Chapter 8

Ac, veluti magno in populo cum sæpe coorta estSeditio, sævitque animis ignobile vulgus,Jamque faces et saxa volant; furor arma ministrat;Tum, pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quemConspexere, silent, arrectisque auribus adstant;Ille regit dictis animos, et pectora mulcet:Sic cunctus pelagi cecidit fragor, æquora postquamProspiciens genitor, cæloque invectus aperto,Flectit equos, currûque volans dat lora secundo.

This is the first similitude which Virgil makes in this poem, and one of the longest in the whole; for which reason I the rather cite it. While the storm was in its fury, any allusion had been improper; for the poet could have compared it to nothing more impetuous than itself; consequently he could have made no illustration. If he could have illustrated, it had been an ambitious ornament out of season, and would have diverted our concernment:nunc non erat his locus; and therefore he deferred it to its proper place.[66]

These are the criticisms of most moment which have been made against the Æneïs by the ancients or moderns. As for the particular exceptions against this or that passage, Macrobius and Pontanus have answered them already. If I desired to appear more learned than I am, it had been as easy for me to have taken their objections and solutions, as it is for a country parson to take the expositions of the fathers out of Junius and Tremellius,[67]and not tohave named the authors from whence I had them; for so Ruæus, otherwise a most judicious commentator on Virgil's works, has used Pontanus, his greatest benefactor; of whom he is very silent; and I do not remember that he once cites him.

What follows next, is no objection; for that implies a fault: and it had been none in Virgil, if he had extended the time of his action beyond a year. At least Aristotle has set no precise limits to it. Homer's, we know, was within two months: Tasso, I am sure, exceeds not a summer; and, if I examined him, perhaps he might be reduced into a much less compass. Bossu leaves it doubtful whether Virgil's action were within the year, or took up some months beyond it. Indeed, the whole dispute is of no more concernment to the common reader, than it is to a ploughman, whether February this year had 28 or 29 days in it. But, for the satisfaction of the more curious, (of which number I am sure your lordship is one,) I will translate what I think convenient out of Ségrais, whom perhaps you have not read; for he has made it highly probable, that the action of the Æneïs began in the spring, and was not extended beyond the autumn. And we have known campaigns that have begun sooner, and have ended later.

Ronsard, and the rest whom Ségrais names, who are of opinion, that the action of this poem takes up almost a year and half, ground their calculation thus. Anchises died in Sicily at the end of winter, or beginning of the spring. Æneas, immediately after the interment of his father, puts to sea for Italy. He is surprised by the tempest described in the beginning of the first book; and there it is that the scene of the poem opens, and wherethe action must commence. He is driven by this storm on the coasts of Afric; he stays at Carthage all that summer, and almost all the winter following, sets sail again for Italy just before the beginning of the spring, meets with contrary winds, and makes Sicily the second time. This part of the action completes the year. Then he celebrates the anniversary of his father's funeral, and shortly after arrives at Cumæ; and from thence his time is taken up in his first treaty with Latinus, the overture of the war, the siege of his camp by Turnus, his going for succours to relieve it, his return, the raising of the siege by the first battle, the twelve days' truce, the second battle, the assault of Laurentum, and the single fight with Turnus; all which, they say, cannot take up less than four or five months more; by which account, we cannot suppose the entire action to be contained in a much less compass than a year and half.

Ségrais reckons another way; and his computation is not condemned by the learned Ruæus, who compiled and published the commentaries on our poet, which we call the Dauphin's Virgil.

He allows the time of the year when Anchises died to be in the latter end of winter, or the beginning of the spring: he acknowledges, that, when Æneas is first seen at sea afterwards, and is driven by the tempest on the coast of Afric, is the time when the action is naturally to begin: he confesses, further, that Æneas left Carthage in the latter end of winter; for Dido tells him in express terms, as an argument for his longer stay,

Quinetiam hiberno moliris sidere classem.

