polished with a scrupulous delicacy, that is not needed in cobbling figleaves or wolves'-skins together. I grant the occupations frivolous, and the result only to pamper luxury, to coddle up voluptuousness; but still brawny arms have hammered and welded those metallic nicknacks together; thousands of patient eyes and delicate fingers have bent over those myriad gewgaws, and fashioned them into quaint and beautiful shapes. Honest labour-not always very well requited-has been banded together, and drilled, and disciplined, to produce the trifles and the toys that crowd the bazaars of the Passage des Panoramas. Sonnet. My soul is sunk in all-suffusing shame; But that the World's original fair fame My own land's, most-is not what it hath been. Without response, its comfortable ears, Of fratricidal strokes, and nerveful hate! So do I hope to hear the sabres clash And tumbrils rattle, when the snows abate. ALFRED AUSTIN. Horae Virgilianae. PART II. PASTORAL. IN our December Number we discussed the subject of pastoral poetry, showing how it had been derived from the mythology of the ancients, and how the ancient pastoral possessed a charm for the reader which a modern poet, imitating its form and style, is, from change of circumstances, unable to reproduce. The numerous imitations of Theocritus and Virgil published by modern writers prove undoubtedly the intrinsic merits of those originals, yet do not establish that their subjects and modes of treating them are as suitable to the present age as they were to their own. A Greek or Roman eclogue has, indeed, an interest about it independent of its poetical merits, because it is ancient, and because it is well to know, as a matter of history, how people sang about nymphs and shepherds in early times. In the same way their imitators please us rather because they have copied well than because we care about their subject. Out of the multitude of pastoral writings which we enumerated, few at this day will afford us much entertainment; yet the student of English literature likes to know what has been handed down to us by our ancestors, and if he wades through a heap of stupid dialogues and elegies as a matter of literary curiosity, we are far from saying that all his time will be thrown away. The models, however, are, on many accounts, more worthy to be read than the copies; nor, indeed, are we able to appreciate the latter without knowing something of the former. You must have read Virgil, to enjoy Pope fully. It is impossible to relish, or indeed to understand, any kind of pastoral-we should rather say, any of that poetry which is stratified with the classic vein-unless you are duly imbued with the mythic lore of the ancients, and acquainted with their history and language. We, at all events, arrive at this conclusion. Whatever we may think nowadays of pastoral poetry, if we deem it worth our while to read it at all, we should make ourselves acquainted with Virgil's eclogues. And if so, as all cannot read or enjoy them so well in the original language, it is desirable to have a good translation of them. To return now to the question of metre. Of all the English poets whom we have enumerated, though their measures have been various, there is not one, except Thomas Warton, who has composed pastorals in blank verse. It will hardly be disputed that, for poetry of a light character, such as the pastoral generally is, rhyme is in itself highly suitable; that, for example, the verses of Pope and Shenstone would be less pleasing if they did not rhyme. But it may, perhaps, be argued, that the same rule is not applicable to the translation of a classical poem written in hexameter verse, like that of the epic. In answer to this we must observe, first, that the hexameter of the epic is not of the same character with the hexameter of the pastoral, as any one may see who compares Homer with Theocritus, or the Eneid of Virgil with his eclogues; and secondly, that every language has its own laws of rhythm and harmony, as well as of declension and syntax; that a translation is, in this respect, to be tried by the same test as any other poetical composition; and the test is-how does it read? how does it sound to an English ear? Our blank verse is a different thing from the Latin hexameter. The fact that neither of them rhymes does not make them corresponding in character. Those who contend for English hexameters have the best of the argument, if we are to take a rigidly pedantic view of the matter, instead of attending to the more material questions-what measure harmonises best with the poet's feeling? what is most agreeable to the reader? There are some things which experience has settled, and about which there is no dispute. Blank verse is admitted to be eminently, or rather exclusively, adapted to dramatic composition. It is highly suitable to the epic poem, and in a less degree to the didactic, as exemplified in Young and Cowper. But it is not fitted for the elegy, the ode, the ballad, or the song; not for light sentimental or satirical pieces. It would not have done for Pope's Rape of the Lock, for Dryden's Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, for Campbell's Hohenlinden, for the ballads of Mallet and Tickell, the songs of Burns or Moore, the epigrams of Swift. To apply these observations to Virgil's eclogues—the thing to be considered by his translator is, not what metre Virgil wrote them in, but what is their subject-matter-are they light or solemn ? are they pathetic or jocose? are they dramatic? are they descriptive? and so on. We find, when we