utter too.

Account of his Want of Application and Knowledge: As to Immortality it is to be question'd, whether that was the main Thing our Tranflators had in View. It will not be deny'd, but that Dryden's Bookfeller put him upon tranflating Virgil, by the Temptation of fo much a Line. And other Undertakers pay well enough to make a mortal Life a little comfortable, it is not much Matter whether the Work be immortal or not. Ogilby however is fure of Immortality; for though his Tranflations are as dead as his Carcafs, yet he will be remember'd in good Satyr for the Badness of them. My Author, fays Monfieur Maucroix, is learned for me, the Topicks are all digefted, the Inventing and Difpofing are none of my Bufinefs; I have nothing to do but to utter my felf: Which Utterance is much more difficult, as Dr. Felton will have it, than to ftudy, to digeft, to invent, to difpofe, and to I do not fuppofe, that a Man ever applied himself to Tranflation, if he felt in himself any of the heavenly Fire which animates a great Genius, or was ambitious of Fame by the Merit of an Epick Poem. It must be own'd, that Judgement is requifite in Tranflation as well as Compofition, not only to preferve the Spirit of the Original, but also to make Choice of fuch a One as the Tranflator may be best able to manage. Mr. Charles Hopkins was Mafter of this Secret; and instead of attempting Homer or Virgil, he contented himself with Ovid, and fucceeded to Admiration. Hopkins knew, that the Manners and Sentiments in Ovid were natural and univerfal,which muft pleafe in all Ages; whereas, but a very few can relish the Quarrels and Battles, which are the main Subject of the Ilias. The Learned have explained to us, for what it is that our Adoration is due to Homer: For the Unity and Greatnefs of his Fable, the Variety and Dignity of his Characters, and his fublime Thought and Expreffion; I dare not fay Diction and Sentiments, becaufe the Spectator has difgraced the Ufe of technical Terms, by calling it Cant; and fuppofing, that those who use them, do it to disguise their Ignorance, and fhew their Vanity in critical Phrafe.

I fhould be glad to know, which it is of all Homer's before-mention'd Excellencies, that has fo delighted the Ladies, and the Gentlemen who judge like Ladies; or whether ever a One of thofe Excellencies has been at all

distinguished

diftinguished from the Other; or whether there is any Poffibility of expreffing the Sublime of the Greek Tongue in our Language. As to the Sentiments, which are a principal Part of Epick Poetry, they may be tranflated; we very probably think much after the fame Manner the Greeks did, though we do not fpeak fo. The Paffions are the fame in all humane Nature; and probably the Expreffion of them, by fo great a Mafter of our Tongue as the Tranflator of Homer, may gain as much as it may fofe by the Tranflation. But the Mischief of it is, thefe Sentiments are that Part of the Ilias which the Criticks. have made moft bold with:

For who, without a Qualm, bath ever look'd
On holy Garbage, though by Homer cook'd?
Whofe railing Heroes, and whofe wounded gods,
Make fome fufpect be fores as well as nods.
But I offend —

Rofcom.

Dormitat Homerus; that Homer fometimes fleeps, was faid before by Horace. The Spectator informs us, that Homer is cenfured by the Criticks, for his Defect as to the Sentimenrs in feveral Parts of the Ilias and Odyffes. However, it is most certain, that the Tranflation of Homer must have pleafed Ladies and Gentlemen by these very Sentiments, or by the Tranflator's beautiful Diction and Verfification. But then all the great Parts of Epick Poetry are loft to them, efpecially thofe that depend on the Dignity and Strength of Expreffion, which will not be pretended to be entirely preferved in the English Verfion.

Reading Dacier a few Days fince, I was extreamly furprifed at a Criticism of his on a Tranflation of Homer, by a much greater Critick than himfelf, even Horace his Mafter, who has thus tranflated the Beginning of the Ody fey:

Dic mihi, Mufa, virum, captæ poft tempora Troja,
Qui mores Hominum Multorum vidit & Urbes.

Mufe, fing the Man, who after Troy was taken
The Manners of many Men and Cities faw.

I have aimed to be literal here, the better to explain Dacier's Remarks. There are confiderable Faults in this Translation, fays Monfieur Dacier, he has forgotten the Epithet ToλUTPOT, which marks Ulyffes's Character ; be neglects the Circumftance that makes us most concern'd for him, es para trágyxon, who wandered a long Time, he jays in a loofe Way, after the Taking of Troy; whereas, it is in Homer after having ruined Troy. Now, if Horace, who had ftudied and admired Homer fo much, as to make him a Pattern for all future Writers of Heroick Poems, could mistake three Times in tranflating two Lines, what a Difcouragement must it have been to those who knew how he had fucceeded in attempting it? 'Tis true, no Poet will ever undertake a Tranflator with more Advantage than the last Translation of Homer had; for befides Eight or Ten Verfions in Latin, Italian, French, &c. there are Three or Four in English; a Profe Translation by Madam Dacier, and a Cart-load of Comments in all Languages. I am fatisfy'd fo good a Verfifyer as the Tranflator of the Ilias might with thofe Helps, have made a very good Tranflation, without understanding any more Greek than my felf; and nothing in the World could have been more eafy, than out of one Commentator to have corrected another, and to have alter'd and amended the Reading in the Name of any of the Criticks, from Euftathius down no Dacier. I do not boaft of being Mafter of Greek enough to read Homer with fo much Pleafure in the Original as I could do in a good Verfion, and it is much to be queftion'd, whether every one that can read him in the Original do understand what they read: Several Ladies and Gentlemen have fubfcribed for Chaucer of the Chrift-Church Edition, but I doubt very much whether they understand him or not, and whether a great many, who can read Greek, do really know what they read. One of the greatest Masters of the Greek Tongue, in our Time, has often queftion'd whether there were Twenty Men in England who understood the Strength, Beauty, and Elegance of that Language, tho' there are a Thousand that pretend to it. He reprefented it as a Study for a Man's Life, and I am confirm'd in this Judgement by what Menage tells us of himself, and others upon this Subject. "Tis well known Menage wrote several Things in Greek, particularly fome Odes in Imi

