66 ters of faith; but whosoever aims at it "in poetry, as he attempts at what is not required, so shall he never perform what he attempts; for it is not his business alone to translate language into language, but "poesie into poesie; and poesie is of so “subtle a spirit, that in pouring out of one language into another, it will all evapo“ rate; and if a new spirit is not added in "the transfusion, there will remain nothing "but a caput mortuum." Denham's Preface to the 2d book of Virgil's Æneid.

In poetical translation, the English writers of the 16th, and the greatest part of the 17th century, seem to have had no other care than (in Denham's phrase) to translate language into language, and to have placed their whole merit in presenting a literal and servile transcript of their original.

BEN JOHNSON, in his translation of Horace's Art of Poetry, has paid no attention to the judicious precept of the very poem he was translating:

Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere, fidus
Interpres.

Witness the following specimens, which will strongly illustrate Denham's judicious ob

servations.

-Mortalia facta peribunt ;

Nedum sermonum stet honos et gratia vivax.
Multa renascentur quæ jam cecidere, cadentque
Quæ nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus,
Quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi.
De Art. Poet.

All mortal deeds

Shall perish; so far off it is the state
Or grace of speech should hope a lasting date.
Much phrase that now is dead shall be reviv'd,
And much shall die that now is nobly liv'd,
If custom please, at whose disposing will
The power and rule of speaking resteth still.

B. JOHNSON:

İnterdum tamen et vocem Comedia tollit,
Iratusque Chremes tumido delitigat ore,
Et Tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri.
Telephus et Peleus, cùm pauper et exul uterque,
Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba,

Si curat cor spectantis tetigisse querela.

E

Yet sometime doth the Comedy excite,

Her voice, and angry Chremes chafes outright,
With swelling throat, and oft the tragic wight
Complains in humble phrase. Both Telephus

And Peleus, if they seek to heart-strike us,
That are spectators, with their misery,

When they are poor and banish'd, must throw by
Their bombard-phrase, and foot-and-half-foot words.

B. JOHNSON.

So, in B. Johnson's translations from the Odes and Epodes of Horace, besides the most servile adherence to the words, even the measure of the original is imitated.

Non me Lucrina juverint conchylia,

Magisve rhombus, aut scari,
Si quos Eois intonata fluctibus

Hyems ad hoc vertat mare:

Non Afra avis descendat in ventrem meum,

Non attagen Ionicus.

Jucundior, quam lecta de pinguissimis

Oliva ramis arborum ;

Aut herba lapathi prata amantis, et gravi

Malvæ salubres corpori.

HOR. Epod. 2.

Not Lucrine oysters I could then more prize,
Nor turbot, nor bright golden eyes; ·
If with east floods the winter troubled much
Into our seas send any such:i

The Ionian godwit, nor the ginny-hen.
Could not go down my belly then

More sweet than olives that new-gather'd be,
From fattest branches of the tree,

Or the herb sorrel that loves meadows still,
Or mallows loosing bodies ill.

B. JOHNSON...

Or the same character for rigid fidelity, is the translation of Juvenal by Holiday, a writer of great learning, and even of critical acuteness, as the excellent commentary on his author fully shews.

Omnibus in terris quæ sunt a Gadibus usque
Auroram et Gangem pauci dignoscere possunt
Vera bona, atque illis multum diversa, remota
Erroris nebula. Quid enim ratione timemus,
Aut cupimus? quid tam dextro pede concipis, ut te
Conatas non poeniteat, volique peracti.

Evertere domos totas optantibus ipsis

Dii faciles.

Juv. Sat. 10.

In all the world which between Cadiz lies

And eastern Ganges, few there are so wise

To know true good from feign'd, without all mist
Of Error. For by Reason's rule what is't
We fear or wish? What is't we e'er begun
With foot so right, but we dislik'd it done?
Whole houses th' easie gods have overthrown
At their fond prayers that did the houses own.
HOLIDAY'S Juvenal.

THERE were, however, even in that age, some writers who manifested a better taste in poetical translation. May, in his translation of Lucan's Pharsalia, and Sandys, in his Metamorphoses of Ovid, while they strictly adhered to the sense of their authors, and generally rendered line for line, have given to their versions both an ease of expression and a harmony of numbers, which make them approach very near to original composition. The reason is, they have disdained to confine themselves to a literal interpretation, but have every where adapted their expression to the idiom of the language in which they wrote.