The attempt to naturalize the classical metres, for example, began at a
very early period of our literary history, and many learned treatises
were written to prove them your only proper vehicle for English poetry.
Perhaps it was the ill-success of these efforts that made our poets so
long shy of wandering in their metres away from the beaten track and
the simplest forms. Up to the time of Campbell we may say that the
iambus and the trochee reigned supreme in English verse; the anapest
and the dactyl, of which such effective use has been made by the later
poets, were either unknown or contemned. Suckling’s _Session of the
Poets_, the metrical intention of which appears to be anapestic, shows
what desperate work even the best lyrists could make when they strayed
after strange metrical gods.[80]
It may be said, then, that until within a comparatively recent period
Horace could not be properly translated into English verse at all.
English verse was not yet ready to receive so noble a guest. Compare
Martin’s or Conington’s versions with one of the earlier translations,
and the truth of this, we think, will be apparent at once. Creech,
indeed, seems to have had a dim notion of the truth, and his version
shows a perceptible striving for metrical effect, at least in the
arrangement of his stanza; but Creech had too little of the poetical
faculty to make the effort with taste or success. Francis for the most
part is content with the orthodox measures, and Father Prout was
perhaps first to bring to the work this essential accomplishment of the
Horatian translator. Prout’s metrical inventions are bold, and often
elegant; and his versions, though free, are always spirited, and often
singularly felicitous. Among the most striking of his metres is the one
he employs for the _Solvitur acris hiems_ (_Carm._ i. iv.):
“Now Venus loves to group
Her merry troop
Of maidens,
Who, while the moon peeps out,
Dance with the Graces round about
Their queen in cadence;
While far ’mid fire and noise
Vulcan his forge employs,
Where Cyclops grim aloft their ponderous sledges poise.”
A paraphrase that, not a translation; but not even Horace could find it
in his heart to gainsay so graceful a paraphrase. Another effective
metrical arrangement which shows off well Prout’s astonishing
copiousness of rhyme is that of the _Quum tu Lydia_ (i. 13):
“But where meet (thrice fortunate!)
Kindred hearts and suitable,
Strife comes ne’er importunate,
Love remains immutable;
On to the close they glide ‘mid scenes Elysian,
Through life’s delightful vision.”
Mr. Martin is here somewhat closer and not less skilful in handling his
metre:
“Oh! trebly blest, and blest for ever,
Are they whom true affection binds,
In whom no doubts or janglings sever
The union of their constant minds;
But life in blended current flows
Serene and sunny to the close.”
Compare with these Francis, who is scarcely more literal than Prout,
and not so literal as Martin:
“Thrice happy they whom love unites
In equal rapture and sincere delights,
Unbroken by complaints or strife
Even to the latest hours of life.”
Is not the advantage in point of poetry altogether on the side of the
moderns, and is it not largely due to their superior mastery of rhythm?
The passage, it may be said, has been paraphrased by Moore in the
lines,
“There’s a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told,
When two that are linked in one heavenly tie,
With heart never changing and brow never cold,
Love on through all ills, and love on till they die.”
Both Mr. Martin and Prof. Conington have given close and successful
attention to this part of their task. But it was left for Lord Lytton
to attempt something like a systematic imitation of the Horatian
metres. His plan, as set forth in his preface, “was in the first
instance to attempt a close imitation of the ancient measure—the
scansion being, of course (as in English or German hexameters and
pentameters), by accent, not quantity—and then to make such
modifications of flow and cadence as seemed to me best to harmonize the
rhythm to the English ear, while preserving as much as possible that
which has been called the type of the original.” Something of this
kind, no doubt, Milton had in view in the measure he took for his _Ad
Pyrrham_, and which the Wartons and Professor Conington adapted to the
same purpose after him, the latter, however, adding the embellishment
or, as Milton himself had called it, the “barbarous jingle” of rhyme.
