Chapter XVII: Preface: On Translation, (1)

PREFIXED TO DRYDEN's SECOND MISCELLANY,

PUBLISHED IN 1685.

For this last half year I have been troubled with the disease (as I may call it) of translation. The cold prose fits of it, which are always the most tedious with me, were spent in the History of the League;[47] the hot, which succeeded them, in this volume of Verse Miscellanies. The truth is, I fancied to myself a kind of ease in the change of the paroxysm; never suspecting but that the humour would have wasted itself in two or three pastorals of Theocritus, and as many odes of Horace. But finding, or at least thinking I found, something that was more pleasing in them than my ordinary productions, I encouraged myself to renew my old acquaintance with Lucretius and Virgil; and immediately fixed upon some parts of them, which had most affected me in the reading. These were my natural impulses for the undertaking. But there was an accidental motive which was full as forcible, and God forgive him who was the occasion of it. It was my Lord Roscommon's "Essay on Translated Verse;"[48] which made me uneasy till I tried whether or no I was capable of following his rules, and of reducing the speculation into practice. For, many a fair precept in poetry is, like a seeming demonstration in the mathematics, very specious in the diagram, but failing in the mechanic operation. I think I have generally observed his instructions; I am sure my reason is sufficiently convinced both of their truth and usefulness; which, in other words, is to confess no less a vanity, than to pretend that I have, at least in some places, made examples to his rules. Yet, withal, I must acknowledge, that I have many times exceeded my commission; for I have both added and omitted, and even sometimes very boldly made such expositions of my author's, as no Dutch commentator will forgive me. Perhaps, in such particular passages, I have thought that I discovered some beauty yet undiscovered by those pedants, which none but a poet could have found. Where I have taken away some of their expressions, and cut them shorter, it may possibly be on this consideration, that what was beautiful in the Greek or Latin, would not appear so shining in the English: and where I have enlarged them, I desire the false critics would not always think, that those thoughts are wholly mine, but that either they are secretly in the poet, or may be fairly deduced from him; or at least, if both those considerations should fail, that my own is of a piece with his, and that if he were living, and an Englishman, they are such as he would probably have written.

