character is well described, though not very favourably, in that passage of Cicero, which has been already applied to him by Warburton :- "Habuit à naturâ genus quoddam acuminis, quod etiam arte limaverat; quod erat in reprehendis verbis versutum et solers; sed sæpe stomachosum, nunnunquam frigidum, interdum etiam facetum." His style is distinguished by a raciness which we do not often find in the writings of such profound scholars. There runs through his works a perpetual strain of wit, which sometimes looks very much like pertness, and now and then degenerates into coarseness; but which, in general, hurries the reader forward with a lively pleasure over the most barren ground of criticism, and makes him forget the dulness of the road in the agreeableness of his company. He was a perfect master of his own and of the Greek and Latin languages: he displays a remarkable acuteness in detecting any irregularities of diction, and a prompt facility in quoting the writings of others, and applying them to their own condemnation. If, as Horace says,→→→ Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci, this praise cannot be denied to Bentley, who never failed to in struct by the most profound learning, at the same time that he amused by the most agreeable pleasantry. When it is considered, in addition to these excellencies, that this great man was constantly occupied in what would procure glory to himself and confer a benefit on society,—that his life was not wasted in idleness, nor his strength exhausted upon trifles, that, though exempted from any necessary obligations to exertion, and living in a College among the most indolent race of men under the sun, he yet voluntarily chose to suffer toil and tribulation in the cause of letters, rather than wanton in ease and luxury,we may be allowed to wonder, what could unite almost all the writers of his day in a league againt him, and render him the laughing-stock of his generation. Gilbert Wakefield, wa see, attributes it to an "ignominious jealousy of his superior acquirements ;" and this may, perhaps, be sufficient to account for his unpopularity among the "Oxford and Cambridge men:" among men who sleep upon their Fellowships, and naturally feel indignant if any one cast a tacit reproach upon themselves by rising up and calling for his "calamum, chartas, et scrinia." But this is hardly an adequate ground for that hostility which was manifested against the great scholar from the nation in ge neral: Pope's satire, probably, went a great way towards it; and his enmity to Bentley is imputed to a cause, equally foolish in itself, and disgraceful to the pock. We are told, that "At ་ terbury, terbury, being in company with Bentley and Pope, insisted upon knowing the Doctor's opinion of the English Homer; and that, being earnestly pressed to declare his sentiments freely, he said, The verses are good verses, but the work is not Homer, it is Spondanus," " VINDEX, ART. XIX.-Atys the Enthusiast ; A Dithyrambic Poem translated from Catullus, with Prefatory Remarks. THE adventures of the eunuch Atys seem to have been great matter of controversy among the ancient writers, and accordingly the poets altered or embellished them as they chose, except with regard to the main incident. As a matter of taste however, it is of little concern what may have been the original story,—whether Atys was or was not the first who raised his mistress Cybele to the rank of a goddess, whether her revenge for his infidelity or his own remorse on the same account was the cause of his misfortune, or whether he was the same as Adonis or Osiris, a Greek or an Asiatic, a shepherd or a prince. If the story was an astronomical or metaphysical allegory, as the Platonic cabalists supposed, it was in too bad a taste to have been of Greek origin; if it was the adventure of a real person, it may have originated in any country and in any superstition, and will never want corroboration, as long as mankind think to please their Creator by the most painful and preposterous sacrifices. Similar facts have not been wanting in our own times, not to mention those of early Christianity; and in truth, what have the monks been in all ages, but so many professed though not indeed practical Atyses, who denied themselves in conscience what they took care to retain in capability? It is most probable therefore, that Atys was really a religious enthusiast, who mutilated himself in the hope of extinguishing his passions, and founded a severe and fanatical sect in honour of the Mother of the Gods; and it is under this character, he is represented by Catullus, whose poem on the subject is not only one of the most singular, but one of the noblest remains of antiquity. Had this poem been a loose one, or in any respect of a loose tendency, a translation of it would never have found a place in the REFLECTOR; but Catullus, duly impressed with the nature and interest of his subject, has treated it in a manner that might have made Pope himself blush for some parts of his Eloisa. As a piece of composition nothing can be completer than it's arrangement and whole conduct; as a piece of interest, there is no poem of the same brevity that unites with so powerful an effect the two great tragic requisites of pity and terror. In the beginning all is hurry and brief execution, followed by enthusiasm; then, after a night's sleep, come recol lection and repentance; then returns madness and rapidly shuts the scene; and the poet, in the agitation of his sympathy, con cludes with an impassioned prayer to Cybele against similar visitations on himself. These are the productions, which seem really to proceed from inspiration, and from which the poet may well be supposed to rise with a shaken frame. "All the allegories," says Gibbon in allusion to this story, "which ever issued from the Platonic school, are not worth the short poem of Catullus on the same extraordinary subject. The transition of Atys from the wildest enthusiasm to sober pathetic complaint for his irretrievable loss, must inspire a man with pity, an eunuch with despair. (Dec. and Fall, 8vo. Vol. IV. Note p. 72.) In a translator perhaps it is not very becoming, certainly it is not politic, to dwell upon the beauties of such an original; but it is due both to the Latin poet and to the English reader; and whatever faults the following version may possess, must be charged entirely to my own boldness in attempting it. There has hitherto been none, I believe, in our language but by the anonymous Translator of Catullus, who