Let us here say that if a man cannot attack Mr. Disraeli, or the Earl of

Beaconsfield, on higher and fairer ground than on that of his being “a

Jew,” he may as well let that statesman alone. A man who adopts this

very small, very cheap, and very common mode of attack is not worthy the

hearing of sensible men. Addressing the “outlawed Best”—by the bye, the

poet is very arbitrary and perplexing in his use of capitals—England’s

nobles, presumably, Mr. Patmore says:

“Know, ’twas the force of function high,

In corporate exercise, and public awe

Of Nature’s, Heaven’s, and England’s Law,

That Best, though mix’d with Bad, should reign,

Which kept you in your sky!”

Does he mean that the “Best” are restricted to the English nobility? If

he does mean this, he is quite wrong; if he does not mean it, then the

lines immediately following are meaningless:

“But, when the sordid Trader caught

The loose-held sceptre from your hands distraught,

And soon, to the Mechanic vain,

Sold the proud toy for naught,

Your charm was broke, your task was sped,

Your beauty, with your honor, dead.”

And so the ode goes on to hope that

“Prayer perchance may win

A term to God’s indignant mood

And the orgies of the multitude,

Which now begin....”

We cannot help thinking, if God’s name must be introduced in the matter,

that he is not especially indignant with Mr. Disraeli and the English

nobles and people at the extension of the suffrage, and that for this

reason to stigmatize 1867 as “the year of the great Crime” is nonsense.

As for “the sordid Trader,” there has always been a considerable

admixture of the “Trader” in the composition of the English government,

noble or ignoble. The first Napoleon’s estimate of the English as “a

nation of shopkeepers” was not an ill-judged one; and never was that

government, at least since Reformation times, so pure and its members so

honest as to-day, when “the sordid Trader” has a large hand in the

administration. We do all honor to the spirit of chivalry; we do not

object to class distinctions in countries where such distinctions are

historic and hereditary; but we recognize manhood wherever we find it,

and set it above all accidents of time or clime or artificial

restrictions. At the end of the ode, however, the poet rises above his

smaller self to a strain that is noble and true:

'And now, because the dark comes on apace

When none can work for fear,

And Liberty in every Land lies slain,

_And the two Tyrannies unchallenged reign_,

And heavy prophecies, suspended long

At supplication of the righteous few

And so discredited, to fulfilment throng,

Restrain’d no more by faithful prayer or tear,

And the dread baptism of blood seems near

That brings to the humbled Earth the Time of Grace,

Hush’d be all song,

And let Christ’s own look through

The darkness, suddenly increased,

To the gray secret lingering in the East.”

We could linger with delight over many passages in these odes, and dwell

with pleasure on the peculiar depth, conciseness, and expressiveness of

the phrases used, the mere words often which the poet chooses. His power

of condensation and deep philosophic comprehension and observation

constantly strikes one. The concealed art of the whole is marvellous.

But this, we have no doubt, will, from the copious extracts we have

given, strike the reader as it has struck us. And we hasten on to quote

a few more passages and take leave of the book.

We have called attention to the poet’s scorn. It is very bitter, and is

at its best when it attacks not so much persons or matters which are at

least open to question as when it deals with obvious shams and

pretentious littleness. What could be better than this placid treatment

of the modern scientific school which can see nothing more than its

telescope and its instruments disclose to it?

“Not greatly moved with awe am I

To learn that we may spy

Five thousand firmaments beyond our own.

The best that’s known

Of the heavenly bodies _does them credit small_.

View’d close, the Moon’s fair ball

Is of ill objects worst.

_A corpse in Night’s highway_, naked, fire-scarr’d, accurst;

And now they tell

That the Sun is plainly seen to boil and burst

Too horribly for hell.

So, judging from these two,

As we must do,

The Universe, outside our living Earth,

Was all conceiv’d in the Creator’s mirth,

Forecasting at the time Man’s spirit deep,

_To make dirt cheap_.

Put by the Telescope!

Better without it man may see,

_Stretch’d awful in the hush’d midnight,

The ghost of his eternity_.

Give me the nobler glass that swells to the eye

The things which near us lie,

Till Science rapturously hails,

In the minutest water-drop,

_A torment of innumerable tails_.

These at least do live.

But rather give

A mind not much to pry

Beyond our royal-fair estate

Betwixt these deserts blank of small and great.

Wonder and beauty our own courtiers are,

Pressing to catch our gaze,

And out of obvious ways

Ne’er wandering far.”

At other times his strong humanity seems to die in him, the struggle of

life seems small and profitless, and the many ends that move us weak and

purposeless as children’s plans. “Here, in this little Bay,” he says:

“Full of tumultuous life and great repose,

Where, twice a day,

The purposeless, glad ocean comes and goes,

Under high cliffs, and far from the huge town,

I sit me down.

For want of me the world’s course will not fail;

When all its work is done, _the lie shall rot_;

The truth is great, and shall prevail,

_When none cares whether it prevail or not_.”

Of course we need not remind the poet that it is just the duty of honest

men to see that the truth prevails and the lie rots, for his poems are a

very pæan of Truth and its high offices; but in this as in others of the

odes he gives complete expression to the weariness that at times creeps

over all who are struggling for the right. It is like the song of the

tired mariners in Tennyson’s _Lotos-Eaters_.

Again he sings:

“Join, then, if thee it please, the bitter jest

Of mankind’s progress; all its spectral race

Mere impotence of rest,

_The heaving vain of life which cannot cease from self_,

Crest altering still to gulf

And gulf to crest

In endless chase

That leaves the tossing water anchor’d in its place!

Ah, well does he who does but stand aside,

Sans hope or fear,

And marks the crest and gulf in station sink and rear,

And prophesies ’gainst trust in such a tide:

For he sometimes is prophet, heavenly taught,

Whose message is that he sees only naught!

Nathless, discern’d may be,

_By listeners at the doors of destiny,

The fly-wheel swift and still

Of God’s incessant will_,

Mighty to keep in bound, tho’ powerless to quell,

_The amorous and vehement drift of man’s herd to hell_.”

We can quote no further at any length, though we find something to

attract us in every ode; and the more we read the odes the more we find

in them, the more we admire them, and the clearer they become. Though

independent of each other, a secret string of purpose, of aim and

aspiration, of a yearning after something that the poet has not yet

quite caught or cannot as yet fully express, becomes apparent. To this

is due much of the obscurity and dimness that at first offend the eye.

Closer study, however, reveals a throbbing passion, a high ideal, gleams

of light from heaven, the flashes of a bright intelligence warmed by a

pure heart and looking from and through all things earthly heavenwards.

We have seen no man of late who can lash the follies and lay bare the

falsehoods of the time so thoroughly. A man of intense and rooted

convictions, he may make mistakes sometimes, but at least he makes them

nobly. He is very human, as we have already said. Indeed, there are

touches here and there in some of the odes that are strongly sensuous,

and the two last poems, “The Rosy Bosom’d Hours” and “The After-Glow,”

were better omitted from the volume. Their littleness offends and breaks

with a discordant jar on the high and serene atmosphere through which we

have been passing. It is almost like what the introduction of one of

Offenbach’s airs would be into a solemn Mass. From the poet whose

“Proem” is pitched in so high a key as this:

“Therefore no 'plaint be mine

Of listeners none,

No hope of render’d use or proud reward,

In hasty times and hard;

But chants as of a lonely thrush’s throat

At latest eve,

That does in each calm note

Both joy and grieve;

Notes few and strong and fine,

Gilt with sweet day’s decline,

And sad with promise of a different sun,”

we certainly expected no such stuff as the following, addressed to his

bride:

“At Dawlish, 'mid the pools of brine,

You stept from rock to rock,

One hand quick tightening upon mine,

One holding up your frock.

* * * * *

I thought, indeed, by magic chance,

A third [day] from Heaven to win,

But as, at dusk, we reach’d Penzance,

_A drizzling rain set in_.”

There is so much that is high and noble and full of great promise in

this new writer—for such he really is—and we have been so honest in our

admiration of it, that we feel all the more at liberty to point out some

of the blemishes that mar a work of rare excellence and strange beauty.

Here and there throughout the volume are lines and couplets that linger

lovingly in the memory; as, for instance:

“Pierce, then, with thought’s steel probe the trodden ground

Till passion’s buried floods be found....”

And again:

“Till inmost absolution start

_The welling in the grateful eyes,

The heaving in the heart_.”

What could be more tenderly and naturally expressive than those two last

lines? Or than this:

“_Winnow with sighs_, and wash away

With tears the dust and stain of clay.”

Often have we heard aspirations of the following kind, but never sweeter

than this:

“Ye Clouds that on your endless journey go,

Ye Winds that westward flow,

Thou heaving Sea

That heav’st ’twixt her and me,

Tell her I come....”

The poet yokes all Nature to the wings of his fancy, and makes it the

loving slave of his Love.

How simple, yet how subtly told, is this great truth:

“Who does not know

That good and ill

Are done in secret still,

And that which shows is verily but show!”

And this deep reflection contains a volume:

“How high of heart is one, and one how sweet of mood:

_But not all height is holiness,

Nor every sweetness good_.”

Here is a proverb, only too often verified:

“One fool, with lusty lungs,

Does what a hundred wise, who hate and hold their tongues,

Shall ne’er undo.”

In “Victory in Defeat” he says—how truly!—

“Life is not life at all without delight,

Nor has it any might;

_And better than the insentient heart and brain

Is sharpest pain_;

And better for the moment seems it to rebel,

If the great Master, from his lifted seat,

Ne’er whispers to the wearied servant, 'Well!’”

