The picture of Penthefilea is also forcibly and faithfully opied. Æn. 1. v. 490. "Ducit Amazonidum lunatis agmina peltis Bellatrix, audetque viris concurrere virgo. "There too her Amazons with mooned shields L. I. v. 499: Wide-raging, and 'mid thronging thoufands burns, A warrior virgin dares conflict with men." It is with no fmall degree of fatisfaction that we follow Mr. Beresford through his tranflation of the calamitous vifitation which befel Laocoon and his fons, the fkilful difcovery of Dido's paffion, the artful conduct of its progrefs, and its fatal catastrophe. In fhort, whatever part of his book we have vifited, whether wandering by chance, or led to it by defign, our footsteps have loitered till the call of less pleasing, though not lefs neceffary, bufinefs, has interrupted our amusement.The limits of our work oblige us to make our quotations fewer in number and fmaller in extent, than perhaps our reader's inclination or our own may afk; we must content ourselves, therefore, with the following extract from Lib. VI. wherein a part of Æneas's Journey to the Shades is described: "Hence winds the path away, that to the stream Thefe foods, thefe deeps, a dreadful Boatman guards, And ftretch'd their hands, longing for th' other fhore.. Now these, now thofe ; but others, wide remov'd It remains for us now to speak of Mr, Beresford's numbers. We may venture, without fear of contradiction, to say, that in the structure of his verfe Mr. B. has propofed to himfelf the best model, that of Milton, aiming with fome anxiety, and certainly not without fuccefs, at the dignity of his language, and the variety of his paufes. The following inftance, which is extracted without any particular attention to the felection, will fhow that Mr. B. in his care to produce an accurate tranflation, has not forgotten the ornaments of verfification. The paffage is from that part of the 10th Book which defcribes the landing of Æneas previous to his engagement with Turnus. "But not fo far'd thy galley Tarchon; fhe Struck on the shallows, where long time fhe hung L. X. v. 406. It is with great and ftudied forbearance that we refrain from prefenting our readers with Mr. B's very fpirited tranflation of the combat between Æneas and Turnus, the concluding words of which, happily unite the fpirit of Virgil with the verfification of Milton. "Oer him comes the chill of death Book. 12. Lib. XIV. v. 951. If in a work of which, generally speaking, we fo much approve, a few things fhould have occurred, to which we find ourselves obliged to object, we shall state the grounds upon which our objections are formed, and truft that Mr. Beresford will profit by our obfervations, if they should feem juft; and excufe us, if other wife. Milton's mind, we know, ftored with claffic ideas and claffic language, has been fometimes led to claim a licence, which we reluctantly concede even to him, and only because we know not how to refufe him any thing. He introduces forms of speech fpeech which our language does not recognise, and gives a Latin fenfe to words before establifhed in a different fignification. In his ftudious imitation of our great Bard, Mr. Beresford has not failed to copy fome of his faults, for fuch we confider his adoption of the phrafe, "not inexpert of harm," which we believe is no more intelligible to the English reader than the original "haud ignara nocendi." We cannot approve of the phrafe P. 312. " dwelt Latium's borders ;" and we obferve the frequent ufage of the verb "gaze” in the fame active form. "Illa folo fixos oculos avería tenebat" Lofes its beauty in the tranflation by the introduction of a word to which it is impoffible to annex any dignified idea. "She nail'd her unrelenting eyes to earth." It is for the fame reason that we object to fuch a line as "With mortal mace pounding the ranks of war." The compound word mifer-beam (p. 213) feems to us peculiarly unhappy, nor would the separate epithet mifer be much preferable. As the language of Poetry is the language of univerfal nature, we cannot with propriety confine it to any particular art or science, we therefore object to the ufage of all technical terms, unless they relate to fome particular science of which the poem profeffedly treats. It is for this reafon that we wish Mr. Beresford had not admitted (notwithstanding the apology made for the introduction) the word "Lieutenant" which favours too much of modern tactics to be admiffible in the tranflation of an ancient poem. Eríphyle, in p. 220, is abfolutely wrong, as the original points out, fo much fo as not to be defenfible by the customs of English accentuation; it is a strange overfight. While Mr. Beresford is preparing for another edition of his work, he will doubtlefs deem it worth his while to expunge fuch errors, which are neither numerous nor difficult to remove; and to re-touch alfo fome paffages where, by being too literal, he has failed a little in poetical effect and fpirit. The opening of the poem is, rather unluckily, one of the parts which moft require this care. The line "Nor lefs, befide, in battle much endur'd. is not only flat, but hardly intelligible; and the whole paffage to "fublime," certainly might receive improvement from fecond thoughts. Without Without enquiring how far the interests of literature at prefent required another tranflation of Virgil's Æneid; we shall -not hesitate to congratulate Mr. Beresford upon the accomplishment of his work, nor to exprefs our hopes that he may reap the harvest of honour and profit to which he is fo juftly entitled. ART. III. Letters to the Peers of Scotland, by the Earl of Lauderdale. 