But, whereas Ronsard's followers suppose, that, when Æneas had buried his father, he set sail immediatelyfor Italy, (though the tempest drove him on the coast of Carthage,) Ségrais will by no means allow that supposition, but thinks it much more probable, that he remained in Sicily till the midst of July, or the beginning of August; at which time he places the first appearance of his hero on the sea; and there opens the action of the poem. From which beginning, to the death of Turnus, which concludes the action, there need not be supposed above ten months of intermediate time: for, arriving at Carthage in the latter end of summer, staying there the winter following, departing thence in the very beginning of the spring, making a short abode in Sicily the second time, landing in Italy, and making the war, may be reasonably judged the business but of ten months. To this the Ronsardians reply, that, having been for seven years before in quest of Italy, and having no more to do in Sicily than to inter his father—after that office was performed, what remained for him, but, without delay, to pursue his first adventure? To which Ségrais answers, that the obsequies of his father, according to the rites of the Greeks and Romans, would detain him for many days; that a longer time must be taken up in the refitting of his ships after so tedious a voyage, and in refreshing his weather-beaten soldiers on a friendly coast. These indeed are but suppositions on both sides; yet those of Ségrais seem better grounded: for the feast of Dido, when she entertained Æneas first, has the appearance of a summer's night, which seems already almost ended, when he begins his story; therefore the love was made in autumn: the hunting followed properly when the heats of that scorching country were declining; the winter was passed in jollity, as the season and their love required; and he left her in the latter end of winter, as is already proved. Thisopinion is fortified by the arrival of Æneas at the mouth of Tyber; which marks the season of the spring; that season being perfectly described by the singing of the birds saluting the dawn, and by the beauty of the place, which the poet seems to have painted expressly in the seventh Æneid:

Aurora in roseis fulgebat lutea bigis,Cum venti posuere.————————Variæ, circumque supraque,Assuetæ ripis volucres, et fluminis alveo,Æthera mulcebant cantu.———

The remainder of the action required but three months more: for, when Æneas went for succour to the Tuscans, he found their army in a readiness to march, and wanting only a commander: so that, according to this calculation, the Æneïs takes not up above a year complete, and may be comprehended in less compass.

This, amongst other circumstances treated more at large by Ségrais, agrees with the rising of Orion, which caused the tempest described in the beginning of the First Book. By some passages in the "Pastorals," but more particularly in the "Georgics," our poet is found to be an exact astronomer, according to the knowledge of that age. Now Ilioneus (whom Virgil twice employs in embassies, as the best speaker of the Trojans) attributes that tempest to Orion, in his speech to Dido:

Cum, subito assurgens fluctu, nimbosus Orion—

He must mean either the heliacal, or achronical rising of that sign. The heliacal rising of a constellation is, when it comes from under the rays of the sun, and begins to appear before day-light; the achronical rising, on the contrary, is when it appears at the close of day, and in opposition to the sun's diurnal course.

The heliacal rising of Orion is at present computed to be about the sixth of July; and about that time it is, that he either causes or presages tempests on the seas.

Ségrais has observed farther, that, when Anna counsels Dido to stay Æneas during the winter, she speaks also of Orion—

Dum pelago desævit hiems, et aquosus Orion.

If therefore Ilioneus, according to our supposition, understand the heliacal rising of Orion, Anna must mean the achronical, which the different epithets given to that constellation seem to manifest. Ilioneus calls himnimbosus; Anna,aquosus. He is tempestuous in the summer, when he rises heliacally, and rainy in the winter, when he rises achronically. Your lordship will pardon me for the frequent repetition of these cant words, which I could not avoid in this abbreviation of Ségrais, who, I think, deserves no little commendation in this new criticism.[68]

