Images de page
PDF
ePub

Art. 17. Appearance is against them. A Farce, in Two A&s, as it is acted at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, Is. Robinfon. 1785.

A fort of tacit acquiefcence feems to have exempted Farce from the severity of criticifm. Every fault is pardoned except indecency and dulnefs. If thefe after pieces contribute to the mirth and good humour of the audience, they are confidered to have answered the end of their creation, and are allowed quietly to laugh their fhort hour upon the stage. In the prefent cafe, we are difpofed to fubmit to this award. "Appearance is against them," has done its dutythe roar of numerous audiences fpeaks loudly in its favour. Art. 18. The Satires of Juvenal, tranflated into English Verfe; with a correct Copy of the Original Latin on the Opposite Page, in Two Volumes. By E. Owen, M. A. Rector of Warrington. 6s. Lowndes.

Of the antient poets none perhaps is more productive of difficulty to a tranflator than Juvenal. He is juftly confidered as a very unequal writer. In fome of his best fatires, amidst that fplendour of genius which dazzles, delights, are to be found many careless and uninteresting paffages. To his beauties, being of fo fuperior a kind, it is difficult for a tranflator to do fufficient juftice, and if he confults propriety fo far as not to throw a falfe glare over his author's imperfections, the defects of the original will be too often injudicioufly attributed to him. In fpite of these, and feveral other impediments which might be mentioned, the tranflation before us has a confiderable fhare of attraction. Its fidelity to the original conftitutes a very principal part of its merit. This, in every tranflation, ought doubtlefs to be confidered as its first requifite. The fpirit and harmony of numbers, though infeparable from excellence, is a fecondary confideration. In this refpect, however, the prefent work will not be found defective. The verfification in general flow. ing chafte, and fpirited. As a fpecimen of the tranflator's powers, we will present our readers with the following paffage from the tenth fatire.

Quofdam præcipitat fubjecta potentia magnæ
Invidia; mergit longa, atque infignis honorum
Pagina: defcendunt ftatuæ, reftemque fequuntur,
Ipfas deinde rotas bigarum impacta fecuris
Cadit, & immeritis franguntur crura caballis,
Jam ftridunt ignes, jam follibus atque caminis
Ardet adoratum populo caput, & crepat ingens
Sejanus deinde ex facie toto orbe fecunda
Fiunt urceoli, pelves, fartago, patellæ.

Pone domi lauros, due in Capitolia magnum
Cretatumque bovem; Sejanus ducitur unco

Spectandus gaudent omnes: Quæ labra? Quis illi
Vultus erat? Nunquam, fi quid mihi credis, amavi
Hunc hominem: fed quo cecidit fub crimine? quifnam
Delator? Quibus indiciis? Quo tefte probavit ?
Nil horum. Verbofa & grandis epiftola venit

A Capreis: Bene: habet: nil plus idterrogo, Sen quid

60

65

Turba

Turba Remi? Sequitur fortunam, ut femper, & odit
Damnatos: idem populus, fi Nurfeia Tufco
Faviffet, i oppreffa foret fecura fenectus

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Principis hac ipfa Sejanum diceret hora
Auguftum. Jampridem, ex quo fuffragia nulli
Vendimus, effudit curas. Nam qui dabat olim
Imperium, fafces, legiones, omnia, nunc fe
Continet, atque duas tantùm res anxius optat,
Panem, & Circenfes. Perituros audio multos :
Nil dubium magna eft fornacula : pallidulus mi
Brutidius meus ad Martis fuit obvius aram.
Quam timeo, victus ne poenas exigat Ajax,
Ur male defenfus! Curramus præcipites, &
Dum jacet in ripa, calcemus Cæfaris- hoftem.
Sed videant fervi, ne quis neget, & pavidum in jus
Cervice aftricta dominum trahat. Hi fermones
Tunc de Sejano: fecreta hæc murmura vulgi.'

III. Some, by high pow'r, the envied dread of all,
Have been betray'd-their magnitude their fall.
Their long refplendent catalogue of place
Serv'd but to whelm thein deeper in difgrace.
Down come the ftatues: cars triumphal feel
The batt'ring axes broke is ev'ry wheel :
All-piece-meal fly the legs of brazen steeds,
Poor harmless fuff'rers for their master's deeds,
The rope difgraceful drags them all away;
The forges blaze; fires hiss: the bellows play
With lab'ring lungs; and, in the fiery bed,.
See melting lies the great Sejanus' head!
That idol head, lov'd by the warld's great Lordd
By crouching crowds, with diftant awe ador'd!
Of this are made (ah! fee what pow'r produces!)
Pans, kettles, pots, and things for dirtier ufes.

