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History of New-England, by Hannah Adams. Boston; Hastings, Etheridge. and Bliss. 12mo. Price 75 cents. IN PRESS. Hastings, Etheridge and Bliss will soon complete Rollin's Ancient History, in 8 volumes 8vo. The work will be illustrated with a number of valuable maps, and other engravings. Price $2 25 cents per vol. Also....An edition of the Complete Letter Writer. Watts' Psalms and Hymns, on a new type and fine wove paper, in miniature. Also, a common edition of the same work. Miscellaneous Classicks; to comprise the Works of Pope, Swift, Smollet, Addison, Goldsmith, Johnson, Sterne, and Fielding; in 60 vols. 12mo. Hastings, Etheridge and Bliss have in press, An Essay on the History of Civil Society, in 8vo. By Adam Ferguson, L. L. D. Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. WORKS PROPOSED. Farrand, Mallory and Co. have in the press, Letters to the Rev. Thomas Belsham, on some important subjects of Theological Discussion, referred to in his Discourse on the occasion of the death of Dr. Priestly. By John Pye Smith, D. D. Also....A Religious Conference, in four Dialogues, between Lorenzo and Evander. To which is added, Leslie's Short Method with the Deists. Price 75 cents bound. Samuel T. Armstrong proposes to publish, by subscription, A Treatise on Self Knowledge. By the Rev. John Mason. 12mo. about 216 pp. Price 60 cents. Thomas B. Wait and Co. propose to publish, by subscription, a new edition of the Federalist; together with Col. Hamilton's Speculations and Arguments under the name of Pacificus; as also, his Essays, signed Camillus. Price to subscribers $2 per vol. Manning and Loring, and Lemuel Blake, propose to publish, by subscription, the Psalm and Hymn Tunes sung at the Chapel of the Lock Hospital. pp. about 200 royal 4to. Price to subscribers $2 50 cents. Hastings, Etheridge and Bliss, propose publishing Perry's Dictionary, on a new and elegant type, cast expressly for the purpose, in a neat pocket volume. FOR MARCH, 1809. REMARKS ON ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE ROMAN POETS. No. 3. IT was not until some time in the seventeenth century, that Virgil was disgraced by an entire English version. Ogilby was the offender. But, as his performance has never been commended, and is now almost unknown, I shall not waste time in animadverting on the work, nor attempt to disturb that repose, which it has enjoyed almost from birth. If Ogilby had been bred a scholar instead of a dancing master, and had become a student at Cambridge before he received the trust of deputy manager of the Irish revels, he would have grown wise enough to refrain from a task, which he has accomplished so infamously. No poet would then have had occasion to call on Dryden in defence of Homer, "To right his injur'd works, and set them free Nor would the admirers of Virgil have been excited to indignation by the efforts of this bungling interpreter. To adopt the language of one of Dryden's panegyrists, it was Virgil's fate, "To lye at every dull translator's will; Long, long his muse has groan'd beneath the weight From the gross injustice toward the Mantuan bard, which has been adverted to, we turn with pleasure and relief to the successful labours of Dryden. His reputation, not only as an original poet, but as a translator also, was well established before he promised his poetick version of Virgil. Publick expectation was highly raised. It was not suffered to fall, because Dryden made no needless delay; it was not ultimately disappointed with his version, because no one could have expected a better. Dryden early discovered a poetick taste; but his first attempts at versification exhibited more genius than poetry, odd conceits without attention to harmonious numbers, and uncommon originality without sufficient adherence to metrical rules. He improved by experience, but not by carefulness. He had an impetuosity which he seems never to have resisted, and an ardour which he never studied to abate. Impetuosity is commonly checked by age, and age is not often chargeable with unreasonable heat. Dryden began his T translation after he had entered his sixty fourth year. He suffered more than the usual infirmities attendant on that period of life; and had lost much of his relish for poetry, whether pastoral, georgick, or heroick. To these circumstances we are probably indebted for a greater fidelity to his author, than he would otherwise have exhibited. An imagination so transcendent, and a vehemence so uncommon would, in the vigour of youth, have betrayed him into a negligent departure from the rules of translation. He has not wholly escaped this censure; and, under the pretext of greater strictness to the meaning of Virgil, the world was afterward taxed with a dull performance of a servile interpreter.* It was Dryden's opinion of a just translation, that it "is not so loose as paraphrase, nor so close as metaphrase.' Of his too strict verbal adherence to the original, it would be difficult to find instances: it is a fault of which he was never suspected. But that he is often paraphrastick, they who will compare him with his author, may readily perceive. I will give only one example, taken from the ninth eclogue. "Here, where the lab'rer's hands have form'd a bower Of wreathing trees." Dryd. Past. ix. l. 84. "Have form'd a bower This may convey the meaning of Virgil; but it approaches very near to commentary, and is not happily expressed. Why Dryden represented Lycidas, entreating Moeris to "waste an hour in singing," it is difficult to conceive. Virgil's Lycidas was not guilty of this incivility. "Hic, Moeri, canamus" can never mean "in singing waste an hour;" and we should hardly have expected this censure upon musick from the author of "Alexander's feast." "Rest here thy weary limbs." This is doubtless to help out the line, for we find nothing answering to it in Virgil. "And that thou may'st not be too late abroad." Lycidas does not assign this reason for offering to take the burden of Moeris; and it would have been more poetical in Dryden, and |