Non mihi refpondent veteres in carmina vires. Lesbides æquoreæ, nupturaque nuptaque proles; Definite ad citharas turba venire meas. Sive redis, puppique tuæ votiva parantur 230 234 240 Munera; quid laceras pectora noftra mora? Solve ratem: Venus orta mari, mare præftet eunti. Aura dabit curfum; tu modo folve ratem. Ipfe Alas! the Mufes now no more inspire, 230 Untun'd my lute, and filent is my lyre. 236 240 245 Gods! can no pray'rs, no fighs, no numbers move NOTES. 250 O launch VER. 236. My Phaon] Fenton tranflated this epiftle, but with a manifeft inferiority to Pope. He added an original poem of his own, an epistle of Phaon to Sappho; which appears to be one of the feebleft in the collection of his poems, among which fome are truly excellent. WARTON. Ipfe gubernabit residens in puppe Cupido: (Non tamen invenies, cur ego digna fuga.) [O faltem miferæ, Crudelis, epiftola dicat: Ut mihi Leucadia fata petantur aquæ.] 255 O launch thy bark, fecure of profp'rous gales; If not from Phaon I must hope for ease, 256 NOTES. VER. 253. Cupid for thee] This image is very inferior to the original, as it is more vague and general: the picture in the original is ftrikingly beautiful. The circumftances which make it fo, are omitted by Pope: "Ipfe gubernabit refidens in puppe Cupido, Ipfe dabit tenera vela legetque manu.” This would form a beautiful fubject for Mr. Flaxman, who has made such correct, elegant, and claffical drawings for Homer. THIS Epiftle is tranflated by Pope with elegance, and much excels any Dryden tranflated in the volume he publifhed; feveral of which were done by fome" of the mob of gentlemen that wrote with eafe;" that is, Sir C. Scroop, Caryl, Pooly, Wright, Tate, Buckingham, Cooper, and other careless rhymers. Lord Somers tranflated Dido to Æneas, and Ariadne to Thefeus. A good tranflation of these epistles is as much wanted as one of Juvenal; for out of fixteen satires of that poet, Dryden himself tranflated but fix. We can now boaft of happy translations in verse of almost all the great poets of antiquity, whilft the French have been poorly contented with only profe tranflations of Homer and Horace; which, fays Cervantes, can no more resemble the original than the wrong fide of tapestry can represent the right. The inability of the French tongue to exprefs many Greek or Roman ideas with facility and grace is here visible; but the Italians have Horace tranflated by Pallavacini, Theocritus by Ricolotti and Salvini, Ovid by Anguillara, the Æneid, admirably well, in blank verfe, by Annibal Caro, and: the Georgics, in blank verfe alfo, by Daniello, and Lucretius by Marchetti. One of the most learned commentaries on any claffic is that of Mezeriac on the epiftles of Ovid. It seems ftrange he should have employed fo much labour on fuch a writer. The very best life of Æfop is also by Mezeriac; a book so scarce, that neither Bentley nor Bayle had feen it when they firft wrote on fop. It was reprinted in the Memoires de Literature of M. de Sallengre 1717, tom. i. p. 87. This is the author whom Malherbe, with his usual bluntness, asked, when he published his edition of Diophantus, "If it would leffen the price of bread?" There was a very early translation of the epiftles of Ovid afcribed to Shakespear, which error, like many others, has been rectified by that able and accurate enquirer, Dr. Farmer, who has shewn that they were tranflated by Thomas Heywood, and inferted in his Britaine's Troy, 1609. One of the best imitations of Ovid is a Latin epistle of the Count Balthafar Castiglione, author of the celebrated Courtier, addreffed to his abfent wife. WARTON. Dr. |