296 But when this constitutional absurdity is forgiven the poem must be confessed to be written with great smoothness of metre, a wide extent of knowledge, and an abundant multiplicity of images; the controversy is embellished with pointed sentences, diversified by illustrations, and enlivened by sallies of invective. Some of the facts to which allusions are made are now become obscure, and perhaps there may be many satirical passages little understood. 297 As it was by its nature a work of defiance, a composition which would naturally be examined with the utmost acrimony of criticism, it was probably laboured with uncommon attention; and there are, indeed, few negligences in the subordinate parts. The original impropriety and the subsequent unpopularity of the subject, added to the ridiculousness of its first elements, has sunk it into neglect; but it may be usefully studied as an example of poetical ratiocination, in which the argument suffers little from the metre. 298 299 In the poem on The Birth of the Prince of Wales' nothing is very remarkable but the exorbitant adulation, and that insensibility of the precipice on which the king was then standing, which the laureate apparently shared with the rest of the courtiers. A few months cured him of controversy, dismissed him from court, and made him again a play-wright and translator 3. Of Juvenal there had been a translation by Stapylton, and another by Holiday; neither of them is very poetical. Stapylton is more smooth, and Holiday's is more esteemed for the learning of his notes. A new version was proposed to the poets of that time, and undertaken by them in conjunction. The main design 1 Britannia Rediviva, Works, x. * 'See on his future subjects how he Nor meanly flatters, nor with But with an open face, as on his Assures our birthrights, and as- 3 Ante, DRYDEN, 136, 139, 140. day's posthumously in 1673. 'In Holyday and Stapylton my ears are mortally offended. DRYDEN, Works, xiii. 121. 'The learned Holyday, who has made us amends for his bad poetry with his excellent illustrations,' &c. Ib. p. 247. See also ib. p. 119. For Stapylton see also ib. xvii. 325, and for Holyday, ante, DRYDEN, 107, 223. Ante, STEPNEY, 4; DRYDEN, 140. In the title-page it is described as done by Mr. Dryden and several other Eminent Hands.' Works, xiii. I. was conducted by Dryden, whose reputation was such that no man was unwilling to serve the Muses under him. The general character of this translation will be given when 300 it is said to preserve the wit, but to want the dignity of the original. The peculiarity of Juvenal is a mixture of gaiety and stateliness, of pointed sentences, and declamatory grandeur 1. His points have not been neglected; but his grandeur none of the band seemed to consider as necessary to be imitated, except Creech, who undertook the thirteenth Satire. It is therefore perhaps possible to give a better representation of that great satirist, even in those parts which Dryden himself has translated, some passages excepted, which will never be excelled 3. With Juvenal was published Persius, translated wholly by 301 Dryden. This work, though like all the other productions of Dryden it may have shining parts, seems to have been written merely for wages, in an uniform mediocrity, without any eager endeavour after excellence or laborious effort of the mind. There wanders an opinion among the readers of poetry that 302 one of these satires is an exercise of the school. Dryden says that he once translated it at school; but not that he preserved or published the juvenile performance 5. Not long afterwards he undertook perhaps the most arduous 303 work of its kind, a translation of Virgil, for which he had shewn how well he was qualified by his version of the Pollio, and two episodes, one of Nisus and Euryalus, the other of Mezentius and Lausus 7. In the comparison of Homer and Virgil the discriminative 304 excellence of Homer is elevation and comprehension of thought, * Ante, DRYDEN, 140. 5 I remember I translated this Satire [the third] when I was a King's scholar at Westminster School, for a Thursday-night's exercise; and believe that it, and many other of my exercises of this nature in English verse, are still in the hands of my learned master, the Rev. Dr. Busby.' Works, xiii. 232. In Dryden's First Miscellany, 1684. 7 In the Second Miscellany, 1685. [In translating these passages again for his complete Virgil Dryden made not a few changes.] 305 and that of Virgil is grace and splendor of diction1. The beauties of Homer are therefore difficult to be lost, and those of Virgil difficult to be retained. The massy trunk of sentiment is safe by its solidity, but the blossoms of elocution easily drop away. The author, having the choice of his own images, selects those which he can best adorn; the translator must at all hazards follow his original, and express thoughts which perhaps he would not have chosen 3. When to this primary difficulty is added the inconvenience of a language so much inferior in harmony to the Latin, it cannot be expected that they who read the Georgick and the Eneid should be much delighted with any version *. All these obstacles Dryden saw, and all these he determined to encounter 5. The expectation of his work was undoubtedly great; the nation considered its honour as interested in the event. "Of the two ancient epic poets the invention and design were the particular talents of Homer. Virgil must yield to him in both; ... but the dictio Virgiliana, the expression of Virgil, his colouring, was incomparably the better.' Works, xvii. 329. See also ib. xiii. 89. Diction was an unfamiliar word. In 1685 Dryden, after using the phrase,' in every part of his diction,' continues 'or (to speak English) in all his expressions.' Ib. xii. 299. 'What Virgil says of the Sibyl's prophecies may be as properly applied to every word of his; they must be read in order as they lie; the least breath discomposes them, and somewhat of their divinity is lost.' Ib. xiv. 204. Addison says of Homer, Virgil, and Ovid:-The first strikes the imagination wonderfully with what is great, the second with what is beautiful, and the last with what is strange.' The Spectator, No. 417. "In speaking of comparisons upon an unnatural footing Pope mentioned Virgil and Homer; Corneille and Racine; the little ivory statue of Polycletus and the Colossus. "Magis pares quam similes?" “Ay, that's it in one word." Spence's Anec. p.9. See also post, POPE, 383, and Boswell's Johnson, iii. 193. 