And without deigning to notice it, although there is a pretty long note upon the first of these lines. The learned and truly classical translator of the Greek tragedians, Potter, has not fallen into the same fault. In his version of Sophocles's Philoctetes he renders the line in which this river is mentioned, "And to Sperchius, beauteous-rolling stream." But to my great surprise on consulting Cowper, who was certainly a much better scholar than Pope, he has committed the same error, and writes, without any note or acknowledgment, "Sacred to Sperchius he had kept unshorn, Sperchiu's! in vain, Peleus, my father vow'd." Concerning the true pronunciation of the word no doubt can exist; it is spelt in Greek with a diphthong, Tepes; and it is found in four places in Homer, in two in Statius, in Sophocles, in Virgil, in Ovid, and in Lucan, with the middle syllable uniformly long. With respect to Pope's deficiencies and redundancies in his celebrated translation, they are both sufficiently obvious to those who have compared it with the original; but I am tempted to produce one curious instance in which both occur at the same time. In the twenty-first book of the Iliad, after relating the battle of the gods in the plains of Troy, (perhaps the weakest passage in the whole of that noble poem) Diana is represented as making her complaints to Jupiter, who inquires who has so ill treated her. She replies, v. 512 and 513. Ση μ' άλοχος στυφέλιξε, πατερ, λευκώλενος Ηρη, Ež ns That is, literally; "Thy wife, O father, has ill-used me, me, the white arm'd Juno, from whom strife and contention arise among the immortals." This plain answer is rendered by Pope, "Abash'd, she names his own imperial spouse; And the pale crescent fades upon her brows." Now these lines are obviously deficient in not saying one word of the character of Juno, who is pointed out in the original as the cause of all these disputes; and they are redundant in using the word abashed, and in the whole of the second line, of which not one word or syllable, nor even the slightest allusion to the thought, is to be found in Homer. And it is a singular instance of bad taste to put a concetto into the mouth of the venerable Grecian, which would be a prettiness scarcely endurable in a modern Italian son net. Yet with all its faults, Pope's translation will be read and admired while its rivals either repose in quiet on their shelves, or jog on in vicum vendentem thus et odores. P. M. N° LXXI. Latin Translation of Gray's Elegy. The following Latin translation of GRAY'S ELEGY; being printed in the form of a fugitive pamphlet, and the name of the translator being unknown to me * If the epithet applied to Diana in the preceding line, suctipavoc, be supposed to allude at all to her crescent, it must be in a sense precisely opposite to that which Pope has given it, and to point out its beauty, and not its ading. (the (the title page in which perhaps the name appeared being lost) my classical readers will not be displeased to have it here preserved. "Ad Poetam. "Nos quoque per tumulos, et amica Silentia dulcis "Elegia, &c. "Audin' ut occiduæ signum Campana Diei Nunc Nunc rerum species evanida cedit, et omnis Aut nisi sola sedens hederoso in culmine Turris Si quis eat, turbetque antiqua et inhospita Regna. Hic subterque rudes ulmos, Taxique sub umbrâ Non vox Aurora croceos spirantis odores, Non illis splendente foco renovabitur ignis, Nec vitam utilibus quæ incumbit provida curis, Sceptri grande decus, generosæ stirpis honores, Quicquid opes, aut forma dedit, commune sepulchrum Opprimit, et leti non evitabilis hora. Ducit Laudis iter tantùm ad nonfinia Mortis. VOL, X. Y Parcite Parcite sic tellure sitis (ita fata volebant) Inscriptæne valent Urnæ, spirantiaque æra, Quis scit, an hic Animus neglectâ in sede quiescat Qui prius incaluit cœlestis semine flammæ ? Quis scit, an hìc sceptri Manus haud indigna recumbat, Quæve lyræ poterat magicum inspirâsse furorem? Annales sed nulla suos His Musa reclusit, Sæpe coruscantes puro fulgore sub antris Eloquio attenti moderarier ora Senatûs, Hos sua sors vetuit; tenuique in Limite clausit Conatus |