one of these, strange to tell! occurs in Mr. Pope's translation of the Iliad. The second rule, which relates to the assimilation of style and manner, is illustrated with much taste and judgment. The deficient, or too concise interpreters, and those who substitute the vulgar cant of the streets for the humour of the Roman authors, among whom Echard holds a confpicuous place, are adduced. We wish rather to copy the remarks on the more elegant versions. The translations of Mr. Vincent Bourne are very juftly and properly praised: they are indeed exquifitely beautiful, and highly polished; nor can we object to any thing, but that an additional sentiment is sometimes introduced. It is done generally with caution and propriety: it is commended also by the critic, on whose judgment and taste we have fome confidence; but it seems, we speak its with diffidence, to 'de tract from the fidelity to be expected in a translation. The duke de Nivernois' tranflation of Horace and Lydia is almost a perfect one in the freer style: we think it not fufficiently known, and shall confequently transcribe it. • Horace. Plus heureux qu'un monarque au faite des grandeurs, J'ai vu mes jours dignes d'envie, Tranquiles, ils couloient au gré de nos ardeurs : Lydie. Que mes jours étoient beaux, quand des soins les plus doux Vous payiez ma flamme sincére! Venus me regardoit avec des yeux jaloux; Chloé n'avoit pas sçu vous plaire. • Horace. Par son luth, par sa voix, organe des amours, : Cholé seule me paroit belle : Si le Destin jaloux veut épargner ses jours, Lydie. Le jeune Calaïs, plus beau que les amours, Si le Destin jaloux veut épargner ses jours, Horace. Quoi, si mes premiers feux, ranimant leur ardeur, Etouffoient une amour fatale; Si, perdant pour jamais tous ses droits sur mon cœur, Cholé vous laissoit fans rivale Lydie. Calaïs eft charmant: mais je n'aime que vous, Ingrat, mon cœur vous justifie; De perdre ou de passer la vie.' It is not, we have said, a close translation; and our author X 3 , thinks thinks the concluding stanza wants the happy petulance of the original: perhaps it is a greater objection that the sentiment is, altered. In the original, no justification is necessary: love, almighty love, overturns every argument, without waiting for reason to justify her conduct. Mr. Cumberland's tranflations of the fragments of the comic poets, the critic praises with great propriety and justice; but, as he wishes to know where they are to be found, he will allow us to add, that many occur in the Cambridge edition of the Poetæ Minores. All are not in that collection, but there are fome passages of fingular merit not noticed by the author of the Obferver. The rule, respecting the imitation of style, must be limited, our author tells us, by the genius of the language. The Latin admits of a brevity which cannot be fuccessfully imitated in English: the French is, he thinks, more advantageous in this respect. We shall quote one example. Pliny to Minutianus, Lib. 3. Ep. 9. says, towards the end of his letter: Femerè dixi-Succurrit quod præterieram, et quidem fero: fed quanquam prepofterè reddetur. Facit boc Homerus, multique illius exemplo. Eft alioqui perdecorum: a me tamen non ideo fut. It is no doubt possible to translate this passage into English which a conciseness almost equal to the original. But in this experiment we must facrifice all its ease and spirit. "I have faid this rafhly-I recollect an omission - fomewhat too late indeed. It thall now be supplied, though a little prepofterously. Homer does this: and many after his example. Besides, it is not unbecoming; but this is not my reason." Let us mark how Mr. Melmoth, by a happy amplification, has preserved the spirit and ease, though facrificing the brevity of the original. " But upon re collecting, I find that I must recall that last word; for I perceive, a little too late indeed, that I have omitted a material circumflance. However, I will mention it here, though something out of its place. In this, I have the authority of Homer, and seve ral other great names, to keep me in countenance; and the critics will tell you this irregular manner has its beauties: but, upon my. word, it is a beauty I had not at all in my view." These remarks are, in general, just; but we may ask whether Mr. Melmoth, in this tranflation, has not facrificed the abrupt hasty manner of Pliny in his more elegant flowing verfion? The fame error feems to pervade the whole of Mr. Melmoth's attempt: manner is sacrificed to elegance, and idiom to ease. The inversions of the Greek and Latin are inconsistent with the English, and confequently limit the rule. The inverted construction of Mr. Gordon's Tacitus, and Mr. Macpherson's Homer, Homer, are mentioned, and the latter is styled ' a work otherwife valuable, as containing a most perfect transfusion of the sense of his author. In our review of it we had occafion to form a very different opinion. The English is also incapable of numerous ellipfes admislible in the Greek and Latin; but all these defects are probably compenfated by other advantages, and, with care, conciseness, in an English version, may be very compatible with elegance. The question, whether a poem may be translated into prose, is difcuffed very judiciously. If it be only melody of language, an uniform meafure, and regular return that is required, these are not incompatible with profe; but poetical images, the nobly daring language of the poet, is unfuitable