I have yet a word or two to say of Virgil's machines, from my own observation of them. He has imitated those of Homer, but not copied them. It was established, long before this time, in the Roman religion as well as in the Greek, that there were gods; and both nations, for the most part, worshipped the same deities; as did also the Trojans, from whom the Romans, I suppose, would rather be thought to derive the rites of their religion, thanfrom the Grecians; because they thought themselves descended from them. Each of those gods had his proper office, and the chief of them their particular attendants. Thus Jupiter had in propriety Ganymede and Mercury, and Juno had Iris. It was not for Virgil then to create new ministers: he must take what he found in his religion. It cannot therefore be said, that he borrowed them from Homer, any more than Apollo, Diana, and the rest, whom he uses as he finds occasion for them, as the Grecian poet did; but he invents the occasions for which he uses them. Venus, after the destruction of Troy, had gained Neptune entirely to her party; therefore we find him busy in the beginning of the Æneïs, to calm the tempest raised by Æolus, and afterwards conducting the Trojan fleet to Cumæ in safety, with the loss only of their pilot, for whom he bargains. I name those two examples (amongst a hundred which I omit) to prove, that Virgil, generally speaking, employed his machines in performing those things which might possibly have been done without them. What more frequent than a storm at sea, upon the rising of Orion? What wonder, if, amongst so many ships, there should one be overset, which was commanded by Orontes, though half the winds had not been there which Æolus employed? Might not Palinurus, without a miracle, fall asleep, and drop into the sea, having been over-wearied with watching, and secure of a quiet passage, by his observation of the skies? At least Æneas, who knew nothing of the machine of Somnus, takes it plainly in this sense:

O nimium cælo et pelago confise sereno,Nudus in ignotâ, Palinure, jacebis arenâ.

But machines sometimes are specious things to amuse the reader, and give a colour of probability to things otherwise incredible. And, besides, itsoothed the vanity of the Romans, to find the gods so visibly concerned in all the actions of their predecessors. We, who are better taught by our religion, yet own every wonderful accident, which befals us for the best, to be brought to pass by some special providence of Almighty God, and by the care of guardian angels: and from hence I might infer, that no heroic poem can be writ on the Epicurean principles; which I could easily demonstrate, if there were need to prove it, or I had leisure.[69]

When Venus opens the eyes of her son Æneas, to behold the gods who combated against Troy in that fatal night when it was surprised, we share the pleasure of that glorious vision, (which Tasso has not ill copied in the sacking of Jerusalem.) But the Greeks had done their business, though neither Neptune, Juno, nor Pallas, had given them their divine assistance. The most crude machine which Virgil uses, is in the episode of Camilla, where Opis, by the command of her mistress, kills Aruns. The next is in the twelfth Æneïd, where Venus cures her son Æneas. But, in the last of these, the poet was driven to a necessity; for Turnus was to be slain that very day; and Æneas, wounded as he was, could not have engaged him in single combat, unless his hurt had been miraculously healed. And the poet had considered, that the dittany which she brought from Crete, could not have wrought so speedy an effect, without the juice of ambrosia, which she mingled with it. After all, that his machine might not seem too violent, we see the hero limping after Turnus. The wound was skinned;but the strength of his thigh was not restored. But what reason had our author to wound Æneas at so critical a time? and how came the cuisses to be worse tempered than the rest of his armour, which was all wrought by Vulcan and his journeymen? These difficulties are not easily to be solved, without confessing that Virgil had not life enough to correct his work; though he had reviewed it, and found those errors, which he resolved to mend: but, being prevented by death, and not willing to leave an imperfect work behind him, he ordained, by his last testament, that his Æneïs should be burned. As for the death of Aruns, who was shot by a goddess, the machine was not altogether so outrageous, as the wounding Mars and Venus by the sword of Diomede. Two divinities, one would have thought, might have pleaded their prerogative of impassibility, or at least not have been wounded by any mortal hand; beside that the ιχωρ, which they shed, was so very like our common blood, that it was not to be distinguished from it, but only by the name and colour. As for what Horace says in his Art of Poetry, that no machines are to be used, unless on some extraordinary occasion,

Nec deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus—

that rule is to be applied to the theatre, of which he is then speaking; and means no more than this, that, when the knot of the play is to be untied, and no other way is left for making the discovery; then, and not otherwise, let a god descend upon a rope, and clear the business to the audience: but this has no relation to the machines which are used in an epic poem.

