ceives, the third, fourth, fixth, feventh, eighth, tenth, thirteenth, and fourteenth,) he feems, as Mr. Pope fpeaks of Shakfpeare," to have grown immortal in his own defpite ;" in plain language, to have written carelefly. And if the tranflator has confulted his own ease a little upon these occafions, he has erred in good company; his great mafter's. For, though no tranflator can equal this author in his beauties, this is no reason why a falfe glare fhould be thrown over his imperfections.

In this, perhaps, the tranflator errs from laziness: but in the two following particulars, he errs rather from choice. Triplets, which are confidered, perhaps juftly, as blemishes in modern poetry, are fometimes to be found in this work. The reafon is, they are sometimes useful in tranflation to prevent diffufion.'

This vindication is by no means happily conceived or expreffed. To take the author literally, he fometimes errs through choice, and fometimes through negligence.' But if triplets are useful,' and certainly in a long performance they are at least allowable, there is no error,' and confequently no apology is requifite for their introduction. But the plea of lazinefs' is not fo excufeable. If Mr. Owen tranflates carelefsly,' he overthrows his claim to fidelity. The original being carelessly written, is nothing to the purpose. It is the limner's duty to reprefent a defective feature, as well as to delineate the more pleafing lineaments of those whose likeness he is engaged to copy. He, as well as the tranflator, will feldom be cenfured for foftening a harshness; but totally to neglect it, is equally blameable in either. A fimilitude is expected no less by the admirers of the one than the friends of the other. We fhall turn from the Preface, where the author's ideas are not in general developed with fo much precifion as we could wish, to the tranflation itself.

In the Fourth Satire Juvenal gives us a ludicrous anecdote of Domitian. He introduces it by invoking the heroic muse ; affures us that res vera agitur,' and preferves a tumid dignity of ftyle through the whole ftory, to make the burlesque more confpicuous.

Cum jam femianimum laceraret Flavius orbem
Ultimus, & calvo ferviret Roma Neroni,
Incidit Adriaci fpacium admirabile rhombi,
Ante domum Veneris, quam Dorica fuftinet Ancon,
Implevitque finus: neque enim minor hæferat illis
Quos operit glacies Mæotica, ruptaque tandem
Solibus effundit torpentis ad oftia Ponti,
Defidiâ tardos, & longo frigore pingues.'

When the last chief of Flavian birth
Mangled the poor afflicted earth,

When Rome crouch'd to the bald-pate hero,
The brutal bloody fecond Nero;
A turbot of a fize portentous

(By fome ftrange fate or fortune fent us)
Caught at the fair Ancona, flow'd

Th' inclofing nets with mountain-load.
The Euxine and Mæotic lake

Ne'er pour'd one of a larger. make :

I.

When, thaw'd, they fend their monstrous growth,
Fed by whole winter's ice and floth.',

The tranflator obferves that the poet is going here into the mock-heroic, which is fupported in Latin principally by extravagant exaggeration. In English we have a higher advantage. The caft of Hudibraftic verfe and language is peculiarly adapted to this fpecies of poetry.'

This is an affertion without proof; as the Splendid Shilling of Phillips, and many other performances of a fimilar kind in our language, fufficiently evince. Either style, indeed, may be used to advantage in heightening the ridiculous; but here the Hudibraftic is undoubtedly improper. Instead of resembling the original, it forms a contraft to it, and the spirit of Juvenal is totally misreprefented. The note on the following well-known line is not more happy than the preceding tranflation.

• O fortunatam natam me confule Romam !'

Dryden makes the great Cicero speak arrant nonfenfe

here ;

"Fortune foretun'd the dying notes of Rome, 'Till I, thy conful fole, confol'd thy doom.” It was the writer's vanity, that gave most offence at Rome. Similar founds were tolerated, if not admired, in that age. The phrase itself is pure and elegant.'

In what its purity or elegance confifts we know not.Cicero, and many other celebrated writers of antiquity, were exceedingly fond of a pun; but that, in this refpect at least, Juvenal had a better tafte, is evident from his contemptuous comment on the above paffage. He does not intimate, that if the Roman orator had poffeffed lefs vanity, he would have escaped from the fury of his enemies, but that if he had only written fuch filly lines, his infignificance would have protected him.

Antoni gladios potuit contemnere, fi fic
Omnia dixiffet.'

What is rather extraordinary, confidering the note, the tranflation fairly reprefents the original fenfe. Many feeble lines,

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and

and vulgar expreffions, that bear little refemblance to the eloquent flow and energetic majefty of Juvenal, to whom, as well as the Grecian bards,

- ' dedit orè rotundo

Mufa loqui,'

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might be felected. But in a work of fome length and difficulty, fuch exceptions would be rather invidious. As a fair fpecimen, we shall give an extract from part of the tenth Satire, which Dryden has diftinguished by the title of divine; and which Johnfon has equalled, if not excelled, in his admirable imitation, particularly of the first part of our quotation, in which Charles the Twelfth of Sweden is fubftituted for Hannibal.

In the just scale put Hannibal: ah! fee,

How light this conqueror's duft!—yet this is he,
Whom Afric's wide-ftretch'd regions can't contain :
Thefe are too fmall: he adds the realms of Spain:
Hence bounding o'er the Pyrenees he goes:
Nature oppos'd her Alps and all their fnows:
In vain to these he bends his daring way:
Not all their clouds, and fnows, and rocks difmay:
With fire and vinegar the rocks he rends:
And, like a flood, on Italy defcends.

