CONCERNING Mr. DRYDEN'S TRANSLATIONS. F OR this laft half year I have been troubled with the disease (as I may call it) of tranflation: the cold profe fits of it, which are always the most tedious with me, were spent in the history of the League; the hot, which fucceeded them, in verfe mifcellanies. The truth is, I fancied to myfelf a kind of eafe in the change of the paroxyfin; never fufpecting but the humour would have wafted itself in two or three paftorals of Theocritus, and as many odes of Horace. But finding, or at least thinking I found, fomething that was more pleafing in them than my ordinary productions, I encouraged myfelf to renew my old acquaintance with Lucretius and Virgil; and immediately fixed upon fome parts of them, which had most affected me in the reading. Thefe were my natural impulfes for the undertaking. But there was an accidental motive which was full as forcible. It was my Lord Rofcommon's Effay on Tranflated Verse; which made me uneafy 'till I try'd whether or no I was capable of following his rules, and of reducing the fpeculation into practice. For many a fair precept in Poetry is, like a feeming demonftration in the Mathematics, very fpecious in the diagram, but failing in the mechanic operation. I think I have generally obferved his inftructions; I am fure my reafon is fufficiently convinced both of their truth and usefulness; which, in other words, is to confess no less a vanity, than to pretend that I have at least in fome places made examples to his rules. Yet, withal, I must acknowledge, that I have many times exceeded my commiffion for I have both added and omitted, and even fometimes very boldly made fuch expofitions of my authors, as no Dutch commentator will forgive me. Perhaps, in fuch particular paffages, I have thought that I discovered fome beauty yet undiscovered by thofe pedants, which none but a Poet could have found. Where I have taken away fome of their expreffions, and cut them shorter, it may poffibly be on this confideration, that what was beautiful in the Greek or Latin, would not appear fo fhining in the English. And where I have enlarged them, I defire the false critics would not always think, that those thoughts are wholly mine, but that either they are fecretly in the Poet, or may be fairly deduced from him; or at least, if both those confiderations fhould fail, that my own is of a piece with his, and that if he were living, and an Englishmen, they are fuch as he would probably have written. For, after all, a tranflator is to make his author appear as charming as poffibly he can, provided he maintains his character, and makes him not unlike himself. Tranflation is a kind of drawing after the life; where every one will acknowledge there is a double fort of likeness, a good one and a bad. 'Tis one thing to draw the out-lines true, the features like, the proportions exact, the colouring itfelf perhaps tolerable; and another thing to make all thefe graceful, by the posture, the fhadowings, and chiefly by the spirit which animates the whole. I cannot, without some indignation, look on an ill copy of an excellent original. Much lefs can I behold with patience Virgil, Homer, and fome others, whofe beauties I have been endeavouring all my life to imitate, fo abused, as I may fay, to their faces, by a botching interpreter. What English readers, unacquainted with Greek or Latin, will believe me, or any other man, when we commend thofe authors, and confefs we derive all that is pardonable in us from their fountains, if they take those to be the fame Poets, whom our Ogilbys have tranflated? But I dare affure them, that a good Poet is no more like himself, in a dull translation, than his carcafe would be to his living body. There are many, who understand Greek and Latin, and yet are ignorant of their mother tongue. The proprieties and delicacies of the English are known to few: 'tis impoffible even for a good wit to understand and practise them, without the help of a liberal education, long reading, and digefting of thofe few good authors we have amongst us, the knowledge of men and manners, the freedom of habitudes and converfation with the best of company of both fexes; and, in fhort, without wearing off the ruft, which he contracted, while he was laying in a stock of learning. Thus difficult it is to understand the purity of English, and critically to difcern not only good writers from bad, and a proper style from a corrupt, but also to diftinguish that which is pure in a good author, from that which is vicious and corrupt in him. And for want of all these requifites, or the greatest part of them, moft of our ingenious young men take up fome cry'd-up English Poet for their model, adore him, and imitate him, as they think, without knowing wherein he is defective, where he is boyish and trifling, wherein either his thoughts are improper to his fubject, or his expreffions unworthy of his thoughts, or the turn of both is unharmonious. Thus it appears neceffary, that a man fhould be a nice critic in his mother-tongue, before he attempts to tranflate a foreign language. Neither is it fufficient, that he be able to judge of words and ftyle; VOL. II. Cc |