In the last place, for the Dira, or flying pest, which, flapping on the shield of Turnus, and flutteringabout his head, disheartened him in the duel, and presaged to him his approaching death, I might have placed it more properly amongst the objections: for the critics, who lay want of courage to the charge of Virgil's hero, quote this passage as a main proof of their assertion. They say our author had not only secured him before the duel, but also, in the beginning of it, had given him the advantage in impenetrable arms, and in his sword; for that of Turnus was not his own, which was forged by Vulcan for his father, but a weapon which he had snatched in haste, and by mistake, belonging to his charioteer Metiscus; that, after all this, Jupiter, who was partial to the Trojan, and distrustful of the event, though he had hung the balance, and given it a jog of his hand to weigh down Turnus, thought convenient to give the Fates a collateral security, by sending the screech-owl to discourage him: for which they quote these words of Virgil,

——Non me tua turbida virtusTerret, ait: dî me terrent, et Jupiter hostis.[70]

In answer to which, I say, that this machine is one of those which the poet uses only for ornament, and not out of necessity. Nothing can be more beautiful or more poetical than his description of the three Diræ, or the setting of the balance, which our Milton has borrowed from him, but employed to a different end: for, first, he makes God Almighty set the scales for St Gabriel and Satan, when he knew no combat was to follow; then hemakes the good angel's scale descend, and the Devil's mount, quite contrary to Virgil, if I have translated the three verses according to my author's sense:

Jupiter ipse duas æquato examine lancesSustinet; et fata imponit diversa duorum;Quem damnet labor, et quo vergat pondere letum.

for I have taken these words,quem damnet labor, in the sense which Virgil gives them in another place,—damnabis tu quoque votis,—to signify a prosperous event. Yet I dare not condemn so great a genius as Milton: for I am much mistaken if he alludes not to the text in Daniel, where Belshazzar was put into the balance, and found too light.—This is digression; and I return to my subject. I said above, that these two machines of the balance and the Dira were only ornamental, and that the success of the duel had been the same without them: for, when Æneas and Turnus stood fronting each other before the altar, Turnus looked dejected, and his colour faded in his face, as if he desponded of the victory before the fight; and not only he, but all his party, when the strength of the two champions was judged by the proportion of their limbs, concluded it wasimpar pugna, and that their chief was overmatched: whereupon Juturna (who was of the same opinion) took this opportunity to break the treaty and renew the war. Juno herself had plainly told the nymph beforehand, that her brother was to fight

Imparibus fatis, nec dîs nec viribus æquis;

so that there was no need of an apparition to fright Turnus: he had the presage within himself of his impending destiny. The Dira only served to confirm him in his first opinion, that it was his destinyto die in the ensuing combat; and in this sense are those words of Virgil to be taken,

——Non me tua turbida virtusTerret, ait: dî me terrent, et Jupiter hostis.[71]

I doubt not but the adverbsolumis to be understood; "It is not your [valour]onlythat gives me this concernment; but I find also, by this portent, that Jupiter is my enemy:" for Turnus fled before, when his first sword was broken, till his sister supplied him with a better; which indeed he could not use, because Æneas kept him at a distance with his spear. I wonder Ruæus saw not this, where he charges his author so unjustly, for giving Turnus a second sword to no purpose. How could he fasten a blow, or make a thrust, when he was not suffered to approach? Besides, the chief errand of the Dira was to warn Juturna from the field; for she could have brought the chariot again, when she saw her brother worsted in the duel. I might farther add, that Æneas was so eager of the fight, that he left the city, now almost in his possession, to decide his quarrel with Turnus by the sword: whereas Turnus had manifestly declined the combat, and suffered his sister to convey him as far from the reach of his enemy as she could—I say, not only suffered her, but consented to it; for it is plain, he knew her, by these words:

O soror, et dudum agnovi, cum prima per artemFœdera turbâsti, teque hæc in bella dedisti;Et nunc necquidquam fallis dea.——

I have dwelt so long on this subject, that I must contract what I have to say in reference to my translation, unless I would swell my preface into a volume, and make it formidable to your lordship, when you see so many pages yet behind. And indeed what I have already written, either in justification or praise of Virgil, is against myself, for presuming to copy, in my coarse English, the thoughts and beautiful expressions of this inimitable poet, who flourished in an age when his language was brought to its last perfection, for which it was particularly owing to him and Horace. I will give your lordship my opinion, that those two friends had consulted each other's judgment, wherein they should endeavour to excel; and they seem to have pitched on propriety of thought, elegance of words, and harmony of numbers. According to this model, Horace writ his Odes and Epodes: for his Satires and Epistles, being intended wholly for instruction, required another style—

