"honorable secret to you, will not think he owes you aught, 66 or ever bribe you. But he, who has it in his power, when "he pleases to impeach Verres, will be dear to Verres." This allusion to Verres Mr. Gifford has converted into a general observation, which may be excused, as there is nothing in it peculiarly striking. Then comes the authorative precept, of which the last line in the translation is almost as defective, as those, with which, the passage begins; to be" the "perpetual terror of a powerful friend" is a situation, which no language can too forcibly deprecate; but to conclude an exhortation thus ardent and glowing, with a thought so ambiguous, expressed in terms so mean, "Nor sell the faith, which be, who buys, suspects !" O, most lame and impotent conclusion! The same characteristic manner is exemplified in its utmost extent in the eighth satire, where the language of command is used almost from one end of the poem to the other. The passages, which might be exhibited to this effect, are so numerous, that the only embarrassment is in the selection. I confine myself to one. Juvenal, Sat. VIII. v. 79. "Esto bonus miles, tutor bonus, arbiter idem Integer; ambiguæ si quando citebere testis "Incertæque rei, Phalaris licet imperet ut sis "Falsus, et admoto dictet perjuria tuaro, "SUMMUM CREDE NEFAS ANIMAM PRÆFERRE PUDORI "ET PROPTER VITAM VIVENDI PERDERE CAUSAS." Gifford, Sat. VIII. v. 123. "Be brave, be just; and, when thy country's laws "Call thee to witness in a dubious cause, "Though Phalaris place his bull before thine eye, "And frowning dictate to thy lips a lie, "THINK IT THE HEIGHT OF BASENESS BREATH TO CHOOSE A sublimer sentiment never was uttered by the lips of mortal man, than that, contained in the last two lines of this passage. The translation is almost literal, and yet the whole spirit of the original has evaporated in the lines of Mr. Gifford. In the Latin not a harsh collision, and only one mon osyllable in the two verses; in the English all is rough and harsh; the lines run almost in monosyllables. The "height "of baseness" is a phrase too vulgar and colloquial for poetry; BREATH to choose, ere honor" is next to ludicrous, and "life's ends for life to lose" is equivocal in the sense, and so drawling in the sound, that to pronounce it is enough to give one a fit of the asthma. This is surely not Juvenal's manner. A passage from the fourteenth satire shall conclude this part of our examination. Juvenal Sat. XIV. v. 44, &c. "Nil dictu fœdum, visuque hæc limina tanget, "Intra quæ puer est. Procul hinc, procul inde puellæ "Lenonum, et cantus pernoctantis parasiti. "Maxima debetur puero reverentia. Si quid "Turpe paras, nec tu pueri contempseris annos ; Gifford Sat. XIV. v. 62, &c. "O friend! far from the walls, where children dwell, "THE PLACE IS SACRED. Far, far hence remove, "Ye venal votaries of illicit love! "Ye dangerous knaves, who pander to be fed, "And sell yourselves to infamy for bread! "And let the thought abate thy guilty speed; "And check thee tottering on the verge of vice." In this passage Mr. Gifford's versification is not quite so bad, as in some of the former, but the departure from Juvenal's manner is equally conspicuous. Juvenal is full of beautiful imagery; Mr. Gifford freezes it into reflection. What a scene for instance do the words "cantus pernoctantis par"asiti" present to the imagination? Mr. Gifford translates it "Ye dangerous knaves, who pander to be fed, "And sell yourselves to infamy for bread." Three, words are dilated into a whole couplet; the second line of which is mere repetition of the thought, contained in 1 part of the first. The parasite vanished; his nocturnal song is no longer heard; but in his stead we have a definition of his character in low and abusive language. The picture is as effectually banished from the translation, as the original is forbidden by the poet. Was this exclusion expedient because the scene itself was improper for contemplation? What then will be said of the subsequent lines? Juvenal brings the child himself, the infant child, to stand between the father and guilt. Gifford tells the father to think that the child eyes the deed; and let the thought abate his speed, entice him back, and check him tottering, all at once. It is a powerful thought, that he calls for, it must be confessed; but the child is gone; and what thought can ever rival the eloquence of the attitude, in which Juvenal had placed him? Juvenal