For, after all, a translator is to make his author appear as charming as possibly he can, provided he maintains his character, and makes him not unlike himself. Translation is a kind of drawing after the life; where every one will acknowledge there is a double sort of likeness, a good one and a bad. It is one thing to draw the outlines true, the features like, the proportions exact, the colouring itself perhaps tolerable; and another thing to make all these graceful, by the posture, the shadowings, and, chiefly, by the spirit which animates the whole. I cannot, without some indignation, look on an ill copy of an excellent original; much less can I behold with patience Virgil, Homer, and some others, whose beauties I have been endeavouring all my life to imitate, so abused, as I may say, to their faces, by a botching interpreter. What English readers, unacquainted with Greek or Latin, will believe me, or any other man, when we commend those authors, and confess we derive all that is pardonable in us from their fountains, if they take those to be the same poets, whom our Oglebies have translated? But I dare assure them, that a good poet is no more like himself, in a dull translation, than his carcase would be to his living body. There are many, who understand Greek and Latin, and yet are ignorant of their mother-tongue. The proprieties and delicacies of the English are known to few; it is impossible even for a good wit to understand and practise them, without the help of a liberal education, long reading, and digesting of those few good authors we have amongst us, the knowledge of men and manners, the freedom of habitudes and conversation with the best company of both sexes; and, in short, without wearing off the rust which he contracted while he was laying in a stock of learning. Thus difficult it is to understand the purity of English, and critically to discern not only good writers from bad, and a proper style from a corrupt, but also to distinguish that which is pure in a good author, from that which is vicious and corrupt in him. And for want of all these requisites, or the greatest part of them, most of our ingenious young men take up some cried-up English poet for their model, adore him, and imitate him, as they think, without knowing wherein he is defective, where he is boyish and trifling, wherein either his thoughts are improper to his subject, or his expressions unworthy of his thoughts, or the turn of both is unharmonious. Thus it appears necessary, that a man should be a nice critic in his mother-tongue, before he attempts to translate in a foreign language. Neither is it sufficient, that he be able to judge of words and style; but he must be a master of them too; he must perfectly understand his author's tongue, and absolutely command his own. So that, to be a thorough translator, he must be a thorough poet. Neither is it enough to give his author's sense in good English, in poetical expressions, and in musical numbers; for, though all these are exceeding difficult to perform, there yet remains a harder task; and it is a secret of which few translators have sufficiently thought. I have already hinted a word or two concerning it; that is, the maintaining the character of an author, which distinguishes him from all others, and makes him appear that individual poet whom you would interpret. For example, not only the thoughts, but the style and versification, of Virgil and Ovid are very different: Yet I see, even in our best poets, who have translated some parts of them, that they have confounded their several talents; and, by endeavouring only at the sweetness and harmony of numbers, have made them both so much alike, that, if I did not know the originals, I should never be able to judge by the copies, which was Virgil, and which was Ovid. It was objected against a late noble painter,[49] that he drew many graceful pictures, but few of them were alike. And this happened to him, because he always studied himself more than those who sat to him. In such translators I can easily distinguish the hand which performed the work, but I cannot distinguish their poet from another. Suppose two authors are equally sweet, yet there is as great distinction to be made in sweetness, as in that of sugar, and that of honey. I can make the difference more plain, by giving you (if it be worth knowing) my own method of proceeding, in my translations out of four several poets in this volume; Virgil, Theocritus, Lucretius, and Horace. In each of these, before I undertook them, I considered the genius and distinguishing character of my author. I looked on Virgil as a succinct, and grave majestic writer; one who weighed, not only every thought, but every word and syllable; who was still aiming to crowd his sense into as narrow a compass as possibly he could; for which reason he is so very figurative, that he requires (I may almost say) a grammar apart to construe him. His verse is every where sounding the very thing in your ears, whose sense it bears; yet the numbers are perpetually varied, to increase the delight of the reader; so that the same sounds are never repeated twice together. On the contrary, Ovid and Claudian, though they write in styles differing from each other, yet have each of them but one sort of music in their verses. All the versification and little variety of Claudian is included within the compass of four or five lines, and then he begins again in the same tenor; perpetually closing his sense at the end of a verse, and that verse commonly which they call golden, or two substantives and two adjectives, with a verb betwixt them to keep the peace. Ovid, with all his sweetness, has as little variety of numbers and sound as he: he is always, as it were, upon the hand-gallop, and his verse runs upon carpet-ground. He avoids, like the other, all synalæphas, or cutting off one vowel when it comes before another in the following word; so that, minding only smoothness, he wants both variety and majesty.--But to return to Virgil: though he is smooth where smoothness is required, yet he is so far from affecting it, that he seems rather to disdain it; frequently makes use of synalæphas, and concludes his sense in the middle of his verse. He is every where above conceits of epigrammatic wit, and gross hyperboles; he maintains majesty in the midst of plainness; he shines, but glares not; and is stately without ambition, which is the vice of Lucan. I drew my definition of poetical wit from my particular consideration of him: for propriety of thoughts and words are only to be found in him; and, where they are proper, they will be delightful. Pleasure follows of necessity, as the effect does the cause; and therefore is not to be put into the definition. This exact propriety of Virgil I particularly regarded, as a great part of his character; but must confess, to my shame, that I have not been able to translate any part of him so well, as to make him appear wholly like himself: for, where the original is close, no version can reach it in the same compass. Hannibal Caro's,[50] in the Italian, is the nearest, the most poetical, and the most sonorous of any translation of the Æneids; yet, though he takes the advantage of blank verse, he commonly allows two lines for one of Virgil, and does not always hit his sense. Tasso tells us, in his letters, that Sperone Speroni, a great Italian wit, who was his contemporary, observed of Virgil and Tully, that the Latin orator endeavoured to imitate the copiousness of Homer, the Greek poet; and that the Latin poet made it his business to reach the conciseness of Demosthenes, the Greek orator. Virgil therefore, being so very sparing of his words, and leaving so much to be imagined by the reader, can never be translated as he ought, in any modern tongue. To make him copious, is to alter his character; and to translate him line for line, is impossible; because the Latin is naturally a more succinct language than either the Italian, Spanish, French, or even than the English, which, by reason of its monosyllables, is far the most compendious of them. Virgil is much the closest of any Roman poet, and the Latin hexameter has more feet than the English heroick.

Besides all this, an author has the choice of his own thoughts and words, which a translator has not; he is confined by the sense of the inventor to those expressions which are the nearest to it: so that Virgil, studying brevity, and having the command of his own language, could bring those words into a narrow compass, which a translator cannot render without circumlocutions. In short, they, who have called him the torture of grammarians, might also have called him the plague of translators; for he seems to have studied not to be translated. I own that, endeavouring to turn his "Nisus and Euryalus" as close as I was able, I have performed that episode too literally; that, giving more scope to "Mezentius and Lausus," that version, which has more of the majesty of Virgil, has less of his conciseness; and all that I can promise for myself, is only, that I have done both better than Ogleby, and perhaps as well as Caro; so that, methinks, I come like a malefactor, to make a speech upon the gallows, and to warn all other poets, by my sad example, from the sacrilege of translating Virgil. Yet, by considering him so carefully as I did before my attempt, I have made some faint resemblance of him; and, had I taken more time, might possibly have succeeded better; but never so well as to have satisfied myself.

