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TO THE EARL OF WARWICK,

ON THE DEATH OF MR. ADDISON.

This elegy (by Mr. Tickell) is one of the finest in our language: there is so little new that can be said upon the death of a friend, after the complaints of Ovid and the Latin Italians in this way, that one is surprised to see so much novelty in this to strike us, and so much interest to affect.

COLIN AND LUCY.-A BALLAD. Through all Tickell's Works there is a strain of ballad-thinking, if I may so express it; and in this professed ballad he seems to have surpassed himself. It is, perhaps, the best in our language in this way.

THE TEARS OF SCOTLAND.

This ode, by Dr. Smollett, does rather more honour to the author's feelings than his taste. The mechanical part, with regard to numbers and language, is not so perfect as so short a work as this requires; but the pathetic it contains, particularly in the last stanza but one, is exquisitely fine.

ON THE DEATH OF THE LORD PRO-
TECTOR.

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This, by Mr. Rowe, is better than any thing of the kind in our language.

AN ESSAY ON POETRY.

This work, by the Duke of Buckingham, is enrolled among our great English productions. The precepts are sensible, the poetry not indifferent, but it has been praised more than it deserves.

CADENAS AND VANESSA.

This is thought one of Dr. Swift's correctest pieces; its chief merit, indeed, is the elegant ease with which a story, but ill conceived in itself, is

ALMA; OR, THE PROGRESS OF THE

Our poetry was not quite harmonized in Waller's time; so that this, which would be now looked upon as a slovenly sort of versification, was, told. with respect to the times in which it was written, almost a prodigy of harmony. A modern reader will chiefly be struck with the strength of thinking, and the turn of the compliments bestowed upon the usurper. Every body has heard the answer our poet made Charles II. who asked him how his poem upon Cromwell came to be finer than his panegyric upon himself? "Your Majesty," plies Waller, "knows that poets always succeed

best in fiction."

THE STORY OF PHOEBUS AND
DAPHNE, APPLIED.

re

The French claim this as belonging to them. To whomsoever it belongs, the thought is finely turned.

NIGHT THOUGHTS. BY DR. YOUNG.

These seem to be the best of the collection; from whence only the first two are taken. They are spoken of differently, either with exaggerated applause or contempt, as the reader's disposition is either turned to mirth or melancholy.

SATIRE I.

Young's Satires were in higher reputation when published than they stand in at present. He seems

MIND.

Παντα γέλως, και πάντα κυνις, και πάντα το μηδέν
Παντα γαρ ἐξ αλόγων εστι τα γιγνόμενα.

What Prior meant by this poem I can't understand: by the Greek motto to it, one would think it was either to laugh at the subject or his reader. There are some parts of it very fine; and let them

save the badness of the rest.

PREFACE

ΤΟ

A COLLECTION OF POEMS,

FOR YOUNG LADIES, DEVOTIONAL, MORAL, AND ENTERTAINING

[First Printed in the year 1767.]

DR. FORDYCE's excellent Sermons for Young Women in some measure gave rise to the following compilation. In that work, where he so judi ciously points out all the defects of female conduct to remedy them, and all the proper studies whici

they should pursue, with a view to improvement, differ in this, that he mutilated with a bad design, poetry is one to which he particularly would at-I from motives of a contrary nature.

tach them. He only objects to the danger of pur- It will be easier to condemn a compilation of this suing this charming study through all the immo-kind, than to prove its inutility. While young laralities and false pictures of happiness with which dies are readers, and while their guardians are soit abounds, and thus becoming the martyr of inno- licitous that they shall only read the best books, cent curiosity. there can be no danger of a work of this kind beIn the following compilation, care has been taken ing disagreeable. It offers, in a very small comto select not only such pieces as innocence may pass, the very flowers of our poetry, and that of a read without a blush, but such as will even tend kind adapted to the sex supposed to be its readers. to strengthen that innocence. In this little work, Poetry is an art which no young lady can or ought a lady may find the most exquisite pleasure, while to be wholly ignorant of. The pleasure which it she is at the same time learning the duties of life; gives, and indeed the necessity of knowing enough and, while she courts only entertainment, be de- of it to mix in modern conversation, will evince the ceived into wisdom. Indeed, this would be too usefulness of my design, which is to supply the great a boast in the preface to any original work; highest and the most innocent entertainment at the but here it can be made with safety, as every poem smallest expense; as the poems in this collection, in the following collection would singly have pro- if sold singly, would amount to ten times the price cured an author great reputation, of what I am able to afford the present.