adorns the purest morality with the sweetest blossom of Parnassus. In Mr. Gifford's hands the blossom withers, and in its stead he gives us a whole bunch of artificial flowers in all the profusion and confusion of common place. There is yet another peculiar feature in the manner of Juvenal, perhaps more exclusively his own, than even the harmony of his verse, or the commanding grandeur of his morality. This is the keenness of his sarcasms; or what Boileau calls " the excess of his biting hyperbola." To determine whether Mr Gifford has accurately caught this lineament of his author we may examine a few passages, where it is exemplified in the most striking light. Juvenal Sat. III. v. 41, &c. "Quid Romæ faciam? Mentiri nescio, librum, "Nec volo, nec possum ; ranarum viscera nunquam Gifford Sat. III. v. 63, &c. "What should I do at Rome? I know not, I, "To cog and flatter; I could never lie, "Nor, when I heard a great man's verses, smile, "And beg a copy, if I thought them vile. "A sublunary wight, I have no skill "In toads for poison, or in aught beside." Is there a mind ever so ignorant, I will not say of the art poetry, but of the most ordinary prose, which can forbear to perceive the sharpness of this passage in the original, "what "should I do at Rome? I know not how to lie ;" or to acknowledge, that Mr. Gifford's interposition of " I know not, "I, to cog and flatter," immediately after the question takes off the finest edge of the satire. And why this interposition, without warrant from the original, and altogether superfluous to the sense? Merely to fill up a couplet, and make a rhyme for LIE. To finish the fate of this idea Mr. Gifford has thrown the asseveration of Umbritius, that he cannot lie, into a past tense, "I could never lie," nor, when I heard a great man's verses, smile, and beg a copy, &c. The rhetoricians tell us, that to put the present for the past is sometimes done to make the thought more animated and lively; but to put the past for the present can be in no system of poetry, unless it be in the art of sinking. "I neither can, nor will PROMISE a father's funeral," says Umbritius in Juvenal. Instead of promise Mr. Gifford substitutes presage. The meaning is certainly the same; but, as a stroke of satire, compare the force of the two words, and judge between the author and his translator. Says Umbritius, "I never inspected the entrails of toads." Now Umbritius being an Aruspex it was his particular business to inspect the entrails of animals at religious sacrifices. But these were never toads. When he asserts then, that he never inspected TOADS, that was sufficient to convey his meaning to the hearer or reader of Juvenal's day. The mere translation of the words would now leave the idea obscure, and Mr. Gifford did well to add " for poison;" the remainder of the line he could not so well justify; or in aught beside. Um britius does not hint at inspecting aught beside; and the ad dition flattens beyond measure the whole passage. Umbritius, like the rana rubeta, has lost all his venom by passing over to England. Our next extract shall be from the sixth satire. Juvenal Sat. VI. v. 28. "Certè sanus eras. Uxorem, Posthume, ducis? Gifford Sat. VI. v. 39, &c. 66 Thou once, Ursidius, hadst thy wits "But thus to talk of wiving! O, these fits! "And Tiber and the Æmilian bridge are nigh ?" The first remark, which forces itself upon us in the translation of this passage, is a total departure from the simplicity of Juvenal's manner. 1. By the introduction of repeated exclamations ; "O those fits;" "Heavens," &c. "TALK OF WIVING." We think this practice much too common with Mr. Gifford throughout his whole translation. Juvenal is vehement in his language; but it is not the vehemence of perpetual interjections; no writer was ever more sparing of tragic oh's and ah's than he. 2. By the use of low and affected language. "But thus to These expressions are neither natural nor elegant; there is nothing like them in Juvenal. 3. By an attempt to improve upon the author's ideas in making the windows divinely high, and setting them to woo poor Posthumus. The windows of Juvenal do not woo, neither are they divinely high. They are not meant to be deck'd with any fascination ; but are presented as offering the means of escaping by suicide from a heavier calamity. Examine this passage in a literal translation, and you will feel how far Mr. Gifford has here varied from his author's manner. "You |