He who excels all other poets in his own language, were it possible to do him right, must appear above them in our tongue, which, as my Lord Roscommon justly observes, approaches nearest to the Roman in its majesty; nearest indeed, but with a vast interval betwixt them. There is an inimitable grace in Virgil's words, and in them principally consists that beauty, which gives so inexpressible a pleasure to him who best understands their force. This diction of his (I must once again say) is never to be copied; and, since it cannot, he will appear but lame in the best translation. The turns of his verse, his breakings, his propriety, his numbers, and his gravity, I have as far imitated, as the poverty of our language, and the hastiness of my performance, would allow. I may seem sometimes to have varied from his sense; but I think the greatest variations may be fairly deduced from him; and where I leave his commentators, it may be I understand him better: at least I writ without consulting them in many places. But two particular lines in Mezentius and Lausus, I cannot so easily excuse. They are indeed remotely allied to Virgil's sense; but they are too like the trifling tenderness of Ovid, and were printed before I had considered them enough to alter them. The first of them I have forgotten, and cannot easily retrieve, because the copy is at the press. The second is this:

When Lausus died, I was already slain.

This appears pretty enough at first sight; but I am convinced, for many reasons, that the expression is too bold; that Virgil would not have said it, though Ovid would. The reader may pardon it, if he please, for the freeness of the confession; and instead of that, and the former, admit these two lines, which are more according to the author:

Nor ask I life, nor fought with that design;
As I had used my fortune, use thou thine.

Having with much ado got clear of Virgil, I have, in the next place, to consider the genius of Lucretius, whom I have translated more happily in those parts of him which I undertook. If he was not of the best age of Roman poetry, he was at least of that which preceded it;[51] and he himself refined it to that degree of perfection, both in the language and the thoughts, that he left an easy task to Virgil; who, as he succeeded him in time, so he copied his excellencies; for the method of the Georgics is plainly derived from him. Lucretius had chosen a subject naturally crabbed; he therefore adorned it with poetical descriptions, and precepts of morality, in the beginning and ending of his books, which you see Virgil has imitated with great success in those four books, which, in my opinion, are more perfect in their kind than even his divine Æneids. The turn of his verses he has likewise followed in those places which Lucretius has most laboured, and some of his very lines he has transplanted into his own works, without much variation. If I am not mistaken, the distinguishing character of Lucretius (I mean of his soul and genius) is a certain kind of noble pride, and positive assertion of his opinions. He is every where confident of his own reason, and assuming an absolute command, not only over his vulgar reader, but even his patron Memmius. For he is always bidding him attend, as if he had the rod over him; and using a magisterial authority, while he instructs him. From his time to ours, I know none so like him, as our poet and philosopher of Malmesbury.[52] This is that perpetual dictatorship, which is exercised by Lucretius; who, though often in the wrong, yet seems to deal _bonâ fide_ with his reader, and tells him nothing but what he thinks; in which plain sincerity, I believe, he differs from our Hobbes, who could not but be convinced, or at least doubt of some eternal truths, which he has opposed. But for Lucretius, he seems to disdain all manner of replies, and is so confident of his cause, that he is beforehand with his antagonists; urging for them whatever he imagined they could say, and leaving them, as he supposes, without an objection for the future: all this, too, with so much scorn and indignation, as if he were assured of the triumph, before he entered into the lists. From this sublime and daring genius of his, it must of necessity come to pass, that his thoughts must be masculine, full of argumentation, and that sufficiently warm. From the same fiery temper proceeds the loftiness of his expressions, and the perpetual torrent of his verse, where the barrenness of his subject does not too much constrain the quickness of his fancy. For there is no doubt to be made, but that he could have been every where as poetical, as he is in his descriptions, and in the moral part of his philosophy, if he had not aimed more to instruct, in his system of nature, than to delight. But he was bent upon making Memmius a materialist, and teaching him to defy an invisible power: in short, he was so much an atheist, that he forgot sometimes to be a poet. These are the considerations, which I had of that author, before I attempted to translate some parts of him. And accordingly I laid by my natural diffidence and scepticism for a while, to take up that dogmatical way of his, which, as I said, is so much his character, as to make him that individual poet. As for his opinions concerning the mortality of the soul, they are so absurd, that I cannot, if I would, believe them. I think a future state demonstrable even by natural arguments; at least, to take away rewards and punishments is only a pleasing prospect to a man, who resolves beforehand not to live morally. But, on the other side, the thought of being nothing after death is a burthen insupportable to a virtuous man, even though a heathen. We naturally aim at happiness, and cannot bear to have it confined to the shortness of our present being; especially when we consider, that virtue is generally unhappy in this world, and vice fortunate: so that it is hope of futurity alone, that makes this life tolerable, in expectation of a better. Who would not commit all the excesses, to which he is prompted by his natural inclinations, if he may do them with security while he is alive, and be incapable of punishment after he is dead? If he be cunning and secret enough to avoid the laws, there is no band of morality to restrain him: for fame and reputation are weak ties; many men have not the least sense of them. Powerful men are only awed by them, as they conduce to their interest, and that not always, when a passion is predominant; and no man will be contained within the bounds of duty, when he may safely transgress them. These are my thoughts abstractedly, and without entering into the notions of our Christian faith, which is the proper business of divines.

