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correct? Dryden frequently degrades the author into a jester; but Juvenal has few moments of levity. Wit, indeed, he possesses in an eminent degree, but it is tinctured with his peculiarities; rarò jocos, as Lipsius well observes, sapius acerbos sales miscet. Dignity is the predominant quality of his mind: he can, and does, relax with grace, but he never forgets himself; he smiles, indeed; but his smile is more terrible than his frown, for it is never excited, but when his indignation is mingled with contempt; ridet et odit! Where his dignity, therefore, is wanting, his wit will be imperfectly preserved. *

On the whole, there is nothing in this quotation to deter succeeding writers from attempting, at least, to supply the deficiencies of Dryden, and his fellow labourers; and, perhaps, I could point out several circumstances which might make it laudable, if not necessary:-but this would be to trifle with the reader, who is already apprized that, as far as relates to myself, no motives but those of obedience, determined me to the task for which I now solicit the indulgence of the publick.

When I took up this author, I knew not of any other translator; nor was it until the scheme of publishing him was started, that I began to

* Yet Johnson knew him well. The peculiarity of Juvenal, he says, (Vol. IX. p. 424,)“ is a mixture of gaiety and stateliness, of pointed sentences, and declamatory grandeur." A good idea of it may be formed from his own beautiful imitation of the third Satire. His imitation of the tenth (still more beautiful as a poem) has scarce a trait of the author's manner;—that is to say, of that "mixture of gaiety and stateliness," which, according to his own definition, constitutes the " peculiarity of Juvenal.” The Vanity of Human Wishes is uniformly stately and severe, and without those light and popular strokes of sarcasm which abound so much in his London.

reflect seriously on the nature of what I had undertaken, to consider by what exertions I could render that useful which was originally meant to amuse, and justify, in some measure, the partiality of my benefactors.

My first object was to become as familiar as possible with my author, of whom I collected every edition that my own interest, or that of my friends could procure; together with such translations as I could discover either here or abroad: from a careful examination of all these, I formed the plan, to which, while I adapted my former labours, I anxiously strove to accommodate my succeeding ones.

Dryden had said, "if we give not the whole, yet we give the most considerable part of it." My determination was to give the whole, and really make the work what it professed to be, a translation of Juvenal. I had seen enough of castrated editions, to observe that little was gained by them on the score of propriety; since, when the author was reduced to half his bulk, at the expense of his spirit and design, sufficient remained to alarm the delicacy for which the sacrifice had been made. Chaucer observes with great naiveté,

"Whoso shall tell a tale after a man,

"He moste reherse as neighe as ever he can
"Everich word, if it be in his charge,

"All speke he never so rudely and so large :"

And indeed the age of Chaucer, like that of Juvenal, allowed of such liberties. Other times, other manners. Many words were in common use with our ancestors, which raised no improper ideas, though they would not, and indeed could not, at this time be tolerated: With the Greeks and Romans, it was still worse: their dress, which

left many parts of the body exposed, gave a boldness to their language, which was not perhaps lessened by the infrequency of women at those social conversations, of which they now constitute the refinement, and the delight. Add to this, that their mythology, and their sacred rites, which took their rise in very remote periods, abounded in the undisguised phrases of a rude and simple age, and being religiously handed down from generation to generation, gave a currency to many terms, which offered no violence to modesty, though, abstractedly considered by people of a different language and manners, they appear pregnant with turpitude and guilt.

When we observe this licentiousness (for I should wrong many of the ancient writers, to call it libertinism) in the pages of their historians and philosophers, we may be pretty confident that it raised no blush on the cheek of their readers. It was the language of the times-hæc illis natura est omnibus una: and if it be considered as venial in those, surely a little further indulgence will not be misapplied to the satirist, whose object is the exposure of what the former have only to notice.

Thus much may suffice for Juvenal: but shame and sorrow on the head of him, who presumes to transfer his grossness into the vernacular tongues! Though I have given him entire, I have endeavoured to make him speak as he would have spoken if he had lived among us; when, refined with the he would have fulminated against impurity in terms, to which, though delicacy might disavow them, manly decency might listen without offence.

age,

I have said above, that "the whole of Juvenal" is here given; this must be understood with a few restrictions. Where vice, of whatever nature,

formed the immediate object of reprobation, it has not been spared in the translation; but I have sometimes taken the liberty of omitting an exceptionable line, when it had no apparent connexion with the subject of the Satire. Some acquaintance with the original will be necessary to discover these lacunæ, which do not, in all, amount to half a page: for the rest, I have no apologies to make. Here are no allusions, covert or open, to the follies and vices of modern times; nor has the dignity of the original been prostituted, in a single instance, to the gratification of private spleen.

I have attempted to follow, as far as I judged it feasible, the style of my author, which is more various than is usually supposed. It is not necessary to descend to particulars; but my meaning will be understood by those, who carefully compare the original of the thirteenth and fourteenth Satires, with the translation. In the twelfth, and in that alone, I have perhaps raised it a little; but it really appears so contemptible a performance in the doggerel of Dryden's coadjutor, that I thought somewhat more attention than ordinary was in justice due to it. It is not a chef-d'œuvre by any means; but it is a pretty and a pleasing little poem, deserving more notice than it has usually

received.

I could have been sagacious and obscure on many occasions, with very little difficulty; but I strenuously combated every inclination to find out more than my author meant. The general character of this translation, if I do not deceive my. self, will be found to be plainness; and, indeed, the highest praise to which I aspire, is that of having left the original more intelligible to the English reader than I found it.

On numbering the lines, I find that my transla

tion contains a few less than Dryden's. Had it been otherwise, I should not have thought an apology necessary, nor would it perhaps appear extraordinary, when it is considered that I have introduced an infinite number of circumstances from the text, which he thought himself justified in omitting; and that, with the trifling exceptions already mentioned, nothing has been passed; whereas he and his assistants overlooked whole sections, and sometimes very considerable ones.* Every where, too, I have endeavoured to render the transitions less abrupt, and to obviate or disguise the difficulties which a difference of manners, habits, &c. necessarily creates: all this calls for an additional number of lines; which the English reader at least, will seldom have occasion to regret.

Of the "borrowed learning of notes," which Dryden says he avoided as much as possible, I have amply availed myself. During the long period in which my thoughts were fixed on Juvenal, it was usual with me, whenever I found a passage that related to him, to impress it on my memory, or to note it down. These, on the revision of the work for publication, I added to such reflexions as arose in my own mind, and arranged in the manner in which they now appear. I confess that this was not an unpleasant task to me, and I will venture to hope, that if my own suggestions fail to please, yet the frequent recurrence of some of the most striking and beautiful passages of ancient and modern poetry, history, &c. will render it neither unamusing nor uninstructive to the general reader. The information insinuated into the mind by miscellaneous collections of this

In the fourteenth Satire, for example, there is an omission of fifteen lines, and this too, in a passage of singular importance,

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