FROM the fame defect of taste, the fimple and natural manner degenerates

into the childish and infipid.

J'ai perdu tout mon bonheur,

J'ai perdu mon ferviteur,

Colin me délaiffe.

Helas! il a pu changer!

Je voudrois n'y plus fonger:

J'y fonge fans ceffe.

ROUSSEAU, Devin de Village.

I've loft my love, I've loft my fwain;
Colin leaves me with difdain.

Naughty Colin! hateful thought!
To Colinette her Colin's naught.

I will forget him-that I will!
Ah, t'wont do—I love him ftill.

CHAP.

CHAP. VI.

Examples of a good Tafte in Poetical Tranf lation.-Bourne's Translations from Mallet and from Prior.-The Duke de Nivernois from Horace.-Dr Fortin from Simonides.-Imitation of the fame by Dr Markham.—Mr Webb from the Anthologia.-Hughes from Claudian.-Fragments of the Greek Dramatifts by Mr Cumberland.

A

FTER these examples of faulty

translation, from a defect of taste in the translator, or a want of a just discernment of his author's ftyle and manner of writing, I fhall now present the reader with fome fpecimens of perfect tranflation, where the authors have entered

tered with exquifite taste into the manner of their originals, and have fucceeded most happily in the imitation of it.

THE firft is the opening of the beautiful ballad of William and Margaret, tranflated by Vincent Bourne.

1.

When all was wrapt in dark midnight,

And all were fast asleep,

In glided Margaret's grimly ghoft,

And stood at William's feet.

II.

Her face was like the April morṇ,

Clad in a wintry-cloud;

And clay-cold was her lily hand,

That held her fable fhrowd.

III.

So fhall the fairest face appear,

When youth and years are flown;

Such is the robe that Kings muft wear,

When death has reft their crown.

IV.

IV.

Her bloom was like the fpringing flower,

That fips the filver dew;

The rofe was budded in her cheek,

And opening to the view.

V.

But Love had, like the canker-worm,

Confum'd her early prime;

The rofe grew pale and left her cheek,

She died before her time.

I.

Omnia nox tenebris, tacitáque involverat umbrâ,
Et feffos homines vinxerat alta quies ;
Cùm valva potuere, et greffu illapfa filenti,
Thyrfidis ad lectum ftabat imago Chloes,

II.

Vultus erat, qualis lachrymofi vultus Aprilis,
Cui dubia hyberno conditur imbre dies;
Quaque fepulchralem à pedibus collegit amictum,
Candidior nivibus, frigidiorque manus.

III.

Cùmque dies aberunt molles, et læta juventus,

Gloria pallebit, fic Cypariffi tua s

Cùm

Cùm mors decutiet capiti diademata, regum
Hác erit in trabed confpiciendus honos.

IV.

Forma fuit (dum forma fuit) nafcentis ad inflar
Floris, cui cano gemmula rore tumet ;
Et Veneres rifere, et fubrubuere labella,
Subrubet ut teneris purpura prima rofis.

V.

Sed lenta exedit tabes mollemque ruborem,
Et faciles rifus, et juvenile decus ;
Et rofa paulatim languens, nudata reliquit
Ofcula; praripuit mors properata Chloen.

THE fecond is a fmall poem by Prior, entitled Chloe Hunting, which is likewife tranflated into Latin by Bourne.

Behind her neck her comely treffes tied,
Her ivory quiver graceful by her fide,
A-hunting Chloe went; fhe loft her way,

And through the woods uncertain chanc'd to stray.
Apollo paffing by beheld the maid;

And, fifter dear, bright Cynthia, turn, he said;