Milton’s measure (well known as that of Collins’ “Ode to Evening”),
which consists of two unrhymed iambic pentameters, followed by two
unrhymed iambic trimeters—or, to be “more English and less nice,” of
two ordinary blank-verses followed by two three-foot verses—resembles
Horace’s metre, which the grammarians would tell us is the third
Asclepiadian strophe, “rather,” says Prof. Conington, “in the length of
the respective lines than in any similarity of the cadences.” Lord
Lytton attempted something more, and with only partial success, though
the task, it must be owned, was not an easy one. Horace, in the _Odes_
and _Epodes_, uses eighteen different varieties of metre, ranging from
the grave sadness of what is called the first Archilochian strophe, the
lovely measure in which one of the loveliest of all the _Odes_ is
written (iv. 7)—
“Diffugere nives; redeunt jam gramina campis
Arboribusque comæ,”[81]
to the quick sharpness of the first iambic strophe in which the poet
mauls the unsavory Mævius. And not only this, but each of these metres
is used by Horace to express widely differing moods of feeling. Thus,
the same measure which in the beautiful lament for Quinctilius breathes
the tenderest spirit of grief and resignation, serves equally well to
guy Tibullus on his luckless loves, to sound “stern alarums” to the
absent Cæsar, or to bid Virgil or Varius to “delightful meetings.” The
Sapphic rises to the lofty height of the _Carmen Seculare_ or stoops to
chide a serving-boy for his super-serviceable zeal; is equally at home
with an invocation to the gods or an invitation to dinner; while the
Alcaic—what subject is there that in Horace’s hands the Alcaic cannot
be made to sing?
This flexibility of the Latin metres Lord Lytton has recognized, and
sought to meet by a corresponding variation of his own, “according as
the prevalent spirit of the ode demanded lively and sportive or serious
and dignified expression.” Thus, for the Alcaic stanza he employs “two
different forms of rhythm”; one as in i. 9:
“See how white in the deep fallen snow stands Soracte;
Laboring forests no longer can bear up their burden;
And the rush of the rivers is locked,
Halting mute in the gripe of the frost”;
the other as in i. 34:
“Worshipper rare and niggard of the gods,
While led astray, in the Fool’s wisdom versed,
Now back I shift the sail,
Forced in the courses left behind to steer,”
or, with a slight modification, as in i. 35:
“Goddess who o’er thine own loved Antium reignest,
Present to lift Man, weighted with his sorrows
Down to life’s last degree,
Or change his haughtiest triumphs into graves.”
For the Sapphic, likewise, he has two varieties; for the statelier odes
three lines of blank-verse and what may be called an English Adonic;
for “the lighter odes a more sportive and tripping measure.” Thus, for
iv. 2 he gives us:
“Julus, he who would with Pindar vie
Soars, with Dædalian art, on waxen wings,
And, falling, gives his name unto the bright
Deeps of an ocean”;
for iii. 14 a nearer approach to the _Knife Grinder_ jingle:
“Nothing cools fiery spirits like a gray hair;
In every quarrel ’tis your sure peacemaker:
In my hot youth, when Plancus was the consul,
I was less patient.”
Lord Lytton’s experiment is full of interest to Horatians—as, indeed,
what translation is not?—even the worst, even the Rev. Mr. Sewell’s,
may be of use in teaching the translator how not to do it—and his
failures, which are many, are scarcely less instructive than his
successes, which seem to us fewer than for so bold an essay could be
wished; but both alike are suggestive of many possibilities. It is in
the lighter odes that he is least satisfactory, and we doubt if these
can be done full justice to without the aid of rhyme. Horace’s grace of
form in these is so delicate and exquisite that it taxes all the
resources and embellishments of our English verse to give any adequate
idea of it. Take, as an illustration of Lord Lytton’s method, and as
giving, perhaps, the measure of his success, his version of that
delicious little landscape, _Ad Fontem Blandusiæ_ (iii. 13):
“Fount of Blandusia, more lucid than crystal,
Worthy of honeyed wine, not without flowers,
I will give thee to-morrow a kid
Whose front, with the budded horn swelling.
“Predicts to his future life Venus and battles;
Vainly! The lymph of thy cold running waters
He shall tinge with the red of his blood,
Fated child of the frolicsome people!
“The scorch of the Dogstar’s fell season forbears thee;
Ever friendly to grant the sweet boon of thy coolness
To the wild flocks that wander around,
And the oxen that reek from the harrow.
“I will give thee high rank and renown among fountains,
When I sing of the ilex o’erspreading the hollows,
Of rocks whence in musical fall
Leap thy garrulous silvery waters.”
This is better because more literal than Joseph Warton’s unrhymed
version in the Miltonian stanza, with which it may be compared:
“Ye waves that gushing fall with purest streams,
Blandusian fount! to whom the products sweet
Of richest wines belong,
And fairest flowers of spring,
To thee a chosen victim will I slay—
A kid who, glowing in lascivious youth,
Just blooms with budding horn,
And, with vain thought elate,
Yet destines future war; but, ah! too soon
His reeking blood with crimson shall enrich
Thy pure, translucent flood
And tinge thy crystal clear.
Thy sweet recess the sun in midday hour
Can ne’er invade; thy streams the labor’d ox
Refresh with cooling draughts
And glad the wand’ring herds.