in the notes to his work has shewn a taste singularly contradicted by his poetry, and of whose translation it may be said altogether, that it possesses nothing whatever to atone for such a gross violation of decency as a complete version of Catullus must necessarily be. With an Italian Catullus, after much diligent enquiry, I have not been able to meet; and I regret exceedingly this want of success, not only because the English and French translators are inclined to speak well of the attempts of the Abate Raffaele and Signor Biacca, but because the genius of the Italians and of their poetry seems peculiarly fitted for enthusiastic imitation, and the search might have been well rewarded. As to the French, it seems im vain to look for the preservation of our author's vigorous beauties among a people, whose best imitators convert the reasoning of Hamlet into flippancy and Milton's Adum into a fine gentleman. M. Noel, in the notes to his wretched prose translation, published at Paris in 1803, has quoted an imitation of the poem on Atys by a modern writer who talks of having attained the "dithyrambic march" of the original and of "painting" the effect of the several instruments by harmony of sound and diversity of rhythm. Of this imitation some parts are ridiculous and others disgusting. A spe cimen of the former will suffice. Speaking of the feelings of Atys on coming to his senses, the bashful Frenchman says,— Atys s'éveille alors; l'indulgente Venus Semble encore apparaître à ses yeux éperdus ;' Il est calme. Abaissant une faible paupière, Il se cherche, rougit,-accuse la lumière; &c. &c. The faults of preceding writers can justify none of mine; but they have at least taught me to avoid these gross aberrations from the original. Setting aside the proper freedom of a translation, which endeavours to accompany the poet's ardour rather than to tread in every print of his feet, it is only in two instances that I have made any considerable deviation from my author's text, one, where he alludes to a custom of which neither our manners nor morals should endure to hear,—and the other, where he converts Atys, on his emasculation, into a female. The above-mentioned English translator, to use his own words, has "hazarded this change of sex" in his version; and he has touched the change more spiritedly than the French imitators; but the effect is still very aukward; Now when his limbs despoil'd of sex he found, At thy dread rites, maternal Cybele! Thus to her mates in song she trembling spoke. In fact, the genius of the English language will not allow this de termined metamorphosis, however warranted it may have been by that of the Latin, and by the light in which the ancients: regarded eunuchs. I have therefore substituted the pronoun it, as expres sive of neither sex, though nevertheless applied to beings respecting whose sex we may be doubtful or indifferent, as children and animals; not to mention, that this pronoun, when used on any mysterious occasion, has an air of solemnity and perplexity, that seems peculiarly to adapt it to the present subject. The use of irregular versification I do not call a deviation, since it would be impossible by a continued heroic measure to give any idea of the anxious rapidity of the original; Alexandrines would have M 4 * been * Of the Galliambic verse and it's effects on the passions of the hearers, we are told wonderful stories by the commentators, who in default of a taste for poetry exhibit a profound raptore at anapæsts and iambies. They had read of the surprising influence which the incantations and frantic cere. monies of the priests of Cybele had upon the spectators, and mistook the power been still less suitable; and Hexameters, in our language, have a kind of hopping solemnity that looks like burlesque. But the irregularity, allowed by modern poetry, had other advantages; it naturally surpasses all regular metre in variety of expression, and has been reckoned by the best writers the most suitable vehicle for the changeful temper of enthusiasm, as may be seen in the two most enthusiastic poems of modern times, the Alexander's Feast of Dryden, and Redi's singular dithyrambic of Bacco in Toscana. No apology therefore is necessary for differing from the original in this respect. The verse which I have used at the commencement, and which appeared best adapted to the expres sion of the Latin, is not a capricious or eccentric one, being nothing but two lines of a common song measure thrown into one; As near Porto-Bello lying—On the gently-swelling flood. Atys o'er the distant waters hurried in his rapid bark. By this length of line, the reader is inclined to throw a still stronger accent on the antepenultima, and thus give the three last syllables the force of a dactyl. Dr. Johnson's ridicule of the use of long lines in expressing swiftness, seems to have been one of those hasty prejudices, not uncommon with the great critic. He judges from the length of the course, instead of the powers and sweep of the race. Long lines are not indeed essentially expressive of swiftness, but neither are short ones: the expression depends upon the progress of the rhythm or intermediate parts, and if that expression be hurrying, the long line will invigorate it by the very continuity to which Johnson objects, just as a ra pid bird on the wing has a finer effect according to the length and sweep of it's flight....The succeeding variations I have endea. voured to suit to the immediate expression of exultation or ra. pidity; after which the heroic measure seemed to fall in, with greater solemnity, upon the altered tone and settled misery of the enthusiast. The versification upon the whole, if criticised by later models, will most likely be considered as too rude; but a carelessness of rhyme, and an occasional use of triplets, ap. peared suitable to the reckless vigour of the original. Even on other power of association for the mere power of verse. The celebrated Muretus understood his brethren well in this respect, and amused himself with cheating them by his Latin verses. Vulpius, and Burman aftër him, relate with admiration, and perhaps with a little professional malice, that he passed them off for Catullus upon no less a personage than Joseph Scaliger. Muretuş, I believe, might have deceived twenty Joseph Scaligers; but the truth is, shat his hymn to Bacchus, in imitation of our poet's Galliambics, is an imitation in nothing but the verse, and possesses neither closeness of thought por an atom of original fancy, |