I confess myself to have been unacquainted, till about twenty years ago, in a converfation which I had with that noble wit of Scotland, Sir George Mackenzy: he asked me why I did not imitate in my verses the turns of Mr. Waller and Sir John Denham; of which, he repeated many to me. I had often read with pleasure, and with fome profit, thofe two fathers of our English poetry; but had not feriously enough confidered thofe beauties which give the laft perfection to their works. Some fprinklings of this kind I had also formerly in my plays; but they were cafual, and not defigned. But this hint, thus feafonably given me, first made me fenfible of my own wants, and brought me afterwards to feek for the fupply of them in other English authors. I looked over the darling of my youth, the famous Cowley; there I found, instead of them, the points of wit, and quirks of epigram, even in the Davideis, an heroic poem, which is of an oppofite nature to thofe puerilities; but no elegant turns either on the word or on the thought. Then I confulted a greater genius (without offence to the manes of that noble author) I mean Milton; but as he endeavours every where to exprefs Homer, whofe age had not arrived to that fineness, I found in him a true fublimity, lofty thoughts, which were cloathed with admirable Grecifms, and ancient words, which he had been digging from the mines of Chaucer and Spencer, and which, with all their rufticity, had fomewhat of venerable in them. But I found not there neither that for which I looked. At laft I had recourfe to his mafter, Spencer, the author of that immortal poem called the Fairy Queen; and there I met with that which I had been looking for fo long in vain. Spencer had studied Virgil to as much advantage as Milton had done Homer; and amongst the rest of his excellencies had copied that. Looking farther into the Italian, I found Taffo had done the fame; nay more, that all the fonnets in that language, are on the turn of the first thought; which Mr. Walth, in his late ingenious preface to his poems, has obferved. In fhort, Virgil and Ovid are the two principal fountains of them in Latin poem. And the French at this day are fo fond of them, that they judge them to be the first beauties. Delicate bien tourné, are the highest commendations, which they bestow, on fomewhat which they think a mafter-piece. An example of the turn on words, amongst a thoufand others, is that in the last book of Ovid's Metamorphofes : Heu quantum fcelus eft, in vifcera, vifcera condi! An example on the turn both of thoughts and words, is to be found in Catullus; in the complaint of Ariadne, when fhe was left by Thefeus: Tum jam nulla viro juranti fæmina credat An extraordinary turn upon the words, is that in Ovid's Epiftolæ Heroidum, of Sappho to Phaon: Si nifi qua formâ poterit te digna videri, Lastly, a turn which I cannot fay is abfolutely on words, for the thought turns with them, is in the fourth Georgique of Virgil; where Orpheus is to receive his wife from hell, on exprefs condition not to look on her, till fhe was come on earth: Cùm fubita incautum dementia cepit Amantem ; Ignofcenda quidem, fcirent fi ignofcere manes. I will not burden your lordship with more of them; for I write to a master, who understands them better than myself. But I may fafely conclude them to be great beauties: I might defcend alfo to the mechanic beauties of heroic verfe; but we have yet no English profodia, not fo much as a tolerable dictionary, or a grammar; fo that our language is in a manner barbarous; and what government will encourage any one, or more, who are capable of refining it, I know not: but nothing under a public expence can go through with it. And I rather fear a declination of the language, than hope an advancement of it in the present age. I am ftill fpeaking to you, my lord: though, in all probability, you are already out of hearing. Nothing, which my meannefs can produce, is worthy of this long attention. But I am come to the laft petition of Abraham: if there be ten righteous lines, in this vaft preface, fpare it for their fake; and also spare the next city, becaufe it is but a little one. I would excufe the performance of this tranflation, if it were all my own; but the better, though not the greater part being the work of fome gentlemen, who have fucceeded very happily in their undertaking; let their excellencies atone for my imperfections, and thofe of my fons. I have perufed fome of the fatyrs, which are done by other hands; and they seem to me as perfect in their kind, as any thing I have feen in English verfe. The common way which we have taken, is not a literal tranflation, but a kind of paraphrafe; or fomewhat which is yet more loofe, betwixt a paraphrafe and imitation. It was not poffible for us, or any men, to have made it pleasant any other way. If rendering the exact fenfe of those authors, almost line for line, had been our bufinefs, Barten Holiday had done it already to our hands and, by the help of his learned notes and illuftrations, not only Juvenal and Perfius, but what yet is more obfcure, his own verfes, might be understood. But he wrote for fame, and wrote to scholars: we write only for the pleasure and entertainment of those gentlemen and ladies, who though they are not scholars, are not ignorant: perfons of understanding and good