Go now, end court preferment's high renown,
Your happy doors with feftive laurels crown ;
Lead to the Capitol a milk-white fleer,

[ocr errors]

To fhow the Gods we hold their bleflings dear!
Sejanus had these honours all; yet look,
He's dragg'd degraded by the penal hook!
Mark, how the joyous rabble, as he goes,
Load him with curfes, and infult his woes.

"What blubber lips (they cry) what hideous phyz!
"Believe me, I ne'er lik'd those looks of his !
"But tell me, who's th' accufer? what th' offence?
"What were the proofs ? and who, the evidence?
"Talk not of evidence: from Capræ fent,
"A bulky letter came-oh! I'm content,
I want no more: the rafcal has his due:
"What Cæfar fays, muft certainly be true."

[ocr errors]

75

Well,

: Well, but the people: how do they decide?
The people fwim, as ufual, with the tide ;
Watch fortune's looks, and ftill adopt her frown,
Trampling the wretch, who happens to be down.
Yet had his Tufcan Goddefs heard his pray'rs,
And the old monarch perish'd by his fnares,
This felf-fame rabble, in that felf-fame hour,
Had hail'd him fov'reign lord of Roman pow'r!
Long fince they fhun all cares; their bufinefs none;
Since their great trade of felling votes is gone.
For they, who formerly, with potent fway,
Gave power, rank, armies-every thing away,
Have now no earthly bufinefs in their head,
But the Ciroenfian paflimes, and their bread.
"Many, I hear, muft die (a cobler cries)
"No doubt: the furnace is of largest fize:
"Just how Brutidius met me pale with fear;
My friend, I fancy, fees fome danger near.
Heav'n fend our Ajax may not fleth his steel
"In all our veins, vext at our want of zeal!
"Let's hafte, and kick his foe, a trait'rous knave,
"Ere Tiber gives his guilt its proper grave.
"But hold! our flaves muft fee it done; if not,
"They'll feize on us as privy to the plot."
Thus, when Sejanus fell with ruin down

66

From pow'rs high zenith, buzz'd the babbling town. This edition will not only afford amufement to the man of letters, but is well calculated to infpire youth with a just taste for the beauties of Juvenal. A laudable attention is paid to their morals, by the improper paffages being expunged. It is not, however, likely to encourage lazinefs, as, from its freedom, the ufe of the dictionary will not be excluded.

Art. 19. Eleven Additional Letters from Ruffia in the Reign of Peter II. By the late Mrs Vigor, never before published. With a Prface and Notesi r2mo.

Thefe letters are of little Confequence. The information they aford has nothing to recommend it; and their style is below contenorpt,

Art. 20. An Hiftorical Account of the Settlement and Poffeffion of Bombay by the Eaft India Company, and of the Rife and Progress of the War with the Mahratta Nation. 8vo., 5s. Robfon.

There is nothing new in this publication; and the narrative proceeds with a most disguiting coldness and languor. The author appears to be altogether illiterate. His manner is dull; he poffeffes no depth of thought; and his diétion is rude, vapid, and ungrammatical.

Art. 21. Some Obfervations on the Militia, with a Sketch of a Plan for the Reform of it. 8vo. Egerton.

This perform ance is probably the production of a person who has ferved in a military capacity. It is judicious; and if the plan it propótes were adopted, there might be faved aunually to the na

tion, the fum of eighty thousand pounds. This is a very ferious confideration, and fhould not efcape the attention of the miniftry." Art. 22. A State of Facts refpecting fome Differences which have arifen betwixt his Grace the Duke of Bridgewater, and the Proprietors of the Navigation from the Trent to the Merfey. By Order of the Committee, 24th and 25th February, 1785, 410. Art. 23. A Letter to a respectable Proprietor of the Naviga tion, from the Trent to the Merfey, in Anfwer at his Requeft, to the Affertions in a Letter figned an old Proprietor, dated March 19, 1785. By Jofiah Wedgwood, F. R. S. and Potter to his Majetty. 4to.

of

It is with respect only to their literary merits that we have any. concern with thefe pamphlets. And it is a pain to us to obferve, that they are written with an utter contempt of elegance and graminar. Men of bufinefs when called upon to fubmit their obfervations to the public, fhould have the prudence to borrow the pen fome man of letters, who may be difpofed to affift them. Art. 24. The Grifis of the Colonies confidered; with fome Obfervations on the Neceffity of properly connecting their Commercial Intereft with Great Britain and America. Addreffed to the Duke of Richmond: with a Letter to Lord Penrhyn late, Chairman of the Committee of Planters and Weft India Merchants. 8vo. Is. 6d. Bew, 1785.

