thou brought'st me last is not return'd with thee.

Thou art return'd; but nought returns with thee,
Save my lost joy's regretful memory.

Thou art the self-same thing thou wert before,

As fair and jocund: but I am no more
The thing I was, so gracious in her sight,
Who is heaven's masterpiece and earth's delight.

O bitter sweets of love! far worse it is
To lose than never to have tasted bliss,

O Primavera gioventu del anno,
Bella madre di fiori,

D'herbe novelle, e di novelli amori :

Tu torni ben, ma teco,

Non tornano i sereni

E fortunati di de le mie gioie!

Tu torni ben, tu torni,

Ma teco altro non torna

Che del perduto mio caro tesoro

La rimembranza misera e dolente.

into the extreme of licentiousness. The followers of Dryden saw nothing so much to be emulated in his translations as the ease of his poetry: Fidelity was but a secondary object, and translation for a while was considered as synonymous with paraphrase. A judicious spirit of criticism was now wanting, to prescribe bounds to this increasing licence, and to determine to what precise degree a poetical translator might assume to himself the character of an original writer. In that design, Roscommon wrote his Essay on Translated Verse; in

Tu quella se' tu quella,

Ch'eri pur dianzi vezzosa e bella.

Ma non son io già quel ch'un tempo fui,
Si caro a gli occhi altrui.

O dolcezze amarissime d'amore !

Quanto è più duro perdervi, che mai

Non v'haver à provate, è possedute!

Pastor Fido, act 3. sc. 1.

In those parts of the English version which are marked in Italics, there is some attempt towards a freedom of translation; but it is a freedom of which Sandys and May had long before given many happier specimens.

which, in general, he has shewn great critical judgment; but proceeding, as all reformers, with rigour, he has, amidst many excellent precepts on the subject, laid down one rule, which every true poet (and such only should attempt to translate a poet) must consider as a very prejudicial restraint. After judiciously recommending to the translator, first to possess himself of the sense and meaning of his author, and then to imitate his manner and style, he thus prescribes a general rule,

Your author always will the best advise;
Fall when he falls, and when he rises, rise.

FAR from adopting the former part of this maxim, I conceive it to be the duty of a poetical translator, never to suffer his original to fall *. He must maintain with him

* I am aware, that a sense may be given to this precept of Roscommon, which will justify its propriety: "Let the "elevation of the copy keep pace with that of the original, "where the subject requires elevation of expression: let it "imitate it likewise in plainness and simplicity, if such be