Thy name shall shine, with endless honors graced,
While in my shell I sing the nodding oak
That o’er thy cavern deep
Waves his embowering head.”
It would almost seem as if the author of this version had taken pains
to rub out every Horatian characteristic. The pretty touch of the
_loquaces lymphæ_ is thus omitted, unless the first line be meant to do
duty for it, while by such padding as “chosen victim” and “endless
honors” Horace’s sixteen lines are diluted into twenty—a danger to
which the unrhymed translator, constantly seeking by inversions and
paraphrases to cover the baldness of his medium, is peculiarly liable.
Whatever may be said to the contrary, rhyme compels conciseness, and
helps to point quite as often as it entices to expansion. Prof.
Conington’s version, in the same metre as Warton’s, but rhymed in
alternate lines, will be found greatly superior to it, and is perhaps,
on the whole, the best we have seen—better even than Mr. Martin’s, who
cannot get his Latin into less than twenty-four octosyllabic lines.
Instead of giving either, let us see if all that is essential in Horace
cannot be given in the same number of lines of what is known as the
Tennysonian stanza, which is somewhat less capacious than the Alcaics
of the original, though, by a certain pensive grace, peculiarly fitted
to render the sentiment of this delightful ode:
“Blandusian fount, as crystal clear,
Of garlands worthy and of wine,
A kid to-morrow shall be thine,
Whose swelling brows, just budding, bear
“The horns that presage love and strife;
How vainly! For his crimson blood
Shall stain the silver of thy flood
With all the herd’s most wanton life.
“The burning Dogstar’s noontide beam
Knows not thy secret nook; the ox
Parched from the plough, the fielding flocks,
Lap grateful coolness from thy stream.
“Thee, too, ‘mid storied founts my lay
Shall shrine: thy bending holm I’ll sing,
Shading the grottoed rocks whence spring
Thy laughing waters far away.”
Though terseness and fidelity are two of the chief merits claimed by
the advocates of the unrhymed measures, it is just here that they
oftenest fail; and Lord Lytton is no exception. Space permits us to
give but few instances. “Trodden by all, and only trodden once,” is
Lord Lytton’s version of _calcanda semel_, i. 28—seven English words
for two Latin, and the sense then but vaguely given at best.
_Feriuntque summos Fulgura montes_ is in like manner diluted into
“The spots on earth most stricken by the lightning
Are its high places.”
Awkwardness of style, too, is a much more frequent characteristic of
Lord Lytton’s renderings than we should look for either from his own
command of style or the freedom which disuse of rhyme is claimed to
ensure. For instance, in ii. 2:
“Him shall uplift, and on no waxen pinions,
Fame, the survivor,”
might surely have been bettered; and in the same ode a line in the
stanza already quoted above, _Latius regnes avidum domando Spiritum_,
is translated, “Wider thy realm a greedy soul subjected,” which would
be scarcely intelligible without the Latin. “Bosom _more seen through_
than glass” is by no means the neatest possible equivalent for _per
lucidior vitro_, and such expressions as “closed gates of Janus vacant
of a war,” “lest thou owe a mock,” “but me more have stricken with
rapture,” are scarcely English.
Nevertheless, with all its faults and shortcomings, Lord Lytton’s essay
is in some respects the most interesting translation of Horace that has
yet appeared, and may pioneer the way to more fortunate results in the
same direction. It has, at least, the _raison d’être_ which Mr. Matthew
Arnold denies to such translations as Wright’s and Sotheby’s Homer; it
has a distinct and novel method of its own, and does not simply repeat
the method and renew the faults and virtues of any predecessor. The
American edition, it is worthy of remark, is printed in the
old-fashioned way, with the Latin text to face the English—an
innovation, or, more properly, a _re_novation, which will no doubt be
welcome to lovers of the Venusian, whose love has outlived their
memory, and who, though loyal to the spirit of our poet, are no longer
so familiar with his letter as in the days, the far-off sunny days,
when Horace was the heaviest task that life had yet laid upon us.
We have dwelt upon this subject at somewhat greater length than we
intended; for to us it is full of a fascination we should be glad to
hope we had made our readers in some sort share. But it has also a
practical side which the most fanatical opponent of the classics, the
most zealous upholder of utilitarian education, must recognize and
admit. As a means of training in English composition, as an aid to
discover the resources of our own tongue, there is no better practice
than translating Horace into English verse, with due attention to his
epithets. That, perhaps, may serve in some degree to reconcile the
practical mind to his retention in the modern curriculum, even though
Homer be kicked out of doors and Virgil sent flying through the window;
for a practical man is none the worse equipped for business in being
able to say what he means in “good set phrase.” To be sure it does not
ask the pen of an Addison to write an order for a “hnd. trces. lard,”
but we dare say if Mr. Richard Grant White were called upon to make out
a bill of lading, he would do it none the worse for knowing all about
the English language that is worth knowing, if not more than is worth
telling. There are mysteries in our English speech that the _Complete
Letter-Writer_, or even the “editorials” of the daily newspaper, do not
quite explore, and some of these our old friend Horace may help us to
find out. _Fas est ab hoste doceri._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE LITTLE CHAPEL AT MONAMULLIN.
