must be observable in almost every town of the republican territories the immense interfusion of different ranks of society from all these quarters, and their endless varieties of action upon each other-the fermentation that must every where prevail among these yet unsettled and unarranged atoms-above all, on the singularities inseparable from the condition of the only half-young, half-old people in the world-simply as suchwe cannot doubt that could a Smollet, a Fielding, or a Le Sage have seen America as she is, he would at once have abandoned every other field, and blessed himself on having obtained access to the true terra fortunata of the novelist. Happily for Mr Irving that terra fortunata is also to this hour a terra incognita; for in spite of the shoals of bad books of travels that have inundated us from time to time, no European reader has ever had the smallest opportunity of being introduced to any thing like one vivid portraiture of American life. Mr Irving has, as every good man must have, a strong affection for his country; and he is, therefore, fitted to draw her character con amore as well as con gentilezza. The largeness of his views, in regard to politics, will secure him from staining his pages with any repulsive air of bigotry and the humane and liberal nature of his opinions in regard to subjects of a still higher order, will equally secure him from still more offensive errors. To frame the plots of twenty novels can be no very heavy task to the person who wrote the passages we have quoted above-and to fill them up with characteristic details of incidents and manners, would be nothing but an amusement to him. He has sufficiently tried and shewn his strength in sketches-it is time that we should look for full and glowing pictures at his hands. Let him not be discouraged by the common-place cant about the impossibility of good novels being written by young men. Smollet wrote Roderick Random before he was five-and-twenty, and assuredly he had not seen half so much of the world as Mr Irving has done. We hope we are mistaken in this pointbut it strikes us that he writes, of late, in a less merry mood than in the days of Knickerbocker and the Salmagundi. If the possession of intellectual power and resources ought to make any man happy, that man is Washington Irving; and people may talk as they please about the "inspiration of melancholy," but it is our firm belief that no man ever wrote any thing greatly worth the writing, unless under the influence of buoyant spirits. "A cheerful mind is what the muses love," says the author of Ruth and Michael, and the Brothers; and in the teeth of all asseverations to the contrary, we take leave to believe that my Lord Byron was never in higher glee than when composing the darkest soliloquies of his Childe Harold. The capacity of achieving immortality, when called into vivid consciousness by the very act of composition and passion of inspiration, must be enough, we should think, to make any man happy. Under such influences he may, for a time, we doubt not, be deaf even to the voice of selfreproach, and hardened against the memory of guilt. The amiable and accomplished Mr Irving has no evil thoughts or stinging recollections to fly from-but it is very possible that he may have been indulging in a cast of melancholy, capable of damping the wing even of his genius. That, like every other demon, must be wrestled with, in order to its being overcome. And if he will set boldly about An American Tale, in three volumes duodecimo, we think there is no rashness in promising him an easy, a speedy, and a glorious victory. Perhaps all this may look very like impertinence, but Mr Irving will excuse us, for it is, at least, well meant. SPECIMENS OF MR WRANG HAM'S TRANSLATIONS FROM HORACE. [A friend in Yorkshire has been so kind as to send us, " quite wet from the press," he says-(and a very beautiful Provincial press it must be)-some specimens of a translation of the four first books of Horace's Odes, which have given us at least as much pleasure as any thing we have met with for a long while. Nothing but an extreme of modesty, which is at least as singular as it is amiable, in a man of so great and so widely acknowledged genius, could have induced the Reverend Francis Wrangham to lay before his friends any specimens of his power to execute any task with which he may think proper to occupy himself. We speak of his friends-for only fifty copies are printedand we are sure he must have enough of intelligent and admiring friends to receive these, and more than these. It is possible that we may appear to be acting an over officious part, by transferring some of the specimens to our own pages;-but if Mr Wrangham condescends to issue specimens, we cannot think we are guilty of any very unpardonable freedom in affording them more ample room and verge for the reception of that applause which we are sure they must elicit from every critic worthy of the name. Had any scholar in Britain been called upon, ten years ago, to say which of all the authors of antiquity he considered most insusceptible of elegant and adequate translation, we are pretty sure he would have answered, either Aristophanes, or Horace, or both. It gives us much pleasure, and some little pride too, that the pages of