8vo. pp. 318. 5s. Robinsons. 1794. THE letter of Mr. Fox to his conftituents probably fuggefted the idea to Lord Lauderdale, of conveying his political fentiments to the public, through the medium of epiftles addreffed to the noble perfons whom his lordship.has the honour to reprefent in the British Senate. Of the tendency of his principles, the line of conduct which he has thought proper to purfue, in his fenatorial capacity, was fufficiently explanatory; but the motives which caufed their adoption, it remained for his lordship to explain. Had he confined himself to fuch explanation, the attempt might have had strong claims to indulgence; but his genius fcorning to limit its efforts, to the accomplishment of a task so easily performed, afpires to a more difficult enterprize, and boldly undertakes to unveil the difguised motives" of his political opponents; feemingly unconfcious of having, thereby, expofed himself to the retort uncourteous, in fufpecting the veracity of his own declarations to the fame doubts, which, with more violence than decorum, he expreffes of the truth of their affertions, who, without any degradation to his lordship, be it said, are certainly entitled to (at leaft) as much credit as himself. The volume is divided into three parts, or letters, each of which we fhall confider feparately. The object of the first, as explained by the author, is alone to draw the attention of his noble conftituents to the revolution of France, as it has affected the political fituation of this country. That a man, who can advance the ftrange opinion, that our hopes of fecurity refted chiefly upon the deftruction of the old government of France, (p. 24.) fhould view the French revolution with a favourable eye, will not excite aftonishment; but that a man fhould retain that opinion after the woeful experience of five years has convinced us of the pernicious tendency of thofe principles by which the revolution has been foftered and fupported, principles incompatible with the exiftence not only of any monarchical establishment, but of all steady government government whatever, must irresistibly imprefs the mind with fentiments of a different caft from those which are created by fuprife. It is a happy circumftance for this country, that his lordship was not prime minifter fome time before the revolution; for had that been the cafe, and had he acted up to the maxims he now promulgates, we fhould have been engaged in a perpetual war with the French monarchy. In p. 75, adverting to the conduct of minifters in the present contest, he makes the following obfervation. "When I confider, that we have now embarked for the avowed purpose of faving ourfelves, by destroying the prevalent fyftem in France; when I learn from that confideration, that as felf-prefervation neceffarily calls forth activity, war muft at all events have inevitably been refolved upon in the breafts of those who could entertain the idea," &c. Now, as in his lordship's opinion, our hopes of fecurity, or felf-prefervation, were founded on the deftruction of the old French government, he muft, by the fame rule, have inevitably refolved to promote that neceffary end, by hoftile measures. But let us ak on what his lordship's opinion of our infecurity is founded? He acknowledges that we had attained to a ftate of unprecedented profperity, at the period of the meeting of the States-General in France: and he attempts not to show any ground for fuppofing that an intention existed in the French government to interrupt that profperity, by engaging us in hoftilities; on the contrary, he dwells with great energy on the inability of France, not only to fupport any additional incumbrances, but even to bear the exifting burdens. Whence then could his apprehenfions arife? In vain do we refer to his book for an answer to this question. Among the defultory obfervations fcattered through the different parts, we find, indeed, some reason to infer that his lordship believes the monarchs and statefmen of France to have been invariably inimical to this country, and the authors of all the wars which have been undertaken against it; but in the conduct of the Sixteenth Louis, he might, we think, have found an honourable exception; and his lordship might have learned, if he had taken the pains to investigate the fubject, that the American war, was, on the part of France, a war of commerce, a war of merchants. The mercantile intereft of the country ftimulated the miniftry to undertake it, in direct oppofition to the fentiments of the king. The flattering profpect of immenfe emolument to be derived from the projected monopoly of the American trade, dazzled their eyes; the delirium too fatally fucceeded; and the ruin of the country has been the dreadful R BRIT. CRIT VOL. V. MARCH, 1795. |