CONCLUSION.
Father Maurice sped upon his journey to Moynalty Castle. The dinner
hour was eight o’clock, but he had delayed so long with his guest that
it took the little pony her “level best” to do the seven miles within
the necessary time.
“Av we wor wanst beyant the Mouladharb berrin’ groun’ I wudn’t care a
thraneen; but sorra a step the little pony’ll pass it afther dark,”
observed Murty Mulligan, bestowing a liberal supply of whip upon the
astonished nag, whose habit it was to proceed upon her travels at her
own sweet will, innocent of lash, spur, or admonition.
“Tut, tut! Nonsense, Murty! Push on.”
“It’s thruth I’m tellin’ yer riverince. We’re at it. See that,
now—curse of Crummell on her! she won’t put wan foot afore the other,”
adding, in a whisper full of consternation: “Mebbe she sees ould Casey,
that was berried a Munda. He was a terrible naygur—”
“Jump down and take her head,” said the priest.
“Be the powers! I’ll have for to carry her, av we want to raich the
castle to-night.”
Father Maurice dismounted, as did Murty, and, by coaxing and
blandishment of every description, endeavored to induce the pony to
proceed; but the animal, with its ears cocked, and trembling in every
limb, refused to budge an inch.
“Och, wirra, wirra! we’re bet intirely. It’s Missis Delaney he sees,
that died av the horrors this day month,” growled Mulligan.
“Silence, you jackass!” cried Father Maurice, “and help me to blindfold
the pony.”
This _ruse_ eventually succeeded, and they spun merrily along the road,
the terrified animal clattering onwards at racing speed.
“This pace is dangerous, Murty,” said the priest.
“Sorra a lie in it, yer riverince.”
“Pull in.”
“I can’t hould her. She’s me hands cut aff, bad cess to her!”
“Is the road straight?”
“Barrin’ a few turns, it’s straight enough, sir.”
The words had hardly escaped his lips when the wheel attached to the
side of the car upon which the priest was sitting came into contact
with a pile of stones, the car was tilted upwards and over, Father
Maurice shot into a thorn hedge, and Murty Mulligan landed up to his
neck in a ditch full of foul and muddy water, while the pony, suddenly
freed from its load, and after biting the dust, quietly turned round to
gaze at the havoc it had made.
“Are ye kilt, yer riverince? For I’m murdhered intirely, an’ me
illigant Sunda’ shuit ruined complately. Och, wirra, wirra! how can I
face the castle wud me duds consaled in mud? How can I uphould
Monamullin, an’ me worse nor a scarecrow? Glory be to God! we’re safe
anyhow, an’ no bones bruck. O ye varmint!” shaking his fist at the
unconscious cause of this disaster, “its meself that’ll sarve ye out
for this. Won’t I wallop ye, ye murdherin’ thief, whin I catch a hould
of ye!”
“Hold your nonsense, Murty. How near are we to the castle?”
“Sorra a know I know, yer riverince; the knowledgeableness is shuk out
o’ me intirely.”
“The shafts are broken.”
“Av course th’ are.”
“Here, help me to shove the car over to the ditch and pile the cushions
under this hedge. God be praised! neither of us is even scratched.”
A carriage with blazing lamps came along.
“Hi! hi! hi!” roared Murty, “we’re wracked here. Lind us a hand! We’re
desthroyed be a villain av a pony that seen a ghost, an’ we goin’ to
dine at Moynalty Castle.”
The carriage belonged to Mr. Bodkin, the senior member for the county,
who was only too delighted to act the Good Samaritan; and as he, with
his wife and daughter, was bound for the castle, which still lay two
miles distant, the meeting proved in every respect a fortunate one.
The worthy priest was received by his host and hostess with the most
flattering courtesy, and by Miss Julia Jyvecote as though he formed
part and parcel of her personal property. He took Mrs. Jyvecote into
dinner, and said grace both before and after.