We hope to hear again and soon from Mr. Patmore. If he can avoid a

certain obscurity that will repel many who would be sincere and honest

admirers of so noble a writer, it will be better for himself and those

whom he addresses. Even as his work now stands we are happy to say of

it, in closing our review, what a true poet whose name often adorns

these pages has said: “Many parts of the book seem to me both to ascend

higher and descend deeper than almost anything we have had for a long

time.”

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

PRIESTHOOD IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. By E. Mellor, D.D. New

York: A. S. Barnes & Co.

The author in the preface of the book before us says that his lectures

were prepared at the request of the Committee of the Congregational

Union of England and Wales, and though not considered as exhausting the

subject, yet they furnish a contribution toward the settlement of the

question of the priesthood and its claims; which settlement in the

author’s aim means toward doing away altogether with the priesthood and

its claims. After a careful perusal of the volume, we must confess that

we think the contribution exceedingly small, and not calculated to

settle anything at all in the reverend gentleman’s sense. For the

doctor’s lectures are a rehash of all the old objections brought forward

against the priesthood, from the time of the Reformation downwards; and

which have been time and again triumphantly refuted by our

controversialists; but of which refutation the author takes no heed, as

if such men as Bellarmine, Petau, Suarez, Thomassin, and a host of

others down to our day had never existed. If the author had wished to

bring towards the settlement of the subject a _real_ contribution, the

proper course for him to pursue would have been to state the objections,

to bring forward the answer to each one of them given by our

controversialists, to show the futility and untenableness of their

answer, and to conclude that the objections yet hold good against the

subject. His having, therefore, of a set purpose, or most innocently,

ignored those answers leaves the question just where it was, and no one

the wiser or better by the author’s lectures.

It is not possible for us in the brief space of a passing notice to

attempt a refutation of all the objections he rehashes so carefully. It

will suffice to remark that all his objections, even if nothing at all

could be said against them, would prove nothing _positive_ against the

priesthood. For they may be classified under two heads. The first are

those of purely negative character, which, as they prove nothing in

favor of the priesthood, neither do they prove anything against it.

Under this head we put the old objection, drawn from the Epistle of St.

Paul to the Hebrews, which exalts the priesthood of Christ above the

Jewish priesthood, and which says _at least_ nothing against the

Christian priesthood, which is identical with that of Christ.

The other class of objections is when our author examines the positive

proofs brought in favor of the Christian priesthood. These proofs, so

clear, so satisfactory, so weighty, the author dismisses very summarily

by throwing doubt on the meaning of the words, after the fashion of the

Protestant method. One example will suffice to prove our assertion.

Examining the text, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose sins you shall

forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they

are retained,” he disposes of it as follows: “It is not needful to enter

into a consideration of the meaning of the words [as if the question was

not just about the _meaning_ of the words; or as if our Lord was

speaking merely for a joke] which set forth the high powers of the

apostles; whether the sins they were to remit or retain were spiritual

sins [are there any corporal sins?], or ecclesiastical ones, or both.

The question before us is, be the function here referred to what it may,

to whom was it accorded and by whom was it meant to be exercised? Almost

every word in the passage has been a battle-field.” We would remark on

this passage that there is no reason for waiving the question, be the

function here referred to what it may, when our Lord says expressly it

_is_ to remit or to retain sins; that it is evident from the text, if

words or language mean anything any more, that this function was to be

exercised by those to whom our Lord spoke, and by those whom they

preceded, as the apostles were essentially first and representative men;

but it is useless. We only wish to call the attention of our readers to

the fact that, if a text clear and palpable in itself, proving a truth

or a dogma, can be disposed of in this manner, no Christian truth can

stand any longer, and we may as well have done with all Christian

revelation. For suppose we want to bring a contribution towards the

settlement of the question of the Divinity of Christ, all we have to do

is to throw doubts on the meaning of the words of those texts which

assert it, and the contribution is made, and so on to the end of the

chapter.

We think we have made our statement good, that our author has proved

nothing in his book against the Christian priesthood, as all his

objections are of a negative character.

But we will exceed him in liberality, and grant for a moment that those

texts by which we assert the nature and prerogatives of the priesthood

prove nothing in its favor, as his negative objections prove nothing

against it. What then? Has he gained anything by our concession, or has

he made any step forward towards the settlement of the question? Not at

all. There will always be the fact of the existence of the priesthood,

in the full exercise of all its claims, staring him in the face. How to

account for that fact? Our author sees the difficulty, and admits that

to account for it by urging an ambitious conspiracy on the part of the

presbyters or bishops is absurd, that such a conspiracy could not have

succeeded in establishing itself (page 74), and endeavors to account for

it by a bias of humanity towards the priesthood identical with a bias

towards selfishness and sins. And he goes on developing the thought by

saying that the priesthood was called into being by ill-defined terrors

of the future, by a fear of God not yet cast out by love, by the

irksomeness of the duties of self-discipline, by the intolerable

oppressiveness of the sense of personal responsibility seeking relief by

its transference to others.

Whether all these reasons can produce a bias towards the priesthood in

humanity identical with the bias it has unfortunately towards

selfishness and sin, we will leave to the author to assert. We think

that all those reasons, when well understood and stated properly,

dispose humanity towards the priesthood—in fact, create an instinct for

it—and that that instinct is a legitimate, noble, generous craving of

the human heart; and to say that they create a bias identical with a

bias to sin is to show the most supine ignorance of human nature, of the

history of mankind, and the true philosophy of history. But let that

pass; do all these reasons account for the existence and claims of the

priesthood? According to the author himself _they do not_. For he says

himself all this contributed to prepare the way for a transformation of

that religion which knows no earthly mediator (page 75).

Well, Dr. Mellor, you have accounted for the preparation of the way, but

not for the fact of the existence of the priesthood. When and how did it

come into existence? Who were the first who hatched it? Where was it

established first? Who were the first Christians they imposed it upon?

How did they succeed in persuading them to accept it? Was there any

opposition on the part of the Christians who first heard of such a

thing? Must not the imposition on any Christian people of a priesthood

well organized into a compact body, strong and valiant, and exceedingly

sensitive about its rights and claims, have been brought about by a

conspiracy of somebody or other? And have you not said—page 74—that to

account for the existence of the priesthood by a conspiracy is absurd?

We wish to advert to another theory before closing these remarks. He is

not satisfied to have proved _more suo_ that the priesthood has no place

in the New Testament; he strives to prove that it was congenial with the

whole spirit and nature of it, and the proof, he alleges, is drawn from

the words to the Samaritan woman: God is a spirit, and in spirit and

truth he must be adored; that is, by having recourse to an invisible

church, is the sense he attaches to those words. Of course, if the

church is not a visible body, the mountain placed on the top of

mountains, we must necessarily do away with the priesthood and

sacraments, etc., for they can have no scope in an invisible, abstract

thing. But in that case why not abolish Christ the Emmanuel, the

God-man?

We could easily enough prove the congeniality of the priesthood with

Christianity by showing to the reverend doctor that all the works of God

are _permanent_. That the Incarnation is permanent in the church, and

that Christ the High-Priest is permanent in the Catholic priesthood, and

discharges all the functions necessary to bring all men to salvation in

all time and space, in it, and through it, and so forth. But we fear the

reverend gentleman has not philosophy enough to understand us, and we

forbear. We will not, however, conclude our remarks without thanking the

reverend lecturer for the polite courtesy which he uses towards the

Catholic priesthood: first, using the _nom de guerre popish_ whenever he

has occasion to make mention of it; and, secondly, for associating it

with the priesthood of the English Episcopal Church. In the lecturer’s

mind, perhaps, it was to do honor to the Catholic priesthood by

confounding it with the other. It is a goodly company, no doubt, and we

ought to be highly flattered; but we respectfully decline through excess

of modesty such unmerited honor, and would rather keep by ourselves, if

it is all the same to the reverend doctor.

THIRTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY AND

COUNTY OF NEW YORK, FOR THE YEAR ENDING DECEMBER 31, 1876.

Much has been written on the school question within the past few months;

not, however, by opponents of the public schools as they exist here, but

by those who pay for them—the taxpayers. Four million dollars for the

Department of Public Schools alone is a great load. This tax increases

yearly, and no doubt will soon reach the fifth million. The strange

enthusiasm that led sects to trample on the religious convictions of

their neighbors also led them to make light of the burden that came with

the victory. But five millions is terrifying. Why not six? Will there be

no end to the increase?

Perhaps the originators of the present school system recognized the

moral baseness of severing the instruction which may enable the child to

act with judgment from the training which teaches him moral

responsibility for the judgment as well as for the action springing from

it. They certainly desired to accomplish indirectly the chief end of

education by placing the school machinery in the hands of

philanthropists who serve without pay or emolument.

The result has been a gradual complication of the common-school system,

so as to include technical education, and even the higher branches of

learning. Years ago a Free College was successfully engrafted. Next came

a Normal College for young ladies. In order to render this latter

offshoot permanent, it was deemed necessary to provide the graduates

with positions in the common schools. The first step was to raise the

standard of proficiency for a teacher’s certificate; the next, to

declare that the college diploma was sufficient evidence of

qualification, without a public examination by the city superintendent.

The report tells us that “under the by-law by which the graduates are

licensed to teach without a second examination, the city superintendent

and the president of the college have performed their duties in perfect

harmony.”

When the mode of testing the qualification of applicants who are not

Normal College graduates is discussed, the report states, “a system of

rigid examinations in the superintendent’s office precludes the

possibility of incompetent persons being foisted upon the system through

political or social influence.”

Nor is this the only injury to the common schools. The favored graduates

are not to be allowed to work for the low salaries received by primary

teachers during the past thirty-five years. An _adjustment_ of salaries

is demanded. These primary teachers must receive as large a sum as

grammar-school teachers. This simply means an increase in the cost of

the common-school system.

