some general hints from the original, to run division on the ground-work, as he pleases. Such is Mr. Cowley's practice in turning two odes of Pindar, and one of Horace, into English.

Concerning the first of these methods, our master Horace has given us this caution :

Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere, fidus

Interpres :—

Nor word for word too faithfully translate;
as the Earl of Roscommon has excellently rendered
it. Too faithfully is indeed pedantically: it is a
faith like that which proceeds from superstition,
blind and zealous. Take it in the expression of
Sir John Denham, to Sir Richard Fanshaw, on his
version of the PASTOR FIDO:

That servile path thou nobly dost decline
Of tracing word by word, and line by line:
A new and nobler way thou dost pursue,
To make translations, and translators too:
They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame,
True to his sense, but truer to his fame.

It is almost impossible to translate verbally, and well, at the same time; for the Latin, a most severe and compendious language, often expresses that in one word, which either the barbarity or the narrowness of modern tongues cannot supply in more. It is frequent also that the conceit is couched in some expression, which will be lost in English:

Atque idem venti vela fidemque ferent.
What poet of our nation is so happy as to express

* See the note at the end of
Preface.

thes

this thought literally in English, and to strike wit or almost sense out of it?

In short, the verbal copier is encumbered with so many difficulties at once, that he can never disentangle himself from all. He is to consider at the same time the thought of his author, and his words, and to find out the counterpart to each in another language; and besides this, he is to confine himself to the compass of numbers, and the slavery of rhyme. It is much like dancing on ropes with fettered legs: a man may shun a fall by using caution, but the gracefulness of motion is not to be expected; and when we have said the best of it, it is but a foolish task; for no sober man would put himself into a danger, for the applause of escaping without breaking his neck. We see Ben Jonson could not avoid obscurity in his literal translation of Horace, attempted in the same compass of lines: nay Horace himself could scarce have done it to a Greek poet.

-brevis esse laboro,

Obscurus fio:

either perspicuity or gracefulness will frequently be wanting. Horace has indeed avoided both these rocks in his translation of the three first lines of Homer's Odysses, which he has contracted into two:

Dic mihi, Musa virum, capta post tempora Troja,
Qui mores hominum multorum vidit, et urbes.
Muse, speak the man, who since the siege of Troy,
So many towns, such change of manners saw.

EARL OF ROSCOMMON.

But then the sufferings of Ulysses, which are a considerable part of that sentence, are omitted: Ος μάλα πολλὰ πλαγχθη.

The consideration of these difficulties in a servile, literal translation, not long since made two of our famous wits, Sir John Denham and Mr. Cowley, to contrive another way of turning authors into our tongue, called by the latter of them, imitation. As they were friends, I suppose they communicated their thoughts on this subject to each other, and therefore their reasons for it are little different, though the practice of one is much more moderate. I take imitation of an author, in their sense, to be an endeavour of a later poet to write like one who has written before him, on the same subject: that is, not to translate his words, or to be confined to his sense, but only to set him as a pattern, and to write, as he supposes that author would have done, had he lived in our age, and in our country. Yet I dare not say that either of them have carried this libertine way of rendering authors (as Mr. Cowley calls it) so far as my definition reaches; for in the Pindarick Odes the customs and ceremonies of ancient Greece are still preserved. But I know not what mischief may arise hereafter from the example of such an innovation, when writers of unequal parts to him shall imitate so bold an undertaking. To add and to diminish what we please, which is the way avowed by him, ought only to be granted to Mr. Cowley, and that too only in his translation of Pindar;

because he alone was able to make him amends, by giving him better of his own, whenever he refused his author's thoughts. Pindar is generally known to be a dark writer, to want connection, (I mean as to our understanding,) to soar out of sight, and leave his reader at a gaze. So wild and ungovernable a poet cannot be translated literally; his genius is too strong to bear a chain, and Sampson-like he shakes it off. A genius so elevated and unconfined as Mr. Cowley's, was but necessary to make Pindar speak English, and that was to be performed by no other way than imitation. But if Virgil, or Ovid, or any regular intelligible authors be thus used, it is no longer to be called their work, when neither the thoughts nor words are drawn from the original, but instead of them there is something new produced, which is almost the creation of another hand. By this is true, somewhat that is excellent may be invented, perhaps more excellent than the first design, though Virgil must be still excepted, when that perhaps takes place: yet he who is inquisitive to know an author's thoughts, will be disappointed in his expectation; and it is not always that a man will be contented to have a present made him, when he expects the payment of a debt.

way,

it

To state it fairly, imitation of an author is the most advantageous way for a translator to shew himself, but the greatest wrong which can be done to the memory and reputation of the dead. Sir John Denham, who advised more liberty than he

took himself, gives this reason for his innovation, in his admirable preface before the translation of the second Æneid: "Poetry is of so subtile a spirit, that in pouring out of one language into another, it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit be not added in the transfusion, there will remain nothing but a caput mortuum." I confess this argument holds good against a literal translation; but who defends it? Imitation and verbal version are in my opinion the two extremes, which ought to be avoided; and therefore when I have proposed the mean betwixt them, it will be seen how far his argument will reach.

No man is capable of translating poetry, who besides a genius to that art, is not a master both of his author's language, and of his own. Nor must we understand the language only of the poet, but his particular turn of thoughts and expression, which are the characters that distinguish, and as it were individuate, him from all other writers. When we are come thus far, it is time to look into ourselves; to conform our genius to his, to give his thought either the same turn, if our tongue will bear it, or if not, to vary but the dress, not to alter or destroy the substance. The like care must be taken of the more outward ornaments, the words; when they appear (which is but seldom) literally graceful, it were an injury to the author that they should be changed. But since every language is so full of its own proprieties, that what is beautiful in one, is often barbarous, nay some