John Dryden, at the age of sixty-six, published his translation, not of the Eneid" only, but of the whole works of Virgil, in July, 1697, having planned the enterprise in, or before, 1694. He died in the year 1700. Dryden's bias to authority in Church and State, when it had once overcome the influences of education in an opposite direction, made it impossible for him at the Revolution to take the oaths that would be required if he retained office as Poet Laureate. His fortunes were broken by the political change. Translations by him from the Latin poets had been received with high favour. Criticism of that day saw ideal excellence in Latin poets of the Augustan age, and Virgil was the idol of the critics. Dryden himself was, in spite of his politics, acknow. ledged to be the one great poet then living in England. Then, also, there was no good English translation of Virgil. Gavin Douglas's Scottish translation of the ".Eneid" was unreal, and by that age unreadable. In modern form there was only John Ogilby's very poor translation of the works of Virgil, which had been first published in 1649, and reproduced in 1654 as a handsome folio, adorned with plates by Hollar, Faithorne, and Lombart. Jacob Tonson, Dryden's publisher, used for his edition Ogilby's plates touched up, and published Dryden's Virgil by subscription, engraving under successive plates the arms of one hundred and one subscribers of five guineas, who contributed towards the adornment of the work with engravings; besides these, there were two hundred and fifty subscribers of two guineas, who did not receive heraldic honours in part payment. The profit from the work to Dryden himself seems to have been about twelve hundred pounds. A generation laver Pope earned very much more by translating Homer. As Dryden would not make friendly a ivance to King William, by dedicating the translation to him, Jacob Tonson, as publisher, did his loyal best by directing that, in retouching the plates, the Roman nose of the pious "Eneas" should be made to conform to that of William III. And so Tonson hoped that His Majesty might be caught by the nose.

The first edition of Dryden's Virgil was sold in a few months. As Samuel Johnson said: "It satisfied his friends and, for the most part, silenced his enemies." Pope spoke of it as the most noble and spirited translation of Virgil that he knew in any language. But it is better to read and enjoy good books for what they themselves say, than for what others may have said of them. In Dryden's Virgil this, at least, is clear, that we have one ripe poet translated by another; so that we must needs find pleasure in the reading.

March, 1884.

H. M.

VIRGIL'S Neid.

BOOK I.

THE ARGUMENT.

The Trojans, after a seven years' voyage, set sail for Italy, but are overtaken by a dreadful storm, which Æolus raises at Juno's request. The tempest sinks one and scatters the rest: Neptune drives off the winds and calms the sea. Eneas, with his own ship and six mole, arves safe at an African port. Venus complains to Jupiter of her son's misfortunes. Jupiter comforts her, and sends Mercury to procure him a kind reception among the Carthaginians. Eneas going out to discover the country, meets his mother in the shape of a huntress, who conveys him in a cloud to Carthage, where he sees his friends, whom he thought lost, and receives a kind entertainment from the Queen. Dido, by a device of Venus, begins to have a passion for him, and, after some discourse with him, desires the history of his adventures since the siege of Troy, which is the subject of the two following books.

ARMS and the man I sing, who, forced by fate
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,
Expelled and exiled eft the Trojan shore.
Long labours, both by sea and land, he bore,
And in the doubtful war, before he won

The Latian realm, and built the destined town,
His banished gods restored to rites divine,
And settled sure succession in his line;
From whence the race of Alban fathers come
And the long glories of majestic Rome.

O Muse, the causes and the crimes relate,
What goddess was provoked, and whence her hate;
For what offence the Queen of Heaven began
To persecute so brave, so just man,

Involved his anxious life in endless cares,
Exposed to wants, and hurried into wars!
Can heavenly minds such high resentment show,
Or exercise their spite in human woe?

Against the Tiber's mouth, but far away, An ancient town was seated on the sea.

A Tyrian colony, the people made

Stout for the war, and studious of their trade.
Carthage the name, beloved by Juno more
Than her owa Argos or the Samian shore.
Here stood her chariot; here, if heaven were kind,
The seat of awful empire she designed.
Yet she had heard an ancient rumour fly
(Long cited by the people of the sky),

That times to come should see the Trojan race
Her Carthage ruin and her towers deface.
Nor thus contined, the yoke of sovereign sway,
Should on the necks of all the nations lay.
She pondered this, and feared it was in fate;
Nor could forget the war she waged of late,
For conquering Greece against the Trojan state.
Besides, long causes working in her mind,
And secret seeds of envy lay behind.
Deep graven in her heart, the doom remained
Of partial Paris, and her form disdained:
The grace bestowed on ravished Ganymed,
Electra's glories, and her injured bed.
Each was a cause alone, and all combined
To kindle vengeance in her haughty mind.
For this, far distant from the Latian coast
She drove the remnants of the Trojan host;

And seven long years the unhappy wandering train

Were tossed by storms, and scattered through the main. Such time, such toil required the Roman name,

Such length of labour for so vast a frame.