come to look at them, that the Virgilian eclogues vary a good deal in their character. The first and the ninth deal with the realities of the poet's own life, and are dramatic in form. They have but a thin pastoral clothing. Tityrus in the first, and Menalcas in the ninth, are manifestly Virgil himself; Melibous and Lycidas are his neighbours, and Moeris his servant. The second, third, sixth, seventh, and eighth, are purely imaginative, and strictly pastoral in character; the third and seventh being of a dramatic form in the opening. The fourth, relating to some important prophecy concerning the destinies of the Roman world, is designedly elevated in style. So, in a less degree, is the fifth, which seems to be an allegory on the death of Julius Cæsar. The tenth is a pure pastoral, though playfully alluding to a disappointment in love of the poet's friend Gallus. It may be fairly urged, that the first and ninth eclogues, on account of their dramatic form and relation to historical events, are fit subjects for blank verse, excepting certain parts of the ninth, which are quotations from supposed poems of the author, and which should therefore be rendered in a measure suitable to such poems. VOL. X. B B The dramatic, or colloquial, parts of the third and seventh may be turned suitably enough into blank verse; but the amœbæan contests of the rival shepherds cannot, we think, be poetically rendered in any but a rhyming measure. The simply pastoral character of the second, sixth, eighth, and tenth eclogues, seems to us to demand a rhyming version. So, in our opinion, do the fourth and fifth, but not so imperatively. Such are our general views concerning these Virgilian eclogues. We now propose to examine them more in detail, and to illustrate and fortify the opinions which we have expressed by reference to existing translations. We shall compare them one with another, point out their merits and defects, and show, by the help of some new versions which have been furnished to us, that something still remains to be done, before Virgil's Pastorals are presented as they should be to the English reader. The existing translations that we shall refer to are those by Dryden and Beattie in rhyme, and that of Kennedy in blank verse; taking them as the best specimens of their respective classes. To begin with the first eclogue. The dialogue between the two shepherds reads very well in Kennedy's translation, and, on the whole, we prefer his blank verse to the rhyme of Dryden and Beattie. We think, however, that his opening lines are unfortunate: 'Thou, Tityrus, reclining in the shade Of this dispredden beech, with oaten quill Dispredden is a Spenserian word, good enough in its proper place, as in a Spenserian stanza, but quite out of place in a dramatic colloquy, from which quaint and obsolete words ought to be excluded. We do not like "Courtest the sylvan muse;" but this is a minor objection. The following, "We fugitives," &c., is much below the force of the original. Virgil says, "We leave our country's boundaries and pleasant fields; we from our country fly." His sentences are cumulative: "We not only leave our country, but leave it as exiles." Kennedy has failed to copy this nice touch of the master's pencil. Let us see how it stands in Dryden : "Beneath the shade which beechen boughs diffuse, Forced from our pleasing fields and native home; While stretcht at ease you sing your happy love, One great objection to this is, the improper place of we in the third line, which does not bring in prominent relief, as it should have done, the comparison drawn by the speaker between Tityrus and himself. Another is, that Melibous is made to state prematurely that "he is roaming round the world," when in Virgil he merely says that "he is about to quit his country in exile." Now for Beattie: "Where the broad beech an ample shade displays, O happy Tityrus! While we, forlorn, Here the name of Tityrus is introduced a little too late; and the position of you in the fifth line is open to the same remark as that of we in Dryden. We do not like "shade displays," nor the word shade repeated. While none of these versions thoroughly satisfies us, we think that Kennedy's general conception of the original is the best. His first line opens it well enough; and his "beautiful Amaryllis" is better than the paraphrases of the other two, as being more simple and close to Virgil. It is better to be close to the original, where you can be so without detriment to poetic grace; and Virgil's "formosam Amaryllida" seems to repeat the very words sung by Tityrus. Take another passage-first in Kennedy: "M. And what occasion drew thee hence to Rome? Fell the shorn beard; yet after length of time The fault of these lines is, that they are somewhat too literal, and do not run smoothly enough. Here let us observe, that blank verse ought generally to be melodious as well as vigorous; we might go further, and say, that the ear requires more from blank verse than from rhyming measure, because in the latter the rhyme itself satisfies the ear to some extent, while in the former the cadence of the whole verse makes the music. Dryden: "M. What great occasion called you hence to Rome? T. Freedom, which came at length, though slow to come. Nor did my search of liberty begin Till my black hairs were changed upon my skin : Nor Amaryllis would vouchsafe a look, Till Galatea's meaner bonds I broke." This runs better; but the inertem of Virgil is not expressed, and the two last lines deviate from the original. Beattie: "M. And why to visit Rome was you inclined? |