Ornari res ipsa negat, contenta doceri—

and therefore, as he himself professes, aresermoni propiora, nearer prose than verse. But Virgil, who never attempted the lyric verse, is everywhere elegant, sweet, and flowing in his hexameters. His words are not only chosen, but the places in which he ranks them for the sound. He who removes them from the station wherein their master set them, spoils the harmony. What he says of the Sibyl's prophecies, may be as properly applied to every word of his: they must be read in order as they lie; the least breath discomposes them; and somewhat of their divinity is lost. I cannot boast that I have been thus exact in my verses; but I have endeavoured to follow the example of my master, and am the first Englishman, perhaps, who made it his design to copy him in his numbers, his choiceof words, and his placing them for the sweetness of the sound. On this last consideration, I have shunned thecæsuraas much as possibly I could: for, wherever that is used, it gives a roughness to the verse; of which we can have little need in a language which is overstocked with consonants.[72]Such is not the Latin, where the vowels and consonants are mixed in proportion to each other: yet Virgil judged the vowels to have somewhat of an over-balance, and therefore tempers their sweetness withcæsuras. Such difference there is in tongues, that the same figure, which roughens one, gives majesty to another: and that was it which Virgil studied in his verses. Ovid uses it but rarely; and hence it is that his versification cannot so properly be called sweet, as luscious. The Italians are forced upon it once or twice in every line, because they have a redundancy of vowels in their language. Their metal is so soft, that it will not coin without alloy to harden it. On the other side, for the reason already named, it is all we can do to give sufficient sweetness to our language: we must not only chuse our words for elegance, but for sound; to perform which, a mastery in the language is required; the poet must have a magazine of words, and have the art to manage his few vowels to the best advantage, that they may go the farther. He must also know the nature of the vowels—which are more sonorous, and which more soft and sweet—and so dispose them as his present occasions require: all which, and a thousand secrets of versification beside, he may learn from Virgil, if he will take him for his guide. If he be above Virgil, and is resolved tofollow his ownverve, (as the French call it,) the proverb will fall heavily upon him:—"Who teaches himself, has a fool for his master."

Virgil employed eleven years upon his Æneïs; yet he left it, as he thought himself, imperfect; which when I seriously consider, I wish, that, instead of three years which I have spent in the translation of his works, I had four years more allowed me to correct my errors, that I might make my version somewhat more tolerable than it is: for a poet cannot have too great a reverence for his readers, if he expects his labours should survive him. Yet I will neither plead my age nor sickness, in excuse of the faults which I have made: that I wanted time, is all that I have to say; for some of my subscribers grew so clamorous, that I could no longer defer the publication. I hope, from the candour of your lordship, and your often experienced goodness to me, that, if the faults are not too many, you will make allowances with Horace:

——siplura nitent in carmine, non ego paucisOffendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit,Aut humana parum cavit natura.—

You may please also to observe, that there is not, to the best of my remembrance, one vowel gaping on another for want of acæsura, in this whole poem: but, where a vowel ends a word, the next begins either with a consonant, or what is its equivalent; for ourWandHaspirate, and our diphthongs, are plainly such. The greatest latitude I take is in the letterY, when it concludes a word, and the first syllable of the next begins with a vowel. Neither need I have called this a latitude, which is only an explanation of this general rule—that no vowel can be cut off before another, when we cannot sink the pronunciation of it; ashe,she,me,I, &c. Virgilthinks it sometimes a beauty to imitate the licence of the Greeks, and leave two vowels opening on each other, as in that verse of the Third Pastoral,

Et succus pecori, et lac subducitur agnis.

