fact, obferved in the human understanding, that we have a notion of efficient caute; it has puzzled fome theorifts to explain the origin of this notion, according to their peculiar fyftems; but the existence of the notion in the mind is a fact, independent of all fyftems. It is a third fact obferved with regard to the understanding, that when we once confider any thing as having begun to exift, we infer with intuitive belief that that beginning of existence muft have had an efficient caufe. This is an intuition of the mind, irrefiftible and underived from any more fimple truth. It is the bafis of the propofitions of natural theology; for when we confider the univerfe as having begun to exift, we intuitively and irrefiftibly refer that beginning of exiftence to an efficient caufe. Our understanding being brought to recognife a First Caufe, the attributes are unfolded to our knowledge by a procefs of reafoning, equally irrefiftible, upon the evidences of intelligent and benevolent defign, which are multiplied innumerably throughout the whole frame of the visible and confcious creation. The fuppofition, however, of a principle operating by neceffity in each phyfical caufe, would blot out of nature all this moral grandeur. It converts these inftances of a skilful and kind adaptation into effential results from the dead properties of matter; and the fame material energy, that would preferve the order of the world for ever, renders it fuperfluous to have recourse to any other beginning. On fuch a principle of neceffary.connexion, accordingly, was founded, not only the Atheism of Spinofa, as we obferved already, but that of almost all thofe Atomifts, whose fyftems have been collected by Cudworth; and it was an idea, that M. de la Place was about to revive the fame fort of dogma in a geometric form, which filled Profeffor Robifon with the apprehenfions that he expreffed fomewhat too decidedly in a recent publication. In order to form a juft conception of the natural or original ftate of our impreffions upon those subjects, it is neceffary to difentangle ourselves, if poflible, from the illufions of ordinary language, and the metaphyfical fictions of the fchoolmen. The plain and legitimate confeffion, that the human understanding traces no more in the courfe of nature than an invariable fequence, afferts or denies nothing as to what may be the bond of connexion, whether neceffary or not, except that (whatever, it is) it is not a subject of human knowledge or conjecture. And thus, while it delivers us from that hypothetical neceffity which would fubvert all religion, it leaves the mind open for the reception of thofe conclufions concerning the origin. and government of the world, which are deduced by other reafonings. We cannot clofe this part of the fubject more properly than in the words of Mr Stewart; and we fhall prefer a paffage in his Philofophy of the Human Mind, rather than one to the fame effect, which we might have taken from this little tract. Mr Hume had the merit of fhewing clearly to philofophers, that our common language with refpect to caufe and effect is merely analogical; and that if there be any links among phyfical events, they must for ever remain invifible to us. If this part of his fyftem be admitted, and if, at the fame time, we admit the authority of that principle of the mind which leads us to refer every change to an efficient caufe, Mr Hume's doctrine feems to be more favourable to Theifm, than even the common notions upon the subject, as it keeps the Deity always in view, not only as the first, but as the conftantly operating cause in nature, and as the great connecting principle among all the various phenomena which we observe. P. 549. ART. VIII. L'Eneide; Traduite par Jacques De Lille. 4 tomes. Paris, 1804. Virgile à Jacques De Lille; ou Dialogue des Morts, fur la Traduction des Six Premiers Livres de l'Eneide. Par N. Quenneville. Paris, 1805. true to WE E own that we are not among those who expect much from a new translation of any poet of eminence. Those who have been used to admire the original, reject a literal rendering of the words as tame and taftelefs, and a more free manner as an unwarrantable change of what was good before. To translate literally and beautifully at the fame time; to be at once the fenfe and fame' of the author, is, unlefs by a rare felicity here and there in a fingle line, or little more, beyond the compass of man's wit to accomplish. The first and most notorious obftacles are the rules of metre: the words which conftitute a Latin hexameter will not, when correctly tranflated, fall into the ranks of a French or English verfe; and the ufe of fynonyms (which, to a reader who has ftudied language either as a philofopher or a man of taste, are always very few) is a very limited and precarious refource. This difficulty is prodigioufly increased by the neceffity of finding rhymes. If the fenfe of an original writer is fo much modified (as all, who have made trial, muft know that it is) by the imperious obligation of ending each couplet with a chime of founds, what muft be the cafe with a tranflator, and by what what poffibility can he adhere to the meaning of his text, without facrificing the effentials of metre ? We But there are other impediments in the way of literal rendering which cannot be removed, though they are fometimes overlooked at the expence of the goodnefs, and, confequently, the popularity of the tranflation. Every language has its own idiom its own clafs of words appropriate to poetry--its own artifices of phrafe and rythmical ftructure, in which, great part of what is strictly called ftyle, both in profe and poetry, confifts. All this must be loft in a foreign tongue; and, indeed, fome part of it is often unperceived by foreigners in the original. What we lofe, however, of these lighter and indescribable touches of grace, when we read a language with which we are not thoroughly familiar, is made up to us, in many cases, by the superior effect which the fenfe is apt to produce on us, where there is fomething new in the words by which it is conveyed. have not leifure to inveftigate this problem; but every man, we think, muft have obferved how much trite and common-place fentiments appear to gain, when they are found in a Greek or Latin writer, and how totally the illufion is diffipated when we turn them into literal English. To this it must be added, that, from the exquifite beauty of metrical structure among the ancients, and the gratification which it confequently gave to the ear, as well as from the general fuperiority of their languages, much greater fimplicity, in point of expreffion, was preferved, by many at