have not leisure to peruse a poem, can spare an hour to examine a picture; and to determine the merit of one requires a less exertion of the mind than of the other. Though the price of paintings is, comparatively, so enormous to that of books, yet, as most large collections are open to the public at no expense, numbers have examined, and are good judges of merit in this art, who do not possess a single piece of their own-an advantage which writers are deprived of. Even that scarcity which enhances the value of every thing contributes to this; as it is beyond a doubt that good books are more numerous than good paintings, we may esteem them the more, as more difficult to be procured. By the value of paintings, an artist may often acquire such a sum by a single picture as an author cannot by the sale of a whole work-by this means, being raised above want, he is not under the fatal necessity of harassing his abilities to procure a daily subsistence. Since portrait painting has been so much in vogue, this art, by flattering our vanity, tempts us to encourage it; and surely that vanity will not permit us to deny the abilities of an artist, when those abilities have been exerted to gratify it. A Reynolds may give grace and dignity to fifty insipid faces in the course of a year, though a poet would find it difficult, in his dedications, to furnish half the number with virtues, as imaginary as the graces in the countenances of the former. But to return.

This review of the unmerited treatment of the illustrious, seems calculated to damp the ardour of those who, even now, are panting for fame and glory; far be it from me to attempt to check one generous emotion, to stifle one spark of rising ambition. Upon

those who have a taste for true glory, and strength of mind sufficient to encounter the dangers incident to the pursuit of it, this consideration will have no influence; they will know what they have to encounter, and despise the efforts of that envy, over which their triumph is certain. It is better surely that they should be forewarned of the perils of their undertakings, and not to be elated with the hopes of an immediate success, in the pursuit of which they will meet certain disappointment-and, in the despair of which disappointment, they may relinquish their hopes at the moment they have surmounted the difficulties they had to struggle with. Let them remember that persecution, though it has often been the lot, is not the necessary consequence of merit. It is the boast of England that she has not only raised the monument to Wolfe or Chatham when dead, but also acknowledged and rewarded their virtues when living.

No. 28. MONDAY, MAY 28, 1787.

Verbum verbo expressum.

Translated word for word.

TERENCE.

A.

AMONG the several fields which lie open to my fellow-citizens, for the exercise and display of their respective abilities, there is none which seems so generally disregarded as the translation of the classics: whether from its being considered as a relief from the perpetual exercise of the fancy, or from a contempt of excelling in a branch of learning which carries with it no mark of distinction.

I shall, therefore, make it my endeavour to point out a few of the peculiar advantages which a strict

attention to its niceties may be of, in giving the last polish to a classical education. If considered on a general scale, it is undoubtedly the medium through which ancient literature gains a general introduction to modern taste; and as the mere interpretation of an author's words, without conveying his spirit, nay, as far as a similarity of idiom will allow, his peculiarities of stile, tends only to convey to the mind of the reader a disgust for classical writings, by an insipid copy of an expressive original;-it is no easy task to introduce Patroclus chining a porker, or Achates lighting a fire, with that majesty which should attend a hero even in the menial offices of cook and scullion.

The composition of Latin verse has always been the characteristic of Eton; and though it has frequently been attacked as too superficial an accomplishment to be held up as the first object, it is certain, that, without it, the elegances of the language are never to be attained; and the very pronunciation is often erroneous from ignorance of accent and quantity. The archives of our state are filled with the first efforts of expanding genius; and so profusely bountiful is this poetic mania, that there is not a cubic foot in father Thames, but is so ornamented with Naiads, as to force some of them up the neighbouring ditches, for the accommodation of the majority-nor a tree in our campus martius but has, at least, its brace of Dryads, though there is not a single oak among them ;-nay, the learned compiler of the Musa Etonensis has, in its preface, purely for the amusement of passers by, crammed more poets of all sorts and sizes into a bench which a dozen starveling sonneteers might fill with ease, than any nine muses in the world could take care of at once.

A study of this kind, as requiring more genius than judgment, more fancy than application, may be justly supposed more congenial to the pursuits of youth; it is not, therefore, with an idea of supporting the one against the other, that I have undertaken the defence of translation, but to prove, that while it is an amusement not unworthy of genius, it is an employment of the highest utility to persevering industry.

Genius is naturally sympathetic; and so sensitive are the powers of a lively fancy, that, wherever we meet with a transcript of our own ideas of perfection, we insensibly glide into the spirit which gave birth to them, and almost compose as we copy. A man of boisterous passions will kindle at the character of an Achilles; a humourist will feel a peculiar delight in the sallies of an Aristophanes or a Foote; and a cynic grind his teeth over the strong misanthropy of a Lucian or a Swift. What the imagination thus cherishes, it will naturally endeavour to bring home to its own ideas; and so far does this often carry us, that I will venture to affirm that there are few attentive readers of foreign writings who do not, in thought, translate every striking idea as it occurs.

There is, besides, a higher gratification reserved for our curiosity than the comprehension of a favourite author; we have, by a closer attention to the niceties of idiom, an opportunity of observing what analogy subsists between the languages and characters of nations; and what a strong, though, to the vulgar eye, invisible link, runs through the fundamental principles of all languages, notwithstanding the dif ference of manner, age, and all the contingencies which have contributed to their formation.

To the man to whom amusement, in competition with knowledge, is a very secondary object, this em

ployment has, by the most able writers on the subject, been recommended, not only as a more effectual, but a more easy, method of obtaining a knowledge of language, than grammatical theory, or even practical observation, can give. And there can be very little doubt but that, as we are originally taught to form our ideas in our native tongue, any thing which is brought nearest to its level will be most likely to adhere to our memories, and be rendered most familiar to our conceptions.

But, notwithstanding a general similarity, there will still be a peculiar characteristic to every language; and many writers are so interwoven with the genius of their native tongue, as to sink under a translation, notwithstanding the united efforts of learning and genius, and, like the tender exotic, when removed from the genial influence of its own soil and climate, to lose their natural vigour, and fade into a vapid insipidity. Tully, even by the sacrifice of his own harmonious flow of language, could not entirely preserve the chaste severity of Aristotle in a Roman habit; Tacitus is no Englishman; and a late attempt to Frenchify Shakspeare met with the ridicule it deserved.

The chief excellence of Paterculus consists in drawing characters; and so great a master was he considered by the great Clarendon, that he is said to have made him his historical model, and adopted him as the constant companion of his leisure hours. Strong figures and expressive conciseness are the characteristics of his writings; but there is a quaintness in his points which the English language is not always equal to. The elegance of Pliny, so genteelly introduced to an English acquaintance by Mr. Mel

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