But this contents not: wid'ning ftill arife

Still grander profpects: "nothing yet (he cries)
Nothing is done, 'till thofe proud gates broke down,
Our colours wave triumphant in the town."
Oh! what a fight, anon, when he, one-ey'd,
Waded for life, an elephant aftride!

But what's th' event? blush, glory, at the tale,
Thy tale of shame! his foes in turn prevail:
The hero flies, and fits, his triumphs o'er,
A great, but poor dependent at the door,
Till a Bythinian king is pleas'd to wake;
And-all at leifure, his appearance make.
At length, no manly inftruments of fate
That life fhall finifh, which convuls'd the state
Of harrafs'd realms: the pois'nous ring fhall yield
A dofe, avenging Canna's bloody field.
Go, madman, Alps' tremendous fummits feale
To be the hero of a school-boy's tale!

• One world the boy of Pella can't content;

As in fome fmall and rocky island pent,
He pants for breath: the earth, with all its fkies,
Yields him not air poor man he gafps, he dies!
Yet, at the brick-built town arriv'd, a tomb
Few feet in fize, fhall yield him ample room!
'Tis death alone compels us to declare
What little, little things our bodies are."

.

1

The

The tranflator intends his performance for the ufe of fchools; and has omitted two hundred lines of the original, on account of their indelicacy: for the fame reafon he should have expunged many more, if he had adhered strictly to the well-known precept of Juvenal, but which his example fo little tends to enforce ;

Maxima debetur puero reverentia.'

Of Mr. Owen's reformed and correct text,' the following paffage is but a bad specimen.

'Si magni Artúrius cecidit domus.' I

We defy the best scholar of Warrington free-school to conftrue these words: as they stand in the Delphin edition they cannot be mistaken.. ·

Si magna Arturii cecidit domus.'

We find, however, not many faults of a fimilar nature: and though we often look in vain for the dignity and animation of the original, the fidelity and accuracy of the tranflator, in general, entitle him to our commendation.-Dr. Brewster's verfion of Perfius amply deferves the compliment paid to it in the Preface.

Letters of Literature. By Robert Heron, Efq. 8vo. 65. in Boards. Robinson.

LIKE fome literary adventurers, our prefent author, proba

bly, not having profited by swimming with the ftream, now endeavours to oppofe it, and boldly feeks the most rapid and continued currents, to render the conteft more famous, or the victory more glorious.. But we must confefs that, though he often parts from vulgar rules with a brave diforder, we do not frequently find him fnatching a grace, or stepping, in real knowlege, beyond the boundaries of fcience already explored. On what has been done, he fometimes decides with judgment, in ftrong energetic language; fometimes he feems to oppofe with petulance, for the fake of oppofition. Virgil is an infamous plagiarift; little Horace, a Sabine puppy ;' Blair, the ape of the French critics; Ariftotle, filly and vain;' Boileau, a poor copyift, a writer of the meanest talents.' It requires no great abilities to call names; and the lowest nymph of Billingsgate might exceed him in this quali◄ fication: we are forry to fee real talents debased by fuch indecencies. Mr. Heron tells us, that the fame perfections which have fecured to an author of three thousand years standing his due applaufe, will moft infallibly effect the fame end to a modern writer.' We might quibble, in the language of Dd3 Horace,

Horace, about the precife time neceffary to attain this due applaufe, and take away one and another year; but, when we have given this fanctity to old authors, might we not contend on the fame ground with Heron for his oppofition? This is not the only inftance where his principles and conduct oppofe each other; perhaps he wished only to attract attention, and in this he will be gratified. We would recommend to him for his next motto, if he can stoop from his darling Greek in capitals, to thofe pitiful curs,' thofe apes in Grecian clothes,' the Latin authors, we would recommend

Explebo numerum reddarque tenebris.'

Shall we tranflate it? I will buz a while and be forgotten.' We will take a short review of his different letters, neither awed by his frowns, or feduced by his confidence. If we offend him, it is but to share with Virgil and Terence in his favour.

The first Letter is on Barbaric Poetry; and, after some common reflections, in an uncommon ftyle, we meet with the effence of the whole in a few energetic lines.

Violent actions, and fudden calamities of all kinds, are the certain concomitants of uncivilized life: to these we owe a poetry warm, rapid, and impetuous, that, like a large river fwelling from a bleak mountain, carries the reader along in the barge of fancy, now by vales fragrant with wild flowers, now through woods refounding with untaught melody, but most generally through deferts replete with romantic and with dreadful prospects.'

There is no great merit in the two fpecimens of barbaric poetry fubjoined.

The fecond is on the Difference between true and falfe Fame, on fashionable Writers, and literary Swindlers. The fubje&t of fame, a critical one for an author in purfuit of it, is better. managed in a fubfequent letter. The literary fwindler, or - rather the puffer, is too well known; but it is a tender fubject, in this article, and we would not be betrayed into perfonValities.

The third, on the Works of Vavaffor, is very trifling.The fourth contains the corrections made in different parts of Akenfide's poem of the Pleafures of Imagination,' by its author. Few, we find, have been adopted, though Mr. Heron, with his ufual dogmatism, afferts, that most of them are much for the better.' "The author, it feems, thought otherwise.

The fifth Letter is on Lyric Poetry, which he diftinguishes into the fublime and beautiful, or the Odes of Pindar and Anacreon. There is great force in our author's language on this occafion; and, as ufual, ftrange aukwardness.