nothing in the canoe, and nobody but myself, therefore cease. Take me and the canoe, but don't kill me." They took possession of the canoe and the man, and carried them to the king.

I was kept in irons three months; the king released me and gave me a slave (woman). I immediately went to the slave taken in the canoe, who told me in what manner Mr. Park and all of them had died, and what I have related above. I asked him if he was sure nothing had been found in the canoe after its capture; he said that nothing remained in the canoe but himself and a sword-belt. I asked him where the sword-belt was; he said the king took it, and had made a girth for his horse with it.'

Though these documents contain information which falls very short of our expectations, they still present us with mate rials of no ordinary kind; and they will probably not only excite attention but give birth to a variety of speculations. Perhaps we have not a correct account of the last scene of Park's life, but of his death no doubt can now be entertained. What advantage the next expedition can derive from the pre-, sent volume, it is difficult to decide: but all will admit that it ought not to take place in the rainy season; and that its conductors, in addition to a stock of requisite knowlege and prudence, should be attended by a force sufficient to overawe the natives. A map is subjoined which will assist in tracing Mr. Park's route.

The African Association has lately published some additional Reports, which we hope shortly to notice.

ART. XIV.

Specimens of the Classic Poets, in a Chronological Series from Homer to Tryphiodorus, translated into English Verse, and illustrated with Biographical and Critical Notices. By Charles Abraham Elton, Author of a Translation of Hesiod, 8vo. 3 Vols. 11. 16s. Boards. Baldwin. 1814.

IN

N proportion as we acknowlege with pleasure that these multifarious volumes exhibit a very considerable share of classical science, and as we unfeignedly respect any such attainments, we are pained at feeling compelled to add that, in our judgment, the poetical taste and spirit of the author by no means keep pace with his learning. The truth, however, is that, whether we examine the translations from the Greek or from the Latin poets; whether we look for the animation, the elegance, or the tenderness of many pieces in the Anthology; or whether we expect to find the nature and energy of Homer tranfused into vivid English verse; we are equally disappointed. It was with some surprize indeed, as well as regret, that we saw a scholar, as Mr. Elton confessedly is, almost uniformly

(according

(according to our apprehension) failing in his attempts to represent the higher qualities of his original: but, on referring to his preface, we think that we have discovered the masterkey to this perplexing series of unpleasant phænomena. He there not only adopts a theory of translation directly opposite to that of Dryden and Pope, and many more modern authorities, but, as directly in the face of the former of these great men, (or rather in that of Sir John Denham, whose opinion however is the same,) he maintains the possibility of being closely faithful and poetical at the same time. He takes the body, according to Dryden's idea, instead of the soul of his original; and, although Horace and good sense and genius positively forbid, he too frequently endeavours to "transfuse the poesy with the language:" thus presenting the reader with aukward, prosaic, and latinized English, with rough, broken, and inharmonious versification. How should it be otherwise, when an author sets forth with such a criticism as the following, on the celebrated passage at the end of the eighth book in Pope's version of the Iliad?..

Of this passage, when it has been conceded that the cadence is harmonious, and that the fourth couplet is picturesque, what is there left that can challenge praise? In the first line we are informed, that the moon is the "refulgent lamp of night:" sacred, in the second, is a cold make-weight epithet, and adds no sensible image: the solemn scene is general, when all should be local and particular: the simple reality of moonlight is impaired by the metaphor and personification in the words "around her throne:" A flood of glory not only verges on bombast, but conveys nothing distinct: we receive no clear impression of the boundless firmament opening on the vision by the breaking of the mist overhead; nor of the multitude of twinkling stars that are taken in at once by the scope of sight and the tain-shepherd, looking up at the moon from among his flocks, with a sudden sensation of cheeriness in his solitude, is displaced by a vulgar company of swains, eyeing the blue vault, and blessing the light, because it is useful and it is thus that Homer is raised and improved !'.

moun

It is impossible here to refrain from transcribing this noble and we must add calumniated specimen of genius, and then contrasting it with the tame and feeble attempt of the present critic. Our readers, we are assured, will forgive the repetition of the subjoined well-known lines:

As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night!
O'er heav'n's clear azure spreads her sacred light,
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole,

O'er

O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And tip with silver ev'ry mountain's head;
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies:
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.
So many flames before proud Ilion blaze,
And lighten glimm'ring Xanthus with their rays:
The long reflections of the distant fires
Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires.
A thousand piles the dusky horrours gild,
And shoot a shady lustre o'er the field.
Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend,
Whose umber'd arms, by fits, thick flashes send,
Loud neigh the coursers o'er their heaps of corn,
And ardent warriours wait the rising morn."
As beautiful the stars shine out in heaven
Around the splendid moon, no breath of wind
Ruffling the blue calm ether; clear'd from mist
The beacon hill-tops, crags, and forest dells
Emerge in light; th' immeasurable sky
Breaks from above, and opens on the gaze;
The multitude of stars are seen at once
Full sparkling, and the shepherd looking up
Feels gladden'd at his heart; so many fires,
Midway the ships and Xanthus' glimmering stream,
Blazed up in front of Troy. A thousand flames
Burn'd on the plain: around each sep❜rate pile
Sate fifty men, on whom the reddening glare
Reflected shone. Meanwhile the steeds all stood
Fast by their chariots, champing the white grain;
And tarried till the bright-throned morn appear.?

