No 61. SATURDAY, JUNE 29. Solutis gratia zonis. HORAT. Graceful with ease, and loose without neglect, IT is the peculiar hardship of my undertaking, that, while Homer was fometimes allowed to fleep, I can at no time take a nap, without great danger to the interefts of my Paper; unless, indeed, I have the luck to dream of fomething that may turn to the profit of my readers. Thofe authors who are judged of in the grofs, have a much better chance with the public. In the scope of a volume, they may fleep through a dozen pages, provided they awake to fome purpose at last. It is thus, that, in a very extensive prospect, a few barren spots ferve to brighten the effect of the rest; but, in an acre of garden-ground, we require throughout a rich and cultivated appearance. The privilege, however, which I enjoy, of flying from one subject to another, as it may fuit the occafional complexion of my thoughts, I confider as a great relief to the severity feverity of this duty; for, while in an almost unbounded tract of country we are at liberty to fix upon the happiest spots, we have certainly less to plead in excuse for our miscarriages. I am now going to fay fomething on the subject of translation, for which I should feel it neceffary to offer no further apology to my readers, than that it happens to come into my head, were it not for the advantage of my paper, to place bcfore them the circumftance which put me upon this confideration. The other day, on my last visit to London, as I was reading the paper in the coffeehouse, a person that had very much the appearance of a compofitor, entered the room, and put into my hands a packet directed to SIMON OLIVEBRANCH. Upon opening it, I found it to contain proposals for a new translation of the Æneid of Virgil, together with one or two-specimens, on which, with fome compliment to the clearness of my judgment, I was requested to pronounce my opinion. As I was not given to understand where I might find the author, or how I might privately convey to him my fentiments, I concluded him to among my readers, and that, accordingly, he be 4 chofe chose to be converfed with through the channel of my Paper. I am pleafed with this mode of confulting me, and confefs I would always choose rather, on a grave fubject, to converse with my pen than with my lips; for, as it is my custom to be long in collecting myself, before I can deliver my thoughts with eafe, I have no chance in an oral conteft with the declaimers of the prefent hour. The literary prefent, of which I have been fpeaking, was the more agreeable to me, as, on the principles on which I reafon, in regard to the general character of any particular period, it exhibits, as far as it goes, a testimony to the honour of the times; for I confider that a spirit and tafte in poetical labours, as long as they hold a place in our minds, are a proof that we are not yet abandoned by that vigorous relish, and that keen fenfibility, which belong to a lively and found organization, and which, in the history of all nations, I perceive, do gradually defert them, when they have paffed the confummation of their fortunes, and begin to meafure back their steps through that returning fcale, by which all human greatnefs is humbled. It is with nations, as it is with individuals, in the florid ftages of youth when the spring of the mind is unworn, and the fpirits and health are found; the refources of real life are hardly enough for the exercife of its powers, the bounds of truth and exiflence are broken, and the ftores of fiction are called in to fupply the deficiency. As age advances, the mind narrows itfelf to the range of actual objects, and finds a fufficient exertion in the common topics and occurrences of life. At length the season of decay arrives, and the date of a more limited activity; what remains of force and vigour, is expended on the means of prefervation, and existence itself is object fufficient for the efforts of extreme decrepitude. While the works, therefore, of imagination, přeserve their esteem in this country, and the higher Poetry has ftill a train of votaries fufficient to maintain her dignity, I confider that ominous moment at some diftance, whence the period of our national decay is to be dated. The clofe of the eighteenth century will have produced English tranflations of two of the moft celebrated poems in the world, which, if we re fufe to admit them as teftimonies to the genius of the age, we must at least accept as proofs of a yetprevailing taste for the fumblimer kinds of poetry. If there be genius, however, in catching the fpirit of a great original writer, in transfusing that fpirit into a new language, in sustaining a correfpondent dignity of expreffion and elevation of manner, through fo different a medium; in taking to pieces the whole structure of his language, and building it up again with new materials, which materials we have alfo to fhape and adjuft to the purposes of our new edifice; if there be genius in all this, there is genius in the work of an accomplished tranflator. It has been fenfibly obferved, that to comprehend perfely the extent and value of another's abilities, a portion of those abilities was neceffary in the judge. «Ut enim de pictore, sculptore, fictore, nifi artifex judicare, ❝ita nifi fapiens non poteft perfpicere fapientem." If, therefore, fimply to qualify us to taste and appreciate them in others, fuch a participation be neceffary, a much larger fhare, furely, muft be required to reprefent them with fidelity and justice. Were it asked, therefore, what qualifications were requifite for a tranflator of Homer, nothing |