O launch thy bark, fecure of profp'rous gales; you If will fly-(yet ah! what cause can be, If not from Phaon I must hope for ease, 256 NOTES. VER. 253. Cupid for thee] This image is very inferior to the original, as it is more vague and general: the picture in the original is ftrikingly beautiful. The circumftances which make it fo, are omitted by Pope: "Ipfe gubernabit refidens in puppe Cupido, Ipfe dabit tenera vela legetque manu.” This would form a beautiful fubject for Mr. Flaxman, who has made fuch correct, elegant, and claffical drawings for Homer. THIS Epifle is tranflated by Pope with elegance, and much excels any Dryden tranflated in the volume he published; feveral of which were done by fome" of the mob of gentlemen that wrote with eafe;" that is, Sir C. Scroop, Caryl, Pooly, Wright, Tate, Buckingham, Cooper, and other careless rhymers. Lord Somers tranflated Dido to Æneas, and Ariadne to Thefeus. A good tranflation of these epiftles is as much wanted as one of Juvenal; for out of fixteen fatires of that poet, Dryden himself tranflated but fix. We can now boast of happy translations in verse of almost all the great poets of antiquity, whilft the French have been poorly contented with only profe translations of Homer and Horace; which, fays Cervantes, can no more resemble the original than the wrong fide of tapestry can reprefent the right. The inability of the French tongue to exprefs many Greek or Roman ideas with facility and grace is here vifible; but the Italians have Horace tranflated by Pallavacini, Theocritus by Ricolotti and Salvini, Ovid by Anguillara, the Æneid, admirably well, in blank verfe, by Annibal Caro, and the Georgics, in blank verfe alfo, by Daniello, and Lucretius by Marchetti. One of the most learned commentaries on any claffic is that of Mezeriac on the epiftles of Ovid. It seems ftrange he should have employed fo much labour on fuch a writer. The very beft life of Æfop is also by Mezeriac; a book so scarce, that neither Bentley nor Bayle had feen it when they firft wrote on fop. It was reprinted in the Memoires de Literature of M. de Sallengre 1717, tom. i. p. 87. This is the author whom Malherbe, with his usual bluntness, asked, when he published his edition of Diophantus, "If it would leffen the price of bread?" There was a very early translation of the epiftles of Ovid afcribed to Shakespear, which error, like many others, has been rectified by that able and accurate enquirer, Dr. Farmer, who has fhewn that they were tranflated by Thomas Heywood, and inferted in his Britaine's Troy, 1609. One of the beft imitations of Ovid is a Latin epistle of the Count Balthafar Caftiglione, author of the celebrated Courtier, addreffed to his abfent wife. WARTON. Dr. Dr. Warton obferves, that this Tranflation is fuperior to any of Dryden's. If, indeed, we compare Pope's Tranflations with those of any other writer, their fuperiority must be ftrikingly apparent. There is a finish in them, a correctness, a natural flow, and a tone of originality, added to a wonderful propriety and beauty of expreffion and language. The literary world has of late been. gratified by fome excellent Tranflations from the Clafficks-of the Georgics, by Sotheby-Horace, by Bofcawen-Juvenal, by Gif ford-and Anacreon, by Moore; whofe verfion, though not always quite faithful, is truly fpirited and elegant. If Pope ever fails, it is where he generalifes too much This is particularly objectionable, where in the original there is any marked, diftin&t, and beautiful Picture: fo, as it has been observed, Pope only fays, "Cupid for thee shall spread the fwelling fail ;" whereas in Ovid, Cupid appears before us in the very act of guiding, the veffel feated as the pilot, and with his tender HAND, (t:nerâ manu) contracting, or letting flow, the fail. I need not point out another beauty in the original, the repetition of the word Ipfe." 46 ELOISA TO ABELARD. O Abelard, ill-fated youth! Dan Pope, for thy misfortune griev'd, PRIOR. |