(POPE.)

(ELTON.)

If the above does not condemn itself in the minds of our readers, and answer every word of its author's unwarrantable attack on Pope, we despair of producing conviction by argument on so clear a case.

With regard to the general question of fidelity in translation, we may safely leave it in the hands of Denham, Dryden, Mickle, and Lord Woodhouselee, who are only a few of Mr. Elton's opponents, but, being those whom he has himself quoted, are fairly selected by us as his adversaries. We would only ask him ourselves, in what instance has it been found possible to reconcile a closely faithful version of an antient author with a free, animated, and flowing English style? Not only are there "certain graces and happinesses peculiar to every language, which give life and energy to the words," (according to Denham's expression,) but one age has such a wholly different impress and character from another, that it is literally impos

sible to attempt to preserve its features entirely and exactly without caricaturing them. All this has been urged over and over again, and we never saw an any answer to it either in critical principle or poetical practice. As to the latter, to which for many reasons we w wish at present to confine so hackneyed a discussion, we again ask for Mr. Elton's instance, of fire and fidelity united?-native unquenchable fire, we mean, and exact fidelity.

Still more should we be gratified on seeing the example of a good version of an antient poet into blank verse. Of this measure Mr. Elton is the warm advocate, as we might naturally expect but neither his own nor Cowper's, nor Morris's, experiments on Homer will gain, we believe, half-a-dozen poetical scholars in Great Britain to his opinion. On Lucan he has made some still more unsuccessful exertions; and really we cannot conceive, with the fear of Rowe before his eyes, how he could act in so imprudent a manner. If Mr. Elton has ventured to contrast himself with Pope, (for be it observed that this is his own doing *,) we, assuredly, may be allowed to compare him with Rowe; and we select therefore the characters of Pompey and Cæsar in the first book of the Pharsalia for this comparison. Our readers will again forgive us for recalling them to an old acquaintance. Pompey, as they will recollect,

stood the shadow of what once he was.

So in the field with Ceres' bounty spread,
Up-rears some antient oak his reverend head
Chaplets and sacred gifts his boughs adorn,
And spoils of war by mighty heroes worn.
But the first vigour of his root now gone,
He stands dependent on his weight alone;
All bare his naked branches are displayed,
And with his leafless trunk he forms a shade
Yet though the winds his ruin daily threat,
As every blast would heave him from his seat;
Tho' thousand fairer trees the field supplies,
That rich in youthful verdure round him rise;
Fixed in his antient state he yields to none,
And wears the honours of the grove alone.
But Cæsar's greatness and his strength was more
Than past renown and antiquated power;
'Twas not the fame of what he once had been,
Or tales in old records and annals seen;

But 'twas a valour restless, unconfined,

Which no success could sate, nor limits bind;

*He also adduces Cowper's translation of the passage in question: -but, multiply it as we will, ex nihilo nil fit.

'Twas

'Twas shame, a soldier's shame, untaught to yield,f eldia
That blushed for nothing but an ill-fought field;
Fierce in his hopes he was, nor knew to stay,
Where vengeance or ambition led the way;
Still prodigal of war whene'er withstood,
Nor spared to stain the guilty sword with blood;
Urging advantage he improved all odds,
And made the most of fortune and the gods;
Pleased to o'erturn whate'er with-held his prize, y
And saw the ruin with rejoicing eyes.

Such, while earth trembles, and heaven thunders loud,
Darts the swift lightening from the rending cloud;
Fierce through the day it breaks, and in its flight
The dreadful blast confounds the gazer's sight;
Resistless in its course delights to rove,
And cleaves the temples of its master Jove:
Alike where'er it passes or returns,

With equal rage the fell destroyer burns;

Then, with a whirl, full in its strength retires,

And re-collects the force of all its scatter'd fires." (RowE.)

He stood, the shadow of a mighty name.
As, on some acorn-teeming plain, an oak,
Bearing aloft a people's spoils of yore,
And consecrated gifts of chieftains old,
No longer clings to vigorous roots, but stands
By its own weight made stedfast, and, in air
Spreading abroad its bare and straggling boughs
Casts with its trunk a shadow, not with leaves;
Though, at the first rush of the eastern blast,
It nods from high, and rocks, as to its fall;
Though all around woods rise of firmer stem,
Its reverend pomp remains. But no such name
Of old renown, nor glory of the field
Was Cæsar's; but a valour that could brook
No rest his only shame was victory won
By aught but open force; a spirit keen,
And unsubdued; at beck of sanguine hope,
Or anger, prompt to rush; and never slow,
On rash occasion's spur, to stain the sword.
Fervid to push success; adroit to seize
Th' auspicious hour of fortune; beating down
All obstacles, while pressing to the heights;
And glorying still to hew himself a path
Through havoc and destruction. So, by winds
Crush'd from the clouds, the glittering lightning breaks,
With roaring of the agitated air,

And hollow crash of earth: through the clear day
It cleaves a fiery track, while, terror-struck,
The nations tremble; and their darkening eyes
dobe Are dazzled by the crooked glare of flame;
Against its native sphere, the concave Heaven,

Rages