Father Maurice was positively startled with the splendor and exquisite
taste of the surroundings. The room in which they dined—not _the_
dinner-room, but a delightful little snuggery, where the anecdote was
the property of the table, and the _mot_ did not require to be handed
from plate to plate like an _entrée_—was richly decorated in the
Pompeiian style, with walls of a pale gray, while the hangings were of
a soft amber relieved by red brown. The dinner was simply perfect, the
_entourages_ in the shape of cut glass, flowers, and fruit—veritable
poems—while the quiet simplicity and easy elegance lent an
indescribable charm which fell upon the simple priest like a potent
spell.
Every effort that good breeding combined with generous hospitality
could make was called into requisition in order to render the timid,
blushing clergyman perfectly at home; and so happily did this action on
the part of his entertainers succeed that before the lapse of a few
moments he felt as though he had lived amongst them for years.
Mrs. Jyvecote promised to send him flowers for the altar, and Julia to
work an altar-cloth for him.
“I must go over and pay you a visit, father,” she said. “I am one of
your parishioners, although I go to Mass at Thonelagheera.”
“I wish you would, my dear child; but I have no inducements to offer
you, although at present perhaps I have.” And he narrated the arrival
of the guest to whom Mrs. Clancy was playing the _rôle_ of _châtelaine_
during his absence.
“Why, this is quite a romance, Father Maurice. I must see your artist
_coûte que coûte_, and shall drive over next week.”
But fate determined that she should drive over the next day.
When, upon the following morning, Father Maurice came to examine the
condition of his pony, he found both the knees barked and the luckless
animal unfit to travel.
“We couldn’t walk her home, Murty, could we?” he asked of his
_factotum_.
“Och, the poor crayture couldn’t stir a step wudout tears comin’ to her
eyes. Me heart is bleedin’ for her this minnit,” replied the wily
Mulligan, sagaciously perceiving that so long as the pony remained at
the castle he should abide with her; and as his reception in the
servants’ hall had been of the same flattering description as that of
his master up-stairs, he resolved to continue in such delightful
quarters as long as he possibly could.
“Poor Rosy!” he cried, affectionately scratching the pony’s forehead,
“shure it’s yerself that wud dance on yer head for his riverince, av ye
wor able; but yer bet up, poor little wumman, an’ it’s rest ye want for
a cupple o’ days, anyhow.”
When Father Maurice mentioned the predicament he found himself in, Mrs.
Jyvecote instantly proposed sending him home in the carriage, since he
could not be induced to prolong his stay; but Julia insisted upon
driving him herself to Monamullin in her basket phaeton; and so, laden
with flowers, hot-house pines, grapes, a hamper of grouse and a brace
of hares, and under solemn promise to make another visit at no distant
date, Father Maurice turned homewards under the “whip” of his
newly-found and exceedingly charming parishioner.
As they jogged along by the sad sea-wave she told him the entrancing
history of her conversion—of her meeting with Cardinal Manning at a
garden party at Holland House, and of a casual conversation which led
to so much.
Father Maurice felt as if he had a white-robed angel by his side, and
revelled in the absorbing narrative until the phaeton stopped at the
cottage gate. The pony was duly stabled, and, while the priest set
forth to attend to a sick-call, Miss Jyvecote proceeded to the chapel,
where she encountered his artist guest.
Brown started, despite himself, when Father Maurice mentioned her name.
“A parishioner of mine, Mr. Brown.”
“I—I saw you in the church just now,” muttered the artist. “It’s an
awfully seedy—I mean it’s a very quiet little place.”
“I could pray more fervently in a church like that than in the
Madeleine,” she replied in a soft, silvery voice.
“The Madeleine is too rowy, too many chairs creaking, too many swells,
and all that sort of thing, you know.”
Insensibly the drawl of society had come upon him, and the slanginess
of expression which passes current in Mayfair and Belgravia.
“Miss Jyvecote is going to brighten me up, Mr. Brown; she is going to
work me an altar-cloth,” exclaimed the delighted priest.
“And I am going to paint you an altar-picture, a copy of Raphael’s
Virgin and Child—that is, if you will kindly accept it,” he added,
blushing to the roots of his hair.
“Oh! how charming, how generous,” cried Miss Jyvecote.
“My dear Mr. Brown,” said Father Maurice, crossing the room and taking
his guest by the hand, “I am deeply, _deeply_ sensible of the kindly,
the noble spirit which actuates you to make this offer; but you are a
young man, with a grand future before you, with God’s help, and by and
by, when you have leisure, perhaps you will get a stiff letter from me
calling on you to fulfil your promise. You’ll find me a very tough
customer to deal with, I assure you.”
“He thinks I cannot afford it,” said Brown to himself; “and how
delicately he has refused me!”