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Dr Ferguson's article on "the Epidemic Typhus," &c. did not reach us till our ar rangements for the present Number were completed.

H. A. N.'s paper has come to hand, but cannot be inserted without more explicit evidence of its authenticity.

"A Jennerian" will observe that the subject of his communication has very recently engaged our attention. We may probably return to it by and by.

The Rev. D. D. has our best acknowledgments for his affecting narrative; but the substance of it has already been before the public in all the journals We will thank S. T. and R. to favour us with their addresses.

The Correspondents of the EDINBURGH MAGAZINE AND LITERARY MISCELI ANY are respectfully requested to transmit their Communications for the Editors to ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE and COMPANY, Edinburgh, or LONGMAN and COMPANY, London, to whom also orders for the Work should be particularly addressed.

Printed by George Ramsay & Co.

THE

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE,

AND

LITERARY MISCELLANY.

FEBRUARY 1819.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

ON GAWIN DOUGLAS'S TRANSLA- in all that is going on in the world: TION OF VIRGIL'S ÆNEID.

THERE is no one, whose observations can carry him back thirty years, but must have remarked a great change, within that short period, in the taste of the age, more especially with respect to poetry. The classical models have fallen into much comparative neglect. We remember very well when there was scarcely a young lady that had any pretensions to literature, who was not quite familiar with Pope's Homer, and Dryden's Virgil. Achilles and Hector were the heroes that figured most in the imaginations of the British fair, no longer ago than we have now mentioned-and, if our recollection does not fail us, the Trojan war was often keenly fought over again by many a beautiful combatant. They had their favourite Gods and Goddesses too, as well as heroes. What female heart could resist the bright-haired Apollo? Minerva had her votaries. Venus, to be sure, had hers. How many tears were shed from brilliant eyesover the sorrows of Andromache and Dido! All this is at an end. The names, indeed, remain, but every feeling connected with them is gone. Walter Scott and Lord Byron have entirely demolished the ancient heroes and heroines, and the poor Gods of Olympus cannot hold up their heads before Bramah, Vishnou, and Seevah! -We do not wish to rank too positively among the laudatores temporis acti: We would rather discover a progress

We trust, too, that we are not insensible to the genius and the lights which have been so profusely shed around the days on which we are fallen, yet we may be pardoned if we are still somewhat swayed by our old classical prejudices—and if

The time-taught spirit, pensive, not severe, O'er her lovely hopes that once were dear, And weep their falsehood, tho' she love With milder griefs her aged eye shall fill,

them still.

We must admit, indeed, that if the long established images of classical poetry have for some time past vanished into a dim distance-every other kind of imagery and personifi cation has been most liberally brought into the foreground. All the monsters of the Hindoo mythology mingled with the languor and opulence of oriental scenery; all the dark passions and penetralia of Turkish seraglios, with their mosques, kiosks, guls and bulbuls; all the harsher but the far more awakening features of our own northern chivalry, presented amid the scenes which have been familiar to us from our childhood, but which have acquired a fresh and almost foreign colouring to our imaginations, from the antique figures which have been made to move over them, and from the glow of that Poetical Spirit which has clothed them in its own excelling brightness: The variety and extraordinary beauty of many of those representations may

well excuse us, if we have all, docti et indocti, bowed down before new idols, and forgotten, for a time at least, the way to our ancient temples. Things, indeed, have come to such a pass, that some of the most devoted admirers of Homer and Virgil have been heard to whisper, (a horrible heresy!) that they could not but prefer the Flodden-field of Marmion even to the most glorious battles on the plains of Troy; and that they have felt the death of the Corsair's wife as much more affecting than widow Dido's, as that atrocious hero, with all his crimes, is certainly a more interesting personage than the pious Eneas!

We do not, however, give up the cause of our old masters for lost. Perhaps they may never again acquire that universal dominion which was long so quietly yielded to them. They may always remain a sort of ex-emperors in poetry; but we are pretty sure they will finally settle in a much more extensive sway than an island of Elba or a St Helena. We shall resort to them again, were it from the impulse merely of novelty for, after they have been sometime neglected, they will become new. The haste, the carelessness, the occasional clumsiness of our present great min strels will then appear to infinite disadvantage, when contrasted with the grand completeness and perfection of Greek and Roman composition. Homer, too, besides, has many qualities, in common with the most admired poets of the present day, and the marvellous freshness and vigour of his pictures, if there were nothing else, would be enough to continue his triumphant progress down the stream of ages. The fine genius of Virgil, indeed, is less glaring and obtrusive, and may partly be concealed under the veil of that imitative spirit which encircles him: Yet there is a charm in his tranquillity and repose; in his Godlike superiority to those scenes of human life which he seems to contemplate, as it were, from a distance, -that is infinitely refreshing and elevating when we have long been intermingled, either in description or in actual existence, with the vehemence and turmoil of earthly characters and passions. It is, indeed, the language of higher natures which he at all times utters, and there is ever in his

purity and majesty the impression of
a celestial mind. His serene light
may sometimes seem to vanish before
the gaudiness of the common day-
but there will ever be spirits of re-
finement and sensibility to whom he
will appear to

Walk in beauty as the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies!