If that system, as it now exists here, answer to the purposes for which

it was intended, it is high time for that fact to appear. Yet the

gentlemen who have charge of the board, from the president down, seem

strangely to disagree on most important matters. Without committing

ourselves to one side or the other in the discussion, we take a few

instances. The grammar schools surely form a very important branch of

the system. Here is how the president treats of them in the report: “Our

primary-school teachers have a lower rate of pay than our grammar-school

teachers, and the primary schools have been used as training places for

the better-paid positions in the grammar schools. The plan for

uniformity in salaries in these two departments has received serious

consideration by a committee of the board, and deserves to be carried

out. The majority of our pupils receive all the education they have in

the primary, _and never enter the grammar schools_. This majority

deserves the first consideration. Instruction and discipline are no more

difficult in one than in the other, and in neither department is the

range of knowledge required to be mastered extensive.”

The president asserts that the common-school system only succeeds in

furnishing primary instruction to a majority of pupils, and he would

seem to imply that the enormous sum of four million dollars should be

spent on the primary schools, reserving, of course, a sufficient sum for

the Normal College.

Lest his opinions as to the range of knowledge required in a teacher

should dishearten those who are toiling through Normal College, he

inserts a few lines for their benefit: “An erroneous idea seems to

prevail that a primary teacher can dispense with the higher studies. The

truth is that this class of teachers more than any other class needs

trained faculties and sound judgment, and these are only obtained by the

discipline of hard and close study. Normal study and normal practice, to

be effective, must be based on the broad foundation of a liberal

education.”

Compulsory education the city superintendent pronounces a complete

failure, while those who are paid to enforce it consider it successful.

In the discussion some interesting facts are brought to light. The city

superintendent states: “Many parents, finding that our schools are

unable to govern their wilful and unruly children, send them to the

parochial schools. In connection with this, it is proper to call the

attention of the board to the fact that, while the average attendance of

pupils in the schools immediately under its care has, during the past

year, increased less than two and a half per cent., in the corporate

schools it has increased more than five per cent. It is also of interest

to observe that, at the close of 1875, the number of pupils enrolled in

the Catholic parochial schools was 30,732, while in 1867 it was only

16,342, showing an increase, in less than ten years, of nearly 90 per

cent.; while the increase in the attendance of the pupils in the public

schools has, during the same time, been only about 13 per cent. The

increase in attendance at the corporate schools, during the same period,

has been more than 57 per cent.... The question, therefore, very

properly suggests itself, why should a system for compelling pupils to

attend the schools be sustained at great expense to the city while there

is no effective means of controlling and educating those children after

they have been brought into the schools?”

These are but a few of the spots uncovered in this interesting report.

Never was the want of harmony in the system more manifest. The iniquity

of taxing a people for what it cannot use, and turning over the amount

collected to the keeping of gentlemen who care more for pet schemes than

for the real object for which the tax was levied, becomes more and more

apparent. Higher education, technical education, and compulsory

education are battling vigorously for larger shares of the funds; and

the battle seems likely to end when the funds are made large enough to

satisfy all demands. In the meantime the common-school system is slowly

dying out. The primary schools are becoming departments for the

employment of normal school graduates, and the grammar schools feeders

for the colleges.

A QUESTION OF HONOR: A NOVEL. By Christian Reid, author of _A

Daughter of Bohemia_, _Valerie Aylmer_, _Morton House_, etc. New

York: D. Appleton & Co. 1876.

A well-written novel, thoroughly American in its tone, its incidents,

and its characters, and yet availing itself of none of the peculiar

“isms” which form the chief stock in trade of our native

novelists—shunning alike the “woman question” and the shallow

metaphysics of “free thought,” depending for no share of its interest

upon suggested immorality or social license, and vivacious in its

dialogues without any reliance upon the slang which generally does duty

in place of wit—was something for which some sad experience in recent

fiction had forbidden us to hope. That Christian Reid is already well

known to the novel-reading public is evident from the title-page of _A

Question of Honor_, but that is the only one of her stories which we

have read. We find in it everything to praise and nothing to condemn. It

is thoroughly well written, to begin with, its descriptions of scenery

being particularly artistic and well done. The author attempts nothing

ambitious in the way of character-drawing, but her men and women live

and have a true individuality. Their souls are not dissected after the

manner with which the New England school of fiction has made us too

familiar for our comfort, but their manner of life and speech and

thought is indicated with a firm, graceful, and un-provincial touch

which is extremely pleasant. Altogether, the book belongs to the best

class of light literature. There is nothing in it to shock taste or to

jar prejudice, and everything in the way of grace of style and purity of

thought to recommend it. So much being said by way of praise, we may add

that the author, who is evidently a Catholic, has drawn a picture of

social life which is, no doubt, true to a reality of a better kind than

the ordinary novel of the day aims at, but which is nevertheless

un-Christian. Her characters are neither underbred nor vicious; with two

exceptions, they are simply a rather pleasing variety of pagans. We do

not quarrel with that, considered as a faithful transcript of reality.

But we shall find it a cause for real regret if a writer so graceful and

possessing so much genuine ability does not some day give us something

better than a mere transcript of lives that might have been lived and

ideals that might have been attained had the Creator never stooped to

the level of his creatures in order to show them the one way in which he

would lift them to himself.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. By the graduating class of St. Joseph’s

Academy, Flushing, L. I. (Translated from the French of Mme. Foa.)

New York: P. O’Shea. 1877.

Translation from the French is a literary exercise which cannot be too

highly commended to young students. The publication in book-form of such

students’ translations can scarcely be too severely condemned. Young

ladies and young men “graduate,” as it is called, at an age ranging from

seventeen to twenty or twenty-one. They are then popularly supposed to

have “finished” their education, whereas not much more has been done

than to set them on the right road of learning and appreciating what

real education is. Indeed, if so much has been accomplished, both the

pupils and their teachers may be congratulated.

To set these young persons straightway at book-making is a grave

mistake—how grave may be gathered from the following specimens of

translation which half a glance at the volume before us reveals.

The cover informs us that these are “Gems of Biography.” The first gem

is entitled “Michael Angelo Buonarotti.” The opening page introduces us

to “an old domestic” and “a young _man_ of fifteen or sixteen” “at the

_door_ of the Castle of Caprese.” In page 2 the “young man” of fifteen

is a “young _interlocutor_.” In the same page “to intercept the passage”

is used in the sense of to block up the passage. In page 3, “to cover

his curiosity” is used in the sense of to hide or conceal his curiosity.

In page 4 we have this elegant sentence: “I don’t think that either of

you does anything wrong in the place you go.” In page 5 the young man of

fifteen, who was an Italian of four centuries back, indulges in this

peculiar bit of slang: “One is not perfect at it _right away_.” A little

lower on the same page he says of Michael Angelo: “He is even quicker

than I _in piecing_ his man.” “_Mr._ Francis Graciana” and “_Mr._

Michael Angelo Buonarotti” occur quite frequently. “Canosse” is always

made to do duty for Canossa, “Politien” for Politian or Poliziano, etc.

Such phrases as “You are not _de trop_, Signor Graciana,” constantly

occur; but we have no patience to examine further.

Expressions such as these—and they characterize the book, with the

exception of “The Mulatto of Murillo,” which runs fairly enough—should

not have been allowed to pass in a written composition; but to embalm

them in a printed volume is simply an act of cruelty. The sketches in

themselves are good for nothing and were not worth the trouble of

translating, inasmuch as they have been far better given in English over

and over again. “Flushing Series” is the threatening legend on the

cover. If this volume be a specimen of what is to come, we trust

sincerely that we have seen the last of the “Series.” Catholic education

is too serious a subject for trifling.

THE WONDERS OF PRAYER: A remarkable record of well authenticated

answers to prayer. By Henry T. Williams. New York: Henry T.

Williams, Publisher.

It is not often that an author is his own publisher. In the present case

this may have been a matter of necessity; but it should not have been

so, for the volume is interesting enough. It is a collection of

anecdotes, the authenticity of which Mr. Williams personally vouches

for, showing that God answers in an immediate and direct manner the

requests of those who in faith ask him for temporal blessings. “They

demonstrate,” says the author, “to a wonderful degree the immediate

practical ways of the Lord with his children in this world; that he is

far nearer and more intimate with their plans and pursuits than it is

possible for them to realize.” We have no disposition to scoff at the

stories related by Mr. Williams, although the style in which they are

told often provokes one to mirth. There is but one true faith in the

world, but there are many people who hold more or less of this faith

without knowing it. “_Souffrons toutes les religions, puisque Dieu les

souffre_,” said Fénelon; and our Holy Father, the Pope, has not

unfrequently expressed his affection as well as his pity for good

Protestants. No doubt many of the people who are spoken of in this book

were very good Protestants. And we are glad to observe in it this

passage: “The present is the age of miracles as well as the past. Fully

as wonderful things have been and are constantly being done this day by

our unseen Lord as in the days of old when he walked in the sight of his

disciples.”

THE LITTLE PEARLS; OR, GEMS OF VIRTUE. Translated by Mrs. Kate E.

Hughes. New York: P. O’Shea. 1877.

Will be found very entertaining and instructive reading for our young

folks, and we recommend it as suitable for a present at the distribution

of school prizes. We think, however, that the name of the writer whose

work is translated should have appeared on the title-page.

BESIDE THE WESTERN SEA: A Collection of Poems. By Harriet M.

Skidmore (“Marie”). New York: P. O’Shea. 1877.

This gifted lady has done well to collect her scattered poems into a

volume. They are chiefly of a devotional character, and, though unequal,

none of them are without merit, some of a very marked kind. She has the

gift of song, and she sings easily and gracefully on almost any subject.

