Publica materies privati juris erit, si Nec circa vilem patulumve moraberis orbem, Interpres observes, that these "verses duly read and considered, are so far from admitting the sense these men would put upon them, that they clearly infer a quite different and contrary meaning, which yet I would not have them take from me, but from the illustrious Huetius, in his excellent Discourse de optimo genere interpretandi, remarking upon this place: "Hujus loci ea mens est; (says he,) in materiam ab aliis occupatam, et publici juris, non ita esse involandum, ut verbum verbo reddatur, quasi fidi interpretis officium exequatur poeta ; sed ut argumentum et rerum descriptionem exprimat, tum insignia delibet ornamenta, verba prætermittat: i. e. The mind of which place is this,-As to the matter already assumed and published by others, a poet may yet justly make the subject his own, if he fall not so upon it, as to render it word for word, by executing the part of a faithful interpreter, but endeavour to adorn the argument with new embellishments of fresh invention, and pass by the words of the first writer.-This is the exposition the learned Huetius makes of this place; and it will be more than difficult to find an interpretation given thereof by any commentator, (from Acron and Porphyrio to the last that ever animadverted upon Horace,) dissonant from that he hath here delivered. 66 By this passage of Horace, thus truly explained, the reader may clearly perceive, first, that Horace gave no rules for translation, and therefore cannot be said (as some have styled him) to be of that art the great lawgiver: for doubtless he thought it below him. Next, that according to the judgment of Horace himself, it is the duty of a faithful interpreter to translate what he undertakes, word for word illud ergo ex Horatii sententiâ fidi interpretis munus est, verbum verbo referre; quod calculo suo confirmat Helenius Acron, says the said judicious Huetius." PREFACE TO THE SECOND PART OF POETICAL MISCELLANIES." For this last half year I have been troubled with the disease, as I may call it, of translation. The cold prose fits of it, which are always the most tedious with me, were spent in THE HISTORY OF THE LEAGUE; the hot, which succeeded them, in 6 The first volume of the collection of poems, generally known by the name of DRYDEN'S MISCELLANIES, was published in 1684, without any preface or introduction. The second, which was entitled "SYLVÆ, or the Second Part of Poetical Miscellanies," appeared in the next year: the third volume, which bears the title of EXAMEN POETICUM, was published in 1693, and the fourth, which was called THE ANNUAL MISCELLANY, in 1694. And here ended our author's concern with this collection; for the two remaining volumes were not issued out till after his death, viz. in 1703, and 1708.-In 1716, Jacob Tonson, the proprietor, published a new edition of this Miscellany, which differs very much from the former collection, containing many additional pieces, not in the original Miscellany, and on the other hand, omitting several poems which are found there. this volume of Verse Miscellanies. The truth is, I fancied to myself a kind of ease in the change of the paroxysm; never suspecting but that the humour would have wasted itself in two or three pastorals of Theocritus, and as many odes of Horace. But finding, or at least thinking I found, something that was more pleasing in them, than my ordinary productions, I encouraged myself to renew my old acquaintance with Lucretius and Virgil; and immediately fixed upon some parts of them which had most affected me in the reading. These were my natural impulses for the undertaking but there was an accidental motive, which was full as forcible, and God forgive him who was the occasion of it. It was my Lord Roscommon's Essay on translated Verse,' which made me uneasy till I tried whether or no I was capable of following his rules, and of reducing the speculation into practice. For many a fair is like a seeming demonstration in the mathematicks; very specious in the diagram, but failing in the mechanick operation. I think I have generally observed his instructions; I am sure my reason is sufficiently convinced both of their truth and usefulness; which, in other words, is to confess no This Essay was first published in 4to. in 1680; the second edition, corrected and enlarged, appeared in 1684. A commendatory copy of English verses, by our author, is prefixed to both editions; and before the second, one in Latin, by his son Charles Dryden, then a student of Trinity College, in Cambridge. Lord Roscommon died in January, 1684-5. less a vanity than to pretend that I have at least in some places made examples to his rules. Yet withal I must acknowledge, that I have many times exceeded my commission; for I have both added and omitted, and even sometimes very boldly made such expositions of my authors, as no Dutch commentator will forgive me. Perhaps, in such particular passages, I have thought that I discovered some beauty yet undiscovered by those pedants, which none but a poet could have found. Where I have taken away some of their expressions, and cut them shorter, it may possibly be on this consideration,-that what was beautiful in the Greek or Latin, would not appear so shining in the English and where I have enlarged them, I desire the false criticks would not always think that those thoughts are wholly mine, but that either they are secretly in the poet, or may be fairly deduced from him; or at least, if both those considerations should fail, that my own is of a piece with his, and that if he were living, and an Englishman, they are such as he would probably have written. For, after all, a translator is to make his author appear as charming as possibly he can, provided he maintains his character, and makes him not unlike himself. Translation is a kind of drawing after the life; where every one will acknowledge there is a double sort of likeness, a good one and a bad. It is one thing to draw the outlines true, the features like, the proportions exact, the colour 1 ing itself perhaps tolerable; and another thing to make all these graceful, by the posture, the shadowings, and chiefly by the spirit which animates the whole. I cannot without some indignation look on an ill copy of an excellent original: much less can I behold with patience Virgil, Homer, and some others, whose beauties I have been endeavouring all my life to imitate, so abused, as I may say, 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 those authors, and confess we derive all that is pardonable in us from their fountains, if they take those to be the same poets, whom our Oglebies have translated? But I dare assure them, that a good poet is no more like himself, in a dull translation, than his carcase 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 it is impossible even for a good wit to understand and practise them without the help of a liberal education, long reading, and digesting of those few good authors we have amongst us, the knowledge of men and manners, the freedom of habitudes and conversation with the best company of both sexes; and in short, without wearing off the rust 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 discern |