But there are other arguments in this poem (which I have turned into English) not belonging to the mortality of the soul, which are strong enough to a reasonable man, to make him less in love with life, and consequently in less apprehensions of death. Such as are the natural satiety proceeding from a perpetual enjoyment of the same things; the inconveniences of old age, which make him incapable of corporeal pleasures; the decay of understanding and memory, which render him contemptible, and useless to others. These, and many other reasons, so pathetically urged, so beautifully expressed so adorned with examples, and so admirably raised by the _prosopopeia_ of Nature, who is brought in speaking to her children with so much authority and vigour, deserve the pains I have taken with them, which I hope have not been unsuccessful, or unworthy of my author: at least I must take the liberty to own, that I was pleased with my own endeavours, which but rarely happens to me; and that I am not dissatisfied upon the review of any thing I have done in this author.

It is true, there is something, and that of some moment, to be objected against my englishing the Nature of Love, from the fourth book of Lucretius; and I can less easily answer why I translated it, than why I thus translated it. The objection arises from the obscenity of the subject; which is aggravated by the too lively and alluring delicacy of the verses. In the first place, without the least formality of an excuse, I own it pleased me; and let my enemies make the worst they can of this confession. I am not yet so secure from that passion, but that I want my author's antidotes against it. He has given the truest and most philosophical account, both of the disease and remedy, which I ever found in any author; for which reasons I translated him. But it will be asked, why I turned him into this luscious English, for I will not give it a worse word. Instead of an answer, I would ask again of my supercilious adversaries, whether I am not bound, when I translate an author, to do him all the right I can, and to translate him to the best advantage? If, to mince his meaning, which I am satisfied was honest and instructive, I had either omitted some part of what he said, or taken from the strength of his expression, I certainly had wronged him; and that freeness of thought and words being thus cashiered in my hands, he had no longer been Lucretius. If nothing of this kind be to be read, physicians must not study nature, anatomies must not be seen, and somewhat I could say of particular passages in books, which, to avoid profaneness, I do not name. But the intention qualifies the act; and both mine and my author's were to instruct, as well as please. It is most certain, that bare-faced bawdry is the poorest pretence to wit imaginable. If I should say otherwise, I should have two great authorities against me: the one is the "Essay on Poetry," which I publicly valued before I knew the author of it, and with the commendation of which my Lord Roscommon so happily begins his "Essay on Translated Verse;" the other is no less than our admired Cowley, who says the same thing in other words; for, in his "Ode concerning Wit," he writes thus of it:

Much less can that have any place,
At which a virgin hides her face;
Such dross the fire must purge away; 'tis just
The author blush, there, where the reader must.

Here indeed Mr Cowley goes farther than the Essay; for he asserts plainly, that obscenity has no place in wit; the other only says, it is a poor pretence to it, or an ill sort of wit, which has nothing more to support it than bare-faced ribaldry; which is both unmannerly in itself, and fulsome to the reader. But neither of these will reach my case: for, in the first place, I am only the translator, not the inventor; so that the heaviest part of the censure falls upon Lucretius, before it reaches me: in the next place, neither he nor I have used the grossest words, but the cleanliest metaphors we could find, to palliate the broadness of the meaning; and, to conclude, have carried the poetical part no farther, than the philosophical exacted.[53]

There is one mistake of mine, which I will not lay to the printer's charge, who has enough to answer for in false pointings; it is in the word, _viper_: I would have the verse run thus:

The scorpion, love, must on the wound be bruised.[54]

There are a sort of blundering, half-witted people, who make a great deal of noise about a verbal slip; though Horace would instruct them better in true criticism:

----_non ego paucis
Offendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit,
Aut humana parùm cavit natura._

True judgment in poetry, like that in painting, takes a view of the whole together, whether it be good or not; and where the beauties are more than the faults, concludes for the poet against the little judge. It is a sign that malice is hard driven, when it is forced to lay hold on a word or syllable: to arraign a man is one thing, and to cavil at him is another. In the midst of an ill-natured generation of scribblers, there is always justice enough left in mankind, to protect good writers: and they too are obliged, both by humanity and interest, to espouse each other's cause, against false critics, who are the common enemies. This last consideration puts me in mind of what I owe to the ingenious and learned translator of Lucretius.[55] I have not here designed to rob him of any part of that commendation which he has so justly acquired by the whole author, whose fragments only fall to my portion. What I have now performed is no more than I intended above twenty years ago. The ways of our translation are very different. He follows him more closely than I have done, which became an interpreter of the whole poem: I take more liberty, because it best suited with my design, which was, to make him as pleasing as I could. He had been too voluminous, had he used my method in so long a work; and I had certainly taken his, had I made it my business to translate the whole. The preference, then, is justly his; and I join with Mr Evelyn in the confession of it, with this additional advantage to him, that his reputation is already established in this poet, mine is to make its fortune in the world. If I have been any where obscure, in following our common author, or if Lucretius himself is to be condemned, I refer myself to his excellent annotations, which I have often read, and always with some new pleasure.

