Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

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,

[ocr errors]

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,
With forging chains; almost we might suppose
That iron would be wanting for the share,
And hooks become, and spades, and mattocks rare!
Hail, golden times of kings and tribunes, hail!
When Rome possess'd a solitary jail.

To these, my friend, more reasons could I join-
But, hold! I mark long since the sun's decline-
The cattle wait―th' impatient driver, see!
Points to the road, and only stays for me:
Farewell! forget me not; when sore opprest,
Aquinum soothes once more thy anxious breast;
The much lov'd shores of Cuma I'll resign,
At his own Ceres and Diana's shrine,
To greet my friend, and in his Satires there

(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,
Assembled in thy halls around thee stand,
If thy tribunal's favours ne'er were sold
By slaves and catamites for damning gold--
If thy chaste spouse from stain of avarice free,
Mark not her progress by rapacity;

Nor meditate with harpy claws to spring
On all the bribes which towns and cities bring;
Then, thy descent from Picus proudly trace,
Take for thy ancestors the Titan race,
And at the head of all, Prometheus place;
And be it still thy privilege to claim

From any book thou would'st, whatever Name:
But, if Corruption drag thee in her train,
If blood of Rome's allies for ever stain
Thy lictor's broken scourge, or if the sight
Of the dull axe, and wearied arm delight,
Then shall each Sire's refulgent honours shed

A torch like splendour round thy guilty head.
For not a vice but takes a darker hue,

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;
Is there No good to ask, No ill to shun?
Nay, but do thou permit the Gods to choose,
What it is meet to grant, and what resuse,
Giving whate'er is good, they oft deny
What only seems so, to our erring eye;
Dear to himself is man, but far more dear
To them who mark how passion wins his ear,
A wife, an home, and sweet domestic peace;

These boons he seeks with pray'rs that never cease;
They, to whose altars and whose shrines he runs,
Discern the future wife, the future sons!

Yet, that thou mayʼst not want a ready prayer,
When the slain victim tells, thy pious care,
Ask, that to health of body may be join'd,
That equal blessing, SANITY OF MIND :

'Gainst which life's various cares in vain conspire
And strange alike to anger and desire ;
Which views the close of life from terrors free,
As a kind boon, Nature! bestowed by thee :
Which would the soft Assyrian's down resign,
All his voluptuous nights, and all his wine,
For brave and noble darings! Mortal, learn,
The boon of bliss thyself alone canst earn;
To tranquil life one only path invites,
Where Virtue leads her pilgrim and requites;
No more a Goddess, were thy votaries wise,
Whose fond delusion lifts thee to the skies,

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,
No rods for him, and no redress for me?"

Suppose him therefore dragg'd in ponderous chain,
Or, (what would vengeance more ?) suppose him slain-
Yet shall not the revenge for which you long,
Refund the loss or recompense the wrong.
"O, but revenge, than life I value more !"—
Of minds untaught the most pernicious lore!
Of bosoms where occasions none or slight
The fiercest flames of causeless anger light-
Not thus Chrysippus-nor the spirit mild
Of Thales-gentle Nature's meekest child!
Not thus the sage who near Hymettus dwelt ;
Rever'd old man! not such the joys he felt!
Thro' his own veins the draught so soon to flow,
He would not have divided with his foe
'Midst those injurious bonds!—our passions all
Before the genuine voice of wisdom fall,
And minds of mean and narrow scope alone
To vengeance and its paltry joys are prone.

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,
Its guilt incurs-ah, what if it be done!
Farewell, a long farewell he bids to peace,
His soul's alarms shall never, never cease:
With feverish mouth, with tongue for ever dry,
To gulp the joyless, tasteless meat he'll try;
Large and more large it swells, and now he sips,
Then casts the wine untasted from his lips:
The precious age of Alba's richest store
Seems void of flavour and can please no more.
His brow to wrinkles drawn, which scarce the juice
Of harsh Falernum's vintage might produce.

At night, if care permit a brieť repose,

Nor longer o'er the couch his limbs he throws,
Forthwith the altar and th' insulted fane,
And (what inflicts more aggravated pain)
While copious sweats betray the secret storm,
Before his eye still flits thy angry form!
Greater than human, stalks his bed around,
And rends anew the never-closing wound.

These, these be they whom coward terrors try,
With every cloud that growls along the sky.
Pale at each flash, and half extinct with dread,
When the dark volume bellows o'er their head;
No storm as Nature's casualty they hold,

They deem without an aim no thunders roll'd.
Where'er the lightning strikes, the flash is thought

Full charg'd with wrath, with Heaven's high vengeance fraught.
Passes this by, with yet more anxious ear

And greater dread the suture storm they fear.
Its burning vigil, deadliest foe to sleep,
In their distemper'd frame if fever keep,

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.

« AnteriorContinuar »