LETTER CCXXXVI. DR BEATTIE TO ROBERT ARBUTHNOT, ESQ. Aberdeen, 9th February, 1797. "If I could have said any thing that would mitigate your grief for the loss of a most deserving son,* your own heart will testify for me that I would not have been so long silent. But I have had too much experience not to know, that the only sources of comfort, in a case of this kind, are submission to the Divine Will, aided by the slow and silent operation of time. God grant that these may be effectual for the alleviation of your sorrow! Think on the many other blessings you enjoy; and think that the most enviable of all deaths is that which we now bewail, an honourable death in the service of our country. I beg leave to offer my best wishes and sympathy to Mrs Arbuthnot and the rest of your family; and shall be happy to hear, that you and they are as well as it is reasonable to expect. * A very deserving officer of artillery, who died at this time in the West Indies. "I sometimes make an excursion to Major Mercer's, which is the only sort of visit I ever attempt; and he and I are, I hope, beneficial to each other; though his affliction is, I fear, in some respects, heavier than either yours or mine. Alas! how many things occur in this world, which are worse than death!" The following letter to Mr Fraser Tytler, now Lord Woodhouselee,* in return for a present which that gentleman had made him of a new edition of his elegant and excellent Essay on Translation,' is written with more of Dr Beattie's former manner, than any I have met with of his, after the death of his youngest son. than justice to the merit of the It does no more Essay on Trans lation;' and it is curious, as containing an account and a specimen of a work not frequently to be met with. * See Appendix [F.] LETTER CCXXXVI. DR BEATTIE TO ALEX. FRASER TYTLER, ESQ. NOW LORD WOODHOUSELEE. Aberdeen, 15th May, 1797. "Ever since March I have been, as I still am, in a great degree, crippled both in my legs and arms by rheumatism, which has been very painful, and is likely to be not less durable. This made me, from time to time, defer attempting to thank you for the much-esteemed present of the new edition of your 'Principles of Translation.' As yet I have read it only once; but I read it with much attention, and great pleasure, as well as instruction. I am astonished at the variety of your examples, which prove that you must have thought long and deeply on the subject; and I am convinced that your work will be very acceptable to the learned world, and very useful. Great taste, as well as learning, appears in every part of it. I must thank you, in particular, for the very favourable manner in which I have the honour to be quoted in it; for your very elegant compliment to my son I have thanked you, and I still thank you, with my tears. Had he lived to see your book, I know it would have given him much pleasure; for I have often heard him speak on the subject, and in terms which perfectly coincided with your sentiments. "A judicious critic every body must acknowledge you to be, and yet you are very merciful, especially to Cowley and Dryden. This last frequently burlesques Virgil: whether he intended it, I know not; if he did not intend it, he must have been very little of a scholar. But who is equal to the task of translating Virgil? Nobody, I will venture to say, will ever attempt such a task, who is equal to it. I formerly attempted some parts of him; but it was at a time when I understood him very superficially indeed.* "There is one translation which I greatly admire, but am sure you never saw, as you have not mentioned it: the book is indeed very rare; I obtained it, with difficulty, by the friendship of Tom Davies, an old English bookseller; I * Alluding to his translations of the Pastorals of Virgil, printed in the first edition of Dr Beattie's Poems, but never re-published. See Vol. I. p. 66; and Appendix [K.] mean, Dobson's 'Paradisus Amissus; my son studied, and I believe read every line of it. It is more true to the original, both in sense and in spirit, than any other poetical version of length that I have seen. The author must have had an amazing command of Latin phraseology, and a very nice ear in harmony. I shall give you a passage, I need not say from what part of the poem: "Dixerat ; et laetis dicta auribus hausit Adamus, Agmina, suspensis per humum labentia plantis. "Ut nebula, ex fluviis se effundens vespere sero, Temperiem invertit: torrenti incanduit atrox "Flammivomo mucrone vident ardescere; formisque |