tervention of the tutor. Unless he can be gained to the side of poetry and rhythm, all labour directed against popular notions, and current practices, must be simply wasted. I might, to be sure, have contented myself with writing more at length in defence of the principle, leaving it to be carried out by more competent hands; but who would be found willing to undertake the task? The poet would never stoop to so slavish a pursuit; while the mere translator would be deterred by the certainty of sustaining more pecuniary loss for his pains, than he could ever hope to reap literary credit. I therefore thought the cause would, upon the whole, be better served by my attempting the execution of what seemed to me to be much needed, and giving some short reasons for the view on which it is based. Yet, while I have no hesitation whatever in asserting the theory, I confess that all else I put forward with the greatest diffidence; for no one can see more vividly than I do myself, what a very different thing is the knowledge of what ought to be done from the power of doing it. Still, I could not but feel that some one must lead the way, though he should be the meanest of the wayfarers: just as among sheep, one is found the foremost to mount the gap of difficulty, though he may be neither the bravest nor the strongest of the flock. Indeed, in the effort itself I have at times drawn support from this very thought, -that "my dulness will find somebody to do it right."

It now remains more fully to explain the principles upon which the present version has been constructed. They are chiefly the five following:

Upon the second and fourth of these enough has been said already; but it will be necessary to make some remarks on the others. As to the first of them, its importance can hardly be unduly magnified, so long as experience shall continue to prove the consequence of the general principle in the affairs of life. In youth the habit of it must be acquired; and a chief way to acquire it in youth is, by the grammar and the dictionary, and, with their aid, by a sternly truthful translation of the Greek and Roman classics. But this seems scarcely yet to have received the attention to which it is entitled. However tempting it may be to indulge in the habit, with a view to save trouble and yet produce an effect, a lax and paraphrastic version is highly injurious to the young scholar. If this be pressed upon him, he will often be quite at a loss to know what word stands for what, or, if he does, may be unable to justify the application. Thus he is but too likely to grow up in a love for a florid but superficial style of construing; plausible and sparkling, but shallow and untrue. The effect of this, unless neutralised by other influences, will in the end appear in his mistaking showiness for force; in repugnance to engage in severe exertion of mind; in a general feebleness of thought, and, possibly, a want of reality and depth in the whole character.

There are some persons who are quite conscious of the value of the maxim now laid down, but who show their appreciation of it in a way which is open to very serious objection. Having made themselves masters of all the meanings of a word, which are in the least suitable to the position in which it is found, they manage to apply them all at once. Thus, primary and secondary, radical and tropical, are huddled together with great diligence, the duty of amassing being held to be a paramount, that of choice, a very subordinate concern. The abettors of such

a system must forget that, in good authors, a single word has but a single meaning, in a single place. It often requires great judgment to know whether an author uses a word in its original or some derived sense; occasionally it may be impossible; where not impossible, an experienced student may at times be mistaken: but to apply both senses at once, does seem very like bad scholarship with the affectation of good.

Another fault, into which a desire for accuracy has sometimes betrayed the scholar, is, a periphrastic habit of translation. It must of necessity not seldom occur, that a word in one language has no exact equivalent in another; and so, to convey its precise meaning, a great many terms may have to be pressed into the service of explanation. But it is far better in such cases to curtail the version, and honestly to avow the embarrassment to the student, rather than to force a lengthened weakness upon him. Terseness and vigour of style are of too great consequence to be compromised by such creeping slavery as this. A long string of words, following a single Latin expression, has as feeble an effect as the dull tail of a comet, which is too transparent to eclipse the light of the stars.

Accuracy, then, (freed, as far as may be, from these incumbrances,) has been earnestly aimed at, with the resolution to sink all other considerations, which, while promising relief to the translator, seemed to stand in the way of it. I have never yet seen the version of Virgil, in which numberless words, and sometimes whole lines, were not left out. This, doubtless, has sometimes arisen from inadvertence on the part of the writer, -the case with myself, as an inspection of the table of errata will too truly show;-but perhaps oftener from the absence of scruples, from which I did not myself dare to effect an escape. can honestly say, that I have never knowingly omitted to

I

render even an et or a que, though to embody them has often proved more troublesome than any one would believe. Repeatedly, too, have more musical, or more poetic, or otherwise more effective terms been set aside, to make room for others, that were truer to the ideas of the original. This, I must confess, was often done with something of the sort of regret which was felt by the bull in the third Georgic, when

Et stabula aspectans, regnis excessit avitis."

But my object has been to be useful rather than pleasing, when I felt that it was beyond my ability to be both. At the same time I am bound to say, that the poets,—even so great a poet as Dryden, not to mention Trapp, and other versifiers of that stamp,-in their translations are usually most unsuccessful, when they depart from their original, or add to it. It is probably owing to his indulgence in this to an unpardonable extent, that people are now very generally brought to see how painfully (, whatever Pope may say to the contrary,) Dryden has failed.

Yet, while I have never, to my knowledge, left out a word of Virgil's, I have often inserted expressions which are not to be found in him; still, but rarely any that either he does not imply, or that could be spared without the danger of his meaning being missed. He is at times so elliptical, that unless such a liberty be allowed, he would be absolutely unintelligible. Those cases which do not admit of so strong a defence, must depend for palliation on the necessities of the rhythm. Such instances are few,too few, I honestly think, to warrant any thing like a serious question being raised about the principle itself, at least with those who hold it to be of any value; others will scarce employ them for the purposes of their

opposition. In fact, such a refuge is resorted to, for the most part, to get rid of the embarrassment created by unmanageable proper names, a course,

"Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere Manes."

But in these, and all other cases of supply, the words introduced (, not, of course, including such words as pronouns that are not emphatic, and the like,) are faithfully enclosed within brackets.

As to the third principle laid down,-adherence to the Latin order, considerable consequence attaches to it within certain limits. It is quite true that the genius of the two languages is by no means universally the same in this particular yet from this fact has been drawn a license to mangle the Latin frame without mercy. Thus the pupil is allowed to seize one word from this part of a sentence, and to tear another from that, just as his fancy may chance to lead him; perhaps encouraged by the delusion that it evinces no little skill in him to take it into as many pieces as possible. Thus, where often nothing beyond a mental dissection is allowable, absolute dismemberment is inflicted, and an awkward attempt is made to re-limb the unhappy trunk. Now it very frequently occurs that the position of the words in the original is the most felicitous that could be chosen, not only for the Latin itself, but also for the English which represents it; so that any deviation therefrom would damage the version, as well as spoil the text. The labour of the pupil, too, is much simplified by his taking the words as they lie, instead of encouraging him in a rambling eclecticism. Besides, there is a naturalness, so to speak, in translating them in the position wherein they are found; the actual order has a primâ facie evidence in its favour; it has a claim which, of course, may be overruled after argument, but should be