My preface begins already to swell upon me, and looks as if I were afraid of my reader, by so tedious a bespeaking of him; and yet I have Horace and Theocritus upon my hands; but the Greek gentleman shall quickly be dispatched, because I have more business with the Roman.

That which distinguishes Theocritus from all other poets, both Greek and Latin, and which raises him even above Virgil in his Eclogues, is the inimitable tenderness of his passions, and the natural expression of them in words so becoming of a pastoral. A simplicity shines through all he writes. He shows his art and learning, by disguising both. His shepherds never rise above their country education in their complaints of love. There is the same difference betwixt him and Virgil, as there is betwixt Tasso's "Aminta" and the "Pastor Fido" of Guarini. Virgil's shepherds are too well read in the philosophy of Epicurus and of Plato, and Guarini's seem to have been bred in courts; but Theocritus and Tasso have taken theirs from cottages and plains. It was said of Tasso, in relation to his similitudes, _mai esce del bosco_, that he never departed from the woods; that is all his comparisons were taken from the country. The same may be said of our Theocritus. He is softer than Ovid: he touches the passions more delicately, and performs all this out of his own fund, without diving into the arts and sciences for a supply. Even his Doric dialect has an incomparable sweetness in its clownishness, like a fair shepherdess in her country russet, talking in a Yorkshire tone. This was impossible for Virgil to imitate; because the severity of the Roman language denied him that advantage. Spenser has endeavoured it in his "Shepherd's Calendar;" but neither will it succeed in English; for which reason I forbore to attempt it. For Theocritus writ to Sicilians, who spoke that dialect; and I direct this part of my translations to our ladies, who neither understand, nor will take pleasure in such homely expressions. I proceed to Horace.

Take him in parts, and he is chiefly to be considered in his three different talents, as he was a critic, a satirist, and a writer of odes. His morals are uniform, and run through all of them; for, let his Dutch commentators say what they will, his philosophy was Epicurean; and he made use of gods and providence only to serve a turn in poetry. But since neither his Criticisms, which are the most instructive of any that are written in this art, nor his Satires, which are incomparably beyond Juvenal's, (if to laugh and rally is to be preferred to railing and declaiming,) are no part of my present undertaking, I confine myself wholly to his Odes. These are also of several sorts: some of them are panegyrical, others moral, the rest jovial, or (if I may so call them) Bacchanalian. As difficult as he makes it, and as indeed it is, to imitate Pindar, yet, in his most elevated flights, and in the sudden changes of his subject with almost imperceptible connections, that Theban poet is his master. But Horace is of the more bounded fancy, and confines himself strictly to one sort of verse, or stanza, in every Ode. That which will distinguish his style from all other poets, is the elegance of his words, and the numerousness of his verse. There is nothing so delicately turned in all the Roman language. There appears in every part of his diction, or (to speak English) in all his expressions, a kind of noble and bold purity. His words are chosen with as much exactness as Virgil's; but there seems to be a greater spirit in them. There is a secret happiness attends his choice, which in Petronius is called _curiosa felicitas_, and which I suppose he had from the _feliciter audere_ of Horace himself. But the most distinguishing part of all his character seems to me to be his briskness, his jollity, and his good humour; and those I have chiefly endeavoured to copy. His other excellencies, I confess, are above my imitation. One Ode, which infinitely pleased me in the reading, I have attempted to translate in Pindaric verse: it is that, which is inscribed to the present Earl of Rochester, to whom I have particular obligations, which this small testimony of my gratitude can never pay.[56] It is his darling in the Latin, and I have taken some pains to make it my master-piece in English; for which reason I took this kind of verse, which allows more latitude than any other.

Every one knows it was introduced into our language, in this age, by the happy genius of Mr Cowley. The seeming easiness of it has made it spread; but it has not been considered enough, to be so well cultivated. It languishes in almost every hand but his, and some very few, whom (to keep the rest in countenance) I do not name. He, indeed, has brought it as near perfection as was possible in so short a time. But, if I may be allowed to speak my mind modestly, and without injury to his sacred ashes, somewhat of the purity of English, somewhat of more equal thoughts, somewhat of sweetness in the numbers, in one word, somewhat of a finer turn, and more lyrical verse, is yet wanting. As for the soul of it, which consists in the warmth and vigour of fancy, the masterly figures, and the copiousness of imagination, he has excelled all others in this kind. Yet if the kind itself be capable of more perfection, though rather in the ornamental parts of it than the essential, what rules of morality or respect have I broken, in naming the defects, that they may hereafter be amended? Imitation is a nice point, and there are few poets who deserve to be models in all they write. Milton's "Paradise Lost" is admirable; but am I therefore bound to maintain, that there are no flats amongst his elevations, when it is evident he creeps along sometimes for above an hundred lines together? Cannot I admire the height of his invention, and the strength of his expression, without defending his antiquated words, and the perpetual harshness of their sound? It is as much commendation as a man can bear, to own him excellent; all beyond it is idolatry. Since Pindar was the prince of lyric poets, let me have leave to say, that, in imitating him, our numbers should, for the most part, be lyrical: for variety, or rather where the majesty of thought requires it, they may be stretched to the English heroick of five feet, and to the French Alexandrine of six. But the ear must preside, and direct the judgment to the choice of numbers. Without the nicety of this, the harmony of Pindaric verse can never be complete; the cadency of one line must be a rule to that of the next; and the sound of the former must slide gently into that which follows, without leaping from one extreme into another. It must be done like the shadowings of a picture, which fall by degrees into a darker colour. I shall be glad, if I have so explained myself as to be understood; but if I have not, _quod nequeo dicere, et sentio tantum_,[57] must be my excuse.

