to demand. As I fatter myself that even the learned reader will in this dissertation meet with many points which have hitherto escaped his notice, and much light reflected from thence upon the odes of Pindar in particular, as well as up n many passages in other Greek writers, I shall rather desire him to excuse those ertours and defects which he may happen to discover in it, than apologize for the length

of it.

Having now removed the chief prejudices and objections which have been too long and too generally entertained against the writings of Pinear, I neei say but little of his real character, as the principal parts of it may be collect. d from the very faults inputed to him ; which are indeed no other than the excesses of great and acknowledged beauties, slich as a poetical imaginat on, a warm and enth'siastic genius, a bold and figurative expression, and a concise and seritentious style. These are the characteris. tical beauties of Pindar; and to these his greatest blemishes, generally speaking, are so near allied, that they have sometimes been mistaken for each other. I carinot however help observing, that he is so entirely free from any thing like the far-fetched thoughts, the witty extravagances, and puerile concetti of Mr. Cowley and the rest of his imitators, that I cannot recollect so much as even a single antithesis in all his odes.

Longinus indeed confesses, that Purlar's flame is sometimes extinguishci, and that he now and theri sinks unexpectedly and unaccountably; but he prefers him, with all his faults, tò a poet who keeps on in one constant tenour of mediocrity, and who, though he seldom falls very low, yet never rises to those astonishing heights, which sometimes make the head even of a great poet giddy, and occasion those slips which they at the same time excuse.

But, notwithstanding all that has or can be said in favour of Pindar, he must still appear, as i before observed, under great disadvantages, especially to the English reader. Much of this fire, which formerly warmed and dazzled all Greece, must necessarily be lost even in the best translation. Besides, to say nothing of many beauties peculiar to the Greek, which cannot be expressed in English, and perhaps not in any other language, there are in these viles so many references to secret history, so many allusions to persons, things, and places, now altogether unknown, and which, were they known, would very little interest or affect the reader, and withal such a mixture of mythology and antiquity, that I almost despair of their being relished by any, but those who have, if not a great deal of classical learning, yet somewhat at least of an antique and classical taste.

Every reader, however, may still find in Pindar something to make amends for the loss of those beanties, which have been set at too great a distance, and in sorne places worn off and obliterated by time; namely, a great deal of good sense, many wise reflections, and many moral sentences, together with a due regard to religion; and from hence he may be able to form to bimself some idea of Piudar as a man, though he should be obliged to take his character as a poet from others.

But, that he may not for this rely altogether upon my opinion, I shall here produce the testimonias of two great poets, whose excellent writings are sufficient evidences both of their taste and judgment. The first was long and universally admired, and is still as much regretted, by the present age: the lat. ter, who wrote about seventeen hundred years ago, was the delight and ornament of the politest and most learned age of Rome. And though even to him, Pindar, who lived some centuries before him, must have appeared under some of the disadvantages above mentioned, yet he !'ad the opportunity of seeing all his works which were extant in his time, and of which he hath given a sort of catalogue, together with their several characters: an advantage which the former wanted, who must therefore be understood to speak only of those odes which are now remaining. And indeed he alludes to those only, in the following passage of his Temple of Fame. Pope's Works, small edit. vol. 3. p. 17. rer. 210.

Four swans & sustain a car of silver bright,
With heads advanc'd, and pinions stretch'd for fight:
Here, like some furious prophet, Pindar rode,
And seem'd to labour with th' inspiring God.
Across the harp a careless hand he flings,
And boldly sinks into the sounding strings.

• Four swans sustain &c.] Pindar, being seated in a chariot, alludes to the horse-races he celebrated in the Grecian games. The swans are emblems of poetry; their soaring posture intimates the sublinity and activity of his genius. Neptune presided over the Isthunian, and Jupiter over the Olympian gaina. This note is of the same author.

The figur'd games of Greece the column grace,
Neptune and Jove survey the rapid race:
The youths hang o'er their chariots as they run;
The fiery steeds seem starting from the stone :
The champions in distorted postures threat ;

And all appeard irregularly great.
The other passage is from Horace, lib. 4. ode ii. viz.

Pindarum quisquis studet æmulari, &c.

which, for the benefit of the English reader, I have thus translated :

He, who aspires to reach the towering height
Of matchless Pindar's heaven-ascending strain,
Shall sink, unequal to the arduous flight,
Like him, who, falling, nam'd th’ Icarian main;

Presumptuous youth! to tempt forbidden skies !
And hope above the clouds on waxen plumes to rise !

Pindar, like some fierce torrent swoln with showers,
Or sudden cataracts of melting snow,
Which from the Alps its headlong deluge pours,
And foams and thunders o'er the vales below,

With desultory fury borne along,
Rolls his impetuous, vast, unfathomable song.

The Delphic laurel ever sure to gain;
Whether with lawless dithyrambic rage
Wild and tumultuous flows the sounding strain;
Or in more order'd verse sublimely sage

To gods and sons of gods his lyre he strings,
And of fierce Centaurs slain, arul dire Chimæra sings.

Or whether Pisa's victors be Lis theme,
The valiant champion and the rapid steed;
Who from the banks of Alpheus, sacred stream,
Triumphant bear Olympia's olive meed;

And from their bard receive the tuneful boon,
Richer than sculptur'd brass, or imitating stone,

Or whether with the widow'd mourner's tear,
He mingles soft his elegiac song;
With Dorian strains to deck th' untimely bier
Of some disastrous bridegroom fair and young;

Whose virtues, in his deifying lays,
Through the black gloom of death with star-like radiance blaze.