They are divided into Devotional, Moral, and Entertaining, thus comprehending the three great duties of life; that which we owe to God, to our neighbour, and to ourselves.

CRITICISM ON

MASSEY'S TRANSLATION

OF THE

FASTI OF OVID.

[Published in the year 1757.]

In the first part, it must be confessed, our English poets have not very much excelled. In that department, namely, the praise of our Maker, by which poetry began, and from which it deviated by time, we are most faultily deficient. There are one or two, however, particularly the Deity, by Mr. Boyse; a poem, when it first came out, that lay for some time neglected, till introduced to pub- It was no bad remark of a celebrated French lic notice by Mr. Hervey and Mr. Fielding. In lady,* that a bad translator was like an ignorant it the reader will perceive many striking pictures, footman, whose blundering messages disgraced his and perhaps glow with a part of that gratitude master by the awkwardness of the delivery, and which seems to have inspired the writer. frequently turned compliment into abuse, and In the moral part I am more copious, from the politeness into rusticity. We can not indeed see same reason, because our language contains a large an ancient elegant writer mangled and misreprenumber of the kind. Voltaire, talking of our poets, sented by the doers into English, without some gives them the preference in moral pieces to those degree of indignation; and are heartily sorry that of any other nation; and indeed no poets have bet- our poor friend Ovid should send his sacred kalenter settled the bounds of duty, or more precisely dar to us by the hands of Mr. William Massey, determined the rules for conduct in life than ours. who, like the valet, seems to have entirely forgot In this department, the fair reader will find the his master's message, and substituted another in Muse has been solicitous to guide her, not with its room very unlike it. Mr. Massey observes in the allurements of a syren, but the integrity of his preface, with great truth, that it is strange that friend. this most elaborate and learned of all Ovid's works In the entertaining part, my greatest difficulty should be so much neglected by our English translawas what to reject. The materials lay in such tors; and that it should be so little read or regarded, plenty, that I was bewildered in my choice: in this whilst his Tristia, Epistles, and Metamorphoses, are case, then, I was solely determined by the tenden- in almost every schoolboy's hands. "All the critics, cy of the poem: and where I found one, however in general," says he, "speak of this part of Ovid's well executed, that seemed in the least tending to writings with a particular applause; yet 1 know distort the judgment, or inflame the imagination, not by what unhappy fate there has not been that it was excluded without mercy. I have here and use made thereof, which would be more beneficial, there, indeed, when one of particular beauty offer-in may respects, to young students of the Latin ed with a few blemishes, lopped off the defects; tongue, than any other of this poet's works. For and thus, like the tyrant who fitted all strangers to though Pantheons, and other books that treat of the bed he had prepared for them, I have inserted

a

some, by first adapting them to my plan: we only |

Madame La Fayette.

the Roman mythology, may be usefully put into
the hands of young proficients in the Latin tongue,
yet the richest fund of that sort of learning is here
to be found in the Fasti. I am not without hopes,
therefore, that by thus making this book more fa-
miliar and easy, in this dress, to English readers,
it will the more readily gain admittance into our
public schools; and that those who become better
acquainted therewith, will find it an agreeable and
instructive companion, well stored with recondite
learning. I persuade myself also, that the notes
which I have added to my version will be of ad-
vantage, not only to the mere English reader, but
likewise to such as endeavour to improve them-
selves in the knowledge of the Roman language.
"As the Latin proverb says, Jacta est alea;
and my performance must take its chance, as those
of other poetic adventurers have done before me.
I am very sensible, that I have fallen in many
places far below my original; and no wonder, as I
had to copy after so fertile and polite a genius as
Ovid's; who, as my Lord Orrery, somewhere in
Dean Swift's Life, humorously observes, could
make an instructive song out of an old almanack.
"That my translation is more diffuse, and not
brought within the same number of verses contain-
ed in my original, is owing to two reasons; firstly,
because of the concise and expensive nature of the
Latin tongue, which it is very difficult (at least 1
find it so) to keep to strictly, in our language; and
secondly, I took the liberty, sometimes to expatiate
a little upon my subject, rather than leave it in
obscurity, or unintelligible to my English readers,
being indifferent whether they may call it transla-
tion or paraphrase; for, in short, I had this one
design most particularly in view, that these Roman
Fasti might have a way opened for their entrance
into our grammar-schools."

