that, from the beginning of the First Georgic to the end of the last Æneid, I found the difficulty of translation growing on me in every succeeding book: for Virgil, above all poets, had a stock, which I may call almost inexhaustible, of figurative, elegant, and sounding words. I, who inherit but a small portion of his genius, and write in a language so much inferior to the Latin, have found it very painful to vary phrases, when the same sense returns upon me. Even he himself, whether out of necessity or choice, has often express'd the same thing in the same words, and often repeated two or three whole verses which he had us'd before. Words are not so easily coin'd as money; and yet we see that the credit not only of banks, but of exchequers, cracks, when little comes in and much goes out. Virgil call'd upon me in every line for some new word, and I paid so long, that I was almost bankrupt; so that the latter end must needs be more burdensome than the beginning or the middle; and, consequently, the Twelfth Eneid cost me double the time of the First and Second. What had become of me, if Virgil had tax'd me with another book? I had certainly been reduc'd to pay the public in hammer'd money, for want of mill'd; that is, in the same old words which I had us'd before; and the receivers must have been forc'd to have taken anything, where there was so little to be had. Besides this difficulty (with which I have struggled, and made a shift to pass it over) there is one remaining, which is insuperable to all translators. We are bound to our author's sense, tho' with the latitudes already mention'd; for I think it not so sacred, as that one iota must not be added or diminish'd, on pain of an anathema. But slaves we are, and labor on another's man plantation; we dress the vineyard, but the wine is the owner's: if the soil be sometimes barren, then we are sure of being scourg'd; if it be fruitful, and our care succeeds, we are not thank'd; for the proud reader will only say the poor drudge has done his duty. But this is nothing to what follows; for, being oblig'd to make his sense intelligible, we are forc'd to untune our own verses, that we may give his meaning to the reader. He who invents is master of his thoughts and words; he can turn and vary them as he pleases, till he renders them harmonious. But the wretched translator has no such privilege; for, being tied to the thoughts, he must make what music he can in the expression; and for this reason it cannot always be so sweet as that of the original. There is a beauty of sound, as Segrais has observ'd, in some Latin words, which is wholly lost in any modern language. He instances in that mollis amaracus, on which Venus lays Cupid, in the First Æneid. If I should translate it sweet marjoram, as the word signifies, the reader would think I had mistaken Virgil: for those village words, as I may call them, give us a mean idea of the thing; but the sound of the Latin is so much more pleasing, by the just mixture of the vowels with the consonants, that it raises our fancies to conceive somewhat more noble than a common herb, and to spread roses under him, and strew lilies over him; a bed not unworthy the grandson of the goddess. If I cannot copy his harmonious numbers, how shall I imitate his noble flights, where his thoughts and words are equally sublime? Quem quisquis studet æmulari, cæratis ope Dædalea Nititur pennis, vitreo daturus Nomina ponto. What modern language, or what poet, can express the majestic beauty of this one verse, amongst a thousand others? Aude, hospes, contemnere opes, et te quoque dignum For my part, I am lost in the admiration of it: I contemn the world when I think on it, and myself when I translate it. Lay by Virgil, I beseech your Lordship, and all my better sort of judges, when you take up my version; and it will appear a passable beauty when the original Muse is absent. But, like Spenser's false Florimel made of snow, it melts and vanishes when the true one comes in sight. I will not excuse, but justify myself for one pretended crime, with which I am liable to be charg'd by false critics, not only in this translation, but in many of my original poems-that I Latinize too much. 'T is true that, when I find an English word significant and sounding, I neither borrow from the Latin or any other language; but, when I want at home, I must seek abroad. If sounding words are not of our growth and manufacture, who shall hinder me to import them from a foreign country? I carry not out the treasure of the nation, which is never to return; but what I bring from Italy, I spend in England: here it remains, and here it circulates; for, if the coin be good, it will pass from one hand to another. I trade both with the living and the dead, for the enrichment of our native language. We have enough in England to supply our necessity; but, if we will have things of magnificence and splendor, we must get them by commerce. Poetry requires ornament; and that is not to be had from our old Teuton monosyllables: therefore, if I find any elegant word in a classic author, I propose it to be naturaliz'd, by using it myself; and, if the public approves of it, the bill passes. But every man cannot distinguish betwixt pedantry and poetry: every man, therefore, is not fit to innovate. Upon the whole matter, a poet must first be certain