We remarked, in a former essay, that the perfection of the Virgilian composition seems to have been even more an object of admiration in rude times than it is now; and, in particular, we quoted the warm encomium of Gawin Douglas, on this "peerless pearl, patron of poetry." We now, according to our promise, proceed to give an account of that translation of the Æneid, which, in consequence of this admiration, amidst all the disadvantages of his age, the Scottish Prelate has so wonderfully executed. In doing so, perhaps, we are making use of a little ruse de guerre, and as we have been in no inconsiderable degree wiled off from our ancient poetic masters, by the great romancers of modern times, it is but fair to endeavour to trace our way back to them again, by the help of a fine old minstrel of the real chivalrous age. Gawin Douglas finished his translation but a few years before the battle of Flodden! We have no hesitation in saying, that it is by far the most spirited translation of that second epic in the world, which the world has yet seen; and although it is about as unlike Virgil as the court of James the Fourth was unlike that of Augustus, it yet possesses a character of beauty of its own, which we should in vain look for in the Roman poet himself. It would give us great pleasure, if we could possibly succeed in making our readers partake in the delight which we ourselves have found in this noble monument of the præfervidum ingenium Scotorum. The chief obstacle in our way is the language. If it were plain Scotch, or old English, we should have no great alarm; on the contrary, after what Burns and the author of Waverley have done for their native dialect, we should rather look upon this circumstance as a powerful recommendation, particularly to our southern readers. But the excellent Bishop of Dunkeld goes a step beyond our eminent contemporaries. He seems to have thought that nothing could be too good for

Virgil; and as he did not find a suffi-' cient quantity of expression to satisfy him in his own simple honest Scotch, which, however, he gives with admirable effect when he pleases, he casts about him in all directions, and not only coins plentifully from the Latin, by which means, while he certainly ennobles his language, he yet often lends it an air of pedantry; but he has likewise recourse to French, Italian, German, and every tongue within his reach, so that the result of the whole is a little too much of the "Babylonish dialect,"

The party-colour'd dress,

Of patch'd and pyball'd languages; the

English cut on Greek and Latin,
Like fustian heretofore on satin;

which the witty author of Hudibras
describes as the style of his hero. In
spite of all this, however, there is
both great sweetness and great expres-
sion in the language of this delight-
ful old bard; and if his readers will
make the exertion of getting over, in
some degree, his peculiarities, they
will be amply rewarded by his un-
common beauties.

If we were to give a general character of Douglas's Eneid, we would speak of it rather as an original poem than as a translation, and we would describe it as the finest poetical romance which has come down to us from the heroic ages of modern Europe. It is written with all the ardour and glow of original composition, because the profound admiration which Gawin felt for his author, seems to have operated with him as inspiration merely, and not as any restraint: he introduces, indeed, nothing of his own,-that he would have looked upon as impiety,--but all Virgil's images and conceptions become his own in passing through his mind. They often, indeed, lose their grandeur and their dignity, but they acquire, in return, a character of nature and naiveté which they do not possess in their Roman garb. We sometimes lose sight of the conquerors of the world, but, instead, we have glimpses of our own unconquered highlanders on their native hills: the ideas of chivalrous and feudal times are ever intermingling with the fallen greatness of a former world, and even the names and the notions of Christian worship confer a species of singular

sanctity on the vanished rites of Paganism. All this produces a peculiar character of beauty, which belongs more to a romance than to an epic, and all that remains of Virgil is the regular story, which controls the Troubadour wandering and extravagance; the correct judgment, which reduces the poetic imagery within bounds; and that general diffusion of fine poetry, which constantly holds up the mind of the translator to the level of his work, and keeps him steady to his aim.

The general style of the narrative is much in the loose unjomted composition of the old poetic romancers, although Virgil too keeps this in check. It can scarcely ever be said to possess the grand march of its original, but there are many passages composed in a strain of great natural elegance and simplicity. Where, at any time, however, the Roman poet works up a favourite description or simile, the ambition of his translator is instantly roused in such passages to endeavour to keep pace with him. Sometimes he goes a little beyond the mark, and caricatures where he wishes to give the full expression; yet, at other times, he improves upon his original, or at least gives a stroke or two to the picture, which, if they detract something from its elegance, add to its power. Perhaps one of the faults of Virgil is, that he keeps too much in generals, he is too guarded to be eminently picturesque. Whenever a picture derives its finish from a sentiment, then this divine poet is incomparable, but where a pointed image is required, he too often contents himself with some vague and indistinct circumstance. One of the distinguishing merits of his translator, on the contrary, is his admirable picturesque talent. This seems to have been his forte as well as Chaucer's, particularly in descriptions of natural scenery. Chaucer, indeed, excels equally in that still more dramatic painting, which gives a character in a description. Homer, too, possesses this talent, as is admirably exemplified in his descriptions of Thersites and Ulysses, but we do not recollect an example of it in Virgil. Of Gawin Douglas's descriptive powers, some of his prologues to the several books of the Eneid contain splendid instances, and we shall see likewise what vivacity he occasionally

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