Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

dead colouring of the whole. In general I will only fay, that I have written nothing which favours of immorality or profanenefs; at least, I am not confcious to myself of any fuch intention. If there happen to be found an irreverent expreffion, or a thought too wanton, they are crept into my verses through my inadvertency; if the fearchers find any in the cargo, let them be staved or forfeited, like contraband goods; at least, let their authors be anfwerable for them, as being but imported merchandise, and not of my own manufacture. On the other fide, I have endeavoured to choose fuch fables, both ancient and modern, as contain in each of them fome inftructive moral, which I could prove by induction, but the way is tedious; and they leap foremost into fight, without the reader's trouble of looking after them. I wish I could affirm with a safe confcience, that 1 had taken the fame care in all my former writings; for it must be owned, that fuppofing verfes are never fo beautiful or pleafing, yet if they contain any thing which fhocks religion, or good-manners, they are at beft, what Horace fays of good numbers without good fenfe, "Verfus inopes rerum, nugæque 66 canora." Thus far, I hope, I am right in court, without renouncing my other right of felf-defence, where I have been wrongfully accused, and my sense wire-drawn into blafphemy or bawdry, as it has often been by a religious lawyer, in a late pleading against the ftage; in which he mixes truth with falfehood, and has not forgotten the old rule of calumniating ftrongly, that fomething may remain.

I refume

I resume the thread of my difcourfe with the first of my tranflation, which was the first Iliad of Homer. If it shall please God to give me longer life, and moderate health, my intentions are to tranflate the whole Ilias; provided still that I meet with thofe encouragements from the public, which may enable me to proceed in my undertaking with fome chearfulness. And this I dare affure the world before-hand, that I have found, by trial, Homer a more pleafing tafk than Virgil (though I say not the translation will be less laborious); for the Grecian is more according to my genius, than the Latin poet. In the works of the two authors we may read their manners, and natural inclinations, which are wholly different. Virgil was of a quiet, fedate temper; Homer was violent, impetuous, and full of fire. The chief talent of Virgil was propriety of thoughts, and ornament of words: Homer was rapid in his thoughts, and took all the liberties, both of numbers and of expreffions, which his language, and the age in which he lived, allowed him: Homer's invention was more copious, Virgil's more confined fo that if Homer had not led the way, it was not in Virgil to have begun heroic poetry: for nothing can be more evident, than that the Roman poem is but the second part of the Ilias; a continuation of the fame story: and the persons already formed: the manners of Æneas are thofe of Hector fuperadded to thofe which Homer gave him. The Adventures of Ulyffes in the Odyffeis are imitated in the firft Six Books of Virgil's Æneis: and though the accidents are not the fame (which would

C 2

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

would have argued him of a fervile copying, and total 'barrenness of invention) yet the feas were the fame, in which both the heroes wandered; and Dido cannot be denied to be the poetical daughter of Calypfo. The fix latter books of Virgil's poem are the four and twenty Iliads contracted a quarrel occafioned by a lady, a fingle combat, battles fought, and a town befieged. I fay not this in derogation to Virgil, neither do I contradict any thing which I have formerly faid in his just praife for his Episodes are almost wholly of his own invention; and the form, which he has given to the telling, makes the tale his own, even though the original flory had been the fame. But this proves, however, that Homer taught Virgil to defign: and if invention be the firft virtue of an Epic poet, then the Latin poem can only be allowed the fecond place. Mr Hobbes, in the preface to his own bald translation of the Ilias, (ftudying poetry as he did mathematicks, when it was too late) Mr Hobbes, I fay, begins the praife of Homer where he fhould have ended it. He tells us, that the first beauty of an Epic poem confifts in diction, that is, in the choice of words, and harmony of numbers now, the words are the colouring of the work, which in the order of nature is laft to be confidered. The defign, the difpofition, the manners, and the thoughts, are all before it where any of thofe are wanting or imperfect, so much wants or is imperfect in the imitation of human life; which is in the very definition of a poem. Words indeed, like glaring colours, are the first beauties that arife, and strike the fight: but if the draught be falfe or lame, the figures ill-difpofed,

:

pofed, the manners obfcure or inconfiftent, or the thoughts unnatural, then the finest colours are but daubing, and the piece is a beautiful monfter at the best. Neither Virgil nor Homer were deficient in any of the former beauties; but in this laft, which is expreffion, the Roman poet is at least equal to the Gre. cian, as I have faid elsewhere; fupplying the poverty of his language by his mufical car, and by his diligence. But to return: our two great poets, being fo different in their tempers, one choleric and fanguine, the other phlegmatic and melancholic; that which makes them excel in their feveral ways, is, that each of them has followed his own natural inclination, as well in forming the defign, as in the execution of it. The very heroes fhew their authors; Achilles is hot, impatient, revengeful," Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, "acer, &c." Aneas patient, confiderate, careful of his people, and merciful to his enemies: ever fubmiflive to the will of heaven, " quo fata trahunt, retrahuntque, "fequamur." I could pleafe myfelf with enlarging on this fubject, but I am forced to defer it to a fitter time. From all I have faid, I will only draw this inference, that the action of Homer being more full of vigour than that of Virgil, according to the temper of the writer, is of confequence more pleafing to the reader. One warms you by degrees; the other fets you on fire all at once, and never intermits his heat. It is the fame difference which Longinus makes betwixt the effects of eloquence in Demofthenes and Tully. One perfuades ; the other commands. You never cool while you read Homer,

C 3.

Homer, even not in the fecond book (a graceful flattery to his countrymen); but he haftens from the fhips, and concludes not that book till he has made you an amends by the violent playing of a new machine. From thence he hurries on his action with variety of events, and ends it in lefs compafs than two months. This vehemence of his, I confefs, is more fuitable to my temper; and therefore I have tranflated his firft book with greater pleafure than any part of Virgil: but it was not a pleasure without pains: the continual agitations of the fpirits must needs be a weakening of any conftitution, efpecially in age; and many paufes. are required for refreshment betwixt the heats; the Iliad of itself being a third part longer than all Virgil's works together.

This is what I thought needful in this place to fay of Homer. I proceed to Ovid and Chaucer; confidering the former only in relation to the latter. With Ovid ended the golden age of the Roman tongue : from Chaucer the purity of the English tongue began. The manners of the poets were not unlike: both of them were well-bred, well-natured, amorous,. and libertine, at least in their writings, it may be alfo, in their lives. Their ftudies were the fame, philofophy and philology. Both of them were known in astronomy,. of which Ovid's books of the Roman feafts, and Chaucer's treatife of the Aftrolabe, are fufficient witnesses. But Chaucer was likewife an aftrologer, as were Virgil,, Horace, Perfius, and Manilius. Both writ with wonderful facility and clearness: neither were great inven-.

tors :.

« AnteriorContinuar »