saken Ruæus, (whom generally I follow,) in many places, and made expositions of my own in some, quite contrary to him; of which I will give but two examples, because they are so near each other, in the Tenth Æneid -Sorti Pater æquus utrique. Pallas says it to Turnus, just before they fight. Ruæus thinks that the word Pater is to be referred to Evander, the father of Pallas. But how could he imagine that it was the same thing to Evander, if his son were slain, or if he overcame? The poet certainly intended Jupiter, the common father of mankind; who, as Pallas hoped, would stand an impartial spectator of the combat, and not be more favourable to Turnus than to him. The second is not long after it, and both before the duel is begun. They are the words of Jupiter, who comforts Hercules for the death of Pallas, which was immediately to ensue, and which Hercules could not hinder, (though the young hero had addressed his prayers to him for his assistance) because the gods cannot controul destiny. The verse follows: Sic ait; atque oculos Rutulorum rejicit arvis,— which the same Ruæus thus construes: Jupiter, after he had said this, immediately turns his eyes to the Rutulian fields, and beholds the duel. I have given this place another exposition, that he turned his eyes from the field of combat, that he might not behold a sight so unpleasing to him. The word rejicit, I know, will admit of both senses; but Jupiter, having confessed that he could not alter fate, and being grieved he could not, in consideration of Hercules it seems to me that he should avert his eyes, rather than take pleasure in the spectacle. But of this I am not so confident as the other, though I think I have followed Virgil's sense. What I have said, though it has the face of arrogance, yet is intended for the honour of my country; and therefore I will boldly own, that this English translation has more of Virgil's spirit in it, than either the French or the Italian. Some of our countrymen have translated episodes and other parts of Virgil, with great success; as particularly your lordship, whose version of Orpheus and Eurydice is eminently good. Amongst the dead authors, the Silenus of my Lord Roscommon cannot be too much commended. I say nothing of Sir John Denham, Mr Waller, and Mr Cowley; † it is the utmost of my ambition to be thought their equal, or not to be much inferior to them, and some others of the living. But it is one thing to take pains on a fragment, and translate it perfectly; and another thing to have the weight of a whole author on my shoulders. They who believe the burden light, let them attempt the fourth, sixth, or eighth Pastoral; the first or fourth Georgic; and, amongst the Æneïds, the fourth, the fifth, the seventh, the ninth, the tenth, the eleventh, or the twelfth; for in these I think I have succeeded best. Long before I undertook this work, I was no stranger to the original. I had also studied Virgil's design, his disposition of it, his manners, his judicious management of the figures, the sober retrenchments of his sense, which always leave somewhat * There can be, I think, little doubt, that in both these passages the poet has detected the true and poetical sense of the author, which has escaped the mere commentator. † All of whom had made slight and partial attempts as transators from Virgil. VOL. XIV. * to gratify our imagination, on which it may enlarge at pleasure; but, above all, the elegance of his expressions, and the harmony of his numbers: for, as I have said in a former dissertation, the words are, in poetry, what the colours are in painting; if the design be good, and the draught be true, the colouring is the first beauty that strikes the eye. Spenser and Milton are the nearest, in English, to Virgil and Horace in the Latin; and I have endeavoured to form my style by imitating their masters. I will further own to you, my lord, that my chief ambition is to please those readers who have discernment enough to prefer Virgil before any other poet in the Latin tongue. Such spirits as he desired to please, such would I chuse for my judges, and would stand or fall by them alone. Ségrais has distinguished the readers of poetry, according to their capacity of judging, into three classes; (he might have said the same of writers too, if he had pleased.) In the lowest form he places those whom * This comparison our author has detailed in his preface to Fresnoy's Art of Painting." "I am now come, though with the omission of many likenesses, to the third part of Painting, which is called cromatic, or colouring. Expression, and all that belongs to words, is that in a poem which colouring is in a picture. The colours well chosen in their proper places, together with the lights and shadows which belong to them, lighten the design, and make it pleasing to the eye. The words, the expressions, the tropes and figures, the versification, and all the other elegancies of sound, as cadences, turns of words upon the thought, and many other things which are all parts of expression, perform exactly the same office, both in dramatic and epic poetry. Our author calls colouring-lena sororis ; in plain English, the bawd of her sister, the design or drawing: she clothes, she dresses her up, she paints her, she makes her appear more lovely than naturally she is, she procures for the design, and makes lovers for her; for the design of itself is only so many naked lines. Thus in poetry, the expression is that which charms the reader, and beautifies the design, which is only the outlines of the fables." he calls les petits esprits-such things as are our upper-gallery audience in a playhouse, who like nothing but the husk and rind of wit; prefer a quibble, a conceit, an epigram, before solid sense and elegant expression; these are mob readers. If Virgil and Martial stood for parliament-men, we know already who would carry it. But, though they make the greatest appearance in the field, and cry the loudest, the best on't is, they are but a sort of French Huguenots, or Dutch boors, brought over in herds, but not naturalized; who have not land of two pounds per annum in Parnassus, and therefore are not privileged to poll. Their authors are of the same level, fit to represent them on a mountebank's stage, or to be masters of the ceremonies in a bear-garden. Yet these are they who have the most admirers. But it often happens, to their mortification, that, as their readers improve their stock of sense, (as they may by reading better books, and by conversation with men of judgment,) they soon forsake them: and when the torrent from the mountains falls no more, the swelling writer is reduced into his shallow bed, like the Mançanares at Madrid, with scarce water to moisten his own pebbles. There are a middle sort of readers, (as we hold there is a middle state of souls,) such as have a farther insight than the former, yet have not the capacity of judging right; for I speak not of those who are bribed by a party, and know better, if they were not corrupted; but I mean a company of warm young men, who are not yet arrived so far as to discern the difference betwixt fustian, or ostentatious sentences, and the true sublime. These are above * This river, which flows past Madrid, is distinguished by the splendour of its bridge, and the scantiness of its waters. liking Martial, or Owen's Epigrams, but they would certainly set Virgil below Statius or Lucan. I need not say their poets are of the same taste with their admirers. They affect greatness in all they write; but it is a bladdered greatness, like that of the vain man whom Seneca describes-an ill habit of body, full of humours, and swelled with dropsy. Even these too desert their authors, as their judgment ripens. The young gentlemen themselves are commonly misled by their pedagogue at school, their tutor at the university, or their governor in their travels and many of those three sorts are the most positive blockheads in the world. How many of those flatulent writers have I known, who have sunk in their reputation, after seven or eight editions of their works! for indeed they are poets only for young men. They had great success at their first appearance; but, not being of God, (as a wit said formerly,) they could not stand. I have already named two sorts of judges; but Virgil wrote for neither of them: and, by his example, I am not ambitious of pleasing the lowest or the middle form of readers. He chose to please the most judicious-souls of the highest rank, and truest understanding. These are few in number; but whoever is so happy as to gain their approbation, can never lose it, because they never give it blindly. Then they have a certain magnetism in their judgment, which attracts others to their sense. Every day they gain some new proselyte, and in time become the church. For this reason, a well-weighed judicious poem, which at its first appearance gains no more upon the world than to be just received, and rather not blamed than much applauded, insinuates itself by insensible degrees into the liking of the reader: the more he studies it, the more it grows upon him; every time |