What use this translation may be of to grammar-schools, we can not pretend to guess, unless, by way of foil, to give the boys a higher opinion of the beauty of the original by the deformity of so bad a copy. But let our readers judge of Mr. Massey's performance by the following specimen. For the better determination of its merit, we shall subjoin the original of every quotation.

"The calends of each month throughout the
Are under Juno's kind peculiar care;
But on the ides, a white lamb from the field,
A grateful sacrifice, to Jove is kill'd;
But o'er the nones no guardian god presides;
And the next day to calends, nones, and ides,
Is inauspicious deem'd; for on those days
The Romans suffered losses many ways;
And from those dire events, in hapless war,
Those days unlucky nominated are."

Vindicat Ausonias Junonis cura kalendas:
Idibus alba Jovi grandior agna cadit.

year,

Nonarum tutela Deo caret. Omnibus istis
(Ne fallere cave) proximus Ater erit.
Omen ab eventu est: illis nam Roma diebus
Damna sub adverso tristia Marte tulit.

Ovid's address to Janus, than which in the original scarce any thing can be more poetical, is thus familiarized into something much worse than prose by the translator ·

Say, Janus, say, why we begin the year
In winter? sure the spring is better far:
All things are then renew'd; a youthful dress
Adorns the flowers, and beautifies the trees;
New swelling buds appear upon the vine,
And apple-blossoms round the orchard shine;
Birds fill the air with the harmonious lay,
And lambkins in the meadows frisk and play;
The swallow then forsakes her wint'ry rest,
And in the chimney chatt'ring makes her nest;
The fields are then renew'd, the ploughman's care;
To my long questions Janus brief replied,
Mayn't this be call'd renewing of the year?
And his whole answer to two verses tied.
The winter tropic ends the solar race,
Which is begun again from the same place;
And to explain more fully what you crave,
But why on new-year's day, said I again,
The sun and year the same beginning have.
Are suits commenced in courts? The reason's
Replied the god; that business may be done,
plain,
And active labour emulate the sun,
With business is the year auspiciously begun;
But every artist, soon as he was tried
To work a little, lays his work aside.
Then 1; but further, father Janus, say,
When to the gods we our devotions pay,
Why wine and incense first to thee are given?
That when you the immortal powers address,
Because, said he, I keep the gates of heaven;
By me to them you may have free access.
But why on new-year's day are presents made,
And more than common salutations paid?
In all beginnings there an omen lies;
Then, leaning on his staff, the god replies,
From the first word, we guess the whole design,
And augurs, from the first-seen bird, divine;
The gods attend to every mortal's prayer,
Their ears and temples always open are."

Dic, age, frigoribus quare novus incipit annus,
Qui melius per ver incipiendus erat?
Omnia tunc florent: tunc est nova temporis ætas
Et nova de gravido palmite gemma tuinet.
Et modo formatis amicitur vitibus arbos:

Prodit et in summum seminis herba solum:
Et tepidum volucres concentibus aera mulcent:
Ludit et in pratis, luxuriatque pecus.
Tum blandi soles: ignotaque prodit hirundo;
Et luteum celsa sub trabe fingit opus.
Tum patitur cultus ager, et renovatur aratra.
Hæc anni novitas jure vocanda fuit.

Quæsieram multis: non multis ille moratus,
Contulit in versus sic sua verba duos.
Bruma novi prima est, veterisque novissima solis:
Principium capiunt Phœbus et annus idem.
Post ea mirabar, cur non sine litibus esset

Prima dies. Causam percipe, Janus ait.
Tempora commisi nascentia rebus agendis;
Totus ab auspicio ne foret anus iners.
Quisque suas artes ob idem delibat agendo:

Nec plus quam solitum testificatur opus.
Mox ego; cur, quamvis aliorum numina placem,
Jane, tibi primo thura merumque fero?
Ut per me possis aditum, qui limina servo,

Ad quoscunque velim prorsus, habere deos
At cur læta tuis dicuntur verba kalendis;

Et damus alternas accipimusque preces?
Tum deus incumbens baculo, quem dextra gerebat;
Omnia principiis, inquit, inesse solent.
Ad primam vocem timidas advertitis aures:

Et visum primum consulit augur avem.
Templa patent auresque deum: nec lingua caducas
Concipit ulla preces; dictaque pondus habent.