to profe, because not ufually connected with it. Fenelon is justly praised for only giving his language a degree of elevation confiftent with a highly polished profaic compofition. The third rule is, that a tranflation should have all the ease of original composition. Mr. Melmoth has fucceeded in the familiarity of the epistolary style; but, as we have faid, he succeeds by facrificing manner. The old tranflators of Lucian have carried this familiarity to a faulty extreme. • When we confider those restraints within which a tranflator finds himself necessarily confined, with regard to the sentiments and manner of his original, it will foon appear that this last requisite includes the most difficult part of his task. To one who walks in trammels, it is not easy to exhibit an air of grace and freedom. It is difficult, even for a capital painter, to preserve in a copy of a picture all the ease and spirit of the original; yet the painter employs precisely the same colours, and has no other care than faithfully to imitate the touch and manner of the picture that is before him: if the original is easy and graceful, the copy will have the same qualities, in proportion as the imitation is just and perfect. The translator's task is very different: he ufes not the fame colours with the original, but is required to give his picture the same force and effect. He is not allowed to copy the touches of the original, yet is required, by touches of his own, to produce a perfect resemblance. The more he studies a scrupulous imitation, the less his copy will reflect the ease and spirit of the original. How then shall a translator accomplish this difficult union of ease with fidelity? To use a bold expreffion, he must adopt the very foul of his author, which must speak through his own organs." These rules are easily given, but perhaps never to be followed, except where a fimilarity of genius renders this adoption cafy; and, to employ an eastern allusion, when the foul can be tranfmitted, and animate the clay-cold body. Poetry-muft be allowed a little liberty on account of the rigid feverity of modern metre; and this is the secret cause of the lofs of the. vital fpirit, and the neceffary transfusion of some additional fire: the tyrant must be obeyed. Instances of excellence are adduced from fome translations of Horace's Odes by Lowth, Hughes, and Dryden; but we recollect translations of Dryden from Horace superior to those now quoted. That part of the 29th ode of the third book, which begins 'cui licet in diem dixiffe vixi,' and, indeed, the whole is rendered with an energy and poetic fire, scarcely inferior to what Horace has displayed in the original. Our author quotes the stanza which begins fortuna sævo læta negotio, as well as that which immediately follows. In the chapter on the version of idiomatic phrases, some happy instances are quoted from Cotton's tranflation of Mon taigne and from Echard; though the last author affords more numerous instances of faults in this respect. Tranflations of the names of streets, &c. very often have a ludicrous effect; and indeed proper names of every kind should not be tranflated. The point of an epigram is almost in every instance blunted, sometimes totally destroyed, in a new language. Some of ⚫ the poems styled epigrams by the Greeks have been tranflated with astonishing elegance, and many are fully equal to the originals. Among the idiomatical authors Don Quixote is mentioned, and Motteux's tranflation preferred to Smollett's. It contains certainly many happy transfusions of idiom, though it offends the more elegant taste, and the nicer ear. Smollett, it is faid, we believe without reason, copied almost wholly from Jarvis, whose language he also corrected and polished. Voltaire's tranflations are treated very properly, but these afford no new remarks. We shall preferve the little space that remains for fome specimens of a French tranflation of Hudibras, a work that was supposed impracticable. We have been almost led to fufpect that this pretended translation is one of the piæ fraudes, and that, in reality, no more has been tranf lated than what appears. After a very diligent enquiry among the admirers of French literature, we have been able to difcover no fuch version of this truly English poet. - The paffage which begins, 'So learned Taliacotius from, &c.' is thus rendered. i Ainfi Talicot d'une feffe Savoit tailler avec addresse : -Mais Mais si le cul perdoit la vie, Again, For his religion it was fit, &c.' • Sa réligion au genie For Hudibras wore but one spur, &c.' Ne se chaussoit qu'un éperon, We shall add only one more paffage, 'For he by geometric fcale, &c.' 'En geometre raffiné Un pot de bierre il eut jaugé; Par tangente et sinus sur l'heure A quelle heure il sonne midi.' It On the whole, this work may, perhaps, be most advantageoufly confidered as a fpecimen of a more extensive one. certainly may be more full, more varied, and in fome instances probably more correct: yet it deserves no flight commendation; and the author might, without disgrace, have added his name. 1 Right's of Man. Part the Second. Combining Principle and IF we had thought it possible that the virulence of party, the disappointment of foaring ambition, or the rage of innovation could, for a moment, have contributed to bestow a temporary celebrity on ignorance and abfurdity, blended with the low vulgarity of colloquial errors, and boldly depending on infig nificance 1 |