591 "Love led the wild hordes in his flower-woven bands, The tenderest, the strongest of chains! Love married our hearts, he united our hands, O Britain! dear Britain! the land of And mingled the blood in our veins ; my birth! O Isle, most enchantingly fair! of the Earth! O my Mother! my Mother! beware; share: Olet not thy birth-right be sold They weigh down thy trunk,-they will The root of thine OAK, O my country! Rock-planted, and flourishing free; And its shadow eclipses the sea : From their tombs, from their ashes it Its boughs with their trophies are hung; Their spirit dwells in it :-and hark! for it spoke; The voice of our Fathers ascends from their oak. "Ye Britons! who dwell where we conquer'd of old, Who inherit our battle-field graves; Though poor were your Fathers,-gi. gantick and bold, We were not, we would not be slaves; The spears of the Romans we broke, -The world was great Cæsar's-but "For ages and ages, with barbarous foes, One race we became :-on the moun→ tains and plains Where the wounds of our country were The Ark of Religion reposed, And the Temple of Justice in Mercy "Ark, Altar, and Temple we left with To our children, a sacred bequest ! So the shades of your fathers shall rest, -Let Ambition, the sin of the Brave, THE FOWLER. A Song; altered from a German air, iz A CARELESS, whistling Lad am I, The thrush and linnet in the vale, When all were mine,-among the I'd choose the Lass I liked the best, 4 THE BOSTON REVIEW. NOVEMBER, 1806. Librum tuum legi & quam diligentissime potui annotavi, quæ commutanda, que eximenda, arbitrarer. Nam ego dicere vero assuevi. Neque ulli patientius reprehenduntur, quam qui maxime laudari merentur.-PLINY. ARTICLE 60. A new translation with notes, of the third Satire of Juvenal. To which are added, miscellaneous poems, original and translated.→→ New-York, printed by S. Gould for Ezra Sargeant. 12mo. p. ६ 200. 1806. THIS volume is introduced by a letter from a friend, who condemns the whole mass of American poetry in a manner, which gives us reason to expect, that the translator is to appear elevated far above the common herd, and to stand forth as the deliverer of the American Muse from that state of durance and abjection, in which she has so long remained. "The Conquest of Canaan, Greenfield Hill, Mc Fingal, The Vision of Columbus, and The Progress of Genius," are among the works which incur his censure. "These and others which might be cited, he remarks, lived very harmlessly, and suffered little injury; they offended no one, and no person felt disposed to offer violence to them; and as they lived peaceably, so they died quietly. Let us not therefore presume to trouble their repose." "The Power of has not escaped our epistolary critick. But, however faulty the passage he has selected for his remarks, the reader will Solitude" not think his apprehension, lest he should appear somewhat "hypercritical," altogether groundless. We could say something in praise of McFingal and the Vision of Columbus, were this the place to appear as their advocates. We could say much of the peculiar propriety of denouncing such performances in a preliminary epistle to one of the humbler satires of Juvenal, and some smaller poems, not more in bulk, than a few columns of an ordinary newspaper would afford. We could say still more of the modesty of the author in admitting this rude and indiscriminate attack upon his predecessors and superiours. But this modern Achilles is not rendered altogether invulnerable by the waters of adulation, in which, through paternal (we presume) rather than parental tenderness, he has been faithfully immersed. Nor has this process given him that confidence in his own prowess which it seems designed to have afforded. He has generally yielded the precedency to Mr.Gifford, and he has not been scrupulous in following his interpretations, and frequently borrowing his rhymes, and copying his verses with little variation of language. From a very cursory comparison of the two translations we have selected a few, out of numerous examples, to evince the correctness of our assertions. Cherish my memory ever in your heart. GIF. 484. No one will contend that these and numerous other resemblances of the same kind could be mere accidental coincidences. The same sentiment, circumscribed within the same limits, in similar language, and the same rhyming words, and admission even of the same peculiarities of expression, are sufficient proofs of our author's freedom with Mr. Gifford. There imitation, on which we shall not are other more trifling marks of and exclamatory phrases in paraldwell; such as similar expletives, lel passages; as, ye Gods! for Mr. G.'s heavens! both equally unauthorised by Juvenal; and a resemblance in a construction of the verses of the two authors in the translation of the same passages. The author of the translation before us has ascribed no particular character to his work; and indeed it is difficult to ascertain it very exactly. He is seldom scrupulously faithful to Juvenal, and generally loses those finer parts, which make the very spice of satire. He would seem quite unaspiring in his views; for he presumes not to enter the lists with Mr. Gifford. We cannot suspect him of such an intention. He is not sufficiently independent for a rival. He has a guide of whom he rarely loses sight; for he generally follows where Gifford leads. His seal ; apology for publishing is one,which To whom they dare the secret soul re veal ? we have heard before, but wish never to hear again. It is, that The holy league by mutual guilt they the production is American. By He shares the heart in these polluted admitting such an apology as this, times, we should concede that every lite. Whose conscience pants with secret, nameless crimes. Ver. 75. rary man among us writes for a very