6 in It is clear that while the translator was turning to Goldsmith's Hermit for herbs and water from the spring, he totally overlooked the sense of his author. The note on this passage is a master-piece of absurdity. Here is another allusion to the despicable conduct of some of the Roman entertainments, (serving up different dishes to the hosts and the guests,) which must have been very gross deed,' &c. Not a word of sense in all this. You shall prove, Persicus, to-day, (Juvenal says,) whether I merely advance these maxims in a rhetorical flourish, or regulate my life and actions by them; whether an epicure in heart, I declaim in praise of pulse, and while I call aloud, so that others may hear me, for coarse pottage, whisper in the ear of my boy, let it be pastry.' Idem habitus cunctis, tonsi, rectique capilli Atque hodie tantum propter convivia pexi. This pleasing description of the rustic neatness of the poet's boys, in compliment to his expected guest, with other characteristic features of this beautiful domestic scene, are wholly omitted by Dr. Badham, who yet is not ashamed to boast of the strict interpretation which has enabled him to reduce the exuberance of all the former translators! Juvenal observes that the son, trained to the love of gain by an avaricious father, will be impatient for his death. Even now, says the translator of whom Dr. Badham knows nothing, Your stag-like age procrastinates his joy." This, the Doctor turns, as usual, As to the Thy stag like age alone obstructs his joy ;' and he adds this pertinent note out of his own stock. cervina senectus, the longevity of the animal there alluded to is well known, it is said to live forty years, and its age is therefore mentioned relatively.'—p. 377. Relatively, to what? A father of forty years old does not seem so very severe a tax upon the patience of a son-but the truth is, that the stag was said to live many hundred years; and it is to this that the text alludes, as any one but the translator must have discovered. ' Calpe despis'd, they'll hear the sun-beams cool, And hiss extinguish'd in th' Herculean pool.'-p. 380. Dr. Badham seems to take a pleasure in nonsense, for he goes out of his way to pick it up. The sun-beams, it is to be presumed, might be heard to cool' in one place as well as in another; but the car of day could only be heard in the western ocean, where its burning axle plunged in the waves. But we need not proceed.-Enough, perhaps, has been produced to convince the translator that if, as he says, he was urged to t this undertaking by the faults of his predecessors, he has not quite obviated their lamented deficiencies; and that another version in aid of his own, though a burdensome, will not be altogether a superflous offering to the public. Yet is not Dr. Badham's work without merit. Though we miss the declamatory grandeur, the powerful invective, the caustic wit of the original, yet we sometimes find a pleasing flow of what is called the middle style. The conclusion of the third satire is well done. 'Hark how each anvil rings, each furnace glows, To these, my friend, more reasons could I join- (If they disdain not,) I will gladly bear What part I may, in country shoes I'll come, Tread your bleak lands, and share your friendly home.'-p. 79. That of the fourth is still better. O that such trifles, frivolous and vain, Had fill'd each hour of that detested reign! When, of her noblest citizens depriv❜d, Rome daily mourn'd—and yet the wretch surviv'd, And no avenger rose; but when the low And base-born RABBLE came to fear the blow, And COBBLERS TREMBLED then, to rise no more, He fell still reeking with the Lamian gore.'-pp. 100, 101. The spirited and generous counsel which Juvenal gives to the young nobleman about to assume the government of a province, loses little in the translator's hands, with the exception of what appears to us a strange misapprehension in the last couplet. If of companions pure a chosen band, Nor meditate with harpy claws to spring From any book thou would'st, whatever Name: A torch like splendour round thy guilty head. Whene'er high station holds it up to view.'-p. 229. In the passage which follows, the translator had to contend with Dryden, and he has well sustained the contest. 'What then, does life supply no object, none; These boons he seeks with pray'rs that never cease; Yet, that thou mayʼst not want a ready prayer, 'Gainst which life's various cares in vain conspire Thy place in Heaven, O Fortune! we bestow, Divine we call thee; and WE MAKE THEE so!'-p. 293. The following lines from the thirteenth satire, though occasionally somewhat abrupt and involved, have much merit. "Shall fraud then flourish, from all terrors free, Suppose him therefore dragg'd in ponderous chain, For who like women, wrong with wrong requite, Or who in base revenge so much delight ?'-pp. 349, 350. The restless anxiety and torment of a guilty conscience have never been described with more alarming effect than by Juvenal; yet even here the translator, notwithstanding the unpromising commencement of the quotation, proves himself not unworthy of his author. And we cheerfully leave him in our readers' hands with the favourable impression. 'For he the Sin that meditates alone, At night, if care permit a brieť repose, Nor longer o'er the couch his limbs he throws, These, these be they whom coward terrors try, They deem without an aim no thunders roll'd. Full charg'd with wrath, with Heaven's high vengeance fraught. And greater dread the suture storm they fear. Or sharp pleuritic pains their rest prevent, They deen that every god his bow has bent! That pains and aches are stones and arrows hurl'd At bold offenders in this nether world! Or crested cock, when languid on the bed They dare not vow, nor bleating quadruped, For what can sickness hope, with sin conjoin'd, Or than itself what viler victim find?-rp. 352-354. Of the notes, which, though voluminous, are confessedly a hasty compilation, formed since the appearance of the 'Specimen, we have only to say, that we could wish to have found in them less flippancy and more instruction: they are not often tedious, however, and, where they treat of physic and physicians, (topics congenial with the author's pursuits) are sometimes amusing. In conclusion, we wish to offer Dr. Badham a word of advice. He will always find us determined to bear up against bad faith, though we may submit to rudeness and calumny. When next therefore he profits by our strictures, let him-not confess the obligation, for this is not the fashion, but-forbear to rail at us for giving it, in the hopeless attempt to irritate the public against us for a judgment which we never passed upon a work which we never saw! Had the translator accounted in a few words for his surprising change of opinion, had he even briefly hinted that the Translation differed from the 'Specimen,' we should have been among the foremost to welcome his candour, and applaud his integrity, had he gone a step further, and fairly criticised his predecessors by name, instead of scornfully confounding them in an obscure but general censure, though we certainly should still have pointed out his mistakes, we might have done it with increased reluctance, while his merits would have been contemplated by us with added pleasure. |