There remains much more to be said on this subject; but, to avoid envy, I will be silent. What I have said is the general opinion of the best judges, and in a manner has been forced from me, by seeing a noble sort of poetry so happily restored by one man, and so grossly copied by almost all the rest. A musical ear, and a great genius, if another Mr Cowley could arise in another age, may bring it to perfection. In the mean time,

----_fungar vice cotis, acutum
Reddere quæ ferrum valet, expers ipsa secandi_.

I hope it will not be expected from me, that I should say any thing of my fellow undertakers in this Miscellany. Some of them are too nearly related to me, to be commended without suspicion of partiality;[58] others I am sure need it not; and the rest I have not perused.

To conclude, I am sensible that I have written this too hastily and too loosely; I fear I have been tedious, and, which is worse, it comes out from the first draught, and uncorrected. This I grant is no excuse; for it may be reasonably urged, why did he not write with more leisure, or, if he had it not, (which was certainly my case,) why did he attempt to write on so nice a subject? The objection is unanswerable; but, in part of recompence, let me assure the reader, that, in hasty productions, he is sure to meet with an author's present sense, which cooler thoughts would possibly have disguised. There is undoubtedly more of spirit, though not of judgment, in these uncorrect essays; and consequently, though my hazard be the greater, yet the reader's pleasure is not the less.

JOHN DRYDEN.

FOOTNOTES:

[47] Mainburg's "History of the League," translated by our author, at the command of Charles II.

[48] First published in 1680.

[49] Sir Peter Lely, by birth a Dutchman, came to England in 1641, and died in 1680. There is a remarkable similarity between his female portraits, which seems to have arisen from the circumstance mentioned by Dryden, of his bringing all his subjects as near as possible to his own idea of the beautiful. Pope's lines in his praise are too well known to be quoted.

[50] Annibale Caro died at Rome, 1566.

[51] He died in the year of Rome 699, before the commencement of the Augustan age.

[52] The celebrated Hobbes, who died in 1679.

[53] I wish our author had attended to his noble friend Roscommon's recommendation:

Immodest words admit of no defence,
For want of decency is want of sense;
What moderate fop would range the Park, or stews,
Who among troops of faultless nymphs might chuse?

[54] This error, however, went through the subsequent editions.

[55] Thomas Creech, a particular friend of our author. He was born in 1659, and in June 1700 committed suicide; for which rash action no adequate cause has been assigned. Besides the translation of Lucretius, which is his principal work, he executed an indifferent version of Horace, and translated parts of Theocritus, Ovid, Juvenal, Virgil, &c. In his translation of Lucretius, he omitted the indelicate part of the Fourth Book; a deficiency which Dryden thought fit to supply, for which he has above assigned some very inadequate reasons. Creech's Lucretius first appeared at Oxford, in 8vo, 1682, and was reprinted in the year following. The annotations, to which our author alludes a little lower, were originally attached to a Latin edition of Lucretius, superintended by Creech, and afterwards transferred to his English version. They display great learning, and an intimate acquaintance with the Epicurean philosophy.

[56] Our author, in the Dedication to "Cleomenes," compliments Lord Rochester on his power of critically understanding the beauties of Horace, and upon his particular affection for this particular Ode. See Vol. VIII. p. 193.

[57] Mr Malone has observed, that this quotation, as well as that which follows, is inaccurate; the words of Juvenal are, "nequeo _monstrare_, et sentio tantum."

[58] Dryden's son was amongst the contributors.

TRANSLATIONS

FROM

THEOCRITUS.

AMARYLLIS:

OR,

THE THIRD IDYLLIUM OF THEOCRITUS, PARAPHRASED.[59]

