Temples of other Deities. Had he understood the spirit of the passage, and known that as blood was never shed upon the altar of the Paphian goddess, its peculiar ornaments were garlands of flowers, he might have spared himself the pains of endeavouring to improve upon Virgil. Dryden has sometimes taken the liberty of substituting one image for another in his Translation of Virgil, but with singular propriety and spirit. Take for instance the beautiful apostrophe to Nisus and Euryalus: O happy friends! for if my verse can give "Dryden saw that closeness best preserved an Author's sense, and that freedom best exhibited his spirit. He therefore will deserve the highest praise, who can give a representation at once faithful and pleasing, who can convey the same thoughts with the same graces, and who, when he translates, changes nothing but the language." Johnson's Idler, No. 69. But after all, may we not apply to translations, the remark made by Philip of Macedon to a person who prided himself upon imitating the notes of the nightingale? I prefer the nightingale herself. The defects and difficulties of the translator are increased by the inferiority of his language. The classics are characterised by a native elegance and dignity of thought, a peculiar precision of style, a copious * " Fortunati ambo, si quid mea carmina possint! flow of period, and a regular construction of sentence: in addition to which their poetical works are adorned with the harmony of numbers, and the various beauties of metrical versification. The modern languages possess some of these beauties in an inferior degree, and of others they are totally destitute. If therefore the flowers of eloquence and poetry, which bloom in the fields of Cicero and Virgil, be transplanted into a less genial soil, and a colder climate, their vigour declines, and they lose the brightness of their colours, and the richness of their fragrance. The fragments of the annals of the pontiffs, and the laws of the Twelve tables, are sufficient to prove the rude and imperfect state of the Latin language, during the early times of the republic. Two of the first historians of Rome composed their works in Greek: and even Brutus the contemporary of Cicero, wrote his epistles in the same language.. That great orator wrote a Greek commentary on his own consulship; and his friend Atticus produced a similar work upon the same subject. The Latin was not only for a considerable time an unpolished, but a defective language. Its poverty of expression was a subject of complaint, as soon as it began to be regularly studied. Cicero and Lucretius were sensible of the want of terms adapted to Philosophical topics. Even the names of physics, dialectics, and rhetoric, were unknown before the former of these authors introduced them into his works; and the latter laments that his native tongue was not calculated to communicate, with adequate strength and copiousness of expression, the wonders and the beauties of Grecian philosophy. Its defects were not so great, when aplied to subjects more congenial to the manners of the Romans. From their constant occupations in domes tic and foreign wars for many centuries, their language took a deep and peculiar tincture, and the marks of it were evident from many modes of expression. Virtus, for instance, denotes virtue as well as courage; Exercitus, which signifies an army, conveys likewise in its original import the idea of any kind of corporeal exercise; Imperator originally appropriated to a general, was afterwards applied to the supreme civil magistrate of the empire; and the term Hostis, which was employed in contradistinction to a native of Rome, in its primary meaning denoted a stranger. Cicero de Officiis, lib. i, c. 12. The Roman gentlemen were denominated Equitea, which had a reference to the military service performed on horseback by persons of their quality, in the early ages of the commonwealth, when a soldier and a citizen were the same. I. Latin Classics. It might naturally enough be supposed, on comparing the comedies of Plautus with those of Terence, and the Poems of Lucretius with Virgil, that they had lived at the distance of several centuries from each other: and yet they were in reality separated by no long interval of time. Plautus flourished about thirty years before Terence, and Virgil about fifty after Lucretius. The rapid progress of the Latin tongue to perfection will appear less extraordinary, when we remark the labour bestowed upon its cultivation by persons as eminent for their taste and learning, as for their rank and talents. Scipio Africanus was the assistant of Terence in his comic productions; and Cicero and Cæsar promoted the improvement and refine 1 ment of their language, not only by examples of correctness in their inimitable writings, but by composing treatises of grammar. All the Latin authors, who were remarkable for purity and elegance of diction, flourished within the space of a century and a half, viz. from the time of Scipio Africanus to the death of Augustus, During that auspicious period, it was evident with what great success the Roman language could be adapted to every species of composition. The prose writer expanded his ideas in flowing periods, or condensed them into concise sentences. The poet adapted the various kinds of metre to the melodious notes of the lyre, or, aided by the fancied inspiration of the epic muse, poured forth the more regular numbers of heroic song. The purest, and as it is sometimes called the golden age of Latin composition, commenced with Terence, who introduced the characters of his elegant comedies, conversing in terse and perspicuous language. LUCRETIUS gave to the Epicurean philosophy the wild but captivating charms of a vigorous fancy, and nervous expression. His versification is sometimes rough and unpolished, and sometimes rises into so much grace and smoothness as to resemble the hexameters of Virgil. The Mantuan shepherds were soon after instructed by that most eminent of Latin poets to converse in refined dialogues. His Georgics received the highest polish of diction, and his Epic Muse astonished her hearers by correctness of composition, and harmony of song. Whenever Virgil indulges the genuine feelings of nature, and describes the effects of the tender passions, he is peculiarly delicate, captivating, and pathetic; but he seldom ascends to sublimity of thought, without having the great father of Grecian poetry in view. Cicero, the pride of Rome, and a model of true eloquence, adapted his style to every species of prose composition: in his letters he was easy and familiar; upon subjects of philosophy and eloquence he enriched the diction, while he enlightened the minds of his countrymen; in the character of a public speaker, he gave beauty, pathos, and energy, to his native language; he adorned it with the brightest ornaments, and infused into it the united powers of extensive learning and eminent talents. His copious and exuberant style resembles the large and flowing garments, that were thrown by the sculptor over the statues of the gods, and which, far from pressing and confining their bodies, gave free exercise to their limbs, and superior gracefulness to their motion. Cornelius Nepos, the friend of Cicero, has shown his congenial taste by the easy and unaffected style, in which he has recorded the lives of eminent persons of his own country and of Greece. The Commentaries of Cæsar are valuable no less for accuracy and liveliness of narrative, than for the purest simplicity of diction. Horace suited the colours of his composition to the nature of his subjects: in his Epistles and Satires he is humorous without coarseness, and censorious without asperity; and in his Odes he is concise, splendid, and majestic.* The easy and licentious Ovid, the terse Catullus, the plaintive Tibullus, poured forth their poetical effusions in a full and clear stream of description. Phædrus, by his neat and expressive versification of the Fables of Æsop, proved that Iambic measure was suited to the genius of the Latin tongue. |