When to the clouds, along th' ethereal plain,
His airy way the Theban swan pursues,
Strong rapid gales his sounding plumes sustain:
While, wondering at his flight, my timorous Muse

In short excursions tires her feeble wings,
And in sequester'd shades and flowery gardens sings.

There, like the bee, that, from each odorous bloom,
Each fragrant offspring of the dewy field,
With painful art, extracts the rich perfume,
Solicitous her honeyed dome to build,

Exerting all her industry and care,

She toils with humble sweets her meaner verse to rear. The remainder of this ode has no relation to the present subject, and is theref jre cmitted. VOL. XIII.

L

The following collection of poems (to borrow the metaphor made use of by Horace) consists wholly of sweets, drawn from the rich and flowery fields of Greece. And if in tbesę translations any of the native spirit and fiagrancy of the originals shall appear to be transfused, I shall content myself with the humble merit of the little laborious insect above mentioned. But I must not here omit acquainting the reader, that among these, innmediately after the odes of Pindar, iş inserted a translation of an ode' of Horace, done by a gentleman, the peculiar excellence of whose genius hath often revealed what his modesty would have kept a secret. And to this I might have trusted to inform the world, that the translation I am now speaking of, though inserted amongst mine, was not done by me, were I not desirous of testifying the pride and pleasure I take in seeing, in this and some other instances, his admirable pieces blended and joined with mine; an evidence and emblem at the same time of that friendship which hath long subsisted between us, and which I shall always esteem a singular felicity and honour to myself.

The authors, from whom the other pieces are translated, are so well known, that I need say nothing of them in this place; neither shall I detain the reader with any further account of the translations themselves, than only to acquaint him, that I translated the dramatic poem of Lucian upon the Gout, when I was myself under an attack of that incurable distemper, which I mention by way of

excuse; and that all the other pieces, excepting only the Hyınn of Cleanthes, were written many years ago, at a time when I read and wrote, like most other people, for amusement only. If the reader finds they gire any to him, I shall be very glad of it; for it is doing some service to human society, to amuse innocently; and they know very little of human nature, who think it can bear to be always employed either in the exercise of its duties, or in high and important meditations.

1 This ode, in full conformity to Mr, West's intention, is still (though restored to its proper writer) preserved in the present volume.

O DE

OCCASIONED BY READING

MR. WEST'S TRANSLATION OF PINDAR.

BY

THE REV. MR. JOSEPH WARTON.

1. 1.

II. 1.
Albion, exult! thy sons a voice divine have heard, In roaring cataracts down Andes' channell’d steeps

The Man of Thebes hath in tby vales appear'd! Mark how enormous Orellana sweeps!
Hark! with fresh rage and undiminish'd fire, Monarch of mighty foods ! supremely strong,
The sweet enthusiast smites the British lyre; Foaming from cliff'to cliff he whirls along,
The sounds that echoed on Aiphéns' streams, Swoln with a hundred bills' collected snows :
Reach the delighted ear of listening Thames; Thence over nameless regions widely flows,
Lo! swift across the dusty plain

Round fragrant isles, and citron-groves,
Great Theron's foaming coursers strain !

Where still the naked Indian roves,
What mortal tongue e'er roll'd along

And safely builds his leafy bower, Such full impetuous tides of nervous song ? From slavery far, and curst Iberian power; 1. 2.

11. 2.
The fearful, frigid lays of cold and creeping Art, So rapid Pindar flows.-) parent of the lyre,

Nor touch, nor can transport th' unfeeling heart: Let me for ever thy sweet sons admire!
Pindar, our inmost bosom piercing, warms O ancient Greece, but chief the bard whose
With glory's love, and eager thirst of arins:

lays When Freedom speaks in his majestic strain, The matchless tale of Troy divine emblaze; The patriot-passions beat in every vein:

And next Euripides, soft Pity's priest,
We long to sit with heroes old,

Who melts in useful woes the bleeding breast;
Mid groves of vegetable gold,

And him, who paints th' incestuous king, Where Cadmus and Achilles' dwell,

Whose soul amaze and horrour wring; And still of daring deeds and dangers tell.

Teach ine to taste their charms refind,

The richest banquet of th' enraptur'd mind :
I. 3.
Away, enervate bards, away,

II. 3.
Who spin the courtly, silken lay,

For the blest man, the Muse's child 4, As wreaths for some vain Louis' head,

On whose auspicious birth she smil'd, Or mourn some soft Adonis dead :

Whose soul she form’d of purer tire, No more your polish'd lyrics boast,

For whom she tun'd a golden lyre, In British Pindar's strength o'erwhelm’d and lost: Seeks not in fighting fields renown: As well might ye compare

No widows'inidnight shrieks, nor burning town, The glimmerings of a waxen Name

The peaceful poet please : (Emblem of verse correctly tame)

Nor ceaseless toils for sordid gains, To his own Etna's sulphur-spouting caves 3,

Nor purple pomp, nor wide domains, When to Heaven's vault the fiery deluge raves, Nor heaps of wealth, nor power, nor statesman's When clouds and burning rocks dart through the

schemes, troubled air.

Nor all deceiv'd Ambition's feverish dreams, Lure his contented heart from the sweet vale of

ease.

1 See 2d Olymp. Od.
* Alluding to the French and Italian lyric poets.
3 See 1st Pyth. Od.

4 Hor. lib. iv, od. 3.