Where tawny lions from hot Lybia's sand 'The following lines, Sur les Arênes de Nismes, are to be found in a RECUEIL AMUSANT DE VOYAGES, and are, I think, in so good a style, that a reader who has not met with them before, will be pleased to see them here: Quoi! dis-je, c'est ici, sur cette même pierre Qu'ont épargné les ans, la vengeance, et la guerre, Venoit, d'un front serrein, et de meurtres avide, Savourer a loisir un spectacle homicide! C'est dans ce triste lieu qu'un jeune beauté, Ne respirant ailleurs qu'amour et volupté, Dans le flanc du captif à ses pieds étendu ! The publick spectacles at Rome were calculated to amuse the prince and people, and to render them insensible to the feelings of humanity. How different from the genius of the intellectual theatre! Lewis the fourteenth, after having been present at the representation of Corneille's Cinna, or the Clemency of Augustus, was heard to declare, that had he then been asked to pardon the Chevalier de Rohan, he would so disgraceful to the Prince, have consented. This anecdote deserves the notice of some singularists, nd so honourable to the Poet) who affect to think that the ftage is prejudicial to morals. Comedy has been sometimes licentious; but next to the Divinity which presides 2386 Not that his domes in statelier order rise,* over the eloquence of the pulpit, the Tragick Muse has been the chief priestess of virtue. "I never thought those ugly beetles had any feeling, (says a child to its mother,) till I heard the pretty lady in MEASURE FOR MEASURE say so." The moral of the Greek ftage is perhaps too much confined to prudential precept, and reverence for absurd superstition. The French drama, till its late perversion, was perfect purity. Even the Operas of Metastatio abound with the noblest sentiments; and a very small number of our own tragedies excepted, where can the vicious heart, the sullen temper, or the perverted understanding, find such efficacious pharmacy as on the stage of England? Were a deaf man to enter the theatre before" a well graced actor leaves the stage," he would soon discover what sentiment was prevalent, from the sympathy of the audience. He would see indignant scorn at succesful villainy, the kind bosom heaving for distress, or the countenance expanded and exulting at the triumph of integrity and honour. The seeds of goodness are almost in every mind, and a little culture may prevent their degenerating. 2 Urbem neque pro majestate imperii ornatam, et inundationibus. incendiisque obnoxiam, excoluit adeo, ut jure sit gloriatus, marmoream se relinquere quam lateritiam accepisset. SUET. in Aug. 29. Some private Romans erected at their own expence publick edifices costly enough to exhaust the revenues of a Bedford or a Marlborough. From the indifferent success which has attended the several attempts to translate Virgil into our language, one would be at first led to imagine that it is next to impossible to transfuse the spirit of Roman poetry into English, and to cast the blame on our tongue, not on our translators; did not Rowe's admirable version of Lucan refute such an opinion. Whatever may be the reason, no great ancient poet is less indebted to translators than Virgil; nor without acquaintance with him in his native language can any adequate idea be formed of his peculiar genius and excellence. Dryden, himself a great poet, is often unfaithful, diffuse, licentious, or negligent. I have never met with any person who recollected twenty lines together of his translation, while hundreds not only remember, but cannot forget, almost whole books of the original. The version of Pitt is less licentious, in particular passages more brilliant, but upon the whole languid: while Trap, as Doctor Johnson observes, is now only a clandestine refuge for the laziness of school-boys. A translation of Ariosto is extant, which like Trap's of Virgil, retains every word of the meaning without one spark of the spirit of the author: these versions may remind 7 |