'Nam mihi egregie dixisse videtur Servilius Novianus, pares eos magis quam similes.' QUINCTILIAN, Inst. Orat. x. I. 102. 2 'They who have called Virgil the torture of grammarians might also have called him the plague of translators; for he seems to have studied not to be translated.' Works, xii, 288. 3 He who invents is master of his thoughts and words; he can turn and vary them as he pleases, till he renders them harmonious; but the wretched translator has no such privilege; for, being tied to the thoughts, he must make what music he can in the expression.' Ib. xiv. 225. 'If I undertake the translation of Virgil, the little which I can perform will shew at least that no man is fit to write after him in a barbarous modern tongue.' lb. xviii. 116. 5 He had other obstacles besides these. 'What Virgil wrote in the vigour of his age, in plenty and at ease, I have undertaken to translate in my declining years; struggling with wants, oppressed with sickness, curbed in my genius, liable to be misconstrued in all I write.' Ib. xv. 66 10% What I have done, imperfect as it is for want of health and leisure to correct it, will be judged in after ages, and possibly in the present, to be no dishonour to my native country' Ib, xv. 187. One gave him the different editions of his author', and another helped him in the subordinate parts. The arguments of the several books were given him by Addison 2. The hopes of the publick were not disappointed. He produced, 306 says Pope, 'the most noble and spirited translation that I know in any language3. It certainly excelled whatever had appeared in English, and appears to have satisfied his friends, and, for the most part, to have silenced his enemies. Milbourne, indeed, a clergyman, attacked it; but his outrages seem to be the ebullitions of a mind agitated by stronger resentment than bad poetry can excite, and previously resolved not to be pleased 4 His criticism extends only to the Preface, Pastorals, and 307 Georgicks; and, as he professes, to give his antagonist an opportunity of reprisal he has added his own version of the first and fourth Pastorals, and the first Georgick. The world has forgotten his book; but since his attempt has given him a place in literary * Gilbert Dolben, son of the late Archbishop of York, ' enriched me,' Dryden writes, 'with all the several editions of Virgil, and all the commentaries of those editions in Latin.' Works, xv. 190. 2 Addison wrote also the Essay on the Georgicks. Post, ADDISON, 13; Works, xiv. 12, 229. Dr. Knightley Chetwood gave Dryden the Life of Virgil (ib. xiii. 292), and probably the Preface to the Pastorals. xiii. 328; ante, WALSH, 4 n. Ib. the 3 Preface to the Iliad, 1760, p. 51. Johnson calls Pope's Iliad noblest version of poetry which the world has ever seen.' Post, POPE, 93, 245. Swift, in The Battle of the Books, tells how Virgil consented to exchange armour with Dryden, 'though his was of gold, the other's but of rusty iron. However this glittering armour became the modern yet worse than his own.' Swift's Works, x. 236. For Swift's 'perpetual malevolence to Dryden' see post, Swift, 18. 'There is not a single image from nature in the whole body of Dryden's works. In his translation from Virgil, wherever Virgil can be fairly said to have his eye upon his object Dryden always spoils the passage.' LIVES OF POETS. I WORDSWORTH, Lockhart's Scott, ii. 288. 'Dryden's paraphrase of Virgil is stronger than any of the translations.' TENNYSON, Life, ii. 385. It is 'enduring and original,' wrote E. FITZGERALD, More Letters, p. 104. Lord Bowen, himself the author of a fine version of parts of Virgil, after describing it as 'the noblest and most masculine of all versions,' continues: -The silver trumpet has disappeared, and a manly strain is breathed through bronze.' Virgil in English Verse, Preface, p. 6. G g * Ante, DRYDEN, 148, 175. A few years earlier Milbourne had sent Tonson some verses in praise of Dryden—‘a sacrifice to his genius.' Malone's Dryden, i. 315. 'Pride, malice, folly against Dryden In various shapes of parsons, critics, Might he return, and bless once New Blackmores and new Mil- POPE, Essay on Criticism, 1. 458. history, I will preserve a specimen of his criticism by inserting his remarks on the invocation before the first Georgick, and of his poetry, by annexing his own version. 'Ver. 1. “What makes a plenteous harvest, when to turn The fruitful soil, and when to sow the corn '." It's unlucky, they say, "to stumble at the threshold," but what has a" "plenteous harvest" to do here? Virgil would not pretend to prescribe rules for that which depends not on the husbandman's care, but the disposition of Heaven altogether. Indeed, the plenteous crop depends somewhat on the good method of tillage, and where the land's ill manur'd the corn without a miracle can be but indifferent; but the harvest may be good, which is its properest epithet, tho' the husbandman's skill were never so indifferent. The next sentence is too literal, and when to plough had been Virgil's meaning, and intelligible to every body; "and when to sow the corn" is a needless addition. 'Ver. 3. "The care of sheep, of oxen, and of kine; And when to geld the lambs, and sheer the swine 2" would as well have fallen under the "cura boum, qui cultus habendo sit pecori 3," as Mr. D.'s deduction of particulars. "Ver. 5. "The birth and genius of the frugal bee I sing, Mæcenas, and I sing to thee." How. But where did experientia ever signify birth and genius? or "What makes rich grounds, in what celestial signs, will say is not easily to be done; but what cannot Milbourn bring about?' Works, xi. 240. See also ib. xii. 283. Pope describes Ogilby's version as 'too mean for criticism.' Preface to Iliad, p. 51. He brings him into The Dunciad, i. 141:— 'Here swells the shelf with Ogilby the great.' See also Conington's Misc. Writings, i. 151. [Ogilby translated Virgil twice, first in 1649, and again in 1654. Milbourne quoted from the 1654 version, which differs considerably from that of 1649.] |