The following, though one of the shortest and least ambitious of the

collection, strikes us as a very sweet poem, and affords a fair idea of

the author’s powers. Its title is “The Mist”:

“I watched the folding of a soft white wing

Above the city’s heart;

I saw the mist its silent shadows fling

O’er thronged and busy mart.

Softly it glided through the Golden Gate

And up the shining bay,

Calmly it lingered on the hills, to wait

The dying of the day.

Like the white ashes of the sunset fire,

It lay within the West,

Then onward crept above the lofty spire,

In nimbus-wreaths to rest.

It spread anon—its fleecy clouds unrolled,

And floated gently down;

And thus I saw that silent wing enfold

The Babel-throated town.

A spell was laid on restless life and din,

That bade its tumult cease;

A veil was flung o’er squalor, woe, and sin,

Of purity and peace.

And dreaming hearts, so hallowed by the mist,

So freed from grosser leaven,

In the soft chime of vesper bells could list

Sweet, echoed tones of heaven;

Could see, enraptured, when the starlight came,

With lustre soft and pale,

A sacred city crowned with 'ring of flame,’

Beneath her misty veil.”

ROMAN LEGENDS: A Collection of the Fables and Folk-lore of Rome. By

R. H. Busk, author of _Sagas from the Far East_, etc. Boston: Estes

& Lauriat. 1877.

These are very graceful and interesting legends. They furnish glimpses

that could not otherwise be well obtained of the peculiar constitution,

habits of mind and thought, of the common people in and about Rome. For

the most part they are such as have not hitherto found their way into

literature, being taken as they fell from the lips of narrators to whom

they had been household words, handed down from one generation to

another. The task of eliciting them seems to have been no easy one, but

its results are pleasant enough to earn honest gratitude for the years

of labor which have been spent in gaining them. The tales themselves

range under four categories, concerning which the author notes that the

Romans are rigidly exact in adhering to, never by any chance giving a

fairy-tale if asked for a legend, or a fairy-tale if inquired of

concerning ghosts. They comprise legends; ghost-stories and local and

family traditions; fairy tales and _ciarpe_, or gossip. The book is

particularly rich in stories of St. Philip Neri.

PHILIP NOLAN’S FRIENDS: A story of the change of Western Empire. By

Edward E. Hale. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1877.

This volume traces the course of a journey into the heart of the great

South-west at the beginning of the present century. This tract was still

the border-land of the Aztec kings. Throughout its vast extent Spanish

heroes had wasted their lives in _ignis-fatuus_ searches. Rich

discoveries of gold did not reward their diligence, and they resigned so

inhospitable a region to a new order of pioneers. Even to this day the

names of places bear token that the zeal of the Spanish missionaries was

in no way inferior to that of the sons of Loyola along the St. Lawrence.

Such was their indomitable perseverance that twenty-seven missions had

been established in this region previous to 1626, and a century later

the missionary spirit carried the Gospel among the Apaches, Moquis, and

Navajoes.

The heroine’s escort through this _terra incognita_ to Americans is

ample, the weather delightful, and we do not care to question the

adequacy of the motive for the expedition. Nor does it matter that we

are led to believe that Philip Nolan possesses a sterling character,

though what he says or does, or what apparent influence he has over the

course of events, would hardly justify this conclusion.

The novel is readable, but not by any means artistic. The author lacks

the power to create a character that can think and act like a human

being. He wishes us to believe his heroine possesses beauty,

sensibility, and vivacity; but he lacks the subtle power to invent

actions and conversations which impress individuality, and we gather our

notions of the lady more from his suggestions than from the movement of

the story. This seems to be the author’s weakness: his figures act and

he suggests the motives and impulses.

His male characters miss no opportunity to abuse the missionaries. They

regard the “black-gowns” as the cause of Indian rascality and Spanish

treachery. Ill-luck is always traced to them, and the torrents of abuse

poured on the servants of God lend the only touches of nature that may

be found in the author’s passive figures. Of course these outbursts of

hatred reveal the true character of the adventurers. They are border

ruffians.

The book is partly historical. It treats of a transition period. The

allegiance of the inhabitants had suffered a violent dissolution. A

border element existed, mainly recruited from the United States. This

element was of service in manufacturing public opinion, and, in this

way, might have hastened the transfer of the Louisiana tract to its

natural owner, the United States. We are inclined to the opinion that

Southern interests would have brought about the transfer without the

assistance of European complications or scenes of border treachery.

REPLY TO THE HON. R. W. THOMPSON, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY, ADDRESSED

TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. By F. X. Weninger, D.D., of the Society of

Jesus. New York: P. O’Shea. 1877.

In this pamphlet of eighty-six pages Father Weninger has undertaken the

almost unnecessary task of replying to Mr. Thompson’s book, _The Papacy

and the Civil Power_. If there is anything in that book to refute, it

refutes itself. Mr. Thompson, however, over and above the rashness of

attempting such a book at all, was rash enough to quote Father Weninger.

The natural result is the present pamphlet. The pamphlet is addressed to

“the American people.” If the American people take it up, they will be

rewarded by some lively reading. The reverend author says at the

conclusion: “We have handled our adversary throughout the whole

discourse without gloves.” No reader of the pamphlet will be inclined to

dispute that statement.

THE PEARL AMONG THE VIRTUES; OR, WORDS OF ADVICE TO CHRISTIAN YOUTH.

By P. A. De Doss, S.J. Translated from the original German by a

Catholic priest. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1877.

This work, written by one of the Jesuit Fathers banished from Germany,

is an excellent treatise on the angelic virtue, which he considers from

almost every point of view in a solid, instructive, and highly

interesting manner. No more useful book could be placed in the hands of

the youth of either sex.

GOD THE TEACHER OF MANKIND: A PLAIN, COMPREHENSIVE EXPLANATION OF

CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. By Michael Müller, C.SS.R. New York, Cincinnati,

and St. Louis: Benziger Brothers. 1877.

We have received advance sheets of this new and most interesting work by

the indefatigable Redemptorist father to whom Catholics in this country

are so much indebted for works that are really useful as well as

popular. The book is too important in itself and on too important a

subject to be dismissed with a hasty notice. We shall return to it

later.

EDMONDO: A Sketch of Roman Manners and Customs. By Rev. Fr. Antonio

Bresciani, S.J., author of _The Jew of Verona_, etc., etc.

Translated from the Italian. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1877.

This is a powerfully-written story that cannot but excite the liveliest

interest on account of its faithful and beautiful description of Roman

scenery and vivid delineation of Roman life and customs.

The translation is well rendered, but we do not approve of the omission

of two chapters from the writings of such an author as the learned

Bresciani. Such men do not write anything that can be cast aside without

loss to their readers and admirers.

DORA. By Julia Kavanagh.

BESSIE:

SILVIA. By the same author. D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

We have not read any one of these three stories, and can only

acknowledge their receipt. From others that we have read by the same

author we think it safe to recommend these to persons who are fond of

novels. Julia Kavanagh is, to our thinking, one of the purest, most

graceful, and most interesting story-writers of the day.

THE CATHOLIC KEEPSAKE. A gift-book for all seasons. Baltimore: John

Murphy & Co. 1877.

The best encomium we can bestow on this collection is to say that it is

worthy of its name. The numerous sketches and stories are short,

entertaining, and very agreeably written, even though a little ancient.

BESSY; OR, THE FATAL CONSEQUENCE OF TELLING LIES. By the author of

_The Rat-Pond; or, The Effects of Disobedience_. Baltimore: Kelly,

Piet & Co. 1877.

A plain, simple story for children, and, as the title designates, with a

moral attached.

THE STORY OF FELICE. By Esmeralda Boyle. London: Trübner & Co. 1873.

SONGS OF THE LAND AND SEA. By Esmeralda Boyle. New York: E. J. Hale

& Son. 1875.

In these poems Miss Boyle displays much true poetic feeling and a gift

of melodious utterance.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXV., No. 150.—SEPTEMBER, 1877.

AMONG THE TRANSLATORS.

VIRGIL AND HORACE.

The number of versified translations of Greek and Latin poets which the

English presses continually put forth must be a never-ending surprise to

the practical American mind—if, that is to say, the practical mind ever

thinks of so manifestly useless and absurd a thing at all. Authors are

supposed to write and publishers to print for the purpose of making

money; that either should work to any other end is a proposition which

to the practical mind is simply bewildering. Yet one would think there

can be but little money in laboriously turning into English a quantity

of school-books which no one reads except at school, and whose only

value is in their being in a foreign tongue. Original poetry is bad

enough; the verdict of the practical mind on that point is pretty apt to

be one with the view taken by Heine’s rich uncle, to whom the poet, at

the height of his fame, was but a _Dummkopf_ (may not the uncle, alas!

have been right?); but poetry at second hand, the “old clo’” of the

Muses, Apollo’s second table, the cold victual of Parnassus, a

disaerated Helicon—the practical mind can only gasp at the notion

(which, by the way, strikes it in quite another shape than the poetical

one we have chosen to give it, but just as effectively) and seek to

renew its faith in human nature over the credit column of its ledger.

Another class of minds, too, not quite so practical—a class that has

been at college, we will say, that knows Virgil and Horace by name, or

even by certain quotations (_arma virumque_, _pallida mors pulsat_,

_atra cura_, etc.), and can read Greek letters at sight, but on the

whole thinks Huxley a greater force in the world to-day than Homer—the

cultured class, in short, about which some of our newspapers make so

much to-do—can understand why the great classic poets should be turned

into English verse (for the benefit of those who have not been at

college), but not at all why such versions should be multiplied. If you

want Virgil in an English dress, there’s your Dryden; or Homer, there’s

Pope—say our person of culture is from an extreme northern latitude,

geographically or mentally, he will perhaps put Chapman here, and

pooh-pooh Pope with a reference to Bentley. Do you desire Horace in the

vulgar, there’s good old Francis—pray, what better do you ask? What

better, indeed, can you expect to get? Just look at your _Cyclopædia

Septentrionalis_ and see what it tells you! So what is the use or the

meaning, what is the reason of being, of your Theodore Martins and your

Coningtons, your Morrises and Cranches? What is there to be had of them

all but vanity and vexation of spirit, and time and money mislaid?

