VIII-1. Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. 2. Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester. 2d Series. vol. iv. 3. Transactions of the Royal Geological Society of Corn- wall, instituted February 11. vol. i. and ii. 4. Report of the Liverpool Royal Institution. 5. Bristol Institution. Proceedings of the Second Annual Meeting, held February 10, 1825, &c. IX.-1. A Letter to the Earl of Liverpool, proposing to finish the East Wing of Somerset House for National Galle- 2. Observations on the Buildings, Improvements, and Extension of the Metropolis, of late Years; with some 3. Sketch of the North Bank of the Thames, showing the proposed Quay, and some other Improvements, suggested by Lieutenant-Colonel Trench. 4. Considerations upon the Expediency of Building a Metropolitan Palace. By a Member of Parliament. 5. A Letter to the Right Honourable Sir Charles Long, on the Improvements proposed and now carrying on in X.-1. Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, Esquire, including a History of the Stage from the time of Gar- rick to the present period. By James Boaden, Esquire. 2. Reminiscences of Michael Kelly, of the King's Theatre, and Theatre Royal Drury Lane, including a Period of nearly half a Century; with Original Anecdotes of III.-]. Journal of a Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; performed in the Years 1824, 25, in His Majesty's Ships Hecla and Fury, under the orders of Captain William Edward Parry, R.N. F.R.S., and Commander 2. A Voyage towards the South Pole, performed in the years 1822-24. Containing an Examination of the Antarctic Sea, to the Seventy-fourth degree of Latitude: and a Visit to Tierra del Fuego, with a particular Ac- count of the Inhabitants. To which is added, much useful Information on the coasting Navigation of Cape Horn, and the Adjacent Lands, with Charts of Har- IV.-Philippe-Auguste; Poëme Héroïque, en Douze Chants. Par F. A. Parseval, Membre de l'Académie Française. 399 2. The Adventures of a Young Rifleman in the French and English Armies during the War in Spain and Por- tugal, from 1806 to 1816. Written by himself. 3. Adventures of a French Serjeant, during his Cam- VII.-Memoir of the Life and Character of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke; with Specimens of his Poetry and Letters; and an Estimate of his Genius and Talents, compared with those of his great Contemporaries. By James Prior, Esq. Second Edition; enlarged to two X.-Observations on the actual State of the English Laws of Real Property; with the Outline of a Code. By James Humphreys, Esq. of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister. - XI.-1. Correspondence with the British Commissioners, re- -lating to the Slave-Trade. 1825, 1826. Class A. 3. British and Foreign State Papers. 1824, 1825. 4. Nineteenth and Twentieth Reports of the Directors of THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. ART. I.-Jerusalem Delivered; an Epic Poem, in Twenty Cantos; translated into English Spenserian Verse from the Italian of Tasso, &c. &c. By J. H. Wiffen. 8vo. London and Edinburgh. MUCH didactic prose and poetry has been written upon the subject of translation: the substance of which may be comprised in an exhortation to translate rather by equivalents than by a literal version of the author's words. If we try the merit of this precept, however, by its fruits, we shall find that, though its adoption may have produced good poetry, it has not often produced the thing required. With the exception of— Mittitur in disco mihi piscis ab archiepisco -Po non ponatur quia potus non mihi datur.' I had sent me a fish in a great dish by the archbish— we do not know of above one good translation executed upon this system in more than a century from the time in which it was most popular. On the other hand, we have many, among the best in the language, and not despicable even as poetry, for which we are indebted to that severe style of version, which was in fashion before the doctrine of equivalents was broached. Among these, many of Ben Jonson's essays rank foremost, and Sandys' Translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses may be deemed a happy · specimen of the school. Yet it must be allowed, that the free is the noble style of translation; that the only versions in our language, which rank as poems, are boldly executed; and that even the closest copyist must at times resort to equivalents, if he would give the real meaning of his original. This, however, is a daring and hazardous course; full of shoals so irregularly scattered, and often seen in such false lights, that there are few who have a sufficient perception of their dangers, or dexterity to avoid them. The most obvious of these dangers are modern and vulgar associations; of which we have spoken at large in a former Number: but there is another, which we do not remember to have seen laid down in any chart of criticism: this is, the resorting to some equivalent, which appears to convey the exact sense of the author, without observing the effect of that equivalent upon other parts of the text, under translation; a risk almost as perilous in its ultimate, though not VOL. XXXIV. NO. LXVII. A in in its immediate, consequences, as the other, to which we have alluded. Dryden may be considered as the first popular attempter in English of the system of free translation, as it is supposed to be recommended by Horace; we say supposed to be, because we do not think that his words admit the wide inferences which have been drawn from them; and (what is much more important) Ben Jonson, the translator of his Art of Poetry, did not; and well justified in his own practice his different opinion of Horace's meaning. Even Dryden, however, had as strict theoretical notions of the duties of a translator as he could entertain who would follow his author Non ita certandi cupidus quam propter amorem.' A translator (says he) is to be like his author: it is not his business to excel him.' This was his theory; but though he may occasionally catch the graces of his author, (besides exhibiting many rare qualities of his own,) can he be said to resemble the poet whom he translates, when he renders Horace's by si celeres quatit Pennas, resigno quæ dedit,' 'But if she dances in the wind And shakes her wings and will not stay, recollecting always, that Horace is speaking of a recognized and severe deity? or, when designating the priests of Cybele as clumsy clergymen, does he convey to us Juvenal's picture of those painted, mitred, and effeminate fanatics? Does he not rather conjure up a vision of portly gentlemen in black worsted stockings, thick shoes, and shovel hats? And yet how full is every translation by him, even his noble Eneid, of faults such as these, produced partly by the ambition of excelling his original, and partly by his indulging in the vicious use of equivalents! We have already recorded our opinion of Pope's Iliad; but even he has been seduced into violations of the sense of his author by the same cause, by Dryden's example, and by the artificial tone of an age that would have delighted to call the House of Commons the Senate House. He was also, like Dryden, hurried away, and into some wider deviations, by a genius too original and imaginative to suffer him to become a copyist. He seems to have meditated his work in the spirit in which a painter meditates a picture, anxious rather to improve, than exactly to imitate, nature;-whereas, according to our ideas, and according to those professed by Dryden, he should have commenced his task with the feelings of one who is to copy and not to compose: -But |