Whom, callow in her nest, th' obdurate clown
Observing, thence in secret drew; but she
Sorrows all night, and, drooping on the bough,
Renews and still renews her doleful strain,
And fills with piteous plaints the regions round.
From that sad hour, no joys of Venus born,
No Hymeneal rites his constant soul

Could bend; but ice-bound Hyperborean climes,
And snowy Tanaïs, and Riphæan wastes,
To frost for ever married, wild he roam'd
In solitude forlorn; lamenting still
Eurydice for ever, ever, lost,

And Pluto's frustrate boon.---The Thracian dames

(Their love despis'd), amid the rites divine,

And Bacchanalian orgies of the night,

Wide o'er the fields the lacerated youth

Scatter'd. Nor less ev'n then, when Hebrus' stream

The head rude-torn from off the marble neck,
Amidst his eddying tide roll'd buoyant on;
Ev'n then, Eurydice! the voice itself
And torpid tongue, ah! sad Eurydice!
While linger'd still the parting spirit, call'd;
Eurydice! along the river's length,
The winding banks in dying echoes bear.

N° 61. SATURDAY, JULY 13.

Non missura cutem, nisi plena cruoris hirudo.
Nor will he leave his skin, until he drains,
Through every pore, the liquor of his veins.

THERE is no better proof of the difficulty that attends any species of composition, than the scarcity of successful specimens it affords, among a more than common multitude of trials. It is hard to point out an indisputably good translation in the language; whence it follows, that no mind of ordinary mould is equal to the performance, and that, to accomplish for the task, some certain qualities must conspire, which do rarely operate in conjunction. Why men should think humbly of an object which great geniuses have thought not unworthy to employ them, and on which original talents have been tried in vain-which, in the literary warfare, has proved too strong for the mighty, and which, circumscribed as its limits may seem, has held out against those conquerors by whom greater provinces have been subdued, it is not easy to conceive, unless it arise from the envy inspired by failures in original attempts, which derive some consolation from under-rating the glory acquired in less arduous undertakings. They are best answered, however, by a fact which contains in it something a little problematical: there never was a capital translator that was destitute of original

powers, while many an original genius is without the qualifications of a translator.

If translation were nothing more than a verbal exercise of the memory, and a mechanical accommodation of one part to another; if the letter alone, and not the spirit, were concerned; if the force of a man's mind existed separately in the words, and not in their combination; and if the sum of his meaning were always to be produced from the same denominations; the translator might stand in the middle, between the maker of an index, and the compiler of a vocabulary: but, if there be any intellectual chemistry employed in the transfusion of thoughts and images from one language into another; if, to represent, in all their vivacity, the pictures wrought in another's imagination, we must possess all the corresponding colours in our own; if it be necessary to feel nicely, to describe justly; if we must conceive fully, to copy faithfully; then there is a dignity in translation above the reach of common men; merit that belongs to it beyond what the original reflects; a merit peculiarly and eminently its own; and a mode of excellence not always within the grasp of original ability.

а

But what is that circumstance in which consists the superior difficulty of translation; a difficulty which great wits and accomplished writers have rarely, if ever, surmounted; and before which genius itself falls often prostrate, and avows its imbecility? A greater felicity of invention, or power of imagination; a greater skill in combining, or force in colouring; a greater expansion of thought, or affluence of materials, it cannot require than works of original genius: to these belong whatever hold the highest place and character in the order of inellectual endowments; whatever is paramount and

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princely in the mind. In what then consists this peculiar difficulty of translation? Not in its concerns with the genius or the judgement separately; not in its claims upon the imagination, or its exercise of the memory; but in that equal tribute it exacts from all the powers of the intellect, in that poise and equilibrium of the faculties it requires, which holds them all in reciprocal dependence; in its calls for genius, but genius yoked to discretion; in its calls for prudence, but prudence informed with vivacity; in that rigour of its demands, which requires an assemblage of qualities, that rarely conspire, which requires ambition with moderate pretensions, emulation without the wish to surpass, freedom tempered with reserve, and spirit exercised to forbearance.

This speculative difficulty of translation has produced those defects in practice, which might have reasonably been expected. In its earlier efforts, we behold a tameness and servility which disappoint us of all the genius of the original; by its idolatrous adherence to forms and symbols, it lost sight of the true objects of its adoration-the spirit and divinity itself. Of this character are the attempts of Ben Jonson, Hobbes, Holiday, and others. Then followed a crowd of slovenly translators, whose pride seemed to consist in familiarising their originals, by coarse and ordinary expressions, content with a loose display of their meaning, without caring about the quality of the medium through which their sense was conveyed. Such are the versions of Echard and Estrange, whose productions may be studied with advantage by those whose business is with the vulgar combinations of the language, with sordid witticisms and proverbial buffoonery. In the cohort of licentious translators who followed, and who may justly

be said to be above their profession, Dryden appears

at their head,

by merit rais'd

To that bad eminence.

Franchised by nature, and endued with that grace of manner by which some men are privileged above rules, he felt that he could adventure in poetry beyond any other writer of his age. Unhappily he carried this habitual carelessness into the province of translation, where it could not but work considerable mischief, and overthrow the very principle and purpose of his labours; where it was a breach of literary trust, and a violation of that faith to which he pledged himself by the undertaking. He complains, indeed, of the insufficiency of our language, which was unable to supply what the original exacted in the grace and splendour of diction; and repines at the difficulty which grew upon him, of making new words and phrases, to correspond with the unwearied variety of his author's language: but this plea, which is doubtful as far as it goes, can never excuse his violations of that first and fundamental law of his original, which enjoined a chaste severity, and an uniform elevation of style.

I do not know how a man can reasonably complain, with the Paradise Lost in his hands, of the want of strength, or variety, or majesty, in our language. We have words in abundance for high and low occasions, for grave and mirthful topics: a wardrobe furnished for every character, whether we act the prince or the mountebank, the hero or the harlequin. Yet, true as this observation may be, of the language in general, it is a misfortune inherent in translation, that no language can furnish, for every particular phrase, a phrase of corresponding