Marmontel has more merit, than myself, but I do not think he has a thousand times as much; and the calculation of the geometrician appears to me incorrect.

One word more upon the French academy. After the reception of M. Marmontel, M. de Foncemagne and his friends, who were very numerous, undertook more than once to place me on the list. Several reasons prevented it. I had occupied the public too much during the unfortunate affair of the Mercury, and was not jealous enough of literary honors to purchase them at the price of the vexations of a stormy election. I had too much vanity to be desirous of entering into a body, where public opinion would place me in the lowest ranks. Two philosophical powers, Duclos and d' Alembert, had declared war against the court, and above all against M. de Choiseul, who thought very much of their talents, and very little of their principles. At each sitting they producHow could I have tranquil

ed new manifestos against him. ly borne such scenes of fury, when even those academicians, who had no connexion with that minister, were offended at them? That war, which lasted till the elevation of Madame du Barry, menaced France with the favor of the Duke d' Aguillon. Duclos and d' Alembert protected M. de la Chalotais, pursued by M. d' Aguillon, and supported, as it was said, by M. de Choiseul. From that moment all the crimes of the latter vanished; they resolved to grant him a peace with a treaty of alliance, and they offered him by the Baron de Breteuil the first vacant place at the academy, dispensing with the customary visits. M. de Choiseul, who had never been acquainted with their dispositions, successively hostile and pacific, was touched by this attention; and without the exile, which suddenly came upon him, he would have heard his eulogium in that hall, which had so often resounded with injuries against him.

I presume that their amnesty extended to me; for about that time M. d' Alembert, having expressed his surprise to M. Gatti, our common friend, that I did not present myself at the academy, added with a sort of contempt, "after all I

"did not imagine, that there was a person in the world, who "would not have been flattered to see himself inscribed on a "list, where are found the names of Buffon and Voltaire, " and I am bold to add that of d' Alembert."

I will presently tell the motives, which afterwards induced me to present myself. I must now resume the course of my fortune, which was only precious to me, because I owed it to friendship, and that it afforded me the lively pleasure of doing some good. One day Madame de Choiseul spoke to her husband of my attachment to them, he answered, smiling, by this verse of Corneille.

"Je l'ai comblé de biens, je veux l' en accabler."
(To be continued.)

REVIEW.

The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis, translated into English verse by William Gifford, Esq. with notes and illus

trations.

THE undertaking to translate into English versė a

classic poet of antiquity is in many respects an arduous and an ungrateful task. The translation of a satirist is attended with peculiar difficulties and embarrassments. The topics of satire are generally of a nature so evanescent, that after the lapse of a few years the poet becomes unintelligible to his own countrymen without the aid of a commentator. There are indeed vices and follies so deeply rooted in the soil of human nature, that they are sure of reproduction in every age and every state of society, however frequently levelled by the pruninghook of satire. But far the greater proportion of the sins, which extort the verses of indignation, are perishable, as the sinners, who commit them; and, as the reforma

tion of those, whom he censures, is the only proper purpose of the severe moralist, the very attainment of his purpose, by removing the objects of his reprobation, hurries at once the fault and the punishment towards the same grave of oblivion. A translation from any one of the modern languages of Europe into another is a work of little difficulty; for besides the general similarity of construction, which pervades them all, the religion and laws, the manners and usages, the insti tutions and occupations of the Europeans, are all so nearly alike, that a translator has little else to ascertain, than the corresponding word, which designates the same thing in two dialects, generally derived from one common origin. Yet with all these facilities how rarely do we hear of a translation from a modern poet of any celebrity, which can be mentioned in comparison with the original. Far heavier is the duty of a translator from a classic author in a dead language. So different are the modes of human existence at this day from those of the age and nation of his prototype, that he finds himself perpetually perplexed not only for a word, which may answer to the word of his original, but even to ascertain a precise idea of the thing, which for many ages perhaps has ceased to exist. Such a translation therefore must at almost every line be accompanied by a dissertation, without which the poet will scarcely be more intelligible in his modern metamorphoses, than in his original features. To comment and translate is therefore of inseparable connexion; and Pope, though he alone possessed the secret of making it a profitable employment, laments it, as a misfortune not less afflictive to him, than Hibernian politics to his friend, Swift. To the labors of the commentator indeed the world is more parsimonious of its rewards, than to those of his fellow drudge. But both are liable to one hardship, from which the other branches of literature are more exempt; that of being succeeded by rivals in the same career, who gather all the harvest, which they have laboriously raised, and then insult them for their want of skill, and even for the severity of their toils.