Somewhat in that way, we take it, a good many folks, even of the

book-buying, nay, of the book-reading, sort, must feel over every fresh

announcement of a translation of one or other of the favorite classic

poets. And as the supply of such things is in the long run, by a

beneficent law of nature, tempered to the demand, and the mind of the

book-buying many reacts upon, and often rules, the ardor of the

book-making few—“book” in Lamb’s sense, be it understood—it is not

surprising that the list of American translators should be of the

scantiest. Mr. Cranch’s bold venture of last year—a blank-verse

rendering of the _Æneid_—had few precursors or precedents. There is

Mumford’s blank-verse Homer, which Professor Felton praised, and

Professor Arnold, strange to say, seems not to have seen; and Mr.

Bryant’s blank-verse Homer, which everybody praised and a smaller number

read. Then, some years since, a Philadelphian gentleman put forth still

another version of the _Iliad_ in what he said was English verse,

although the precise metre of such lines as

“For Agamemnon insulted Chryses”;

“But Agamemnon was much displeased”;

“Wounded is Diomed, Tydeus’ son,

Ulysses, also, and Agamemnon.”

unless it be hexameter—everything you cannot scan in English verse is

hexameter, just as everything you cannot parse in Greek is second

aorist—we have been unable to determine. We have heard, also, of a

version of Horace by a professor in some Southern university, but this

we have not seen. Are there any others? Mr. E. C. Stedman ten years ago

printed specimens of a projected translation of Theocritus, in English

hexameters, of considerable merit; but his reception does not seem to

have encouraged him to go on. And that is all, a little Spartan band of

four or five to oppose to the great host of British translators from

Phaer to Morris. The practical mind may feel reassured of its country.

It is true that these English versions are often reprinted here; but it

is only the chiefs of the army—those who shine pre-eminent among their

fellows,

“sicut inter ignes

Luna minores,”

or who are already known to fame for triumphs in other fields. Prof.

Conington made something of a critical furor by the bold breaking away

from rule and precedent in his choice of a metre, though Dr. Maginn, in

his Homeric ballads, had given him the hint. In like manner our

booksellers have reprinted and our book-buyers bought Mr. Morris’

_Æneid_ (we beg his pardon—_Æneids_), not because it was a new

translation of Virgil, but because it was a new work of the latest

popular poet; just as they printed and bought Mr. Bryant’s Homer because

it was the latest work of our oldest living poet, as they printed and

bought Lord Derby’s _Iliad_ because it was the work of a nobleman, and

not only that, but of a leading European statesman, and therefore, in

both aspects, a very surprising and desirable thing for our people, who

have never been used to connect that sort of accomplishment with the

idea they had formed of a nobleman, still less with their notion of a

statesman. But we did not reprint or buy Mr. Worsley’s, or Prof.

Newman’s, or Prof. Blackie’s, or Mr. Wright’s Homer; and even if we

printed, it is to be feared we did not extensively buy, Mr. Cranch’s

_Æneid_, although in the way of buying English _Æneids_ we might have

done worse. Why? Not, certainly, because any of the versions named

lacked merit, but because they appealed to us on their merits simply,

without any outside helps to popularity, and we would none of them. The

fact is, we do not care in the least for Homer or Virgil, and we care a

great deal for Morris and Bryant—that is to say, while they are topics

of talk; and it is one of the social duties, which persons of culture

would die almost sooner than fail in, to have something, or even

nothing, to say about the ordained subjects of fashionable gossip.

But in England it is otherwise. There is in that country a large class

always to be counted on to buy any translation of a favorite classic

which has successfully run the gauntlet of the reviews. This class is

made up of diverse elements. First, the translators themselves, who in

England form no inconsiderable percentage of the literary public; for

every other graduate of either university who has not been a

stroke-oar—that is honor enough to win or give—seems to feel within him

a sacred void unfilled, a mysterious yearning unsatisfied, a clamorous

duty unperformed, until he has translated some classic author in whole

or in part. Every translator, of course, buys the publications of every

other translator to chuckle over his failures or—let us do them

justice—to applaud heartily and generously the happy dexterity which

conquers a difficult passage. Then, too, even scholars who have Homer

and Horace at their fingers’ ends, who think in Latin and dream in

Greek, who dare to take liberties with the digamma and speak

disrespectfully of the second aorist—even they to whom the best

translation of a classic is as corked claret? or skim-milk—may still buy

Prof. Conington’s _Æneid_ or Lord Lytton’s Horace for a better reason

than the pleasure of finding fault with it. They know, none better,

that, as the former puts it, a translation by a competent hand is itself

an “embodied criticism” and commentary; and even scholars, after twenty

centuries or so of criticism and commentary, and even of mutual

vituperation, have not yet quite made up their minds as to the meaning,

or at least the shades of meaning, straight through of any poet of

antiquity. This is not to say that we have not here, too, scholars who

might buy a translation for the same reason; but in neither country,

perhaps, are there so many as to be much of a stand-by in themselves.

But the mainstay of the English translator is that sort of fashionable

sentiment in favor of classical learning necessarily fostered in a

country where the university is a working element and influence in

political, social, and literary life. This sentiment is not so powerful

or wide-spread as it once was; as it was, let us say, when a couplet

made Mr. Addison a secretary of state, or a burlesque made Mr. Montague

a minister and Mr. Prior an ambassador—an improvement still on the age

when Sir Christopher Hatton danced himself into the chancellorship. But

it is still powerful; and the university is still such a force in

English life as it never has been, as it probably never will be, here.

The Oxford and Cambridge debating clubs used to be regularly looked to,

and are still, perhaps, now and again beaten up, by experienced huntsmen

for embryo statesmen, much as the metropolitan manager will scour the

provincial stage for an undiscovered star. University men edit the

leading organs of public opinion; university men fill the desks in

Downing Street and the Parliamentary benches in Westminster Hall;

university men yawn day after day in the club-windows of Pall Mall, and

night after night in the dancing and supper rooms of Belgravia—no, not

the supper-rooms; that is, perhaps, the one spot of the fashionable

world where young England forgets to yawn. Like enough, the learning of

many of these sages is no deeper than the lore of our own pundits from

Yale and Harvard; and not a few of them, no doubt, would be far more at

home criticising the boat-race in the Fifth Æneid (the contestants in

which they would probably characterize, in their delightful idiom, as

“duffers”) than construing the Latin it is told in. Such is the proud

result of modern university education in a free and enlightened

Anglo-Saxon community. Nevertheless, though the university may not

actually give learning, it creates a sentiment in favor of learning; it

develops almost unconsciously a taste for it. One may say that it is

next to impossible for any man to go through college without taking in

some sense of classical culture—through the pores, as it were—which

shall ever after give him a feeling of companionship, a kind of

Freemasonry, with authors he could never read. To have lived among

books, in an atmosphere of books, is itself in some sort an education.

Now, with this feeling for learning diffused throughout a great nation,

showing itself in its chief organs of public opinion, in its selection

of public officers, and even to some extent in its popular elections,

and centring above all in a great city, the headquarters of all the

social, political, and literary activity of the nation—its book-making,

book-branding, book-buying centre—we come to see why translations from

the classics should have more vogue across the water than with us. If a

cabinet minister choose to beguile his leisure by turning Aristophanes

into English, it is but fit that society, before having him in to

dinner, should know something about it, if only to avoid such a slip as

is told of Catalani. The _prima donna_ was seated, as a great

compliment, next to Goethe at a state dinner, but not knowing the divine

Wolfgang—or, indeed, much of anything but some operatic scores—gave her

mind to the potage rather than to the poet. A friend nudged her: “Why do

you not talk to M. Goethe?” “I don’t know him, and he’s stupid.” “What!

not know M. Goethe, the celebrated author of the _Sorrows of Werther_?”

“The _Sorrows of Werther_! Ah! M. Goethe,” cried the _diva_ with

_empressement_, turning to the great man, “how can I ever thank you

enough for your charming _Sorrows of Werther_! I never laughed so much

at anything in my life.” She had seen a parody of that immortal work in

a farce at Paris. Here, when our cabinet minister lets loose his

intellectual surplus on exposures of Popery, society runs no great risk.

Everybody can talk a little Popery—an easier subject, on the whole, to

talk or write about than Aristophanes; and one knows pretty well what

our cabinet minister’s book is about without the fatigue of failing to

read it.

Of the feeling we have mentioned the taste for quotation in

Parliamentary debate is a good test. An apt illustration from Horace or

Virgil had at one time almost the force of an argument. “Pitt,” says the

late Lord Lytton, in the excellent preface to his unrhymed version of

Horace’s _Odes_, “is said never to have more carried away the applause

of the House of Commons than when, likening England—then engaged in a

war tasking all her resources—to that image of Rome which Horace has

placed in the mouth of Hannibal, he exclaimed:

“'Duris ut ilex tonsa bipennibus

Nigræ feraci frondis in Algido,

Per damna, per cœdes, ab ipso

Ducit opes animumque ferro.’”[121]

Footnote 121:

“Even as the ilex, lopped by axes rude

Where, rich with dusky boughs, soars Algidus,

Through loss, through wounds receives

New gain, new life—yea, from the very steel.”

