TRANSLATIONS. THE FIFTH ODE OF HORACE, LIB. I. WHAT flender youth, bedew'd with liquid odours, Courts thee on roses in fome pleasant cave, Ver. 1. What fender youth,] In this measure, my friend and fchool-fellow Mr. William Collins wrote his admired Ode to Evening; and I know he had a defign of writing many more. Odes without rhyme. In this meafure alfo, an elegant Ode was written On the Paradife Loft, by the late captain Thomas, formerly a ftudent of Chrift-church Oxford, at the time that Mr. Benfon gave medals as prizes for the best verses that were produced on Milton at all our great schools. It seems to be an agreed point, that Lyrick poetry cannot exift without rhyme in our language. Some of the Trochaicks, in Glover's Medea, are harmonious, however, without rhyme. Jos. WARTON. Dr. J. Warton might have added, that his own Ode to Evening was written before that of his friend Collins; as was a Poem of his, entitled the Assembly of the Paffions, before Collins's favourite Ode on that subject. There are extant two excellent Odes, of the truest taste, written in unrhyming metre many years ago by two of the students of Chrift-church Oxford, and among its chief ornaments, fince high in the church. One is on the death of Mr. Langton who died on his travels, by the late Dr. Shipley, bishop of St. Asaph: the other, by the prefent archbishop of York, is addreffed to George Onflow, efquire, the Speaker. Pyrrha? For whom bind'st thou Plain in thy neatness? O, how oft fhall he 5 Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold, 10 But it may be doubted, whether there is fufficient precifion and elegance in the English language without rhyme. In England's Helicon, there is Oenone's complaint, in blank verfe, by George Peele, written about 1590. Signat. Q. 4. edit. 1614. The verfes indeed are heroick, but the whole confifts of quatrains. I will exhibit the first stanza. "Melpomene, the mufe of tragicke fongs "With mournful tunes, in ftole of difmal hue; T. WARTON. This tranfiation did not appear in the edition of 1645. It is thus entitled in the poet's own edition of 1673. "Quis multa gracilis te puer in rofa, Rendred almoft word for word without rhyme according to the Latin meafure, as near as the language will permit." p. 62. This Ode of Horace had appeared long before in an English drefs, among "Certaine Selected Odes of Horace," tranflated by John Ashmore in 1621, 4to. It commences thus: "What pretty youth, weltring in rofes "With liquid odors overspread, "O Pirrha, thee in's armes inclofes, &c." TODD. Ver 5. Plain in thy neatness?] Rather, "plain in your ornaments.". Milton mistakes the idiomatical use and meaning of munditiæ. She was plain in her dress: or, more paraphrastically, in the manner of adorning herself. The fenfe of the context is, "For whom do you, who study no ornaments of dress, thus unaffectedly bind up your yellow locks ?" T. WARTON. Hopes thee, of flattering gales To whom thou untried feem'ft fair! Me, in my vow'd Picture, the facred wall declares to have hung My dank and dropping weeds To the ftern God of fea. 15 From GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH. BRUTUS thus addresses DIANA in the country of LEOGECIA. Goddess of fhades, and huntrefs, who at will Walk'ft on the rowling spheres, and through the deep; On thy third reign, the earth, look now, and tell What land, what feat of rest, thou bidst me feek, What certain feat, where I may worship thee For aye, with temples vow'd and virgin quires. To whom, fleeping before the altar, DIANA answers in a vifion the fame night. Brutus, far to the weft, in the ocean wide, Beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies, Sea-girt it lies, where giants dwelt of old; Now void, it fits thy people: Thither bend • Hist. Brit. i. xi. "Diva potens nemorum, &c." I am informed by Mr. Steevens, who had it from Mr. Spence, that, in Aaron Thompson's Tranflation of Geoffry of Monmouth, published 1718, this address of Brutus, Diva potens, and Diana's anfwer, which follows, were tranflated by Pope for Thompson's ufe. But fee this information confirmed by an additional paffage, first published by Curll, in the Supplement to Pope's Works, for M. Cooper, 1757. p. 39. See alfo Thomfon's Geoffry, pp. 23, 24. T. WARTON. Ver. 2. rowling Spheres,] Tickell and Fenton read lowring spheres. T. WARTON. Thy courfe; there shalt thou find a lasting feat; There to thy fons another Troy fhall rise, And kings be born of thee, whose dreadful might Shall awe the world, and conquer nations bold Þ. b From Milton's Hift. Engl. Pr. W. vol. i. p. 7. edit. 1698. These Fragments of translation were collected by Tickell from Milton's Profe-Works. T. WARTON. Not by Tickell, but by Tonfon's editor in 1713; who inferted, among thefe fragments of Milton, fome translations from Milton's Defenfio by Richard Washington. Tickell, finding them in the edition of 1713, probably fuppofed them to have been the productions of Milton. They have been retained in many fubfequent editions; but, as they are not the translations of Milton, I have thought them no longer entitled to such rank. Of Richard Washington, fee the note In Salmafi Hundredam. TODD. |