fenfe; who not having been converfant in the original, or at least not having made Latin verse so much their bufinefs, as to be critics in it, would be glad to find, if the wit of our two great authors be anfwerable to their fame and reputation in the world. We have therefore endeavoured to give the public all the fatisfaction we are able in this kind. And if we are not altogether fo faithful to our author, as our predeceffors Holiday and Stapylton; yet we may challenge to ourfelves this praife, that we fhall be far more pleafing to our readers. We have followed our authors at greater diftance, though not ftep by step, as they have done. For oftentimes they have gone fo clofe, that they have trod on the heels of Juvenal and Perfius, and hurt them by their too near approach. A noble author would not be purfued too close by a tranflator. We lofe his fpirit, when we think to take his body. The groffer part remains with us, but the foul is flown away, in fome noble expreflion, or fome delicate turn of words, or thought. Thus Holiday, who made this way his choice, feized the meaning of Juvenal; but the poetry has always fcaped him. They who will not grant me, that pleasure is one of the ends of poetry, but that it is only a means of compaffing the only end, which is inftruion; muft yet allow, that without the means of pleasure, the inftruction is but a bare and dry philofophy; a crude preparation of morals, which we may have from Ariftotle and Epictetus, with more profit than from any poet: neither Holiday nor Stapylton have imitated Juvenal, in the poetical part of him, his diction and his elocution. Nor had they been poets, as neither of them were; yet in the way took, it was impoffible for them to have fucceeded in the poetique part. The English verfe, which we call heroique, confifts of more than ten fyllables; the Latin hexameter fometimes rifcs to feventeen; as for example, this verfe in Virgil: Pulverulenta putrem fonitu quatit ungula campum. Here is the difference of no less than feven fyllables in a line, betwixt the English and the Latin. Now the medium of these, is about fourteen fyllables; because the dactyle is a more frequent foot in hexameters than the fpondee. But Holiday, without confidering that he writ with the difadvantage of four fyllables lefs in every verfe, endeavours to make one of his lines to comprehend the fenfe of one of Juvenal's. According to the falfity of the propofition was the fuccefs. He was forced to crowd his verfe with ill-founding monofyllables, of which our barbarous language affords him a wild plenty and by that means he arrived at his pedantic end, which was to make a literal tranflation: his verfes have nothing of verfe in them, but only the worst part of it, the hyme; and that, into the bargain, is far from good. But, which is more intolerable, by cramming his ill-chofen, and worfe-founding monofyllables fo clofe together; the very fenfe which he endeavours to explain, is become more obfcure than that of his author. So that Holiday himfelf cannot be understood, without as large a commentary, as that which he makes on his two authors. For my own part, I can make a fhift to find the meaning of Juvenal without his notes: but his tranflation is more difficult than his author. And I find beauties in the Latin to recompenfe my pains; but in Holiday and Stapylton, my ears, in the first place, are mortally offended; and then their fenfe is fo perplexed, that I return to the original, as the more pleafing task, as well as the more eafy. This must be faid for our tranflation, that if we give not the whole fenfe of Juvenal, yet we give the moft confiderable part of it: we give it, in general, fo clearly, that few notes are fufficient to make us intelligible. We make our author at leaft appear in a poetique drefs. We have actually made him more founding, and more elegant, than he was before in English: and have endeavoured to make him fpeak that kind of English, which he would have fpoken had he lived in England, and had written to this age. If fometimes any of us (and it is but feldom) make him exprefs the cuftoms and manners of our native country, rather than of Rome, it is, either when there was fome kind of analogy, betwixt their cuftoms and ours; or when, to make him more easy to vulgar understandings, we give him thofe manners which are familiar to us. But I defend not this innovation, it is enough if I can excufe it. For to speak fincerely, the manners of nations and ages are not to be confounded: we should either make them English, or leave them Roman. If this can neither be defended, nor excufed, let it be pardoned, at least, because it is acknowledged; and fo much the more eafily, as being a fault which is never committed without fome pleasure to the reader. Thus, my lord, having troubled you with a tedious vifit, the beft manners will be fhewn in the leaft ceremony. I will flip away while your back is turned, and while you are otherwise employed with great confufion, for having entertained you fo long with this difcourfe; and for having no other recompence to make you, than the worthy labours of my fellow-undertakers in this work, and the thankful acknowledgments, prayers, and perpetual good wishes of, MY LORD, Your Lordship's Moft Obliged, Moft Humble, and Moft Obedient Servant, Aug. 18, 1692. John Dryden. |