But,nobis non licet esse tam disertis, at least if we study to refine our numbers. I have long had by me the materials of an EnglishProsodia, containing all the mechanical rules of versification, wherein I have treated, with some exactness, of the feet, the quantities, and the pauses. The French and Italians know nothing of the two first; at least their best poets have not practised them. As for the pauses, Malherbe first brought them into France within this last century; and we see how they adorn their Alexandrines. But, as Virgil propounds a riddle, which he leaves unsolved—

Dic, quibus in terris, inscripti nomina regumNascantur flores; et Phyllida solus habeto—

so I will give your lordship another, and leave the exposition of it to your acute judgment. I am sure there are few who make verses, have observed the sweetness of these two lines in Cooper's Hill:

Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;Strong without rage; without o'erflowing, full—[73]

and there are yet fewer who can find the reason of that sweetness. I have given it to some of my friends in conversation; and they have allowed thecriticism to be just. But, since the evil of false quantities is difficult to be cured in any modern language; since the French and the Italians, as well as we, are yet ignorant what feet are to be used in heroic poetry; since I have not strictly observed those rules myself, which I can teach others; since I pretend to no dictatorship among my fellow-poets; since, if I should instruct some of them to make well-running verses, they want genius to give them strength as well as sweetness; and, above all, since your lordship has advised me not to publish that little which I know, I look on your counsel as your command, which I shall observe inviolably, till you shall please to revoke it, and leave me at liberty to make my thoughts public. In the mean time, that I may arrogate nothing to myself, I must acknowledge that Virgil in Latin, and Spenser in English, have been my masters. Spenser has also given me the boldness to make use sometimes of his Alexandrine line, which we call, though improperly, the Pindaric, because Mr Cowley has often employed it in his Odes. It adds a certain majesty to the verse, when it is used with judgment, and stops the sense from overflowing into another line. Formerly the French, like us, and the Italians, had but five feet, or ten syllables, in their heroic verse; but, since Ronsard's time, as I suppose, they found their tongue too weak to support their epic poetry, without the addition of another foot. That indeed has given it somewhat of the run and measure of a trimeter; but it runs with more activity than strength: their language is not strung with sinews, like our English; it has the nimbleness of a greyhound, but not the bulk and body of a mastiff. Our men and our verses overbear them by their weight; andPondere, non numero, is the British motto. The French have set up purity for the standard of theirlanguage; and a masculine vigour is that of ours. Like their tongue, is the genius of their poets, light and trifling in comparison of the English; more proper for sonnets, madrigals, and elegies, than heroic poetry. The turn on thoughts and words is their chief talent; but the epic poem is too stately to receive those little ornaments. The painters draw their nymphs in thin and airy habits; but the weight of gold and of embroideries is reserved for queens and goddesses. Virgil is never frequent in those turns, like Ovid, but much more sparing of them in his Æneïs, than in his Pastorals and Georgics.

Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere manes.

That turn is beautiful indeed; but he employs it in the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, not in his great poem. I have used that licence in his Æneïs sometimes; but I own it as my fault. It was given to those who understand no better. It is like Ovid's

Semivirumque bovem, semibovemque virum.

The poet found it before his critics, but it was a darling sin, which he would not be persuaded to reform. The want of genius, of which I have accused the French, is laid to their charge by one of their own great authors, though I have forgotten his name, and where I read it. If rewards could make good poets, their great master[74]has not been wanting on his part in his bountiful encouragements:for he is wise enough to imitate Augustus, if he had a Maro. The triumvir and proscriber had descended to us in a more hideous form than they now appear, if the emperor had not taken care to make friends of him and Horace. I confess, the banishment of Ovid was a blot in his escutcheon: yet he was only banished; and who knows but his crime was capital, and then his exile was a favour? Ariosto, who, with all his faults, must be acknowledged a great poet, has put these words into the mouth of an evangelist:[75]but whether they will pass for gospel now, I cannot tell.

Non fù si santo ni benigno Augusto,Come la tuba di Virgilio suona.L'haver havuto in poesia buon gusto,La proscrittione iniqua gli perdona.