To Amaryllis love compels my way,
My browzing goats upon the mountains stray;
O Tityrus, tend them well, and see them fed }
In pastures fresh, and to their watering led; }
And 'ware the ridgling with his budding head. }
Ah, beauteous nymph! can you forget your love,
The conscious grottos, and the shady grove,
Where stretched at ease your tender limbs were laid,
Your nameless beauties nakedly displayed?
Then I was called your darling, your desire,
With kisses such as set my soul on fire:
But you are changed, yet I am still the same;
My heart maintains for both a double flame,
Grieved, but unmoved, and patient of your scorn;
So faithful I, and you so much forsworn!
I die, and death will finish all my pain;
Yet, ere I die, behold me once again:
Am I so much deformed, so changed of late?
What partial judges are our love and hate!
Ten wildings have I gathered for my dear;
How ruddy, like your lips, their streaks appear!
Far-off you viewed them with a longing eye
Upon the topmost branch (the tree was high);
Yet nimbly up, from bough to bough, I swerved,[60]
And for to-morrow have ten more reserved.
Look on me kindly, and some pity shew,
Or give me leave at least to look on you.
Some god transform me by his heavenly power,
Even to a bee to buzz within your bower,
The winding ivy-chaplet to invade,
And folded fern, that your fair forehead shade.
Now to my cost the force of love I find,
The heavy hand it bears on human kind.
The milk of tygers was his infant food, }
Taught from his tender years the taste of blood; }
His brother whelps and he ran wild about the wood. }
Ah nymph, trained up in his tyrannic court,
To make the sufferings of your slaves your sport!
Unheeded ruin! treacherous delight!
O polished hardness, softened to the sight!
Whose radiant eyes your ebon brows adorn,
Like midnight those, and these like break of morn!
Smile once again, revive me with your charms,
And let me die contented in your arms.
I would not ask to live another day,
Might I but sweetly kiss my soul away.
Ah, why am I from empty joys debarred?
For kisses are but empty when compared.
I rave, and in my raging fit shall tear
The garland, which I wove for you to wear,
Of parsley, with a wreath of ivy bound,
And bordered with a rosy edging round.
What pangs I feel, unpitied and unheard!
Since I must die, why is my fate deferred!
I strip my body of my shepherd's frock;
Behold that dreadful downfal of a rock,
Where yon old fisher views the waves from high!
'Tis that convenient leap I mean to try.
You would be pleased to see me plunge to shore,
But better pleased if I should rise no more.
I might have read my fortune long ago,
When, seeking my success in love to know,
I tried the infallible prophetic way,
A poppy-leaf upon my palm to lay.
I struck, and yet no lucky crack did follow;
Yet I struck hard, and yet the leaf lay hollow;
And, which was worse, if any worse could prove,
The withering leaf foreshowed your withering love.
Yet farther,--ah, how far a lover dares!
My last recourse I had to sieve and sheers,
And told the witch Agreo my disease:
(Agreo, that in harvest used to lease;
But, harvest done, to chare-work did aspire;
Meat, drink, and two-pence was her daily hire;)
To work she went, her charms she muttered o'er, }
And yet the resty sieve wagged ne'er the more; }
I wept for woe, the testy beldame swore, }
And, foaming with her God, foretold my fate,
That I was doomed to love, and you to hate.
A milk-white goat for you I did provide;
Two milk-white kids run frisking by her side,
For which the nut-brown lass, Erithacis,
Full often offered many a savoury kiss.
Hers they shall be, since you refuse the price;
What madman would o'erstand his market twice!
My right eye itches, some good-luck is near, }
Perhaps my Amaryllis may appear; }
I'll set up such a note as she shall hear. }
What nymph but my melodious voice would move?
She must be flint, if she refuse my love.
Hippomenes, who ran with noble strife }
To win his lady, or to lose his life, }
(What shift some men will make to get a wife?) }
Threw down a golden apple in her way;
For all her haste, she could not choose but stay:
Renown said, Run; the glittering bribe cried, Hold;
The man might have been hanged, but for his gold.
Yet some suppose 'twas love, (some few indeed!)
That stopt the fatal fury of her speed:
She saw, she sighed; her nimble feet refuse
Their wonted speed, and she took pains to lose.
A prophet some, and some a poet cry,[61]
(No matter which, so neither of them lie,)
From steepy Othry's top to Pylus drove
His herd, and for his pains enjoyed his love.
If such another wager should be laid,
I'll find the man, if you can find the maid.
Why name I men, when love extended finds
His power on high, and in celestial minds?
Venus the shepherd's homely habit took,
And managed something else besides the crook;
Nay, when Adonis died, was heard to roar,
And never from her heart forgave the boar.
How blest was fair Endymion with his moon,
Who sleeps on Latmos' top from night to noon!
What Jason from Medea's love possest,
You shall not hear, but know 'tis like the rest.
My aching head can scarce support the pain;
This cursed love will surely turn my brain:
Feel how it shoots, and yet you take no pity;
Nay, then, 'tis time to end my doleful ditty.
A clammy sweat does o'er my temples creep,
My heavy eyes are urged with iron sleep;
I lay me down to gasp my latest breath,
The wolves will get a breakfast by my death;
Yet scarce enough their hunger to supply,
For love has made me carrion ere I die.

FOOTNOTES:

[59] This appeared in the First Miscellany.

[60] To swerve, as the word is here used, means to draw one's self up a tree by clinging round it with the legs and arms. It occurs in the old ballad of Sir Andrew Barton, where he sends one of his men aloft:

Then Gordon swarved the maine-mast tree,
He swarved it with might and main.