this miscellany have been the honoured vehicles of specimens both of Aristophanic and Horatian versions, which must go far to alter an opinion so widely, and as it seemed, so justly adopted. In the month of January 1819, there appeared in this journal the first specimen of Mr Frere's translations from the Prince of Attic Comedy-a piece of composition which at once fixed the attention of every lover of learning, wit, and poetry, and excited or strengthened hopes which ere long, we trust, shall be abundantly gratified. Mr Frere will be the first to rejoice in seeing the author of our present specimens placed in honour by his side. To render the Odes of Horace does not indeed demand the same infinite variety of accomplishments and powers which must meet in any worthy translator of any one comedy of Aristophanes. It demands, however, an union of talents which the history of English translation has rarely exhibited in any department-that of the utmost purity and depth of perception and feeling, with the utmost terseness and elegance of diction. More sensible of the inherent difficulties of his undertaking than any other person is likely to be, Mr Wrangham has modestly inscribed his brochure with the motto, In magnis voluisse sat est, but we are sure he is the only scholar in England that would have selected such a motto for such a brochure. We had almost forgot to take notice, that Mr Wrangham's frontispiece is adorned with an exquisite wooden-cut by Bewick-representing his own church and the vicarage of Henmanby. The scene appears so beautifully and classically congenial, that we hope his recent elevation (to the Archdeaconry of Cleveland) does not imply its desertion.] Firm is the genuine patriot's soul: Dame Pronounce, "Troy, Troy is wrapp'd in By judge corrupt foredoom'd its wall, To mine and to Minerva's levin Its fraudful prince and people given, Glitters no more in Phrygian vest Secure-her Capitol may tower, The shatter'd domes of Troy to rear. But these are themes for lighter shell ODE 5. Jove's power the thunder-peal proclaims: Britain's and Parthia's hated names, Inscribed 'mid Cæsar's victories, Exalt the hero to the skies. And has thy soldier, Crassus, wived This, patriot Regulus foreknew ; VOL. VII. This March-day incense, at the door These flowers, on living turf this fire- Mæcenas, to thy rescued friend Left to itself the public weal, While Lydia, I to thee was dear, While, still to me thy love confined, Me now the charms of Chloe sway, And me young Calais inspires For whom stern Death I'd doubly brave, What if the yoke, though sunder'd, we Should I shake off sweet Chloe's chain, Though fairer he than eve's bright star, With thee would live, with thee would die. ODE 13. Fount of Bandusia, glassy spring, Worthy of hallow'd offering, Of scatter'd flowers and sweetest wine! A kid to-morrow shall be thine, Whose budding horns threat love and war- To-morrow with his heart's red tide ODE 15. Wedded to needy Ibycus, Cease, wanton Chloris, loosely thus Fitter for burial thou, than ball! To bound, at each gay festival; Descried 'mid blooming maids at play, Like black cloud on the Milky Way. That well may grace bright Pholoe, Which ill beseems such crone as thee. Fitlier thy daughter would become, Like Bacchante roused by beat of drum, To storm young gallants' doors, or fired By Nothus, frisk as goat untired. Thine age Luceria's fleeces suit And distaff, more than lyre or lute, Or flask drain'd dry, or round the brow Entwined the rose's damask glow. ODE 23. If the New Moon thy hands but see Rear'd heavenward, rustic Phidyle; And incense, and fresh fruits appease, And a fierce sow thy deities: No blight thy fertile vines shall feel, On thy corn-field no mildew steal; Nor thy sweet charge the season fear, When Autumn's orchards load the year. The victim, which 'mid woodlands green On snow-capp'd Algidus is seen, Or crops in Alban meads its food, May stain the pontiff's axe with bloodBefits not thee to steep the ground In gore of slaughter'd offerings: crown'd With rosemary's and myrtle's pride, Thy little gods are satisfied. Press but from hand that's pure their shrine A simple cake, the Powers Divine Of late a swain to maidens known, O Queen of happy Cyprus thou, The bitch or fox with young, or jay, Ill-omen'd charterer! marks the way To villains; or, athirst for blood, The dun wolf from Lanuvium's wood: Or serpent, where their journey leads, Shoots arrow-like, and scares their steeds. I with presaging skill endued, Where friendship sways me for the good, The raven hoarse with anxious vow From the auspicious east will woo; Before the crow his stagnant fen, Herald of tempests, seeks again. Be happy wheresoe'er thou art, Thus her false bull Europa rode In the dim night could nought descry, Soon as her footstep press'd the shore, I hear my absent father cry; O thou of royal ancestry, A cask of wine unpierced for thee Hie then to Tibur's dripping shore, Quit, quit thy cloying luxuries, Bright Cepheus now his fire displays, (Wakeful for all, your patriot cares) The future shrouds in thickest night; Lord of himself and blest is he, Dread Jove, or spread the skies with blue, And those sweet hills, where reign'd and May gently fill my little sail; died Telegonus the parricide. And safe, beneath the Twins, shall ride |