Now scarce the Trojan fleet with sails and oars,
Had left behind the fair Sicilian shores;
Entering with cheerful shouts the watery reign,
And ploughing frothy furrows in the main;
When labouring still, with endless discontent,
The Queen of Heaven did thus her fury vent:
"Then am I vanquished, must I yield?" said she,
"And must the Trojans reign in Italy?
So fate will have it, and Jove adds his force
Nor can my power divert their happy course.
Could angry Pallas, with revengeful spleen,
The Grecian navy burn, and drown the men?
She for the fault of one offending foe,

;

The bolts of Jove himself presumed to throw;
With whirlwinds from beneath she tossed the ship,

And bare exposed the bosom of the deep;
Then, as an eagle grips the trembling game,
The wretch yet hissing with her father's flame
She strongly seized, and with a burning wound,
Transfixed and naked, on a rock she bound.
But I, who walk in awful state above,

The majesty of Heaven, the sister-wife of Jove,
For length of years my fruitless force employ
Against the thin remains of ruined Troy.
What nations now to Juno's power will pray,
Or offerings on my slighted altars lay ?"

Thus raged the goddess, and with fury fraught,
The restless regions of the storms she sought,
Where in a spacious cave of living stone,
The tyrant olus from his airy throne,
With power imperial curbs the struggling winds,
And sounding tempests in dark prisons binds.
This way and that the impatient captives tend,
And pressing for release, the mountains rend:
High in his hall the undaunted monarch stands,
And shakes his sceptre, and their rage commands;
Which did he not, their unresisted sway

Would sweep the world before them in their way:
Earth, air, and seas through empty space would roll,
And Heaven would fly before the driving soul.

In fear of this, the father of the gods

Confined their fury to those dark abodes,

And locked them safe within, oppressed with mountain loads;

Imposed a king, with arbitrary sway,

To loose their fetters, or their force allay.

To whom the suppliant Queen her prayers addressed,
And thus the tenor of her suit expressed :-

"O olus for to thee the King of Heaven

The power of tempests and of winds has given :

Thy force alone their fury can restrain,

And smooth the waves or swell the troubled main :
A race of wandering slaves, abhorred by me,

With prosperous passage cut the Tuscan sea:

To fruitful Italy their course they steer,

And for their vanquished gods design new temples there.

Raise all thy winds, with night involve the skies;

Sink or disperse my fatal enemies.

Twice seven, the charming daughters of the main,

Around my person wait, and bear my train;

Succeed my wish, and second my design,

The fairest, Deiopcia, shall be thine,

And make thee father of a happy line."

To this the god:-"'Tis yours, O Queen! to will The work which duty binds me to fulfil.

These airy kingdoms and this wide command
Are all the presents of your bounteous hand;
Yours is my sovereign's grace, and, as your guest,
I sit with gods at their celestial feast.

Raise tempests at your pleasure, or subdue;
Dispose of empire, which I hold from you."
He said, and hurled against the mountain side
His quivering spear, and all the god applied.
The raging winds rush through the hollow wound,
And dance aloft in air, and skim along the ground :
Then settling on the sea, the surges sweep,
Raise liquid mountains, and disclose the deep.
South, cast, and west, with mixed confusion roar,
And roll the foaming billows to the shore.
The cables crack, the sailors' fearful cries
Ascend; and sable night involves the skies,
And Heaven itself is ravished from their eyes.
Loud peals of thunder from the poles ensue,
Then flashing fires the transient light renew;
The face of things a frightful image bears,
And present death in various forms appears.
Struck with unusual fright, the Trojan chief,
With lifted hands and eyes, invokes relief.
“And thrice and four times happy those," he cried,
"That under Ilian walls before their parents died.
Tydides, bravest of the Grecian train,
Why could not I by that strong arm be slain,
And lie by noble Hector on the plain,
O great Sarpedon, in those bloody fields
Where Simois rolls the bodies and the shields
Of heroes, whose dismembered hands yet bear
The dart aloft, and clench the pointed spear?"
Thus while the pious prince his fate bewails,
Fierce Boreas drove against his flying sails,
And rent the sheets: the raging billows rise,
And mount the tossing vessel to the skies:
Nor can the shivering oars sustain the blow;
The galley gives her side, and turns her prow:
While those astern, descending down the steep,
Through gaping waves behold the boiling deep.
Three ships were hurried by the southern blast,
And on the secret shelves with fury cast.