—Horat. _Carm._ iv. 4, Lord Lytton’s Trans.

Pitt, indeed, is famous for such felicities. In his speech on resigning

the chancellorship in 1782, after claiming “to have used his best

endeavors to fulfil with integrity every official engagement,” he

continued: “And with this consolation, the loss of power, sir, and the

loss of fortune, though I affect not to despise, I trust I shall soon be

able to forget.”

“Laudo manentem: si celeres quatit

Pennas, resigno quæ dedit ...

... probamque

Pauperiem sine dote quæro.”[122]

Footnote 122:

“Constant I praise her, but resign

With equal mind her gifts.

When, swift deserting me and mine,

Her ready wing she lifts,

And, _wrapped up in my virtue_, wait

Fair Poverty’s undower’d estate.”

—Horat. _Carm._ iii. 29.

The original of the line italicized Pitt modestly omitted.

Sir Robert Walpole had worse luck in attempting a like feat on his

retirement, made not so gracefully in the shadow of a threatened

impeachment.

“Nil conscire sibi, nulli pallescere culpæ,”[123]

Footnote 123:

“Conscious of no wrong done, no crime to pale at remembered.”

—Horat. _Ep._ 1. i.

he quoted, and was at once taken up by his rival, Pulteney, who offered

to bet him a guinea that the line read _Nulla pallescere culpa_. Walpole

lost, and, tossing the coin to Pulteney, the latter, before pocketing

it, held it up to the House with the grim remark: “It is the first money

I have received from the treasury for many years, and it shall be the

last.”

It may well be that there is less of this sort of thing nowadays, when

Parliamentary illustrations, among the younger members at least, seem to

be drawn more extensively from natural history than from ancient poetry.

Yet it is but a few years since Mr. Gladstone, on going out of office,

created a sensation in his turn by his application of Virgil’s fine

line,

“Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor.”[124]

Footnote 124:

“Rise from our ashes thou unknown, the predestined avenger.”

We cannot very well imagine a leading Congressman summoning Horace to

enforce his argument, say, on the vital necessity to the nation of

repealing the Seventh Commandment until such time as his constituents at

Podunk can get enough of their neighbors’ currency to make resumption

and patriotism convertible terms. Not only would he be doubtful of being

understood, but he would be awed by that practical-minded public opinion

at home which severely discourages in its chosen representatives such

frivolities as unknown tongues. He would see behind the Speaker’s desk

the grim phantom of the honest Granger transfixing him with a spectral

finger, and asking him in hollow tones if he was sent to Congress to

talk gibberish or to get that little appropriation; he would see the

still more appalling phantom of the local editor grimly sharpening his

quill and squaring himself for another of those savagely sarcastic

articles about our erudite Congressman, who spends his time—the time we

pay for, etc.—muddling his brains—the few brains, etc.—over obsolete

rubbish in the Congressional Library, while he neglects his

constituents’ interests and allows that little bill, etc., etc. He sees

all this, and, instead of Horace, he quotes Josh Billings, and everybody

is satisfied.

Now, this is not meant to the dispraise of either the Congressman or his

constituents, but only to show that here political is divided from

literary life in a way quite unknown in England. The scholar in politics

is a fond illusion of youthful enthusiasm. Our politicians do not write;

our literary folks do not go to Congress. A stray editor, to be sure,

now and then gets in, tumbling over, as it were, from the Reporters’

Gallery, or a flourish is made of sending Mr. Motley or Prof. Lowell

minister to some foreign court; but these are spasmodic exceptions, and

usually result in a way to confirm the rule. We have no counterparts to

Disraeli, or Gladstone, or Mr. Lowe, or Sir George Cornewall Lewis, or

the Duke of Argyle. Perhaps, however, a new era is dawning with the

present Secretary of the Navy, who spells his literature with a “P.”

We have said enough—the reader may think more than enough—to show why

translations from the classics should flourish better in England than

here, and also, by implication at least, why of all classic authors,

with the one exception of Homer, Horace and Virgil should most have

taken the translators’ attention. From one or other of these are all the

Parliamentary quotations we have given; and it is indeed, we believe,

considered what our English friends call “bad form” to quote in debate

any other Latin or Greek. The cause of this popularity it is easy to

see. Horace and Virgil, in the usual college curriculum, are put into

the student’s hands just as he has got over his initial struggles with

the language, and his mind is a little freed to feel some of the

beauties as well as the difficulties of the author—to know that the rose

has fragrance as well as thorns. Homer, on the contrary, from his

comparative ease, comes much earlier in the Greek course, and becomes so

much the more distasteful to the learner as Greek is harder than Latin;

its very letters are aliens to his eyes, its alphabet is a place of

briers and brambles. It is hard to get over these early dislikes. St.

Augustine confesses a hatred for Homer thus implanted in his school-days

which he could never overcome, while he declares Virgil to be the

greatest and most glorious of poets—a censure echoed by Voltaire, who

pronounced the _Æneid, le plus beau monument qui nous reste de toute

l’antiquité_, and asserts that if Homer produced Virgil, it was his

finest work.

Both in Virgil and Horace there is much to captivate a youthful mind and

everything to keep the affections won. The story of the _Æneid_ is not

only full of life and color and motion, with plenty of fighting, which

all boys love of course, but, despite its later-discovered want of a

reasonable hero or heroine, its episodes—the Trojan horse and the sharp

street-fight in fallen Ilium, the mysterious journey through the shades

under a spectral moon, the races in the Fifth Book, the midnight scout

of Nisus and Euryalus, the plucky young Iulus fleshing his maiden shafts

at the siege in Book Ninth, the gallant onset and tragic fate of the

young champions Lausus and Pallas—all are apt to take the boyish

imagination; and in older years the haunting melody of the verse, the

pensive grace that suffuses the telling of the story, renew and rivet

the early charm.

Horace, too, is full of matter that even boyhood can taste and manhood

never tires of. The lovely bits of rural landscape scattered like so

many cabinet pictures through the odes—the sweltering cattle standing

knee-deep under the oak-boughs in the pool of Bandusia, the bickering,

pine-arched rivulet by whose side Dellius takes his nooning; the sunny

slopes of Lucretilis dotted with sheep; the romantic beauty of the Happy

Isles—do we not all recall the delight we felt when these enchanting

little sketches first smiled on us from the weary drudgery of Tacitus

and Thucydides like vistas of fresh meadow and woodland and cascade

caught by the wayfarer from the hot and dusty highway? We did not so

well relish then, in that out-door time of life, the warm little

interiors that contrast and set off these: the glowing fire-side piled

high with logs, made merry with old Falernian, and laugh and joke and

friendly talk, while the rain beats upon the roof and the snow whirls

about Soracte, and, drawing closer to the cheery blaze, we hug ourselves

in the “tumultuous privacy of storm”; the jolly dinner-parties, where we

help to quiz Quinctius for his gravity or chaff that harebrain Telephus

out of his affectation of wisdom; the more sober feasts with Mæcenas or

Virgil at the little Sabine Farm—but these, too, we soon get to know,

and linger over them with fond familiarity. Then, too, we win to the

secret of that genial though pagan philosophy which comes home to the

“business and bosoms” of all of us, and whose precepts are so pithily

expressed we cannot forget them if we would: that there is a time when

folly is the truest wisdom; that he alone is happy who is content with

little; that a wise man takes care of the present and lets the future

take care of itself, because, as Cowley puts it,

“When to future years thou extend’st thy cares,

Thou dealest in other men’s affairs”;

that we must pluck the blossom of to-day, or we may never have a chance

at the morrow’s.

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying,”

says Herrick, a later Horace. As we grow older and graver his

sympathetic companionship keeps pace with us still, and in his deeper

tones there are hints which even Christian civilization need not disdain

to add to its scheme of a lofty and noble life.

So it is that England for three centuries back—indeed, ever since she

began to have a literature to house them in—has been trying to

naturalize and domesticate these Roman poets. In this, however, Virgil

had nearly a century the start of Horace, owing, no doubt, to the nature

of his great work, which appealed to the romantic impulses of that early

time. Indeed, long before either the _Æneid_ or the _Iliad_ was

generally known in Europe, the stories of both had been made over into

the form of romances: the former by Guillaume de Roy in French, the

latter by Guido de Colonna in Spanish. De Roy’s _Livre d’Eneidos_,

translated into English and printed by Caxton, “no more resembles

Virgil,” cries the good Bishop of Dunkeld wrathfully, “than the devil

does St. Austin.” It was probably to clear the fair fame of his beloved

poet that the bishop brought out his own quaint and spirited Scotch

version in 1513. The first complete English translation came out in

1558; but in the previous year appeared the Second and Fourth Books,

done into blank verse by the Earl of Surrey, notable as the first-known

blank verse in the language, unless we are to take as such the unrhymed,

alliterative metre used by Longland in _The Vision of Piers Ploughman_.

It is thought to have been Surrey’s design, had he lived, to translate

the remaining books. Had he done so, he would have added an ornament to

our literature.

As it is, the distinction of giving the first full translation of the

_Æneid_ to the language rests with a Welshman—Dr. Thomas Phaer. He

himself, however, did only the first nine books and part of the Tenth;

when dying, the work was taken in hand and finished, with the Thirteenth

or supplementary book of Maffeo Veggio, by another physician, Dr. Thomas

Twynne. English doctors then and afterwards seem to have had a

propension towards the Muse. Dr. Borde, Dr. Thomas Campion (“Sweet

Master Campion”), and Dr. Thomas Lodge—they seem to have had a

propensity to be named Thomas also—were only the first of a long line of

tuneful leeches, ending with our own Drs. Holmes and Joyce. Is there any

occult connection between physic and Parnassus, between rhyme and

rhubarb, between poetry and pills? and is Castaly a medicinal spring?