tation

tation of Anacreon, which are not thought inferiour to the Teian Poet's; Jay tonjours fait beaucoup de cas de ceux qui favent le grec, &c. He always highly valued thofe that understood Greek. He does not mean to conftrue and parfe it as Boys do at School, which is the most of what we find in those who pretend to be Mafters of it. Without this Language, continues he, a Man can't be faid to be more than half Learned: Monfieur Cotelier, Monfieur de Treville, and Monfieur Bigot, are the only Men in France, who can read the Greek Fathers in the Original. I fuppofe the Fathers are not fo difficult as Homer with refpect to the Tongue at leaft; for the Language of Poetry is peculiar to it, a made Language compounded and metaphorical. If it be fo, the Tranflation of the Ilias, from the Greek of Homer, muft fhew the Tranflator to be a greater Master of the Greek Language than all the Learned Men in France except Three, and all the Learned Men in England except about Twenty. For my own Part, I confefs, I make bold with all Kinds of Verfions to help me out in Originals, and am not afham'd to do as Menage did; I own I do not understand Pindar enough, fays he, to take Pleafure in him. I have heard Pindar quoted a Hundred Times by Perfons who were very far from being fo modeft as Menage, and fully fatisfy'd themselves that they understood him as well as the Grecians, to whom he read his Odes, tho' I fufpected the contrary. Menage, again; I never read a Greek Author without having before read the Tranflation.

I do not infinuate any thing to depreciate the Tranflator of Homer's excellent Performance, which, as I have obferv'd, has the Merit of the most pure and harmonious Diction and Verfification; but to hint a little of the Confufion of our Tafte, and the Irregularity of our Judgement, which like Things for Beauties which they have not, and not for those which they have. Thus the Verfion of Homer is lik'd as a Tranflation of the best Epick Poem that ever was written, and not for the Softness and Sweetness of the Elegy, which are every where to be met with, as where the God Apollo appears in the Shape of Agenor:

Flies from the furious Chief in this Difguife,
The furious Chief fill follows as he flies.

This is what the French call Feu des Mots, playing upon Words, and what Dryden's Virgil is full of, tho' he knew as well as any Body that it was a Fault: The Turn of Thoughts, and Words, fays he, is the chief Talent of the French; but the Epick Poem is too ftately to receive fuch little Ornaments, which would have been in Perfection in a Verfion of Ovid, and very little agrees with Waller in his Epistle to my Lord Rofcommon ;

Well founding Verfes are the Charm we use, Heroick Thoughts, and Virtue to infufe: Things of deep Senfe, we may in Profe unfold, But they move more, in lofty Numbers told: By the loud Trumpet, which our Courage aids, We learn that Sound, as well as Sense, perfwades. In thefe Things our Tafte is ftrangely confin'd: provided the Verses run fmoothly, and the Language is foft and harmonious, we think it is fine: Let the Subject be a Boreas, or a Zephyr: Nay, I do not queftion but the Couplet I quoted out of the English Homer is reckon'd one of the finest of the Verfion by Ladies, and Gentleman who judge like Ladies, and who are the Nine in Ten of all Readers of Poetry. I confefs, I am much more pleas'd with the following Verses, as rough and rumbling as they are, because they participate of the Roughness of the Thing which is imag'd to us,

Jumping high o'er the Shrubs of the rough Ground,

Rattle the clattering Cars, and the shockt Axles bound. When fuch affimilating the Sound to the Senfe is not affected 'tis very agreeable; but when there is any Force or Affectation in it, 'tis puerile and distasteful.

The following Defcription of the Poetical Fire, which feveral Poets were enflain'd with, feems to be fomewhat deficient, and to want farther Explanation, especially where the Translator tells us, MILTON's Fire is like a Furnace, but Shakespear's like a Fire from Heaven: VIRGIL'S like a Kenning-Glass, and Lucan's and Statius's like Lightning. The Kenning-Glass should have given me no Manner of Disturbance: But why is Milton's Celeftial Fire compar'd to that which deftroy'd the Three Children; the Fire of a Furnace is boisterous and voracious, confuming whatever is within its Reach. Mil

I

ton's