Nought e'en in death have I that asks a tear. And children's children cheer'd my pilgrimage; And often, pillow'd on their grandsire's breast, This elegant poem strongly reminds us of a passage in the Hippias Major of Plato, p. 291., D. λέγω τοίνυν, ἀει, και παντί, και πανταχε κάλλιστον είναι ἀνδρι πλετοντι, υγιαίνοντι, τιμωμένῳ ὑπὸ των Ελληνων, ἀφικομένῳ ἐις γηρας, τους αυτε γονέας τελευτήσαντας καλῶς περιστείλαντι, ύπο των αυτε ἐκγόνων καλῶς και μεγαλοπα ρεπῶς ταφήναι. In any pieces of a descriptive nature, the Greeks were peculiarly successful. They never overcharged the picture. Whatever is described is fully but concisely described, and its purpose or object plainly told; and, when this is done, the writer never seems to deem it necessary to say another word. He knew, for instance, in writing an inscription for a statue, that his duty was to explain the person whom it represented, and the cause of its erection, not to display his powers of writing; and with this object always in view, he could not fail to produce an inscription appropriate to its purpose, and creditable to himself. We quote an instance or two. On a Grove of Laurel. (From Anyte.) M., That stirs and breathes within this verdant bower.' Garden Scenery. (From Paulus.) B. This lovely spot old Ocean laves, And woody coverts fringe the waves ; And summon'd to the enchanted land In the division called Dedicatory, we have not found much to approve. We do not perceive sufficient elegance in the originals of the Fisherman's and the Sportsman's Offering, to intitle them to translation; and in the version of the Gardener's Offering, which is remarkable for its simplicity in the original, we have very strong symptoms of the old faults. Instead of 16 asking asking Pan in a submissive way, as a working-gardener ought, to accept a few apples from his garden, and a little water from the rock-spring, this magnificent gentleman proceeds in a very grand style: The fruit ambrosial in thy garden blush'd, And from thy rock the living water gush'd,' &c. The ridicule of this consists in the translator forgetting that the Greek epigrams are all strictly in character, and that a true Grecian poet would never have dreamt of making a common gardener talk of ambrosial fruits' and niggard urns' and living waters.'-The Poet's Offering is very pretty: There hang, my lyre. This aged hand no more Be gone to youths, ye instruments of song The Offering to the rural Deities, from Leonidas of Tarentum,. is also very prettily translated: but we have noticed one or two trifling errors in it. Instead of old Arcas,' the translator should have written" old Biton:" the Greek being 'Apnas εonxe BITWY, where 'Apxas evidently means "an Arcadian." The offering to Bacchus is described, in the original, as x68 xλvα TOλÚπλανέος, Tλavéos, i. e. a branch of wandering ivy. Instead, then, of the following lines, Luxuriant on the green entangled vine, This blushing cluster to the god of wine,?" we advise Mr. Bland's friend (M.) to be contented with And lays the creeping ivy on the shrine, A grateful offering to the god of wine. Biton's gift to the nymphs is also misrepresented. Leonidas tells us that he offered to them σκιερὰς ἐυποικιλὸν ἀνθος χώρας Φυλλα τὲ πέπταμένων αιματόεντα ῥόδων. The varied flower of shady Autumn, and the blood-red leaves of blown roses. Mr. M.'s version, therefore, • Each fruit that swells in Autumn's sunny bow'rs, might be exchanged for Each varied bud from Autumn's shady bow'rs, Mix'd with the full-blown rose's purpled flow'rs. Of the last division, called Satirical and Humorous, we have comparatively little to say. We are very sorry that it was inserted, and and grieved that the translators took no greater trouble in selecting such epigrams as would have given a more favourable notion of the humour of perhaps the most witty nation that ever existed. Does one atom of wit redeem the unpardonable vulgarity of the following lines? Female Beauty. (From Antipater.) M. or the dullness of the following couplets? On a Miser. (From Lucillius.) M. A rich man's purse, a poor man's soul is thine, On a Notorious Thief. (From Ditto.) M. That purse will Cleon never more behold.' The translators are much delighted with the Grecian jokes on long noses, and have favoured us with translations of four of them. The first we transcribe, with a version of the same by Cowper; which, though not so comical, is much closer and neater: • From Lucillius. Heavens, what a nose! B. Forbear to look Whene'er you drink, in fount or brook; When hanging o'er a fountain's side, Cowper's version runs thus: "Beware, my friend! of crystal brook, * The first couplet of the original is as follows: Among Among the few valuable portions of this section, are some of Cumberland's translations of the more ludicrous parts of the comic writers: but we earnestly advise the total omission of it in the next edition. We have devoted so much space and time to this collection, that our readers must be almost as well able as we are to judge of its merits and demerits; and it will therefore be unnecessary for us to be diffuse on its general character. No one can take up the book for five minutes without perceiving that its authors are men of very elegant minds, and very classical taste; and, odd as it may seem, to these very causes we impute the principal faults of their production. They seem to imagine that every thing, which does not wear the fine polish of the poetry of the present day, must necessarily want its elegance; and their luxuriant imaginations have accordingly decked many of the plain homespun articles of Greek manufacture in such splendid dresses, that we could not easily recognize our old acquaintance. Perhaps, however, they judged that these decorations were necessary to please the taste of modern times; and they were doubtless right in making their book as acceptable as they possibly could to the generality of readers. That it will be acceptable, we cannot entertain the least doubt; and, in order to insure a permanence of the public favour, we strenuously recommend a careful revisal of the whole. Many trifling epigrams may be omitted; as for instance, • Pleasure and Pain. (From Lucian.) M. On a Virtuous Man. (From Callimachus.) M. Thou can'st not say, the just and virtuous dies.' Occasionally, too, we have remarked a careless expression. It is somewhat strange, for instance, to meet with such a line as this in a translation from the Greek: Unportion'd beauty is-the Devil.' P. 121. The construction of the following couplet, also, is very inelegant: And sure the boy himself we see, To smile and please and breathe in thee.' P. 366. We are not much delighted with the notion of the Sun" peering;' an expression which somewhere occurs, though we cannot at present remember the epigram. The The notes and illustrations are written in too desultory a and, having gone through French and Italian, we perhaps end in a translation of Ossian into verse. manner. We are hurried from Greek to Latin. desultory 1 Though we have dwelt unusually long on this delightful volume, we feel confident that our readers will not be displeased at the extensive view of this most fascinating subject to which we have invited them. We feel more apprehensive that the translators will accuse us of dilating too much on those points in their productions which we consider as calling for castigation but we have already made the best apology for this unpleasant part of our duty. Nothing, we must repeat it, but the high respect which we entertain for their talents, would have induced us to enter so widely on the field of criticism-in the harsher sense of the word; and, independently of the great good sense and good taste which pervade their work, they have given us the best pledge of their readiness to profit by friendly admonition, in having adopted some hints which we threw out in our short notice of the first edition. We allude particularly to their having expelled from their translations several names, to which we objected as exclusively modern. Let them, in a future edition, (and we trust that neither they nor their critics are too old to anticipate several,) exclude, with equal diligence, all purely modern thoughts and imagery: -let them consider the propriety of their favourite plan of interweaving lines and ideas from English writers with their wreath of Grecian poetry, which awaken associations neither relevant nor favourable to the subject that employs or ought to employ them; and, above all, let them cure themselves of needless amplification. We will not cease to repeat this admonition to them, like the " Delenda est Carthago" of the old Roman: since we are positive that they can improve on this head if they will. Their own book abundantly manifests it; and we have ventured to shew them that we do not consider the task of correction as either hopeless or difficult. We now bid Mr. Bland, and his learned and poetical associates, a sincere but, we trust, not a long farewell; highly grateful for the treat which they have afforded us, and with which, like Philodemus with his Helen, we promise to be contented, "at least 'till they send us a better." ART. |