We are rather astonished that the symphonous expression 'mullygrubs' did not strike the Doctor for the 6 Singultusque frequens noctem per sæpe diemque Conripere assidue nervos, et membra coactans, Dissolvebat eos. How sweet is the passage of Lucretius, which it has pleased our translator to enlarge upon and beautify! Frondiferasque novis avibus canere undique sylvas: Hinc, fessæ pecudes, pingues per pabula læta, In those Doctor Busby, either in the abstruse or brilliant passages of his author, never once assimilates himself to his prototype. portions of his work where he has taken most pains, he is occasionally harmonious; but to this the praise cannot be added of adapting his style, or even his thoughts, to the original. The best verses have little of the soul, or even the meaning of Lucretius. Creech is some times prosaic and hasty, but seldom unfaithful and by a minute inspection of the two translations, we' have been enabled to detect plagiarism from the diction and turn of the earlier version in innumerable instances. Principio, venti vis verberat incita pontum, Now high, now low the reeling vessels bear, And drive the rushing clouds through darkened air.'—316. To enable him to spin out two Latin lines into four English lines, without doubling the aggregate of each book in the English, the Doctor is frequently compelled to omit and to mutilate in other passages. After reading about nature's leasts,' an ungrammatical expres sion borrowed from Creech, we learn Wise nature hath ordained each thing that dies VOL. XI. NO. XXI. Materials, daily losses to repair? Since compounds ne'er those properties can share: And all those powers by which things generate.-1. 683. Of Agrigentum, born among the seas, In Sicily's fair isle-three stretching sides Their lengths exhibit to the azure tides.-1. 785. Whose sides, in the name of grammar? but truths are occasionally more plainly spoken; All things to others change, and all things come and go.'-1. 871. We should have considered globules' as a trisyllable an drag EyoμEVO, had not two similar curiosities claimed our notice, 'pustules' in three, and pellicules' in four syllables. The beauty loses by repetition; but as the old iambographer says, Etiam capillus unus habet umbram suam.' "Blood springs from globules in union rolled.. 910. And new-dropt calves their thin pellicules. In v. 948, the subtlety, but real weakness of the arguments of Anaxagoras, are strongly brought before us, thus: Here Anaxagoras appears to shake, With subtle argument, the side we take.' The Doctor had said before of him that he was a very sorry reasoner. It has been affirmed that truth lies at the bottom of a well, and it appears from an account given by Dr. Busby, which he has been kind enough to appropriate gratuitously to Lucretius, that some people, though possibly but few, dive into the well, use the Doctor's more correct language, dive the well, for it. To those who are not divers, he promises to disclose his rigid principles in verse that flows with Hyblæan sweetness." -hæc ratio plerumque videtur Tristior esse, quibus non est tractata this system seems uncouth To those who seldom dive the well of truth." The Mighty Mother,' whom Pope sings, must surely have inspired these lines. Great mother of the Gods this earth's proclaimed; Of man and brute the common parent framed; Her car through lofty heaven two lions rolled; By this they (i. e. the lions) taught that mid th' ethereal plains Book III. Grisly Potentate,' and Mortal Monarch,' as personifications of death, are not very classical. Since then the nature of the mind and soul Forms but a part of man, let those who stole And give the soul a name it never knew) Retake it-Memmius list-I sing to you.'-1. 144. We are informed, in line 278, that the subtle seeds of four matures rove so confusedly, and move so intermixed,' "That those from these no interval divides; Each with the others constantly resides.-I. 281. < Vapour is cold, the trembler Fear awakes, o The following is a fair specimen of didascalic familiarity: Do, or do not, some seeds of soul remain? You fairly grant me her mortality.'-1.800. Of maggots, the Doctor, as if irritated, speaks in high-sounding language. Whence all the boneless, The bloated limbs and take the flesh by storm 2-1. 