Phaer’s version, which is printed in black-letter, is in rhymed

fourteen-syllable verse, or “long Alexandrines”—a metre which Chapman

afterwards took for his Homer, and to which Mr. Morris, the latest

translator of the _Æneid_, has reverted.

The long Alexandrine has perhaps as much right as any to be called the

English national metre in the sense in which we call the Saturnian verse

the national metre of the Latins. Chaucer took his heroic couplet from

the Italian or French, and Surrey, no doubt, had from the same source,

or perhaps the Spanish, the hint for his blank verse. A curious parallel

might be drawn between Surrey and Ennius, who, like him, introduced a

new or “strange metre—the Greek hexameter—and, like him, by doing so

revolutionized the versification of his country. Another point in common

is that each has been reproached for his action. Ascham impliedly finds

fault with Surrey because he did not choose hexameters or unrhymed

Alexandrines instead of his unrhymed verse of ten or eleven syllables;

and certain of those dreadful German scholars, who know everything and a

few things besides, assure us that Ennius dealt a fatal blow to Latin

poetry when he foisted on it a metre unsuited to its genius. One can

hardly help speculating on the result had Virgil had to content himself

with the _horridus numerus Saturnius_ as the vehicle of his tenderness

and elegance, or if Hamlet had had to soliloquize in the metre of

Sternhold and Hopkins. Would the rude instrument have cramped the

player, or would the genius of the player have elevated the instrument?

As Macaulay points out, the old nursery line,

“The queen is in her parlor eating bread and honey,”

is a perfect Saturnian verse on Terence’s model:

“Dăbūnt mălūm Mĕtēllī Nævĭō pŏētæ.”

How would Mr. Gladstone’s menace,

“Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor,”

have sounded in that shape? Should we recognize, do you think, those

“Daffodils

That come before the swallow dares, and take

The winds of March with beauty,”

done up in long Alexandrines or in such hexameters as those of Master

Abraham Fraunce, which moved Ben Jonson to dub him a fool:

“Now had fiery Phlegon his dayes revolution ended,

And his snoring snout with salt waves all to be-washed,”

or even in Sidney’s or Spenser’s, which were, in truth, little better?

No doubt Virgil and Shakspere, being great poets, would have subdued

what they worked in to their own artistic uses. Yet all the same let us

be thankful to the humbler artisans who furnished to their hands pipes

fit for them to play on, and to make such music as the world shall never

tire of hearing. It should be added that the likeness between the

English and the Latin reformer does not extend to the degree of

refinement attained by each. In this respect Surrey is much the more

advanced. Ennius never got over the barbarism of excessive alliteration

which seems to mark the early metrical efforts of all peoples.

“Sicut si quando vincleis venatica velox”;

“Sicut fortis equus spatio qui forte supremo”;

“Quai neque Dardaneis campeis potuere perire

Nec cum capta capei, nec cum combusta cremari.”

The last passage Virgil copied, as he did many others, and it is

instructive to see how his more polished taste tones down his

predecessor’s jingle:

¸ “Num Sigæis occumbere campis,

Num capti potuere capi? num incensa cremavit

Troja viros?”[125]

Footnote 125:

“Was there no dead man’s place for you on that Sigeian plain?

Had ye no might to wend as slaves? Gave Troy so poor a flame

To burn her men...?”

—_Æneid_, vii. 294 seq., Morris’ Trans. p. 175.

Surrey’s blank verse has the quaintness of his age, but not its defects

of taste. Martial, writing about two centuries after Ennius, sneers at

him, much as Ennius had sneered at his predecessor, Nævius—he who

lamented that Latin poetry was to die with him!

“Ennius est lectus, salvo tibi Roma Marone.”[126]

Footnote 126:

“And Rome reads Ennius while Virgil lives!”

Pope, writing nearly the same length of time after Surrey, has only

praise for him: “Surrey, the Grenville of a former age“—at least, Pope

meant it for praise.”

To return to Phaer. It may be of interest to the reader to contrast the

manner of the earliest and latest English translators of the _Æneid_.

Venus’ admonition to Æneas (ii. 607) is thus given by the Welsh doctor:

“Then to thy parent’s hest take heede, dread not, my mind obey:

In yonder place where stones from stones and bildings huge to sway

Thou seest, and mixt with dust and smoke thicke stremes of reekings

rise,

Himselfe the god Neptune that side doth furne in wonders wise:

With forke three tinde the wall vproots, foundations allto shakes;

And qvite from vnder soile the towne, with ground-works all uprakes.

On yonder side with Furies most, dame Juno fiercely stands,

The gates she keeps, and from the ships the Greekes, her friendly

bands,

In armour girt she calles.

Lo! there againe where Pallas sits, on fortes and castle-towres,

With Gorgon’s eyes, in lightning cloudes enclosed, grim she lowres,

The father-god himself to Greekes their mightes and courage steres,

Himselfe against the Troyan blood both gods and armour reres.

Betake thee to thy flight, my sonne, thy labours’ ende procure,

I will thee never faile, but thee to resting-place assure.

She said, and through the darke night shade herselfe she drew from

sight;

Appeare the grisly faces then, Troyes en’mies vgly dight.”

Mr. Morris gives it thus:

“And look to it no more afeard to be

Of what I bid, nor evermore thy mother’s word disown.

There where thou seest the great walls cleft and stone turn off from

stone,

And seest the waves of smoke go by with mingled dust-cloud rolled,

There Neptune shakes the walls and stirs the foundings from their

hold

With mighty trident, tumbling down the city from its base.

There by the Scæan gates again hath bitter Juno place

The first of all, and wild and mad, herself begirt with steel,

Calls up her fellows from the ships.

Look back! Tritonian Pallas broods o’er topmost burg on high,

All flashing bright with Gorgon grim from out her stormy sky;

The very Father hearteneth on, and stays with happy might

The Danaans, crying on the gods against the Dardan fight.

Snatch flight, O son, whiles yet thou mayst, and let thy toil be

o’er;

I by thy side will bring thee safe unto thy father’s door.

“She spake, and hid herself away where thickest darkness poured.

Then dreadful images show forth, great godheads are abroad,

The very haters of our Troy.”

The half-lines respond to the imperfect verses in Virgil, which, in the

fashion of the Chinese tailor, both Mr. Morris and his forerunner

conscientiously copy. Phaer has other oddities, such as “Sybly” for

Sibylla, “lymbo” for Hades, “Dei Phobus” for Deiphobus, and “Duke

Æneas”; while every book is wound up with a _Deo Gratias_ by way of

colophon. Let us hope it was not too fervently echoed by his readers.

Indeed, Phaer’s version is better than its fame.

“After the associated labors of Phaer and Twynne,” says Warton in his

_History of English Poetry_, “it is hard to say what could induce

Richard Stanihurst, a native of Dublin, to translate the first four

books of the _Æneid_ into English hexameters.” The remark shows less

than the wonted perspicuity of the historian of English poetry. What

induces any translation, except the belief (the fond belief!) that the

work it aims to do has not yet been done? Master Stanihurst, like many

other learned men then and since, was firmly persuaded that the

hexameter was your only measure for a translation of Virgil. But there

are hexameters and hexameters, and Master Stanihurst’s were unluckily of

the other sort. A poet who proclaims his intention to “chaunt manhood

and Garboiles,” and gives us

“With tentive list’ning each wight was settled in hark’ning”

for

“Conticuere omnes intentique ora tenebant,”

or

“You bid me, ô princesse, to scarifie a festered old sore”

as an equivalent for

“Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem,”

must be content with “audience fit though few.” Sir Philip Sidney and

Gabriel Harvey and a few other choice spirits, all bitten with the same

flea, patted poor Stanihurst on the back and told him that what Nash

called “his [and their] foul, lumbring, boisterous, wallowing measures”

had “enriched and polished their native tongue.” But the rest of the

world laughed with Nash, and may still for that matter; for Stanihurst’s

version is full of conceits even droller than Phaer’s. “Bedlamite” for

_furiatâ mente_, “Dandiprat hop-thumb” for _parvulus_, Jupiter “bussing

his pretty, prating parrot”—_i.e._, Venus—and Priam girding on his sword

Morglay, are some of them. The last shows how the glamour of the Gothic

romances, in which Virgil figured sometimes as a magician—the _Sortes

Virgilianæ_ long outlived their origin—still hung about even the

learned, of whom Stanihurst was indisputably one— “eruditissimus ille

nobilis” Camden calls him. It may be interesting to add that he was a

Catholic, a friend of Campion the martyr, and died in exile because of

it.

Stanihurst seems to have played the part of horrible example to all

after-translators; for although Surrey’s metre has been repeatedly used,

and Phaer’s of late by Mr. Morris, and we might add by Prof. Conington

(for his octosyllabic verse is but a variation of the Alexandrine, which

skipped capriciously from twelve syllables to sixteen[127]), the

hexameter has never again, so far as we know, been applied to rendering

the _Æneid_. Yet the measure which in English goes by that name seems

far better adapted, _pace_ Mr. Arnold, to the pensive grace of Virgil

than to the grave majesty of Homer. It may be true, as scholars contend,

that it by no means reproduces the effect of the Greek or Roman

hexameter, and it may be equally true, as other scholars tell us, that

we have no conception of what was the effect of the Greek or Roman

hexameter on the Greek or Roman ear—though the second objection might,

in malicious hands, prove an embarrassment for the first. Yet as we read

Homer and Virgil there is no doubt that hexameters can be—indeed, that

such have been—constructed which do go far to reproduce the effect of

Homer and Virgil, according to the modern reading, upon the modern ear.

