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Low-crooked curt'fies, and base spaniel-fawning.

Thy brother by decree is banished d;

If thou dost bend, and pray, and fawn for him,
I fpurn thee like a cur out of my way.

Know, Cæfar doth not wrong; nor without cause
Will he be fatisfied.

CESAR.

Cimber, je t'avertis que ces profternemens,
Ces génuflexions, ces baffes flateries,

Peuvent fur un cœur faible avoir quelque pouvoir,
Et changer quelquefois l'ordre éternel des chofes
Dans l'efprit des enfans; ne t'imagine pas
Que le fang de Céfar puisse se fondre ainfi.

Les priéres, les cris, les vaines fimagrées,

Les airs d'un chien couchant peuvent toucher un fot; Mais le cœur de Céfar réfifte à ces baffeffes.

Par un jufte décret ton frére eft exilé.

Flate, prie à genoux, & léche moi les pieds ;
Va, je te rofferai comme un chien ; loin d'ici.
Lorfque Céfar fait tort, il a toujours raison.

Ben Johnson, by a faulty tranfcript of this speech, or the blunder of a player, had been led into the mistake of charging Shakespear with the absurdity of making Cæfar

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fay, he never did wrong without just cause : and Mr. Voltaire has feized on this falfe accufation. It is perfectly apparent to any person who understands English, that Cæfar by preordinance and firft decree means that ordinance and firft decree which he had before past for Cimber's banishment. And he fays, I will not be prevailed upon, by these proftrations and prayers of yours, to turn my decrees into fuch momentary laws, as children make. If there had been any doubt of his meaning, the latter part would have cleared it.

CÆSAR.

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I was conftant, Cimber fhould be banish'd;
And conftant do remain to keep him so.

It is furprizing, that fome friend did not prevent the critic from falling into so strange a blunder, about changing the eternal order in the minds of children. Many of his countrymen understand our language very well, and could easily have explained to him the fignification of the prepofition into, and that to change into always fignifies to con

vert from one thing to another. Sweet words, crooked curtfies, and base fawnings, he translates, the airs of a fetting dog. Lecher les pieds is not a proper translation of to fawn. Fawning courtiers would be ftrangely rendered by feet-licking courtiers: a fawning ftile, a fawning address, are common expreffions; but did any one ever think of a feet-licking style? a feet-licking addrefs? Nor is Je te rosserai a jufter tranflation of I will spurn thee: the first being a very low phrase; and to fpurn is in our language a very noble one, and not unfit for the highest poetry or eloquence; indeed is oftener fo ufed than in ordinary discourse.

Mr. Row in the Fair Penitent makes. Horatio fay to Lothario,

I hold thee bafe enough

To break through law, and spurn at facred order. If Mr. Voltaire should tranflate these words, he would triumph much that one of our most elegant Poets talked of drubbing sacred order. The Tranflator feems not even to know

know the English profodia; for in translating Porcia's words,

PORCIA.

Go If it be no more,

Porcia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife.

he puts in a note upon Harlot, to affure us that the word in the original is W; which, if he understood our blank verfe, he would know could not make up the

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Mr. Voltaire formerly understood the English language tolerably well. His tranflation of part of Antony's fpeech to the people, in his own play of the death of Julius Cæfar, though far inferior to the original, is pretty good; and in his tragedy of Junius Brutus he has improved upon the Brutus of our old Poet Lee: he has followed the English Poet in making the daughter of Tarquin feduce the fon of Junius Brutus into a scheme for the restoration of her father; but with great judgment has imitated only what was worthy of imitation; and

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by the strength of his own genius, has ren→ dered his piece much more excellent than that of Mr. Lee.

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It must be allowed that Mr. Voltaire, in his tranflation of Shakespear, has nobly emulated those interpreters of Homer, who, Mr. Pope tells us, misunderstand the text, and then triumph in the awkwardness of their own tranflations. To fhew he decides with the fame judgment and candour with which he tranflates, it will be neceffary to prefent the fentence he has pronounced upon the genius of our great Poet. Speaking of Corneille he fays, he was unequal like Shakespear, and like him full of genius; mais le genie de Corneille etait à celui de Shakespear, ce q'un feigneur eft à l'egard d'un homme du peuple né avec le meme efprit que lui. I have given his own words, because they do not carry any determinate sense. I conjecture they may be thus tranflated; The genius of Corneille is to that of Shakespear, what a man of great rank is to one of the lower fort born with the fame

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