_Reliques of Ancient Poetry_, Vol. II. p. 192

[61] Melampus, the son of Amythaon, was a prophet and physician. Tibullus cites him in the character of an augur:

_compertum est veracibus ut mihi signis,
Queis Amythaonius nequeat certare Melampus._

As a physician, he discovered the use of hellebore; thence called Melampodium.

THE EPITHALAMIUM OF HELEN AND MENELAUS.

FROM THE EIGHTEENTH IDYLLIUM OF THEOCRITUS.[62]

Twelve Spartan virgins, noble, young, and fair,
With violet wreaths adorned their flowing hair;
And to the pompous palace did resort,
Where Menelaus kept his royal court.
There, hand in hand, a comely choir they led, }
To sing a blessing to his nuptial bed, }
With curious needles wrought, and painted flowers bespread. }
Jove's beauteous daughter now his bride must be,
And Jove himself was less a God than he;
For this their artful hands instruct the lute to sound,
Their feet assist their hands, and justly beat the ground.
This was their song:--Why, happy bridegroom, why,
Ere yet the stars are kindled in the sky,
Ere twilight shades, or evening dews are shed,
Why dost thou steal so soon away to bed?
Has Somnus brushed thy eye-lids with his rod, }
Or do thy legs refuse to bear their load, }
With flowing bowls of a more generous god? }
If gentle slumber on thy temples creep,
(But, naughty man, thou dost not mean to sleep,)
Betake thee to thy bed, thou drowzy drone,
Sleep by thyself, and leave thy bride alone:
Go, leave her with her maiden mates to play
At sports more harmless till the break of day;
Give us this evening; thou hast morn and night,
And all the year before thee, for delight.
O happy youth! to thee, among the crowd
Of rival princes, Cupid sneezed aloud;
And every lucky omen sent before,
To meet thee landing on the Spartan shore.
Of all our heroes, thou canst boast alone,
That Jove, whene'er he thunders, calls thee son;
Betwixt two sheets thou shalt enjoy her bare, }
With whom no Grecian virgin can compare; }
So soft, so sweet, so balmy, and so fair. }
A boy, like thee, would make a kingly line;
But oh, a girl like her must be divine.
Her equals we in years, but not in face,
Twelve score viragos of the Spartan race,
While naked to Eurotas' banks we bend,
And there in manly exercise contend,
When she appears, are all eclipsed and lost,
And hide the beauties that we made our boast.
So, when the night and winter disappear,
The purple morning, rising with the year,
Salutes the spring, as her celestial eyes
Adorn the world, and brighten all the skies;
So beauteous Helen shines among the rest,
Tall, slender, straight, with all the Graces blest.
As pines the mountains, or as fields the corn,
Or as Thessalian steeds the race adorn;
So rosy-coloured Helen is the pride
Of Lacedemon, and of Greece beside.
Like her no nymph can willing osiers bend }
In basket-works, which painted streaks commend; }
With Pallas in the loom she may contend. }
But none, ah! none can animate the lyre,
And the mute strings with vocal souls inspire;
Whether the learned Minerva be her theme,
Or chaste Diana bathing in the stream,
None can record their heavenly praise so well
As Helen, in whose eyes ten thousand Cupids dwell.
O fair, O graceful! yet with maids enrolled,
But whom to-morrow's sun a matron shall behold!
Yet ere to-morrow's sun shall show his head, }
The dewy paths of meadows we will tread, }
For crowns and chaplets to adorn thy head. }
Where all shall weep, and wish for thy return,
As bleating lambs their absent mother mourn.
Our noblest maids shall to thy name bequeath
The boughs of Lotos, formed into a wreath.
This monument, thy maiden beauties due,
High on a plane-tree shall be hung to view;
On the smooth rind the passenger shall see
Thy name engraved, and worship Helen's tree;
Balm, from a silver-box distilled around,
Shall all bedew the roots, and scent the sacred ground.
The balm, 'tis true, can aged plants prolong,
But Helen's name will keep it ever young.
Hail bride, hail bridegroom, son-in-law to Jove!
With fruitful joys Latona bless your love!
Let Venus furnish you with full desires,
Add vigour to your wills, and fuel to your fires!
Almighty Jove augment your wealthy store,
Give much to you, and to his grandsons more!
From generous loins a generous race will spring,
Each girl, like her, a queen; each boy, like you, a king.
Now sleep, if sleep you can; but while you rest,
Sleep close, with folded arms, and breast to breast.
Rise in the morn; but oh! before you rise,
Forget not to perform your morning sacrifice.
We will be with you ere the crowing cock
Salutes the light, and struts before his feathered flock.
Hymen, oh Hymen, to thy triumphs run,
And view the mighty spoils thou hast in battle won!

FOOTNOTES:

[62] This and the three following Idylliums were first published in the Second Miscellany.

THE DESPAIRING LOVER.

FROM THE TWENTY-THIRD IDYLLIUM OF THEOCRITUS.