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TRANSLATION.

A POEM.

BY THOMAS FRANCKLIN*, FELLOW OF TRINITYCOLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

SUCH is our pride, our folly, or our fate,
That few, but such as cannot write, translate."
SO DENHAM Sung, who well the labour knew;
And an age past has left the maxim true.
Wit as of old, a proud imperious Lord,
Disdains the plenty of another's board;
And haughty Genius seeks, like Philip's son,
Paths never trod before, and worlds unknown.
Unaw'd by these, whilst hands impure dispense
The sacred streams of antient eloquence,
Pedants assume the task for scholars fit,
And blockheads rise interpreters of wit.
In the fair field the vet'ran armies stand,
A firm, unconquer'd, formidable band,
When lo! Translation comes and levels all;
By vulgar hands the bravest heroes fall.
On eagle's wings see lofty Pindar soar;
+ Cowley attacks, and Pindar is no more.

*The translator of Sophocles. This poem was published in 1754, and was dedicated to the Earls of Granville, Chesterfield, and Orrery.

Nothing can be more contemptible than the translations and imitations of Pindar done by Cowley, which yet have had their admirers.

O'er Tibur's swan the muses wept in vain,
* And mourn'd their bard by cruel Dunster slain.
+ By Ogilby and Trap great Maro fell,
And Homer dy'd by Chapman and Ozell.
In blest Arabia's plains unfading blow
Flow'rs ever fragrant, fruits immortal grow;
To northern climes th'unwilling guests convey,
The fruit shall wither, and the flow'r decay;
Ev'n so when here the sweets of Athens come,
Or the fair produce of imperial Rome,
They pine and sicken in th'unfriendly shade,
Their roses droop, and all their laurels fade.

'The modern critic, whose unletter'd pride,
Big with itself, contemns the world beside,
If haply told that Terence once cou'd charm,
Each feeling heart that Sophocles cou'd warm,
Scours ev'ry stall for Echard's dirty page,
§ Or pores in Adams for th'Athenian stage;
With joy he reads the servile mimics o'er,
Pleas'd to discover what he guess'd before;
Concludes that Attic wit's extremely low;
** And gives up Greece to Wotton and Perrault.

* See Horace's Epistles, Satires, and Art of Poetry, done into English by S. Dunster, D. D. Prebendary of Sarum.

↑ See their translations of Homer and Virgil.

Les belles traductions (says Boilean) sont des preuves sans replique en faveur des anciens, qu'on leur donne les Racines pour interpretes, & ils scauront plaire aujourdhui comme autrefois. Certain it is, that the contempt, in which the antients are held by the illiterate wits of the present age, is in a great measure owing to the number of bad translations.

§ See Adams's prose translation of Sophocles.

A favourite coffee-house phrase.

** See Wotton's discourse on antient and modern learning, and Perrault's defence of his Siecle de Louis XIV.

Our shallow language, shallow'r judges say,
Can ne'er the force of antient sense convey.
As well might Vanbrugh ev'ry stone revile
That swells enormous Blenheim's awkward pile;
The guiltless pen as well might Mauro blame,
For writing ill, and sullying Arthur's fame;
Successless lovers blast the maid they woo'd,
And these a tongue they never understood;
That tongue, which gave immortal Shakespeare fame,
Which boasts a Prior's, and a Thomson's name;
Graceful and chaste which flows in Addison,
With native charms, and vigour all its own;
In Bolingbroke and Swift, whose beauties shine,
In Rowe's soft numbers, Johnson's nervous line,
Dryden's free vein, and Milton's work divine.

But, such, alas! disdain to borrow fame,
Or live like dulness in another's name;
And hence the task for noblest souls design'd,
Giv'n to the weak, the tasteless, and the blind;
To some low wretch, who prostitute for pay
+ Lets out to Curll the labours of the day,
Careless who hurries o'er th' unblotted line,
Impatient still to finish and to dine;

Or some pale pedant, whose encumber'd brain
O'er the dull page hath toil'd for years in vain,
Who writes at last ambitiously to shew
How much a fool may read, how little know.
Can these on fancy's wing with Plato soar?
Can these a Tully's active mind explore?
Great nature's secret springs can these reveal,
Or paint those passions, which they ne'er cou'd feel?

*See Blackmore's King Arthur, an heroic poem.

↑ Most of the bad translations, which we have of eminent authors, were done by garreteers under the inspection of this gentleman, who paid thein by the sheet for their hasty performances.

Yet will they dare the pondrous lance to wield,
Yet will they strive to lift the seven-fold shield,
The rock of Ajax ev'ry child wou'd throw,
And ev'ry stripling bend Ulysses' bow.

*There are, who timid line by line pursue, Anxious to keep th' Original in view;

Who mark each footstep where their master trod,
And after all their pains have mist the road.

*There are, an author's sense who boldly quit, As if asham'd to own the debt of wit;

Who leave their fellow-trav'ller on the shore,
Launch in the deep, and part to meet no more.
*Some from reflection catch the weaken'd ray,
And scarce a gleam of doubtful sense convey,
Present a picture's picture to your view,
Where not a line is just or feature true.

Thus Greece and Rome, in modern dress array'd, Is but Antiquity in masquerade.

Disguis'd in Oldsworth's verse or Watson's prose,
What classic friend his alter'd Flaccus knows?
+ Whilst great Longinus gives to Welsted fame,
And Tacitus to Gordon lends his name,

*The reader will easily recollect instances to illustrate each of these remarks, more especially the last; half of our translations being done from translations by such as were never able to consult the original. One of these gentlemen having occasion in his version to mention Dionysius of Halicarnassus, not having the good fortune to be acquainted with any such writer, makes use of the French liberty of curtailing, and without scruple calls him Dennis of Halicarnassus. Mistakes as gross as this often occur, though perhaps not many altogether so ridiculous.

+ See Welsted's translation of Longinus, done almost word for word from Boileau.

This gentleman translated Tacitus in a very stiff and affected manner, transposing words, and placing the verb at the end of the sentence, according to the Latin idiom. He was called in his lifetime Tacitus-Gordon.

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Unmeaning strains debase the Mantuan muse,
And Terence speaks the language of the stews.
In learning thus must Britain's sons decay,
And see her rival bear the prize away,
* In arts as well as arms to Gallia yield,
And own her happier skill in either field?
+ See where her boasted d'Ablancourt appears,
Her Mongualts, Brumoys, Olivets, Daciers;
Careful to make each antient's merit known,
Who just to others fame have rais'd their own;
Nor wonder these should claim superior praise;
A nation thanks them and a monarch pays.
Far other fate attends our hireling bard;
A sneer his praise, a pittance his reward,
The butt of wit, and jest of every muse,
Foes laugh to scorn, and even friends abuse,
The great Translator bids each dunce translate,
And ranks us all with Tibbald and with Tate.

It was said by a great wit in the last war, that he should never doubt of our success, if we could once bring ourselves to hate the French as heartily as we do the arts and sciences. It is indisputable, that they are more warmly encouraged, and consequently more cultivated and improved in France than amongst us. Their translations (especially in profe) are acknowledged to be more faithful and correct, and in general more lively and spirited than ours.

The French had so high an opinion of d'Ablancourt's merit as to think him deserving of the following epitaph:

L'illustre d'Ablancourt repose en ce tombeau,

Son genie à son siécle a servi de flambeau,
Dans ses fameux ecrits toute la France admire
Des Grecs & des Romains les precieux tresors;
A son trepas on ne peut dire

Qui perd le plus, des vivans ou des morts.

Pope, in his Epistle to Arbuthnot, after his enumeration of dunces, concludes with these two lines.

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