But heroic poetry is not of the growth of France, as it might be of England, if it were cultivated. Spenser wanted only to have read the rules of Bossu; for no man was ever born with a greater genius, or had more knowledge to support it. But the performance of the French is not equal to their skill; and hitherto we have wanted skill to perform better. Ségrais, whose preface is so wonderfully good, yet is wholly destitute of elevation, though his version is much better than that of the two brothers, or any of the rest who have attempted Virgil. Hannibal Caro is a great name amongst the Italians; yet his translation of the Æneïs is most scandalously mean, though he has taken the advantage of writing in blank verse, and freed himself from the shackles of modern rhyme, if it be modern; for LeClerc has told us lately, and I believe has made it out, that David's Psalms were written in as errant rhyme as they are translated. Now, if a Muse cannot run when she is unfettered, it is a sign she has but little speed. I will not make a digression here, though I am strangely tempted to it; but will only say, that he who can write well in rhyme, may write better in blank verse.[76]Rhyme is certainly a constraint even to the best poets, and those who make it with most ease; though perhaps I have as little reason to complain of that hardship as any man, excepting Quarles and Withers. What it adds to sweetness, it takes away from sense; and he who loses the least by it, may be called a gainer. It often makes us swerve from an author's meaning; as, if a mark be set up for an archer at a great distance, let him aim as exactly as he can, the least wind will take his arrow, and divert it from the white.—I return to our Italian translator of the Æneïs. He is a foot-poet, he lacquies by the side of Virgil at the best, but never mounts behind him. Doctor Morelli,[77]who is no mean critic in our poetry, and therefore may be presumed to be a better in his own language, has confirmed me in this opinion by his judgment, and thinks, withal, that he has often mistaken his master's sense. I would say so, if I durst, but am afraid I have committed the same fault more often, and more grossly; for I have forsakenRuæus, (whom generally I follow,) in many places, and made expositions of my own in some, quite contrary to him; of which I will give but two examples, because they are so near each other, in the Tenth Æneid—

---- ——Sorti Pater æquus utrique.

Pallas says it to Turnus, just before they fight. Ruæus thinks that the wordPateris to be referred to Evander, the father of Pallas. But how could he imagine that it was the same thing to Evander, if his son were slain, or if he overcame? The poet certainly intended Jupiter, the common father of mankind; who, as Pallas hoped, would stand an impartial spectator of the combat, and not be more favourable to Turnus than to him. The second is not long after it, and both before the duel is begun. They are the words of Jupiter, who comforts Hercules for the death of Pallas, which was immediately to ensue, and which Hercules could not hinder, (though the young hero had addressed his prayers to him for his assistance) because the gods cannot controul destiny. The verse follows:

Sic ait; atque oculos Rutulorum rejicit arvis,—

which the same Ruæus thus construes: Jupiter, after he had said this, immediately turns his eyes to the Rutulian fields, and beholds the duel. I have given this place another exposition, that he turned his eyes from the field of combat, that he might not behold a sight so unpleasing to him. The wordrejicit, I know, will admit of both senses; but Jupiter, having confessed that he could not alter fate, and being grieved he could not, in consideration of Hercules—it seems to me that he should avert his eyes, rather than take pleasure in the spectacle.But of this I am not so confident as the other, though I think I have followed Virgil's sense.[78]

What I have said, though it has the face of arrogance, yet is intended for the honour of my country; and therefore I will boldly own, that this English translation has more of Virgil's spirit in it, than either the French or the Italian. Some of our countrymen have translated episodes and other parts of Virgil, with great success; as particularly your lordship, whose version of Orpheus and Eurydice is eminently good. Amongst the dead authors, the Silenus of my Lord Roscommon cannot be too much commended. I say nothing of Sir John Denham, Mr Waller, and Mr Cowley;[79]it is the utmost of my ambition to be thought their equal, or not to be much inferior to them, and some others of the living. But it is one thing to take pains on a fragment, and translate it perfectly; and another thing to have the weight of a whole author on my shoulders. They who believe the burden light, let them attempt the fourth, sixth, or eighth Pastoral; the first or fourth Georgic; and, amongst the Æneïds, the fourth, the fifth, the seventh, the ninth, the tenth, the eleventh, or the twelfth; for in these I think I have succeeded best.