810. or of the fourth book it is our decided opinion that no translation Of should be given. Dryden adds even the embellishment of luscious verse to those portions of it which are simply philosophical. We are ready to admit that the present translation of these verses affords the most favourable instances of poetry in the two volumes; but the well-known apology of Ausonius, if it ever occurred to Dr. Busby, should have been considered by him as indefensible. Creech had the delicacy to omit the more flagrant passages, which his kind editor has supplied from Dryden. Marchetti is gross-Good, disgusting. Doctor Busby is extremely fond of addressing the Muse, when Lucretius is not thinking about her. 'Teach me, oh Muse' is the general translation of expediam. Occasionally she is invoked as a goddess, which, were it not for the opening address to Venus, would be direct heresy. That invocation has raised much dispute among the commentators; and all being jealous lest their author's irreligion should not be consistent, attempt to explain it away. Nardius, the Florentine editor, gravely informs is, that G 2 Venus, in the passages to which we allude, means nothing but pot-herbs. Lucretius is, in parts, so difficult, that we can sympathize with a translator who has many leagues of desert to pass through before he reaches an oasis. But our sympathy is much diminished when he strides on at the same careless pace, through hard and rare." Contrary parts the altered figure wears The dexter side the sinister appears: Thus if a mask of humid clay should fall On the hard stones, or dash against a wall, Though beaten back, yet still the face remains, And undisturbed its character retains; Starts out posterior-all the hollow fills, And, by inversion, still the face reveals.'-1. 352. And now the sinister the right resume; Through constant change the shade its course pursues, The Doctor mentions a property of shadows, which we do not before remember to have seen. These [i. e. light shadows] as they ambulating visions bring, Inspire a will-——1. 1036. From books V. and VI. we had selected a more than usual quantity of gems; but we must be brief. We are informed that the vast universe, the All of All, Stedfast shall stand, nor to destruction fall.'-1. 465. and immediately after, that the dismal portal gapes And sure destruction on the world will fall.” On the origin of language, we are thus questioned: Could one alone by name each creature call, With vocal organs, and in whom reside The powers of intellect, should names devise For objects constantly before their eyes?'-1. 1320. Sublimer energies, and warmer zeal.' Under this inspiration the Doctor proceeds: -hence reel our lofty palaces, while less Our humbler tenements the shocks distress, And least of all the lowest roofs impress." Again! Craters the Greeks pronounce them; but our laws Of language claim we term them mouths and jaws.' Innovations in grammar would occupy more room than we can allot. In quantity we have the following novelties. Posthumous, contrary, Gergon, Ismāra, Stymphalus, bitumen, caloric and caJoric, and Melita. Many of the rhymes are ill-sorted, as, 'racks and beaks,' ? moon and sun, possess and increase,' teems and limbs, fill and steal,' admit and flight,' &c. If Horace gave it as his opinion, that, under certain regulations his poetical predecessors had deserved well of the literary commonwealth, for coining new words, and naturalizing others from the Greek language, what must be our gratitude to Doctor Busby, who has enriched his patrius sermo with many pleasant verbs and nouns: some parce detorta from the Latin; others wholly Latin; others from the mint of his own imagination? Hence we read, Rarity' (for rarification), luminate, finity,' re-image,' retrogradely,' 'undeadened," to serene,' 'vitalize,' 'tenuous seeds,' villous tongues,' flavorous seeds,' and 'saporous war.' Then we have sundry hospital terms, served up their original language, such as fæculæ,' 'viscera,' pallor,' 'virus,' cruor,' 'scank saliva,' and 'the nasal flood,' and ---------Oft the passing voice the glottis wears, The trachea roughens, and the bronchia tears.'-IV. 630. in It is, however, but fair to Dr. Busby, to allow him the meed occasionally of easy versification; a versification exactly fashioned in the Darwinian school, and tuned, from the nature of his subject, to the same topics. We are inclined to think that he sometimes surpasses Darwin in his best style; and the only drawback to the pleasure we feel in reading his better verses, arises from their thorough want of resemblance to the original. With wonders first she teemed, things formless bred, Her surface with gigantic monsters spread; And yet from neither sex were far removed; To walk, to act, their nerveless powers deny, G 3 LIBRARY GEORGIA |