From this to that, from that to this he flies, I have (as I think I formerly told you) a very good opinion of Mr. Rowe's ixth book of Lucan: indeed * he amplifies too much, as well as Breboeuf, the fa mous French imitator. If I remember right, he fometimes takes the whole comment into the text of the verfion, as particularly in line 808. Utque folet pariter totis fe effundere fignis Corycii preffura croci.-And in the place you quote, he makes of those two lines in the Latin, Vidit * Rowe's tranflation of Lucan has certainly never met with the popularity and applause it deferved. It is one of the few translations that is better than its original. I venture to say the fame of three more tranflations; namely, of Hampton's Polybius; of Pitt's Vida; and of Melmoth's Pliny. Brebeuf, fays VigneulMarville, was Lucano Lucanior. Horace was the favourite of Brebœuf in his youth, as was Lucan of his friend M. Gautier. They difputed fo frequently and fo warmly on the preference due to each of their favourites, that they agreed to give these authors a very attentive reading. The confequence was, they became mutual converts; Brebœuf became intoxicated with the love of Lucan, and Gautier of Horace. Melanges, v. i. p. 25. Thefe Melanges are, I perceive, become of late a popular book. Dr. Campbell, above fifty years ago, was the perfon who I remember first recommended them to me, and occafioned me to give feveral quotations from them. They have more learning than the Menagiana, or indeed than any of the numerous Ana, so much at prefent in vogue. Bayle was fond of them, frequently quotes them in his Dictionary, and in his Letters, 1699; where he was the first who informs us of the real name of the author, Dom. Bonaventure d'Argonne, Prior of the Carthufians of Gaillon. WARTON. Vidit quanta fub nocte jaceret no less than eight in English. What you obferve, fure, cannot be an Error-Sphæricus, ftrictly speaking, either according to the Ptolemaic, or our Copernican fyftem; Tycho Brahe himfelf will be on the tranflator's fide. For Mr. Rowe here fays no more, than that he looked down on the rays of the fun, which Pompey might do, even though the body of the fun were above him, You can't but have remarked what a journey Lucan here makes Cato take for the fake of his fine descriptions. From Cyrene he travels by land, for no better reason than this; Hæc eadem fuadebat hiems, quæ clauferat æquor. The winter's effects on the fea, it feems, were more to be dreaded than all the ferpents, whirlwinds, fands, etc. by land, which immediately after he paints out in his fpeech to the foldiers: then he fetches a compass a vast way round about, to the Nafamones and Jupiter Ammon's temple*, purely to ridicule the oracles : * The fituation of this celebrated temple, fo long unknown, has at last been discovered, under the aufpices of the African Society. From the peculiar circumftance of the warm and cold fpring, (i. e. cold in the day, and warm at night,) which is described by Herodotus and Curtius; from the trees, and magnificent ruins, near the spot where the "fons folis," and "Templum Ammonis," are marked in the ancient maps, there appears little doubt, but that this celebrated temple was fituated (according to the conjectures of Horneman) in the Oafis of Siwah, amid the defert, north-weft of Cairo. oracles and Labienus must pardon me, if I do not believe him when he fays-fors obtulit, et fortuna viæ— either Labienus, or the map, is very much mistaken here. Thence he returns back to the Syrtes (which he might have taken first in his way to Utica) and fo to Leptis Minor, where our author leaves him; who seems to have made Cato speak his own mind, when he tells his army-Ire fat eft-no matter whither. I am Your, etc. LETTER XXIII. FROM MR. CROMWELL. Nov. 20, 1710. THE HE fyftem of Tycho Brahe (were it true, as it is novel) could have no room here: Lucan, with the rest of the Latin poets, feems to follow Plato; whose order of the spheres is clear in Cicero, De natura Deorum, De fomnio Scipionis, and in Macrobius. The feat of the Semidei manes is Platonic too, for Apuleius De deo Socratis affigns the fame to the Genii, viz. the region of the Air for their intercourfe with gods and men; fo that, I fancy, Rowe miftook the fituation, and I can't be reconciled to Look down on the fun's rays. I am glad you agree with me about the latitude he takes; and wifh you had told me, if the fortilegi, and fatidici, could license his invective VOL. VII, L against against priests; but, I suppose, you think them (with Helena) undeferving of your protection. I agree with you in Lucan's errors, and the cause of them, his poetic defcriptions; for the Romans then knew the coast of Africa from Cyrene (to the fouth-east of which lies Ammon toward Egypt) to Leptis and Utica : but, pray, remember how your Homer nodded, while Ulyffes flept, and waking knew not where he was, in the short paffage from Corcyra to Ithaca. I like Trapp's versions * for their justness; his Pfalm is excellent, the prodigies in the firft Georgic judicious (whence I conclude that 'tis easier to turn Virgil justly in blank verse, than rhyme). The eclogue of Gallus, and fable of Phaëton, pretty well; but he is very faulty in his numbers; the fate of Phaeton might run thus, The blafted Phaeton with blazing hair, } * Of all the parts of Trapp's tranflation of Virgil, that of his Georgics is moft blameable and profaic. The Author of the Prelections loft himself much in this tranflation of Virgil; yet many of his notes fhew that he understood and felt his author: and his Prelections may be read with advantage by young scholars. His Latin tranflation of Milton was a woful performance. WARTON. The diftich on Trapp is well known: LETTER XXIV. Nov. 24, 1710. про To make use of that freedom and familiarity of ftyle, which we have taken up in our correfpondence, and which is more properly talking upon paper, than writing; I will tell you without any preface, That I never took Tycho Brahe for one of the ancients, or in the least an acquaintance of Lucan's; nay, 'tis a mercy on this occafion that I do not give you an account of his life and converfation; as how he lived fome years like an inchanted knight in a certain island, with a tale of a King of Denmark's miftress that shall be nameless-But I have compaffion on you, and would not for the world you should stay any longer among the Genii and Semidei Manes, you know where; for if once you get fo near the moon, Sappho will want your prefence in the clouds and inferior regions; not to mention the great loss Drurylane will sustain, when Mr. C is in the milkyway. Thefe celeftial thoughts put me in mind of the priests you mention, who are a fort of fortilegi in one sense, because in their lottery there are more blanks than prizes; the adventurers being at first in an uncertainty, * * Mrs. Thomas, of whom the reader will fee a more particular account in the Appendix to this Volume. |