Long before I undertook this work, I was no stranger to the original. I had also studied Virgil's design, his disposition of it, his manners, his judicious management of the figures, the sober retrenchments of his sense, which always leave somewhatto gratify our imagination, on which it may enlarge at pleasure; but, above all, the elegance of his expressions, and the harmony of his numbers: for, as I have said in a former dissertation, the words are, in poetry, what the colours are in painting; if the design be good, and the draught be true, the colouring is the first beauty that strikes the eye.[80]Spenser and Milton are the nearest, in English, to Virgil and Horace in the Latin; and I have endeavoured to form my style by imitating their masters. I will further own to you, my lord, that my chief ambition is to please those readers who have discernment enough to prefer Virgil before any other poet in the Latin tongue. Such spirits as he desired to please, such would I chuse for my judges, and would stand or fall by them alone. Ségrais has distinguished the readers of poetry, according to their capacity of judging, into three classes; (he might have said the same of writers too, if he had pleased.) In the lowest form he places those whomhe callsles petits esprits—such things as are our upper-gallery audience in a playhouse, who like nothing but the husk and rind of wit; prefer a quibble, a conceit, an epigram, before solid sense and elegant expression; these are mob readers. If Virgil and Martial stood for parliament-men, we know already who would carry it. But, though they make the greatest appearance in the field, and cry the loudest, the best on't is, they are but a sort of French Huguenots, or Dutch boors, brought over in herds, but not naturalized; who have not land of two pounds per annum in Parnassus, and therefore are not privileged to poll. Their authors are of the same level, fit to represent them on a mountebank's stage, or to be masters of the ceremonies in a bear-garden. Yet these are they who have the most admirers. But it often happens, to their mortification, that, as their readers improve their stock of sense, (as they may by reading better books, and by conversation with men of judgment,) they soon forsake them: and when the torrent from the mountains falls no more, the swelling writer is reduced into his shallow bed, like the Mançanares at Madrid, with scarce water to moisten his own pebbles.[81]There are a middle sort of readers, (as we hold there is a middle state of souls,) such as have a farther insight than the former, yet have not the capacity of judging right; for I speak not of those who are bribed by a party, and know better, if they were not corrupted; but I mean a company of warm young men, who are not yet arrived so far as to discern the difference betwixt fustian, or ostentatious sentences, and the true sublime. These are aboveliking Martial, or Owen's Epigrams, but they would certainly set Virgil below Statius or Lucan. I need not say their poets are of the same taste with their admirers. They affect greatness in all they write; but it is a bladdered greatness, like that of the vain man whom Seneca describes—an ill habit of body, full of humours, and swelled with dropsy. Even these too desert their authors, as their judgment ripens. The young gentlemen themselves are commonly misled by their pedagogue at school, their tutor at the university, or their governor in their travels: and many of those three sorts are the most positive blockheads in the world. How many of those flatulent writers have I known, who have sunk in their reputation, after seven or eight editions of their works! for indeed they are poets only for young men. They had great success at their first appearance; but, not being of God, (as a wit said formerly,) they could not stand.

I have already named two sorts of judges; but Virgil wrote for neither of them: and, by his example, I am not ambitious of pleasing the lowest or the middle form of readers.

He chose to please the most judicious—souls of the highest rank, and truest understanding. These are few in number; but whoever is so happy as to gain their approbation, can never lose it, because they never give it blindly. Then they have a certain magnetism in their judgment, which attracts others to their sense. Every day they gain some new proselyte, and in time become the church. For this reason, a well-weighed judicious poem, which at its first appearance gains no more upon the world than to be just received, and rather not blamed than much applauded, insinuates itself by insensible degrees into the liking of the reader: the more he studies it, the more it grows upon him; every timehe takes it up, he discovers some new graces in it. And whereas poems, which are produced by the vigour of imagination only, have a gloss upon them at the first, which time wears off; the works of judgment are like the diamond; the more they are polished, the more lustre they receive. Such is the difference betwixt Virgil's Æneïs and Marini's Adone. And, if I may be allowed to change the metaphor, I would say, that Virgil is like the Fame which he describes:

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