inferiour order of readers. The simple inquiry is, who is We are of the number, who value now in favour, except the man a book according to its abstract whose breast is tormented with semerit ; and have too much pridecret crimes, which he never deres to listen with patience to writers, disclose? But our translator makes who, in the style of our author', the virtuous and voluntary exile undervalue their countrymen so complain of the contempt, which much, as to tell them, in effect, his zeal and services had inet with, the specimens we give you from and talks of the holy league (of our literary mines will doubtless scoundrels) sealed by mutual guilt, be esteemed precious by you, but &c.; ail which freedom may anin England they would be ranked swer very well for paraphrase, among the baser metals. The re but is no property of a translation. publick of letters, as it has been Another selection which we termed, especially as including na- make is the conclusion of a pastions, speaking a common lan sage, which describes the venal guage, is one and indivisible. There state of Rome, and the universal is an universality in its laws, which power of bribery in the purchase no minor portion of it has a right of favour and security. to violate ; and it is absurd to affix different standards of good writ- Plena domus libis renalibus ; accipe, et ing, where all have access to the istud same principles, and all are ulti- Fermentum tibi habe: præstare tributa clientes mately liable to be arraigned before the same tribunals. Cogimur, et cultis augere peculia servis. Ver. 187. Without presuming to guess The clients run and all their presents what freedom the unknown trans bear. lator proposed to himself in his 'Tis thus the fav 'rite swells his growundertaking, we shall first select ing store, one or two passages in which we Receiving still and asking still for more ; find more of our author, than of For since these slaves alone the patron Juvenal. sway, This is a tax we all are forced to pay. According to Juvenal, Umbri Ver. 270. tius, after satirizing several vices prevalent at Rome, which he de Without remarking upon the tested, and with which he was not translator's neglect of the first part himself conversant, adds, of the original here quoted, of which kind of negleet we shall cite Quis nunc diligitur, nisi conscius, et cui some other examples presently, ferdens Æstuat occultis animus, sem perque ta. we cannot but notice the wondercendis ? ful fermentation of the latter part Ver. 49. of this passage in its progression But whilst the great my zeal and ser. vice scorn, into English. Far be it from 119 What virtues, say, the chosen friend to question our author's skill in his adorn, laboured commeniary and subile in ference; but it is Juvenal whom we wish to hear, and not the loquacious paraphrast, nor the acute logician. There are here and there passages, which the translator has seen fit to pass over unnoticed; sometimes probably to aid his metrical arrangement, and sometimes, perhaps, from a little embarrassment in obtaining the sense. Thus in the 14th line, quorum cophinus foenumque supellex, which Mr. Gifford translates, "Whose wealth is but a basket stuffed with hay," is entirely omitted. Again, ...........domus interea secura patellas Jam lavat, et buccâ foculum excitat, et sonat unctis Strigilibus; et pleno componit lintea gutto. With fruitless haste their several tasks prepare. The slaves, with whom these are contrasted, were exposed to all the dangers of the streets of Rome, while they were safe under their master's roof, ministering to his wants and his pleasures. But what their services were, the reader, (if perchance he should not understand the original) will derive no information. All the particularity of Juvenal has fallen through the translator's sieve, and only the coarser and less valuable matter is left behind. That the slaves performed some tasks (not perhaps with fruitless haste) we are slightly informed; but nothing transpires relating to the nature of their services. We hear nothing of the swashing of dishes, or, as Mr. Gifford is pleased to refine it, of the scouring of plate; nothing of their culinary vigilance, nor of their com plicated preparations for the luxury of the bath. It is a great excellence of a translation to give to the mere reader of his vernacular tongue, as much of the author's account of manners, and customs, and employments, &c., as the genius of the modern language will admit; and, if pos sible, to preserve even the allusions in some degree of purity. We often mark a great failure in this respect in the translation before us. Indeed the examples of this defect are so mumerous, that to select them would extend our review much beyond the limits to which it is entitled. We shall therefore cite but one instance more. Juvenal tells us, that justice was so much corrupted at Rome, that the first question, in establishing the credibility of a witness, concerned his wealth. Quot pascit servos, quot possidit agri Jugera, quam multa magnaque paropside coenat. Ver. 141. Say what his slaves, his equipage, his land? Ver. 201. This timidity of our author, lest he should be too loquacious, is not natural to him. We do not relish this affectedly elliptical line; and equipage, the vague and feeble interpretation of the quam multa magnaque paropside coenat of Juvenal, is far from satisfactory. We have spent the more time on this performance, because it holds the most conspicuous place in the book, and is a species of composition, in which our country has afforded but few adventurers. It is not probable, that the author will long be willing to risque his fame upon this "exercise in the art of versification." It contains no passage eminently vigorous, and seldom approaches the manner of Juvenal. It is but just to add,that |