leaft of their great poets, than would be confiftent with the fpirit and tone of poetry in our modern unmufical tongues. The Italian, indeed, from the foftness of the language, the delicacy of its metrical rules, and the copioufnefs of its poetical dialect, comes near to the ancient clafs; and accordingly, there is a general fimplicity of style (we do not speak of thought) which will not bear literal tranflation into English or French. The confequence of all this is, that a man of tafte and fancy, who fits down to prefent his countrymen with the portrait of an illuftrious bard of antiquity, will be perpetually diffatisfied with the bald and fpiritlefs verfion which muft refult from a close adherence to his text. He will therefore be led to lay the blame on himself, not on his fyftem; to touch and retouch; to heighten the colouring; to fprinkle here an epithet, and there a metaphor; to make amends for the beauties which, like trees long used to their foil, will not bear tranf planting, by new turns and images of his own; till, by degrees, perhaps, like the ever memorable stockings of Sir J. Cutler, very little trace is left of the original prototype. By this process, he may have fome chance of producing a good poem, thoug' ore bably not fo good as if he had followed the bent of his own ge I 4 nius; but he will, beyond a doubt, call down on him the indignation of those who difcover how palpably he has deferted the model which he propofed to copy. This indignation is fometimes rather unjuft, fince it imputes as a fault, that which was prefcribed by neceffity: it is, however, well founded, where the copy differs from the original, as is often the cafe, not only in flighter fhades of colour, but in the features and complexion of the whole. These two extremes, of meagre copying, and of imitation fo free and fketchy as to leave no likenefs, are to be found in our two translations of Homer. After Pope had been cenfured, for near a century, for leading his unlearned readers to the most miftaken estimate of the first of poets, (and the cenfure was surely not unfounded), there appeared, by a writer, of reputation hardly inferior to Pope's, a very different performance; the best use of which has been, to serve as a beacon and a sea-mark, by which all fucceeding poets may be warned to turn their helm from the perils of literal tranflation. The juft medium feems to be, that every thing fhould be allowed to the tranflator, which, it may be fairly prefumed, would have been the choice of the author had he lived in our own time, The bufinefs of the tranflator is to enter fo fully, by long ftudy and attention, into the mind of his original, that he may, as it were, look on every thing with the fame eyes, and feel with the fame foul. Whatever is thoroughly in the manner of Virgil may, when neceffary, be introduced by him who renders Virgil into his own tongue; for the object of a poet is to please, and the object of Virgil was to please chiefly by the beauties and graces of diction: no one, therefore, can doubt that he would have rather, had he written in English, introduced a new image or epithet, than left a line weak and unpoetical. But what is not in the manner of an author, even though good, fhould never be admitted; for a tranflation feems primarily meant for the unlearned, and can only mislead them, if it represents a poet as thinking and feeling as he would not have felt or thought. We extend this licenfe of deviation no farther than neceffity requires, by which we intend a poetical, not merely a metrical, neceffity: There are, however, fcarce any poems come down to us from antiquity, fo fufceptible, in our judgment, of a modern dress, as thofe of Virgil. They are fo far from being marked by that naked fimplicity of ftyle, which is more frequently the characteristic of ancient poetry, and especially of the Homeric, that they are, on the contrary, more highly and curiously wrought, than any other productions ancient or modern. Though the tranflator, therefore, muft lofe much, he may ftill, out of fuch abundance, retain a good deal; and, what is more, he may introduce fuch ornaments as French and English poetry indifpen fably fably require, with lefs risk of deferting the manner of his author. M. de Lille has fhewn already, by his tranflation of the Georgics, which is perhaps the best which has ever been made of them, that even fuch an inftrument as the French language, in the hands of skill and genius, may chisel out no inadequate refemblance of the most confummate poetical excellence. Few, indeed, now living in Europe, are fo competent to the labour of the work before us, from warmth of feeling and fancy, extent of poetical reading, or dexterity in the management of the refources of their native language. It is natural to look firft at the beginning of the poem: the first lines, like the prærogativa centuria in the Roman comitia, are a fort of omen of the reft; and many readers, probably, decide upon the whole, without going any farther. We were forry to fee, that M. de Lille confiders the four lines, Ille ego qui quondam,' &c. as genuine, and tranflates them accordingly. On y trouve,' fays he, l'elegance, la grace, et la jufteffe, philofophique, qui le caracterifent. Un poëte eft toujours tenté, en ecrivant un ouvrage nouveau, de rappeler le fouvenir de ceux qui l'ont précédé, et de prouver la flexibilité de fon talent fur la varieté des genres qu'il a traités.... Enfin, le poëte Latin a pour lui l'autorité d'Orphée, qui, dans le debut de fon poëme des Argonautes, avoit rappelé tous fes ouvrages précédens.' The lines, however, feem to us, as they have to almoft all critics, neither elegant nor fuitable. Many faults may be found with the expreffion; and whatever temptation a poet may feel to recount his own triumphs upon Parnaffus, it would be equally improper, and unlike the character of Virgil, to introduce them at the head of an epic poem. Befides, the exordium of Homer, by a fort of fuperftition which has lafted to the prefent time, was the established model of the epopoeia; and Virgil was, of all men, the least likely to depart from it. The author of Madoc is the only poet who has thought thefe lines worthy of imitation. It is indeed quite natural that their authenticity fhould be defended on the authority of the Argonautics of Orpheus; and we wish, as Moyle faid on another occafion, no greater punishment to the believers of the one, than that they should also give credit to the other. The genuine introduction of the Eneid, makes the following appearance in the hands of M. de Lille : Je chante les combats et ce guerrier pieux Qui, banni par le fort des champs de fes aïeux, Que |