But Providence, in pity to mankind,

With a few frailties fill'd the wand'ring mind; a

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A vain conceit, that nothing scarce can hide, V
And even love, but fecond to their pride;

A knowledge she in ev'ry fcience gains
Without attention, labour, care, or pains;
A mind fo quick, it ev'ry thing difcerns,
And yet fo lively, that it nothing learns ;
Fix'd in opinion, no perfuafion moves,
Not ev'n fweet rhet'ric from the man fhe loves;
To all that's new with raptures yet they fly,
And in perpetual hurry find their joy;
'To truth or error ignorant, they range,
And float and vary, as the weathers change;
Now, moy'd by charity, the tender maid,
Like pitying angels, feeks misfortune's fhade,
With heavenly feeling heals the orphan's care,
The poor in anguifh, and the widow's tear;
Now, wild refentment spreads the loud alarms,
And each sweet paffion rouzes up in arms';
By frantic madness and defpair possest,
The fury rules in all the beauteous breaft.
Their paffions are fo exquifitely wrought,
That none can judgment bear, but few a thought:
So the wild harp its airy found conveys,
In fofter melody, or ruder lays,
Untouch'd, unguided by the mafter's hand,
It moves by hazard, at the wind's command,
'Tis chance directs the inftrument to speak,
To figh in breezes, or in thunders break."

To the EDITOR of the St. JAMES's MAGAZINE. SIR,

AR

S the gentleman, who favoured us in your last number with a specimen of a proposed tranflation of Plautus, defired to receive the free remarks of others

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upon it, I thereforefore need to make no apology for thus communicating my fentiments without referve. I muft confefs then, that I have fome objections in regard to the propriety of the many tranflations from the antients, which are now multiplied in every nation, and of thofe from works of humour more efpecially: For, let us only confider to whofe entertainment they are deftined. I know of but three fets of men interefted in them either the learner of the Latin tongue, to whom a literal tranflation may poffibly be affifting; but he is no way concerned in the prefent cafe: or elfe the profeffed Latin fcholar, and to him, let a free tranflation be ever fo well executed, it will be more acceptable to read the original: Or elfe, in the laft place, the mere English reader, under which rank I include thofe who have brought a little Latin from school, but not fufficient to enable them to read an antient author, otherwife than as a fchool-boy. It is the English reader, then, for whofe ufe free tranflations must be chiefly calculated. But, in fact, how little is the entertainment which English readers ever do receive from any tranflations, at all, excepting thofe of the hiftorical kind? I have moft of our beft tranflations into the hands of put fenfible English readers, and never could perceive that they expreffed any other fatisfaction, than what was fqueezed out from their refpect to better authority; and this, not only in the lighter works of humour, but alfo in more grave and fevere fubjects. That fame perfon, who has always felt proper emotion at the interefting parts of English odes or tragedies, has as conftantly yawned in reading an English Pindar, or Sophocles; fo that after a great deal of pains beftowed upon fuch works, they really give fatisfaction to nobody. Shall we attribute this to the want of genius in antient authors? It can never be reafonably imputed to fuch a caufe, nor perhaps to the imperfections of the tranilations either. The true caufe of this, as it feems

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to me, is the continual allufion there is in fuch works to the peculiar cuftoms of antiquity, of which an English reader being ignorant, it is therefore impoffible that he can relish what he cannot even understand ; and although little explanatory notes fhould be added, yet they will give but little more spirit to the text, than the name of the perfon painted, fubfcribed to a bad por trait of him. When one is obliged to have continual recourfe to notes, in order to difcern the beauty of the , text, it becomes as tedious an occupation, as for a man to search for a miftrefs by the directions of Hogarth's Line of beauty. Now a confirmation that this is the true caufe why tranflations give fo little fatisfaction, arifes from what is continually obfervable upon our own ftage, as well as on that of the French for we fee, that when a play is formed on a modern ftory, and confequently has the plan of its manners laid in modern times, although it be otherwife inferior in moft refpects, yet it gives more pleasure to the audience, than when the fable is taken from antient hiftory, and the manners of courfe adapted to antiquity. The poet, indeed, who is verfed in Roman manners, can eafily accommodate his own ideas and expreffions thereto; but the fpectator cannot fo eafily transform himself into a Roman fpectator, and therefore goes away unaffected. I have therefore often wondered, that dramatic writers fhould still continue to take any of their fables from Roman or Grecian ftory. Shakespeare is not a little indebted for his fuccefs, to his choice of modern ftories; and Metaftatio's genius would have appeared to better advantage, if he had not purfued the oppofite practice. The Cid of Corneille is ftill to this day read by the mere Frenchman, with more applaufe than any of his other pieces, and for the fame reafon, because he represents the manners of modern times. But even if a spectator fhould be converfant with antient cuftoms, yet to lay afide his own manners, to which he is

