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

3He 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.' Ib. 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.

187.

'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.' 16. 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".

The hopes of the publick were not disappointed. He produced, 306 says Pope, 'the most noble and spirited translation that I know in any language'.' 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 *.

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.

* 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. Ib. xiii. 328; ante, WALSH, 4n.

3 Preface to the Iliad, 1760, p. 51. Johnson calls Pope's Iliad 'the 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.'

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."

But where did experientia ever signify birth and genius? or what ground was there for such a figure in this place? How much more manly is Mr. Ogylby's version 5!

"What makes rich grounds, in what celestial signs,
'Tis good to plough, and marry elms with vines.
What best fits cattle, what with sheep agrees,
And several arts improving frugal bees,
I sing, Mæcenas."

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.]

'Which four lines, tho' faulty enough, are yet much more to the purpose than Mr. D.'s six.

'Ver. 22. "From fields and mountains to my song repair." For patrium linquens nemus, saltusque Lycai-Very well explained !'

'Ver. 23, 24. "Inventor Pallas, of the fattening oil,

Thou founder of the plough, and ploughman's toil!" Written as if these had been Pallas's invention. The ploughman's toil's impertinent.

Why "shroud-like?" Is a cypress pulled up by the roots, which the sculpture in the last Eclogue fills Silvanus's hand with, so very like a shroud? Or did not Mr. D. think of that kind of cypress us'd often for scarves and hatbands at funerals formerly 3, or for widow's vails, &c.? if so, 'twas a deep good thought.

'Ver. 26.

... that wear

arva

The royal [rural] honours, and increase the year." What's meant by increasing the year? Did the gods or goddesses add more months, or days, or hours to it? Or how can tueri" signify to "wear rural honours"? Is this to translate, or abuse an author? The next couplet are [sic] borrow'd from Ogylby I suppose, because less to the purpose than ordinary “” "The patron of the world, and Rome's peculiar guard."

'Ver. 33.

Idle, and none of Virgil's, no more than the sense of the precedent couplet; so again, he interpolates Virgil with that

"And the round circle [circuit] of the year to guide;
Powerful of blessings, which thou strew'st around."

A ridiculous Latinism, and an impertinent addition; indeed the whole period is but one piece of absurdity and nonsense, as those who lay it with the original must find.

x 'Ipse nemus linquens patrium,' &c. Geor. i. 16. 2 The first edition, as the title-page proclaims, is 'Adorn'd with a Hundred Sculptures.' Works, xiii. 274.

3

Johnson, in his Dictionary, spells it cyprus::- Cyprus (I suppose from the place where it was made; or corruptly from cypress as being used in mourning). A thin transparent black stuff.

'You who supply the ground with seeds of grain

And you who swell those seeds with kindly rain.'

DRYDEN, Georgics, i. 28. 'And all you Pow'rs protectors of the field,

Whose kindly influence chears the sprouting grain,

Or send from heav'n on corn large show'rs of rain.' OGILBY, ed. 1654.

Ver. 42, 43. "And Neptune shall resign the fasces of the sea." Was he consul or dictator there?

"And watry virgins for thy bed shall strive."

Both absurd interpolations.

"Ver. 47, 48. "Where in the void of heaven a place is free. Ah, happy D-n, were that place for thee"!" But where is that void? Or what does our translator mean by it? He knows what Ovid says God did, to prevent such a void in heaven; perhaps, this was then forgotten: but Virgil talks more sensibly.

'Ver. 49. "The scorpion ready to receive thy laws." No, he would not then have gotten out of his way so fast.

"Ver. 56. "The [Though] Proserpine affects her silent seat.” What made her then so angry with Ascalaphus, for preventing her return 3? She was now mus'd to Patience under the determinations of Fate, rather than fond of her residence.

Ver. 61, 2, 3.

"Pity the poet's and the ploughman's cares,

Interest thy greatness in our mean affairs,

And use thyself betimes to hear [and grant] our prayers." Which is such a wretched perversion of Virgil's noble thought as Vicars would have blush'd at 5; but Mr. Ogylby makes us some amends, by his better lines:

"O wheresoe'er thou art, from thence incline,
And grant assistance to my bold design!
Pity, with me, poor husbandmen's affairs,

And now, as if translated, hear our prayers."

This is sense, and to the purpose: the other, poor mistaken stuff.