B. That with Villemain - from whose name, in this conquest, those of Guizot and Cousin can hardly be separatedthere is added to the change of taste caused by the knowledge of foreign literatures and of history a change no less profound wrought by a wider, exacter, and, one may say, totally new knowledge of the relations between literary productions and the epochs, institutions, form and structure of the society whose expression they are.

C. That with Sainte-Beuve the foundation is widened, the point of view shifted, and the methods of criticism transformed by psychology, physiology, and the consideration of how each work is related not only to its epoch, but to its author, his temperament and his education.

D. Finally, that with Taine criticism aspires to become a science, even if it does not succeed; and that, in any event, it seeks to supplement its means of information by the means if I may use the term by the methods and processes, of natural history.

4. THE TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS.

[Dictionary of National Biography.]

Howes, Francis (1776-1844), translator, fourth son of the Rev. Thomas Howes of Morningthorpe, Norfolk, by Susan, daughter of Francis Linge of Spinworth in the same county, was born in 1776, and was educated at the Norwich grammar school. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1794, graduated B.A. in 1798 as eleventh wrangler, and proceeded M.A. in 1804. In 1799 he obtained the members' prize. His chief college friend was John (afterwards Sir John) Williams, the judge, who subsequently allowed him 100l. a year. He held various curacies, and in 1815 became a minor

canon of Norwich Cathedral, afterwards holding the rectories successively of Alderford (from 1826) and of Framingham Pigot (from 1829). He died at Norwich in 1844, and was buried in the west cloister of the cathedral. He married early Susan Smithson, and left issue; one of his sisters, Margaret, married Edward Hawkins, and was the mother of Edward Hawkins, provost of Oriel.

Howes published the following translations into English verse: 1. Miscellaneous Poetical Translations, London, 1806, 8vo. 2. The Satires of Persius, with Notes, London, 1809, 8vo. 3. The Epodes and Secular Ode of Horace, Norwich, 1841, 8vo, privately printed. 4. The First Book of Horace's Satires, privately printed, Norwich, 1842, 8vo. After his death his son, C. Howes, published a collection of his translations, London, 1845, 8vo. The merit of his translations was recognized by Conington in the preface to his version of the satires and epistles of Horace. Howes composed epitaphs for various monuments in Norwich Cathedral.

[JOHNSON, Life of Pitt.]

Christopher Pitt, of whom whatever I shall relate, more than has been already published, I owe to the kind communication of Dr. Warton, was born in 1699 at Blandford, the son of a physician much esteemed. He was, in 1714, received as a scholar into Winchester College, where he was distinguished by exercises of uncommon elegance, and, at his removal to New College in 1719, presented to the electors, as the product of his private and voluntary studies, a complete version of Lucan's poem, which he did not then know to have been translated by Rowe. This is an instance of early diligence which well deserves to be recorded. The suppression of such a work, recommended by such uncommon circumstances, is to be regretted. It is indeed culpable to load libraries with

superfluous books, but incitements to early excellence are never superfluous, and from this example the danger is not great of many imitations.

When he had resided at his College three years, he was presented to the rectory of Pimpern in Dorsetshire (1722), by his relation, Mr. Pitt, of Stratfeildsea in Hampshire; and, resigning his fellowship, continued at Oxford two years longer, till he became Master of Arts (1724). He probably about this time translated Vida's Art of Poetry, which Tristram's splendid edition had then made popular. In this translation. he distinguished himself, both by its general elegance and by the skilful adaptation of his numbers to the images expressed, a beauty which Vida has with great ardor enforced and exemplified. He then retired to his living, a place very pleasing by its situation, and therefore likely to excite the imagination of a poet, where he passed the rest of his life, reverenced for his virtue, and beloved for the softness of his temper and the easiness of his manners. Before strangers he had something of the scholar's timidity or distrust, but when he became familiar he was in a very high degree cheerful and entertaining. His general benevolence procured general respect; and he passed a life placid and honorable, neither too great for the kindness of the low, nor too low for the notice of the great.

At what time he composed his miscellany, published in 1727, it is not easy nor necessary to know; those which have dates appear to have been very early productions, and I have not observed that any rise above mediocrity.

The success of his Vida animated him to a higher undertaking, and in his thirtieth year he published a version of the first book of the Æneid. This being, I suppose, commended by his friends, he some time afterwards added three or four more, with an advertisement in which he represents himself as translating with great indifference, and with a progress of which himself was hardly conscious. This can hardly be true, and, if true,

is nothing to the reader. At last, without any further contention with his modesty, or any awe of the name of Dryden, he gave us a complete English Æneid, which I am sorry not to see joined in the late publication with his other poems. It would have been pleasing to have an opportunity of comparing the two best translations that perhaps were ever produced by one nation of the same author.

Pitt, engaging as a rival with Dryden, naturally observed his failures, and avoided them; and, as he wrote after Pope's Iliad, he had an example of an exact, equable, and splendid versification. With these advantages, seconded by great diligence, he might successfully labor particular passages, and escape many errors. If the two versions are compared, perhaps the result would be that Dryden leads the reader forward by his general vigor and sprightliness, and Pitt often stops him to contemplate the excellence of a single couplet; that Dryden's faults are forgotten in the hurry of delight, and that Pitt's beauties are neglected in the languor of a cold and listless perusal; that Pitt pleases the critic, and Dryden the people; that Pitt is quoted, and Dryden read. He did not long enjoy the reputation which this great work deservedly conferred; for he left the world in 1748, and lies buried under a stone at Blandford, on which is this inscription:

In Memory of

CHR. PITT, clerk, M.A.

Very eminent

for his talents in poetry;

and yet more

for the universal candor of

his mind, and the primitive

simplicity of his manners.

He lived innocent,

and died beloved,

Apr. 13, 1748,

aged 48.

[SCOTT, Edition of Dryden, 15. 229.]

This piece [the translation from Boileau] was inserted among Dryden's Works, upon authority of the following advertisement by his publisher Jacob Tonson.

"This translation of Monsieur Boileau's Art of Poetry was made in the year 1680, by Sir William Soame of Suffolk, Baronet; who, being very intimately acquainted with Mr. Dryden, desired his revisal of it. I saw the manuscript lie in Mr. Dryden's hands for above six months, who made very considerable alterations in it, particularly the beginning of the Fourth Canto; and it being his opinion that it would be better to apply the poem to English writers than keep to the French names, as it was first translated, Sir William desired he would take the pains to make that alteration; and accordingly that was entirely done by Mr. Dryden.

"The poem was first published in the year 1683. Sir William was after sent ambassador to Constantinople, in the reign of King James, but died in the voyage. — J. T.”

To give weight to Tonson's authority, it may be added that great part of the poem bears marks of Dryden's polishing hand, and that some entire passages show at once his taste in criticism, principles, and prejudices.