The motives and design of this attempt are sufficiently explained in the
foregoing address, the ideas which gave rise to it have been confirmed
and enlarged in its progress. As some apology for them, it may not be
improper to observe here, that the English language seems to owe a great
portion of that energy for which it is remarked, to the old Anglo Saxon
idiom, which still forms its basis. It was enriched and softened by the
introduction of the French, though some are of opinion that most of its
foreign words, were adopted immediately from the Latin and not from any
modern tongue: and this opinion is corroborated by the observation,
that, during more than a century after the conquest, very little mixture
of French is perceivable in the style of English authors. Be that as it
may, it is certain that the constant attention of its earliest writers
to the Greek and Latin models, though sometimes carried to excess, has
added grace, variety, and extent to its construction. Sir Thomas Brown
who wrote his _Pseudodoxia Epidemica_, or Enquiry into Vulgar Errors,
about the middle of the seventeenth century, and whose style is still
much commended, says in his preface to that interesting work: «I confess
that the quality of the subject, will sometimes carry us into
expressions beyond meer English apprehensions. And indeed if elegancy of
style proceedeth, and English pens maintain that stream we have of late
observed to flow from many, we shall, in a few years, be fain to learn
Latin to understand English, and a work will prove of equal facility in
either». Milton, both in his verse and prose, has carried this
affectation to such a degree, as not only to be frequently beyond a meer
English apprehension, but even beyond that of an ordinary proficient in
the learned languages. Yet, so far were these innovations from being
considered as prejudicial, that one of the most admired writers of our
days, Dr. Johnson, did not scruple to confess, that he formed his style
upon the model of Sir Thomas Brown. The great number of excellent
translations which were constantly appearing through all its progressive
stages of improvement, must naturally have given the language a
classical turn. It is scarcely possible that a work so extensive, and so
universally read, as Pope's admirable translation of Homer, should not
leave some gloss of grecism upon the idiom into which so many of its
greatest beauties had been transfused. At the same time the early and
proud independence of the middle orders of people in England, prevented
them from conforming their language, their manners, or their sentiments
to the model of a court. Whereby if their expression did not acquire
politeness from that quarter, it did not loose any of its strength.
While the energy which their language is allowed to possess is the old
inheritance of their Anglo Saxon ancestors, whatever elegance it may
have acquired, is derived rather from Athens and Rome than from St.
James's.--The varied and extended occupations of a maritime and
commercial people have increased the fund from which imagery in
discourse is drawn, and as all occupations in such a nation are deemed
honorable, no metaphor is rejected as ignoble that is apt and
expressive.
A number of ideas conveyed by monosyllables gives great force and
conciseness, but leaves the poet frequently to struggle with the
harshness of sound; nevertheless those who are conversant with English
poetry will have perceived that this difficulty is not always
insuperable. The different accentuation of the old Anglo Saxon words,
with those adopted from other tongues, affords uncommon variety and
emphasis to the numbers of English verse. The measure commonly used in
poetry of a higher style is of ten syllables, as that in French is of
twelve. Three English verses of ten syllables generally contain nearly
the same number of syllables as two Latin or Greek hexameters, but are
in most instances capable of conveying more ideas, especially in
translating from Greek which abounds so much in what seem to us
expletive particles. The _cæsura_, or pause is not invariably fixed on
the same syllable of the verse, as in French; in the choice and variety
of its position, consists the chief art of appropriate harmony.
Accentuation of syllables, which seems, to answer the idea of long and
short syllables in the dead languages, is the foundation of English,
metre.--Tripple rhymes used with judgment have been admitted by the best
English poets, and now and then the introduction of an Alexandrine, or
verse of six feet.
Though blank verse has still many admirers, the English ear is grown
remarkably delicate as to the consonance of rhymes; Dryden and Pope have
used many, which would not now be received. Masculine and feminine
rhymes are unknown in English. As the character of a language appears to
be the result of all the affections of the people who speak it, it did
not seem foreign to this design to compare the manner in which two such
great genius's as Virgil and Voltaire, have treated the same subject,
and to place the loves of Henry and Gabrielle in comparison with those
of Æneas and Dido. The elegance, the delicacies, the nicest touches of
refined gallantry come admirably forward with the brillant colouring,
the light and graceful pencil of Voltaire. The verse seems to flow from
his pen without effort into its natural channel, and some of his
descriptions would not loose by a comparison; but perhaps he has let it
be seen, that it would not be so easy a task to convey in the same
language the exquisite and deep strokes of passion, which the Roman
master has left to the admiration of the universe. To which of these
styles the English and the French languages are most fitted, and how far
they may be made to succeed in both, is one of the objects of an inquiry
which this undertaking was intended to promote.
Whatever can be said by way of comment on the fourth book of the Æneid
has been so often repeated, and is so easily to be met with, that it was
thought needless to add any notes to this new translation. The few
instances in which there may appear some difference in the
interpretation of the original are scarce worth noticing. One perhaps
may appear to require some apology; most of the translators of Virgil
have represented Dido under the most violent impression of rage in her
first speech to Æneas. Whereas it would seem that the situation of her
mind is meant to be described before she addresses him, rather as wild
and frantic with doubt and fear, than actuated by rage. Whatever anger
she may feel, is yet so much tempered by love and hope, that she breaks
out, not into the language of rage, but of the most tender
expostulation, the most lively interest in his own welfare, the most
pathetic painting of her feelings and situation. It is a beautiful
appeal to love, to honor, and to pity. Not till after his cold answer,
does she burst into all the violence of rage, of contempt, and of
despair. This gradation has often been remarked as a principal beauty.
As some excuse for the coldness of Æneas which takes away so much of the
interest of the poem, Virgil is careful to recoil continually to our
attention, that he is acting under the impulse of the divinity. Such has
been the constant practice of the ancients to prevent our disgust, for
the action which they represent. In Orestes and Phoedra it is the excuse
of the violence of passion, in Æneas of that coldness which we find it
so difficult to forgive, but which in this point of view we shall be
inclined to pity.
While these sheets were in the press MONSIEUR DELILLE has given the
world another proof of the powers of his mind, and displayed the French
language to vast advantage, in a more arduous strain of poetry that it
had yet attempted. The perspicuity for which it has always been
remarked, and to which it owes its charms in conversation as perhaps
also the dificulty with which it is adapted to works of poetical
imagination, is strongly exemplified in his translation of Paradise
Lost. If he has not always been able to make the french idiom bear him
through the ætherial regions in which the daring wing of Milton's muse
soars with so sublime a flight, he has descended not without dignity to
the sphere of human understanding. And I believe it may be safely
advanced, that it will be easier for ordinary capacities, even among
English readers, to understand the work of Milton, in this translation
than in the original.
* * * * *