that the word he would introduce is beautiful in the Latin; and is to consider, in the next place, whether it will agree with the English idiom. After this, he ought to take the opinion of judicious friends, such as are learned in both languages; and, lastly, since no man is infallible, let him use this license very sparingly; for, if too many foreign words are pour'd in upon us, it looks as if they were design'd not to assist the natives, but to conquer them. I am now drawing towards a conclusion, and suspect your Lordship is very glad of it. But permit me first to own what helps I have had in this undertaking. The late Earl of Lauderdale sent me over his new translation of the Eneis, which he had ended before I ingag'd in the same design. Neither did I then intend it; but, some proposals being afterwards made me by my bookseller, I desir'd his Lordship's leave that I might accept them, which he freely granted; and I have his letter to shew for that permission. He resolv❜d to have printed his work; which he might have done two years before I could publish mine; and had perform'd it, if death had not prevented him. But having his manuscript in my hands, I consulted it as often as I doubted of my author's sense; for no man understood Virgil better than that learned nobleman. His friends, I hear, have yet another and more correct copy of that translation by them, which had they pleas'd to have given the public, the judges must have been convinc'd that I have not flatter'd him. Besides this help, which was not inconsiderable, Mr. Congreve has done me the favor to review the Eneis, and compare my version with the original. I shall never be asham'd to own that this excellent young man has shew'd me many faults, which I have endeavor'd to correct. 'Tis true, he might have easily found more, and then my translation had been more perfect. Two other worthy friends of mine, who desire to have their names conceal'd, seeing me straiten'd in my time, took pity on me, and gave me the Life of Virgil, the two Prefaces to the Pastorals and the Georgics, and all the arguments in prose to the whole translation; which, perhaps, has caus'd a report that the two first poems are not mine. If it had been true that I had taken their verses for my own, I might have gloried in their aid; and, like Terence, have farther'd the opinion that Scipio and Lælius join'd with me. But the same style being continued thro' the whole, and the same laws of versification observ'd, are proofs sufficient that this is one man's work; and your Lordship is too well acquainted with my manner to doubt that any part of it is another's. That your Lordship may see I was in earnest when I promis'd to hasten to an end, I will not give the reasons why I writ not always in the proper terms of navigation, land service, or in the cant of any profession. I will only say that Virgil has avoided those proprieties, because he writ not to mariners, soldiers, astronomers, gard'ners, peasants, &c., but to all in general, and in particular to men and ladies of the first quality, who have been better bred than to be too nicely knowing in the terms. In such cases, 't is enough for a poet to write so plainly, that he may be understood by his readers; to avoid impropriety, and not affect to be thought learn'd in all things. I have omitted the four preliminary lines of the First Eneid, because I think them inferior to any four others in the whole poem, and consequently believe they are not Virgil's. There is too great a gap betwixt the adjective vicina in the second line, and the substantive arva in the latter end of the third, which keeps his meaning in obscurity too long, and is contrary to the clearness of his style. Ut quamvis avidis is too ambitious an ornament to be his; and Gratum opus agricolis are all words unnecessary, and independent of what he said before. Horrentia Martis arma is worse than any of the rest. Horrentia is such a flat epithet as Tully would have given us in his verses. 'Tis a mere filler, to stop a vacancy in the hexameter, and connect the preface to the work of Virgil. Our author seems to sound a charge, and begins like the clangor of a trumpet: Arma virumque cano, Trojæ qui primus ab oris scarce a word without an r, and the vowels for the greater part sonorous. The prefacer began with Ille ego, which he was constrain'd to patch up in the fourth line with at nunc, to make the sense cohere; and if both those words are not notorious botches, I am much deceiv'd, tho' the French translator thinks otherwise. For my own part, I am rather of the opinion that they were added by Tucca and Varius, than retrench'd. I know it may be answer'd by such as think Virgil the author of the four lines, that he asserts his title to the Æneis in the beginning of this work, as he did to the two former in the last lines of the Fourth Georgic. I will not reply otherwise to this than by desiring them to compare these four lines with the four others, which we know are his, because no poet but he alone could write them. If they cannot distinguish creeping from flying, let them lay down Virgil, and take up Ovid de Ponto in his stead. My master needed not the assistance of that preliminary poet to prove his claim. His own majestic mien discovers him to be the king, amidst a thousand courtiers. It was a superfluous office; and there |