The author of the Crifis recommends the establishment of a free port in the British Weft India Colonies; the opening of a trade beteen thofe Colonies and the North American States; a reduction of the intereft of money both in England and the Colonies; and feveral other innovations of lefs confequence.

Art. 25. The Crifis: or, a Defence of Administration against the imaginary Victory and ill grounded Triumph of Oppofition. infcribed to the People of Great Britain and Ireland. 8vo. 1s. 6d. Bell. 1785.

The author of this pamphlet afferts again and again, in a great variety of aukward phrafeology, that it was falfe policy in the Irish to reject an advantageous fyftem of commerce offered by a great and liberal nation, renowned for generofity and good faith, and who could, therefore, never intend at any time to flip the yoke of legi flation on their dear neighbours, on pretence of commercial legislation.

As two fupreme legiflatures fubject to one fovereign, must neceffarily create endless jealoufies, he propofes that the British monarch fhall refign his royal pretenfions to the Imperial diadem of Ireland in favour of his third fon PRINCE WILLIAM HENRY: even as the prefent King of Spain refigned the crown of Naples to bis third fon and as the Emperor of Germany relinquifhed the Grand Dutchy of Tufcany to his brother.

:

Art. 26. Two Letters to David Hume, by one of the People called Quakers: containing a few curfory Remarks on his Philofophic Effays. 8vo. 6d. Crowder.

Containing a few common hackneyed obfervations concerning the impiety of Mr. Hume, and the bad tendency and unreasonableness

[blocks in formation]

of his doctrines, exprcffed in the thee and thou ftile, which is all the merit thefe letters poffefs.

DIVINITY.

Art. 27. Primitive Candor: or, the Moderation of the Earlier Fathers towards the Unitarians, the neceffary Confequence of the Circumfiances of the Times. Being an Attempt to eftimate the Weight of their Teftimony in Behalf of the proper Divinity of Chrift. Rivington. 1785.

The author of this pamphlet fays, that the teftimonies of the earlier Fathers in proof of the divinity of Chrift, and against the doctrine of the Unitarians, are not fo numerous, and fo ftrong as our view of the importance of the doctrine, abfolutely confidered, might lead us to expect and that, though a herety, which contradicted it, is admitted to have exifted, they do not appear to have cenfured it with that feverity which fuch enemies of the truth must have merited, and which the orthodox of fubfequent ages, on fuch occafions, have difcovered. This moderation of the Fathers, as he calls it, he afcribes to the neceflity they were under of overlooking difputes among chriftians and bending all their efforts against the Gnoftics, who united in open and avowed hoftility against the God of the old testament; the God of Abraham, of Ifaac, and of Jacob. In fupport of this argument he plunges into all the madness of the Gnoftics, where we do not choofe to follow him. He tells us, in an advertisement, "that it did not feem neceffary to be very ex plicit in declaring his own fentiments refpecting the doctrine of the trinity." From this declaration, from the ludicrous manner in which he introduces himself to the queftion in difpute, and from the weaknefs of his argument in excufe for the filence of the Fathers if they were really trinitarians, it is probable that our author, if a chriftian at all, is an unitarian. If he is a believer, his levity is very reprehentible. If he is not, he is but a dull joker.

Art. 28. A View of the Great Events of the feventh Plague, or Period, when the Myfteries of God' fhall be finished. Rev. x. 7, which completes and adds Confirmation to an Explanation of the feven laft Plagues, Rev. xv. 16. lately offered to the Public. By Robert Ingram, A. M. Vicar of Wormingford and Boxted, in Effex. 8vo. 6d. Rivington. 1785.

The finishing of the mystery of God under the seventh trumpet, Rev. x. 7. the feventh plague, or the grand revolution, which fhall take place in the feventh period, from what is fcattered in various prophecies, will, in Mr. Ingram's judgment, in all probability, be accomplished in the following manner. The Jews, when they are converted and reftored again to their own Land, will be more remarkably zealous and diligent than ever any people were before in converting all nations to the chriftian faith: and their having lived in all countries, and learnt their languages will make them fit inftruments for that purpofe. As the Jews will have no attachment to thefe corruptions which have been introduced into the chriftian re

ligion,

« PrécédentContinuer »