habituated, in order to adopt fuch as are foreign to him, this is a painful task; for the vivacity of the mind is difgufted to have obstacles laid in its way, That commendable quality of pleasantnefs, termed by the Antients, dos, dulcis, or jocundus, may, I think, be applied to the manners, as well as to the fentiments and diction. An unpleafant effect is produced in the diction, by too bold and far-fetched metaphors, by unmeaning epithets ftrung together, and by a difficul conftruction of period. In the fentiments, an unpleasant effect is produced, when they are more loftily virtuous, or more horridly vicious, than fuch as ever arife in the fpectator's own breaft, or are of fo delicate and refin'd a caft, as to escape the perception of the common race of men. So alfo in the manners, the fame unpleasant effect must be produced, whenever they are remote from common apprehenfion, and foreign to what one has ever feen or heard of. But in any of these three cafes, they will become pleafant, when they fit eafy upon us for then we enter immediately, and without the pain of thinking, into the spirit of what is faid, which of confequence infinuates itself into our hearts, and leads us along with a pleafing attention and fym pathy..

A fecond confirmation, that it is the foreign manners fubfifting in tranfactions of antient authors, which makes them be fo little relished by. English readers, arifes from this, that thofe very paflages, which produce no pleafing effect, when tranflated, yet will have often good fuccefs, when imitated; for inftance, Boileau's and Pope's imitations of Horace, and thofe of feveral odes by other hands. I may add alfo that of his eighth epiftle, in your laft number. In dramatic writings too, Moliere has often with fuccefs imitated the antient dramata, as in his Avare, the feventh fcene of the fourth act, and the third fcene of the fifth act, are copied from Plautus's Aulutaria: he even made the farcical quibbles of the double Sofia, in his Amphitrion, fo agreeable to

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a French audience, that Bayle speaks of it, as if, in his time, it had been efteemed one of his beft plays; altho one cannot but think it the most difficult of all Plautus's plays to adopt to a modern audience; and tho' it is fuch a motely piece, as to be neither a tranflation, nor yet imitation.

From thefe confiderations, I conclude, that whoever would make the works of the antients read like originals, or even become interefting to English readers, must not think it fufficient to tranflate the Roman tongue into English; but muft go further, and tranflate their cuftoms too into English, by laying the plot in our own times, and substituting similar manners of ours in place of theirs: for, as the form of man remains the fame from age to age, fo alfo do the vices of his mind; and tho', in process of time, they may be differently modified in fome fmall circumftances, yet an agreeable redicule upon them in one age, may, after due trimming, be very pleasantly applied to their correction in another. For example, that agreeable fatire in the Braggart Captain, upon the continual felfish importunity of women to their husbands, lofes all its effect on an English reader, fo long as thofe inftances of female coaxing in a morning relate only to a flave to cram the fowls, or for fomething to give to her mother upon the Kalends, or to the inchantrefs and foothfayer on. the Quinquatrice; but when fuch infinuating careffes tend to procure a foot-boy, or a New-year's gift, or fomething handfome to give to fervants, or to the wetnurse, or methodist preacher, there is no married manwhatever-but would enter directly into the spirit of fuch requests. It may indeed be fuppofed, that it is eafy for any reader to substitute, in his own mind, fuch modern cuftoms in place of the antients, but this feems to be mere fuppofition; for men's wits are not, in general, fo ready, as may be imagined; those who have never been initiated into any other language or cuftoms than