You chief, who own bright inspiration's flame, Favourite remind us of an experiment which has been attempted, of turning brandy into water. Such is the common inferiority of translation. With respect to Virgil, the difficulty consists perhaps in this. One of the principal charms of his poetry lies in the admirable choice of his terms, the most significant and sonorous in which his images can be expressed; another, in the harmonious dignity and majestick stream of his numbers. Like his own Clitumnus, the course is smooth, but the picture is diversified with enlivening and splendid objects. He has, however, a style and composition peculiar to himself. An imitator may have many beauties, without having the beauties of Virgil. Let the English poet, for a poet he should be who attempts to resemble him, first form to himself a style, choice, rich, and glowing as his language can furnish; and giving this all the variety of modulation of which it is capable, adhere to it from the beginning, for Virgil is never unequal; and after he has completed an excellent poem, which can stand by itself with all the air of an original, he may then assure himself that he has done some justice to Maro. Pope has effected this with the Iliad. If it is not like Homer, as some are pleased to affirm, it must at least be allowed to stand alone unimitated and inimitable. Rowe, in my opinion, would have translated Virgil better than Dryden; for though he had not equal scope and fire of genius, his taste was more correct, he was less careless, and more pathetick; and I imagine, had more literature, or had better improved the care employed in his education. It may be doubted whether a very good taste be not more requisite to make a good translator, than great genius. I do not however mean to insinuate that Pope did not possess Favourite with me of all the harmonious quire, 2395 If both most eminently; though I have lived to hear (heu nefas!) the coarse couplets of the occasional Churchill preferred to his immortal labours. Happening lately to cast my eye over a page or two of Dryden's version of the Georgicks, it really appeared to me like burlesque; more contemptibly ludicrous than the avowed travesty of Cotton; with no more resemblance to the beautiful original, than subsists beween themask of an ape and the countenance of Antinous.-Let the reader who has curiosity, and a little time to mispend, turn to the technical storm in the first Æneid, full of the language of the dock-yard, and to other disfigured passages; he will not hesitate to pronounce this great poet convicted either of most vicious taste, or of elaborate affectation. When I reflect, in particular, how he has contrived to degrade that eminently beautiful passage just mentioned, I can hardly forbear crying out with Angelo, Having waste ground enough, Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary, And pitch our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie! The inequalities of Shakspeare are not more frequent, or so unaccountable, as those of the literate John Dryden. There is indeed as much difference between Virgil in his Roman toga, and his English doublet, as between a forest tree in June and January, or as between the right and the wrong side of Gobelin tapestry. Who that has read the late Mr. Mickle's version of the Lusiad, but must wish he had turned his thoughts to the neid? He would probably have had the same success with Virgil as with Camoens.-Cer If grief or care my anxious mind engage, Secure of ease, I search great Maro's page; For deep and rankling, sure, must be the wounds, That find no balm in his enchanting sounds. As Jesse's son Saul's frenzy could compose, 2400 The madness sinking, as the musick rose; vantes in the sixth chapter of the first book of Don Quixote, speaking of poetical translations, determines against them thus: "-y lo mesmo haran todos aquellos que los libros de verso quisieren volver en otra lengua; que, por mucho cuydado que pongan, y habilidad que muestren, jamas llegeràn al punto que ellos tienen en su primer nacimiento." The Lusiad of Mickle is a shining exception. Would the painter of the BOTANICK GARDEN condescend to become a translator of Virgil, we should see the English Georgicks illuminated with the brightest radiance of poetical genius, and, like the clouds round a fulgent setting sun in autumn, glowing with all the richness of gold and purple. His profusion of fancy and luxuriance of diction would not suffer much injury from the little restraint of conformity to a model so excellent. 4 Whoever wishes to see the numerous instances in which Virgil has borrowed from Homer, or imitated him, may find them enumerated by Macrobius. The ancients seem not to have considered the borrowing whole passages from an author who wrote in a different language, as plagiarism. And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from GOD was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him. I SAMUEL, xvi. 23. As As oil, diffus'd with philosophick skill, At once the agitated wave can still ; The charm prevails, and all my pain subsides. 2406 The fourth book of Virgil is completely dramatick, with strict preservation of character, the most affecting pathos, and the most tragick catastrophe. In this book he has penetrated into the recesses of the female heart with an intuition like Shakspeare's. In his Dido is displayed a knowledge of nature, and of the passion of love, which is only equalled by our immortal poet in the most transcendent of all his pieces, Othello. The conflict in her distracted bosom, her sense of reputation, of royal dignity, and of matron honour, all borne down by the storm of one irresistible passion, engage all our feelings in favour of this unfortunate woman; insomuch that the pious Æneas, who is equally frail, and coolly perfidious, becomes the object of contempt or detestation, while he and his gods, who greatly embellish the Dramatis Perfonæ, excite a more tender interest for their deluded and unsuspecting victim. This episode, as it is called, appears to me almost the master-piece of Virgil. A considerable part of the fourth book consists of Dido's speeches, and there is not a single line of declamation in any of her dialogues or soliloquies. The purity of Virgil's taste is not less conspicuous on all occasions, than his other unrivalled excellencies. . For 1 For thee, Sidonian queen,' ensnar'd, betray'd,- 9 Her woman's frame in such a whirlwind tost, The venial frailty in the feeling's lost: We join the tempest of her frantick tongue, 2416 {it. wrong! 'Hic templum Junoni ingens Sidonia Dido Condebat,-. Æn. i. 450. Quid primum deserta querar? comitemne sororem Æn. iv. 677. 9 Egregiam vero laudem, et spolia ampla refertis, sed nullis ille movetur Fletibus, aut voces ullas tractabilis audit.—Ibid. 438. Poets, |