Grant that this is an entirely wrong effect; that either Homer or

Virgil, hearing his verses read in modern fashion, would be sure to clap

hands to ear, and cry out in an agony with Martial:

Footnote 127:

See Warton, _Hist. E. P._ sec. 1.

“Quem recitas, meus est, O Fidentine, libellus;

Sed male cum recitas, incipit esse tuus”;[128]

Footnote 128:

“My piece you’ve been spouting! I ne’er should have known:

Next time, if you love me, do say it’s your own.”

—Mart. _Epigr._ i. 39.

it is yet the only effect we are ever likely to get until the day of

judgment; and what are you going to do about it? Of course it is

hopeless to try to imitate Homer’s sonorous harmonies—the καλὰ τὰ Ὁμήρον

ἔπη, as Maximus Tyrius calls them, the lovely Homeric words—the

πολυφλοίς βοιο θαλάσσης and ἀργυρέοιο βιοῖο. It is not in ours or any

other tongue but Homer’s own to do it. But Mr. Arnold has shown that we

can imitate afar off his rhythm and metrical effect, and why should we

not do that? If anybody can give us hexameters that please the English

ear and make it fancy, without being conscious of too much elongation,

that it is listening to the faintest echo of Homer’s mighty lyre or

Virgil’s silver string, why, let us have them, prithee, and a _fico_ for

the grammarians.

In this desultory review of Virgilian translators we mean to confine

ourselves to the _Æneid_; but we may say in passing that the _Eclogues_

were, about 1587, put into unrhymed Alexandrines by Abraham Fleming, who

thus nearly anticipated the metre Prof. Newman, after much

experimenting, hit on as the proper one to render Homer, and which, as

Prof. Marsh says, has the disadvantage (or the merit?) to American ears

of suggesting our own epic strain of _Yankee Doodle_. Fleming, however,

as will be seen from the following quotation, taken from the beginning

of his Fourth Eclogue, only dropped into our national music

occasionally:

“O Muses of Sicilian ile, let’s greater matters singe!

Shrubs, groves, and bushes lowe delight and please not every man.

If we do singe of woods, the woods be worthy of a consul.”

While Virgil was thus engrossing the attention of Elizabethan scholars

Horace lay comparatively neglected, although it was an era of

translation, as transitional periods in the literature of a country are

apt to be. Nearly all the Latin poets then extant were done into English

before the beginning of the seventeenth century, and the Greek series

began sonorously with Chapman’s Homer soon after. Even that most perfect

of all actual or possible poets, as her courtiers called her—Queen

Elizabeth—tried her hand at it in a translation of part of the _Hercules

Œteus_ of Seneca. But no complete version of Horace seems to have

appeared prior to Creech’s towards the end of the seventeenth century.

In 1567, however, Thomas Drant published _Horace, his Arte of Poetrie,

Pistles, and Satyres Englished_. In his preface is one quaint remark, to

the truth of which all Horatians will bear witness: “Neyther any man

which can judge can judge it one and the like laboure to translate

Horace and to make and translate a love booke, a shril tragedie, or a

smooth and platleuyled poesye. Thys I can truly say, of myne owne

experyence, that I can sooner translate twelve verses out of the Greeke

Homer than sixe out of Horace.”

The first version of the _Odes_ was that of Sir Thomas Hawkins, about

1630. This, though it seems to have been popular enough to go through

several editions, was far from complete, the lighter odes being omitted

as being “too wanton and loose.” Our own edition, which is the fourth,

dated 1638, contains about two-thirds of the odes and epodes. Here and

there we find a tolerably good verse:

“What man, what hero [Clio] wilt thou raise

With shrillest pipe or Lyra’s softer lays?

What god whose name in sportive straine

Echo will chaunt thee back againe?”[129]

Footnote 129:

_Carm._ i. 12.

This will compare not too disadvantageously with the latest version—Lord

Lytton’s—which, indeed, is not especially good:

“What man, what hero, or what god select’st thou,

Theme for sweet lyre or fife sonorous, Clio,

Whose honored name shall that gay sprite-voice, Echo,

Hymn back rebounding?”

As a rule, however, Sir Thomas is stiff—a fault common to almost all

translations of the easiest of lyrists up to a much later period. Yet in

this century there were many versions of single odes, epistles, and

satires, some of which have scarcely ever been surpassed. Such, for

instance, were Ben Jonson’s rendering of Ode IV. 1, _Ad Venerem_, and

Milton’s of I. 5, _Ad Pyrrhum_, severally included by Mr. Theodore

Martin and Lord Lytton in their respective versions as beyond their

skill to better; Dryden’s fine paraphrase of III. 29, _To Mæcenas_,

which Mr. Martin, non sordidus auctor, pronounces finer than the

original; and, on a lower plane, however, Roscommon’s version of the

_Art of Poetry_. Of these, Milton’s has been said to touch the

high-water mark of translation, and is indeed very elegant and close.

Ben Jonson’s set translations are often injured by a rigid strictness

which Horace might have warned him against:

“Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere, fidus Interpres,”[130]

Footnote 130:

“Nor word for word translate with painful care.”

—Horat. _De Arte Poet._, Francis’ Trans.

and which evoked Dryden’s protest against “the jaw-breaking translations

of Ben Jonson.” Yet even in fetters he danced better than most; and some

of his translations, notably the one mentioned above and one of Martial,

_Liber, amicorum dulcissima cura tuorum_, it would be hard to pick flaws

in.

In Jonson’s day, however, there was no mean between word-for-word

rendering and the loosest paraphrase, until Denham laid down something

like the true rule in his verses to Fanshawe on the latter’s translation

of Guarini:

“That servile path thou nobly dost decline

Of tracing word for word and line for line....

A new and nobler way thou dost pursue

To make translations, and translators too.

They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame,

True to his sense, but truer to his fame.”

Cowley, who translated largely from Horace, runs to the opposite extreme

from Jonson: his versions are as much too free as Jonson’s are too

close. Yet some of his single lines are unmatched for felicity and

force:

“Hence ye profane, I hate ye all,

Both the great vulgar and the small”

(a phrase which has passed into a proverb) for _Odi profanum vulgus et

arceo_; “The poor rich man’s emphatically poor” for _Magnas inter opes

inops_; “From his toucht mouth the wanton torment slips” for _Fugientia

captat Flumina_; and, best of all, perhaps, “He loves of homely

littleness the ease” for Martial’s _Sordidaque in parvis otia rebus

amet_—which shows how a deft translator can, without leaving his

original, breathe into it, so to speak, a beauty it scarcely had—such

lines as these make us regret either that Cowley did not translate more

or that he was unable to transfer to his own poetry more of the same

simple elegance of thought and word.

All of Cowley’s contemporaries were not so happy, however, as he in

their attempts to better Horace, though many tried it. One of them, Sir

Edward Sherburne, claps a periwig on Mt. Soracte:[131]

Footnote 131:

Horat. _Carm._ i. 9. One of the best versions of this ode is that of

Allan Ramsay, in the Scotch dialect.

“Seest thou not how Soracte’s head

(For all his height) stands covered

With a white periwig of snow,

While the laboring woods below

Are hardly able to sustain

The weight of winter’s feathered rain?”

He had evidently been reading and, with Dryden, admiring Sylvester’s _Du

Bartas_:

“And when the winter’s keener breath began

To crystallize the Baltic Ocean,

To glaze the lake, to bridle up the floods,

And periwig with snow the bald-pate woods.”

The conceited style then in vogue was not well fitted to do justice to

Horace’s _simplex munditiis_, although he was now universally read and

esteemed—“The next best poet in the world to Virgil,” Cowley calls

him—and has left the mark of his genial influence on all the writers of

the time. One finds the Horatian sentiment running like a golden thread

through the minor poetry of James and Charles I., at times informing

whole poems with a pithiness of phrase and a dignity which Horace might

call his own. Such are Marvell’s ode on _The Return of Cromwell_, such

Shirley’s “The glories of our blood and state” and “Victorious men of

earth, no more”—all three among the finest productions of their kind in

the language.

After the Restoration the business of translation was resumed with

vigor. Dryden in his Virgil, and, somewhat later, Pope in his Homer, set

a fresh model which was followed by all their successors until Cowper’s

Miltonic _Iliad_ came to break the spell and pave the way to the modern

style, which aims to combine freedom with fidelity, ease of manner with

correctness of meaning, and so far as possible to reproduce the author

himself, form as well as matter. Creech’s Horace was hardly a success,

being stiff and ungainly without being particularly close, and, while

showing in its metre some sense of the poet’s rhythmical grace, scarcely

attempted to render the characteristic delicacy of his wording—that

_curiosa felicitas_ we all have heard of. In this—and indeed in

every—respect the version of Dr. Francis, which came out about half a

century later, was greatly superior as a whole to any previous one, and

took with Horatians a position the best of its successors has found it

hard to shake. Indeed, with such of the poet’s lovers as date from the

golden age of Consul Plancus, Francis is still the paramount favorite,

and you will talk to them in vain of the merits of Robinson or Lytton,

of Conington’s fluent ease or Martin’s sprightly grace. Francis is in

the main faithful, generally pleasing, and always respectable at least,

but, like most of his rivals, he lacks a certain lightness of touch, an

airy gayety of treatment in the minor odes which no one, we think, has

hit off so well as Mr. Theodore Martin. They are, as that accomplished

writer says, in many instances what would be called now _vers de

société_, and their chief value rests in the poet’s inimitable charm of

manner. Unless some notion of this can be given, the translator’s labor

is lost, and he offers his readers but a withered posy from which color

and perfume alike are fled.

ALBA’S DREAM.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “ARE YOU MY WIFE?” “A SALON IN PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,”

ETC.