Romans then knew the coast of Africa from Cyrene (to the south-east of which lies Ammon toward Egypt) to Leptis and Utica: but, pray, remember how your Homer nodded while Ulysses slept, and waking knew not where he was, in the short passage from Corcyra to Ithaca. I like Trapp's versions for their justness; his Psalm is excellent; the prodigies in the first Georgic judicious; whence I conclude that it is easier to turn Virgil justly in blank verse, than rhyme. The eclogue of Gallus, and fable of Phaëton, pretty well; but he is very faulty in his numbers; the fate of Phaëton might run thus : The blasted Phaëton with blazing hair, LETTER XXIV. TO MR. CROMWELL. I am your, &c. Nov. 24, 1710. To make use of that freedom and familiarity of style, which we have taken up in our correspondence, and which is more properly talking upon paper, than writing; I will tell you without any preface, that I never took that Tycho Brahe for one of the ancients, or in the least an acquaintance of Lucan's; nay, it is a mercy on this occasion that I do not give you an account of his life and conversation; as how he lived some years like an enchanted knight in a certain island, with a tale of a King of Denmark's mistress that shall be nameless-But I have compassion Of all the parts of Trapp's translation of Virgil, that of his Georgics is most blameable and prosaic. The author of the Prelections lost himself much in this translation of Virgil: yet many of his notes show that he understood and felt his author; and his Prelections may be read with advantage by young scholars. His Latin translation of Milton was a woful performance.-Warton. on you, and would not for the world you should stay any longer among the Genii and Semidei Manes, you know where; for if once you get so near the moon, Sappho will want your presence in the clouds and inferior regions; not to mention the great loss Drury-lane will sustain, when Mr. C is in the milky-way. These celestial thoughts put me in mind of the priests you mention, who are a sort of sortilegi in one sense, because in their lottery there are more blanks than prizes; the adventurers being at first in an uncertainty, whereas the setters-up are sure of something. Priests indeed in their character, as they represent God, are sacred; and so are constables, as they represent the King; but you will own a great many of them are very odd fellows, and the devil of any likeness in them. Yet I can assure you, I honour the good as much as I detest the bad, and I think, that in condemning these, we praise those. The translations from Ovid I have not so good an opinion of as you; because I think they have little of the main characteristic of this author, a graceful easiness. For let the sense be ever so exactly rendered, unless an author looks like himself, in his air, habit, and manner, it is a disguise, and not translation. But as to the Psalm, I think David is much more beholden to the translator than Ovid; and as he treated the Roman like a Jew, so he has made the Jew speak like a Roman. Your, &c. LETTER XXV. TO MR. CROMWELL. Dec. 5, 1710. THE same judgment we made on Rowe's ixth of Lucan will serve for his part of the vith, where I find this memorable line, Parque novum Fortuna videt concurrere bellum For this he employs six verses, among which is this, As if on knightly terms in lists they ran. 7 Pray can you trace chivalry up higher than Pharamond? will you allow it an anachronism?-Tickel in his version of the Phoenix from Claudian: When nature ceases, thou shalt still remain, Claudian thus: Et clades te nulla rapit, solusque superstes, which plainly refers to the deluge of Deucalion, and the conflagration of Phaeton; not to the final dissolution. Your thought of the priests' lottery is very fine: you play the wit and not the critic, upon the errors of your brother. 8 Your observations are all very just: Virgil is eminent for adjusting his diction to his sentiments; and, among the moderns, I find you practise the Prosodia of your rules. Your poem shows you to be, what you say of Voiture-with books well bred: the state of the fair, though satirical, is touched with that delicacy and gallantry, that not the court of Augustus, not-but hold, I shall lose what I lately recovered, your opinion of my sincerity; yet I must say, it is as faultless as the fair to whom it is addressed, be she never so perfect. The M. G. (who, it seems, had no right notion of you, as you of him) transcribed it by lucubration. From some discourse of yours, he thought your inclination 7 Nothing surely can be so totally abhorrent from all the ideas of antiquity as chivalry, the rise and genius of which is no where so amply and accurately investigated as by that curious antiquary M. De la Curne de Sainte-Palaye, in a Memoir first published in the 20th volume of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, and afterwards enlarged and published in two volumes at Paris, 1759.-Warton. s To a lady, with the Works of Voiture.-Pope. led you to (what the men of fashion call learning) pedantry; but now, he says, he has no less, I assure you, than a veneration for you. Your, &c. LETTER XXVI. TO MR. CROMWELL. December 17, 1710. It seems that my late mention of Crashaw, and my IT quotation from him, has moved your curiosity. I therefore send you the whole author, who has held a place among my other books of this nature for some years; in which time having read him twice or thrice, I find him one of those whose works may just deserve reading. I take this poet to have writ like a gentleman, that is, at leisure hours, and more to keep out of idleness, than to establish a reputation; so that nothing regular or just can be expected from him. All that regards design, form, fable, (which is the soul of poetry,) all that concerns exactness, or consent of parts, (which is the body,) will probably be wanting; only pretty conceptions, fine metaphors, glittering expressions, and something of a neat cast of verse, (which are properly the dress, gems, or loose ornaments of poetry,) may be found in these verses. This is indeed the case of most other poetical writers of miscellanies; nor can it well be otherwise, since no man can be a true poet, who writes for diversion only. These authors should be considered as versifiers and witty men, rather than as poets; and under this head will only fall the thoughts, the expression, and the numbers. These are only the pleasing part of poetry, which may be judged of at a view, and comprehended all at once. And (to express myself like a painter) their colouring entertains the sight, but the lines and life of the picture are not to be inspected too narrowly. This author formed himself upon Petrarch, or rather upon Marino. His thoughts, one may observe, in the main, are pretty; but oftentimes far fetched, and too often strained and stiffened to make them appear the greater. For men are never so apt to think a thing great, as when it is odd or wonderful; and inconsiderate authors would rather be admired than understood. This ambition of surprising a reader, is the true natural cause of all fustian, or bombast in poetry. To confirm what I have said, you need but look into his first poem of the Weeper, where the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 14th, and 21st stanzas are as sublimely dull, as the 7th, 8th, 9th, 16th, 17th, 20th, and 23rd stanzas of the same copy are soft and pleasing and if these last want any thing, it is an easier and more unaffected expression. The remaining thoughts in that poem might have been spared, being either but repetitions, or very trivial and mean. And by this example in the first, one may guess at all the rest; to be like this, a mixture of tender gentle thoughts and suitable expressions, of forced and inextricable conceits, and of needless fillers-up to the rest. From all which it is plain, this author writ fast, and set down what came uppermost. A reader may skim off the froth, and use the clear underneath; but if he goes too deep, will meet with a mouthful of dregs; either the top or bottom of him are good for little, but what he did in his own, natural, middle-way, is best. To speak of his numbers is a little difficult, they 9 Crashaw was so fond of Marino, a writer of fine imagination but little judgment, as to translate the whole first book of his Strage degli Innocenti (published 1633), which Marino himself preferred to his Il Adone, and to which Milton was indebted for many hints, which, however, he greatly improved. See particularly Stanza 7, and several succeeding stanzas in Crashaw, p. 35, for a description of Satan. Milton, in his Mansus, celebrates the Adonis: the Strage was not then published. It was first printed in France, and Chapelain prefixed a learned preface to it. There was a translation of all the four books of the Slaughter of the Innocents, published 1675, by T. R. and dedicated to the Duchess of York.-Warton. |