Four poetic translations of Juvenal had appeared in the

English language, before that of Mr. Gifford; those of Stapylton and Holyday at the commencement of the seventeenth century; the compilation, which goes under the name of Dryden, near the opening of the eighteenth; and that of Mr. Owen, several years after Mr. Gifford's first proposals were published, but a short time before his work was completed. The two earliest are characterized by Mr. Gifford in his essay on the Roman satirists, prefixed to his book with great candor ; and indeed the respectful manner, in which he mentions the performance of Holyday, and the very frequent use, he has made of the learned annotations, it contains, give us reason to regret, that it had so generally fallen into neglect. Critics are not the only persons in the temple of fame, who efface the names of others from the columns to substitute their own; and so entirely was the memory of Holyday offuscated by the splendor of Dryden's reputation, that a copy of his book could not be obtained even in England without considerable industry of research, and might in this country be sought in the most extensive public libraries in vain.

In order to judge fairly of a writer's success it is proper to take into the estimate the object, which he proposed to himself. That of Dryden and his associates was to make their author appear in a poetic dress; "to make him more sound"ing and more elegant, than he was before in English." But they were not peculiarly solicitous of fidelity. They did not even pretend to give the whole sense of Juvenal; they performed their task in a manner, which Dryden himself is at a loss to characterize, and which he confesses to be neither paraphrase, nor translation.

Mr. Gifford's pretensions are of a higher order. He professes to give "the whole of Juvenal," as he would have spoken, had he lived in the present age, purifying the expression only through the strainers of modern refinement. Plainness in his own opinion is the general character of his translation; and his principal ambition is to leave the original more intelligible, than he found it.

In comparing these different purposes with their execu

Indeed his

tion, it will be difficult to avoid the conclusion, that Dryden and his partners performed more, than they had promised, while Mr. Gifford promised more, than he has performed. The very undertaking to give the whole of Juvenal in terms, reconcileable to the ears of manly decency, is as absurd, as that of the philosopher of Laputa, who was occupied in extracting an agreeable perfume from human excrements. Mr. Gifford's resolution, intrepid as it is, confessedly stands appalled before an exceptionable line here and there. pen appears to have dropped from his hand more frequently, than he was aware; for there is at least one passage in the sixth satire, where he has omitted seven successive lines of the original, having a very apparent connexion with the subject of the satire. The omissions in that satire alone are more than sufficient to fill the half a page, which the boasted strength of his Muse's stomach could not bear; and in numberless others he has so veiled the nakedness of his author's images, that Juvenal would be as much puzzled to recognize them in their flimsy attire, as he thinks Romulus would have been to discover his rustic under the Trechedipna of the Greeks. Perhaps no reader of taste and delicacy will blame. Mr. Gifford either for his omissions, or for his figleaves; but he should not have promised to give the whole of Juvenal He should have left the Latin language in undisturbed possession of the exclusive privilege of setting all decency at defiance.

There is indeed more of fastidiousness, than of purity, in the censures, which have so generally passed upon Juvenal upon this article. Mr. Gifford has partially defended him, but has omitted in the argument what ought to be considered, as the primary point of his justification. If the taste of modern readers cannot or will not discriminate between the licentiousness, which inflames the passions, and the freedom, which chastises them, it is a proof, that this boasted refinement is no better, than a real depravity of taste. It is not the naked deformity, but the meretricious attire of vice, that can be dangerous to good sense or morality. The pictures of Ju