241

The day was spent, the sun was nearly set, When he arrived before Collatia's gate; Like as a friend, but with a sly intent, To Collatinus' house he boldly went; There he a kind reception met within From fair Lucretia, for they were akin. What ignorance attends the human mind! How oft we are to our misfortunes blind! Thoughtless of harm, she made a handsome feast, And o'er a cheerful glass regaled her guest With lively chat; and then to bed they went; But Tarquin still pursued his vile intent; All dark, about the dead of night he rose, And softly to Lucretia's chamber goes; His naked sword he carried in his hand, That what he could not win he might command; With rapture on her bed himself he threw, And as approaching to her lips he drew, Is there a possibility that any thing can be more Tis I, 'tis Tarquin; why are you afraid? Dear cousin, ah, my dearest life, he said, different from Ovid in Latin than this Ovid in Trembling with fear, she not a word could say, English? Quam sibi dispar! The translation is Her spirits fled, she fainted quite away; indeed beneath all criticism. But let us see what Like as a lamb beneath a wolf's rude paws, Mr. Massey can do with the sublime and more animated parts of the performance, where the sub- What can she do? resistance would be vain, Appall'd and stunn'd, her breath she hardly draws; ject might have given him room to show his skill, She a weak woman, he a vigorous man. and the example of his author stirred up the fire Should she cry out? his naked sword was by; of poetry in his breast, if he had any in it. To- One scream, said he, and you this instant die : wards the end of the second book of the Fasti, Would she escape? his hands lay on her breast, Ovid has introduced the most tender and interest-Now first by hands of any stranger press'd: ing story of Lucretia. The original is inimitable. The lover urged by threats, rewards, and prayers; Let us see what Mr. Massey has made of it in his But neither prayers, rewards, nor threats, she translation. After he has described Tarquin returning from the sight of the beautiful Lucretia, he proceeds thus:

"The near approach of day the cock declared
By his shrill voice, when they again repair'd
Back to the camp; but Sextus there could find
Nor peace nor case for his distemper'd mind;
A spreading fire does in his bosom burn,
Fain would he to the absent fair return;
The image of Lucretia fills his breast,
Thus at her wheel she sat! and thus was dress'd!
What sparkling eyes, what pleasure in her look!
How just her speech, and how divinely spoke!
Like as the waves, raised by a boisterous wind,
Sink by degrees, but leave a swell behind:
So, though by absence lessen'd was his fire,
There still remain'd the kindlings of desire;
Unruly lust from hence began to rise,
Which how to gratify he must devise;
All on a rack, and stung with mad designs,
He reason to his passion quite resigns;
Whate'er's th' event, said he, I'll try my fate,
Suspense in all things is a wretched state;
Let some assistant god, or chance, attend,
All bold attempts they usually befriend :
This way, said he, I to the Gabii trod;
Then girding on his sword, away he rode.
16

hears:

Will you not yield? he cries; then know my will-
When these my warm desires have had their fill,
By your dead corpse I'll kill and lay a slave,
And in that posture both together leave;
Then feign myself a witness of your shame,
And fix a lasting blemish on your fame.
Her mind the fears of blemished fame control,
And shake the resolutions of her soul;
But of thy conquest, Tarquin, never boast,
Gaining that fort, thou hast a kingdom lost;
Vengeance thy complicated guilt attends,
Which both in thine, and fam'ly's ruin ends.
With rising day the sad Lucretia rose,
Her inward grief her outward habit shows;
Mournful she sat in tears, and all alone,
As if she'd lost her only darling son;
Then for her husband and her father sent,
Who Ardea left in haste to know th' intent;
Who, when they saw her all in mourning dress'd
To know the occasion of her grief, request;
Whose funeral she mourn'd desired to know,
Or why she had put on those robes of woe?
She long conceal'd the melancholy cause,
While from her eyes a briny fountain flows:
Her aged sire, and tender husband strive
To heal her grief, and words of comfort give

Yet dread some fatal consequence to hear,
And begg'd she would the cruel cause declare."

Jam dederat cantum lucis prænuncius ales
Cum referunt juvenes in sua castra pedem.
Carpitur attonitos absentis imagine sensus
Ille: recordanti plura magisque placent.
Sic sedit: sic culta fuit: sic stamina nevit:
Neglecta collo sic jacuere comæ.
Hos habuit vultus: hic illi verba fuere:

Hic decor, hæc facies, hic color oris erat.
Ut solet a magno fluctus languescere flatu;
Sed tamen a vento, qui fuit ante, tumet:
Sic, quamvis aberat placitæ præsentia formæ,
Quem dederat præsens forma, manebat amor.
Ardet; et injusti stimulis agitatus amoris

Comparat indigno vimque dolumque toro.
Exitus in dubio est: audebimus ultima, dixit:
Viderit, audentis forsne deusne juvet.
Cepimus audendo Gabios quoque. Talia fatus
Ense latus cingit: tergaque pressit equi.
Accipit ærata juvenem Collatia porta:
Condere jam vultus sole parante suos.
Hostis, ut hospes, init penetralia Collatina:
Comiter excipitur: sanguine junctus erat.
Quantum animis erroris inest! parat inscia rerum
Infelix epulas hostibus illa suis.

