those of Virgil difficult to be retained. The massy trunk of sentiment is safe by its solidity, but the blossoms of elocution easily drop away. The author, having the choice of his own images, selects those which he can best adorn; the translator must, at all hazards, follow hist original, and express thoughts which perhaps he would not have chosen. When to this primary difficulty is added the inconvenience of a language so much inferior in harmony to the Latin, it cannot be expected that they who read the GEORGICK and the ENEID should be much delighted with any version. "All these obstacles Dryden saw, and all these he determined to encounter. The expectation of his work was undoubtedly great; the nation considered its honour as interested in the event. One gave him the different editions of his author, and another helped him in the subordinate parts. The arguments of the several books were given him by Addison. "The hopes of the publick were not disappointed. He produced, says Pope, the most noble and spirited translation that I know in any language. It certainly excelled whatever had appeared in English, and appears to have satisfied his friends, and, for the most part, to have silenced his enemies. "When admiration had subsided, the translation was more coolly examined, and found like all others, to be sometimes erroneous, and sometimes licentious. Those who could find faults, thought they could avoid them; and Dr. Brady attempted in blank verse a translation of the ENEID, which, when dragged into the world, did not live long enough to cry. I have never seen it; but that such a version there is, or has been, perhaps some old catalogue informed me. "With not much better success, Trapp, when his Tragedy and his PRELECTIONS had given him reputation, attempted another blank version of the ENEID; to which, notwithstanding the slight regard with which it was treated, he had afterwards perseverance enough to add the ECLOGUES and GEORGICKS. His book may continue its existence as long as it is the clandestine refuge of school-boys. "Since the English ear has been accustomed to the mellifluence of Pope's numbers, and the diction of poetry has become more splendid, new attempts have been made to translate Virgil; and all his works have been attempted by men better qualified to contend with Dryden. I will not engage myself in an invidious comparison by opposing one passage to another; a work of which there would be no end, and which might be often offensive without use. "It is not by comparing line with line that the merit of great works is to be estimated, but by their general effects and ultimate result. It is easy to note a weak line, and write one more vigorous in its place; to find a happiness of expression in the original, and transplant it by force into the version: but what is given to the parts, may be subducted from the whole, and the reader may be weary, though the critick may commend. Works of imagination excel by their allurement and delight; by their power of attracting and detaining the attention. That book is good in vain, which the reader throws away. He only is the master, who keeps the mind in pleasing captivity; whose pages are perused with eagerness, and in hope of new pleasure are perused again; and whose conclusion is perceived with an eye of sorrow, such as the traveller casts upon departing day. 66 By his proportion of this predomination I will consent that Dryden should be tried; of this, which, in opposition to reason, makes Ariosto the darling and the pride of Italy; of this, which, in defiance of criticism, continues Shakspeare the sovereign of the drama." Johnson's Life of DRYDEN. DEDICATION OF FABLES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF ORMOND.7 MY LORD, SOME estates are held in England by paying a fine at the change of every lord. I have enjoyed the patronage of your family from the time of your excellent grandfather to this present day. I have dedicated the translation of the Lives of Plutarch to the first Duke; and have celebrated the memory of your heroick father. Though I 7 James, the second Duke of Ormond, was the eldest son of Thomas, Earl of Ossory, of whom some account has already been given. See vol. ii. p. 388. He was born in the Castle of Dublin about the year 1662, and in 1683 married Lady Anne Hyde, one of the daughters of Laurence, Earl of Rochester; who dying in 1685, he married Lady Mary Somerset, second daughter of Henry, Duke of Beaufort. On the landing of King William the Third, he was one of the first of the nobility who joined that Prince at Sherborne; and was made by him a Lord of his April 24 |