Functus erat dapibus: poscunt sua tempora somni.
Nox erat; et tota lumina nulla domo.
Surgit, et auratum vagina deripit ensem:

Et venit in thalamos, nupta pudica, tuos.
Utque torum pressit; ferrum, Lucretia, mecum est,
Natus, ait, regis, Tarquiniusque vocor.
Illa nihil: neque enim vocem viresque loquendi,
Aut aliquid toto pectore mentis habet.

Sed tremit, ut quondam stabulis deprensa relictis,
Parva sub infesto cum jacet agne lupo.
Quid faciat? pugnet? vincetur femina pugna.
Clamet? at in dextra, qui necet, ensis adest.
Effugiat positis urgetur pectora palmis;

Nunc primum externa pectora tacta manu.
Instat amans hostis precibus, pretioque, minisque.
Nec prece, nec pretio, nec movet ille minis.
Nil agis; eripiam, dixit, per crimina vitam:
Falsus adulterii testis adulter ero.
Intérimam famulum; cum quo deprensa fereris.
Succubuit famæ victa puella metu.
Quid, victor, gaudes? hæc te victoria perdet.
Heu quanto regnis nox stetit una tuis!
Jamque erat orta dies: passis sedet illa capillis;
Ut solet ad nati mater itura rogum.
Grandævumque patrem fido cum conjuge castris
Evocat; et posita venit uterque mora.
Uique vident habitum; quæ luctus causa, requirunt:
Cui paret exsequias, quove sit icta malo.

Illa diu reticet, pudibundaque celat amictu

Ora. Fluunt lacrymæ more perennis aqua.
Hinc pater, hinc conjux lacrymas solantur, et orant
Indicet: et cæco flentque paventque metu.
Ter conata loqui, etc.

Our readers will easily perceive by this short specimen, how very unequal Mr. Massey is to a translation of Ovid. In many places he has deviated entirely from the sense, and in every part fallen infinitely below the strength, elegance, and spirit of the original. We must beg leave, therefore, to remind him of the old Italian proverb,* and hope he will

Il Tradattores Tradatore.

never for the future traduce and injure any of those poor ancients who never injured him, by thus pestering the world with such translations as even his own school-boys ought to be whipped for.

CRITICISM

ON

BARRET'S TRANSLATION

OF

OVID'S EPISTLES.

[Published in 1759.]

The praise which is every day lavished upon Virgil, Horace, or Ovid, is often no more than an indirect method the critic takes to compliment his own discernment. Their works have long been considered as models of beauty; to praise them now is only to show the conformity of our tastes to theirs; it tends not to advance their reputation, but to promote our own. Let us then dismiss, for the present, the pedantry of panegyric ;- Ovid needs it not, and we are not disposed to turn encomiasts on ourselves.

It will be sufficient to observe, that the multitude of translators which have attempted this poet serves to evince the number of his admirers; and their indifferent success, the difficulty of equalling his elegance or his ease.

Dryden, ever poor, and ever willing to be obliged, solicited the assistance of his friends for a translation of these epistles. It was not the first time his miseries obliged him to call in happier bards to his aid; and to permit such to quarter their fleeting performances on the lasting merit of his name. This eleemosynary translation, as might well be expected, was extremely unequal, frequently unjust to the poet's meaning, almost always so to his fame. It was published without notes; for it was not at that time customary to swell every performance of this nature with comment and scholia. The read. er did not then choose to have the current of hi passions interrupted, his attention every moment called off from pleasure only, to be informed why he was so pleased. It was not then thought necessary to lessen surprise by anticipation, and, like some spectators we have met at the play-house, to take off our attent on from the performance, by telling in our ear, what will follow next.

Since this united effort, Ovid, as if born to misfortune, has undergone successive metamorphoses, being sometimes transposed by schoolmasters unacquainted with English, and sometimes transversed by ladies who knew no Latin: thus he has alternately worn the dress of a pedant or a rake; either crawling in humble prose, or having his hints ex

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