its political confequences; and the leading incidents are important, but not fufficiently intricate to awaken our curiofits, and hold us in fufpence. Nothing is perplexed and nothing unravelled. The oppofition of interefts is fuch as does not affect our nicer feelings. In the plot of a play, our pleasure arifes in proportion as our expectation is excited. Yet it must be granted, that the language of GoR DOBUC has great purity and perfpicuity; and that it is entirely free from that tumid phrafeology, which does not feem to have taken place till play-writing had become a trade, and our poets found it their intereft to captivate the multitude by the falfe fublime, and by thofe exaggerated imageries and pedantic metaphors, which are the chief blemishes of the scenes of Shakefpear, and which are at this day miftaken for his capital beauties by too many readers. Here also we perceive another and a strong reafon why this play was never popular." This tragedy coming out of the hands of a man of fuch reputation and abilities as Lord Buckhurft, was immediately followed by English translations of the Jocafta of Euripedes, by George Gafcoign and Francis Kilwen merth, both of Grays-Inn, and of the Ten Tragedies of Seneca, by different hands. The antient drama was by these means introduced and laid open to our anceftors, and it must be confessed that many parts of their tranflations, if we may judge from the quotations Mr. Warton has given us, appear to have confiderable merit. Befides the antient drama, almost all the claffical poets whe ther Greek or Roman were tranflated into our language during this reign. The versions of Homer, Mufæus, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Martial, appeared in English before the year 1580; thefe, fays our author, while they contributed to familiarize the ideas of the antient poets to English readers, improved our language and verfification; and that in a general view they ought to be confidered as valuable and important acceffions to the stock of our poetical literature. These were the claffics of Shakespear.” From amongst the various extracts Mr. Warton has given us of the translations in question, we beg leave to lay before our reader the following one from the transformation of Athamas and Ino in the fourth book of Ovid, by Arthur Golding. "The furious fiend Tifiphone, doth cloth her out of hand, (a) A torch, The word is used by Milton. The The funne withdrewe him: Athamas and eke his wife were caft And fplaying (a) foorth her filthy armes beknit with fnakes about, The fnakes did craule about their brefts, infpiring in their heart clinde To cruell murther: all the which, fhe did together grinde. And mingling them with new-fhed blood, fhe boyled them in braffe, May drawe the plyant king which way I please. Therefore I'll have Italian mafques by night, * * * * Shall bathe him in a spring: and there hard by, The Iliad of Homer was tranflated by George Chapman towards the latter end of this reign, Mr. Warton's account of this poet is as follows. "In the Preface, he declares that the last twelve books were tranflated in fifteen weeks: yet with the advice of his learned and valued friends, Mafter Robert Hews (6), and Mafter Harriots. It is certain that the whole performance betrays the negligence of hafte. He pays his acknowledgements to his "moft ancient, "learned, and right noble friend, "Mafter Richard Stapilton (c), "the first moft defertful mouer "in the frame of our Homer." He endeavours to obviate a popu (a) That is, acting the part of Diana. lar objection, perhaps not totally groundless, that he confulted the profe Latin verfion more than the Greek original. He fays, fenfibly enough," it is the part of euery knowing and iudicious "interpreter, not to follow the "number and order of words, but "the materiall things themfelues, "and fentences to weigh dili"gently; and to clothe and a"dorne them with words, and "fuch a ftile and forme of ora❝tion, as are moft apt for the "language into which they are "conuerted." The danger lies, in too lavish an application of this fort of cloathing, that it may not difguife what it fhould only adorn. I do not fay that this is Chapman's (b) This Robert Hues, or Hofus, was a scholar, a good geographer and mathematician, and published a Tract in Latin on the Globes, Lond. 1593, 8vo. With other pieces in that way. There was alfo a Robert Hughes whe wrote a Dictionary of the English and Perfic. See Wood, ATH. OXON. i. 571. HIST. ANTIQUIT. UNIV. OxON. Lib. i. p. 288. b. (c) Already mentioned as the publisher of a poetical mifcellany in 1593Supr. p. 401. "The spirituall poems or hymnes of R. S." are entered to J. Bufbie, Oct. 17, 1595. REGISTR. STATION. C. fol. 3. b. fault; fault; but he has by no means reprefented the dignity or the fimplicity of Homer. He is fometimes paraphraftic and redundant, but more frequently retrenches or impoverishes what he could not feel and exprefs. In the mean time, he labours with the inconvenience of an aukward, inharmonious, and unheroic measure, impofed by custom, but difguftful to modern ears. Yet he is not always without ftrength or fpirit. He has enriched our language with many compound epithets, fo much in the manner of Homer, fuch as the filver-footed Thetis, the filverthroned Juno, the triple-feathered helme, the bigh-walled Thebes, the faire-haired boy, the filverflowing floods, the bugely peopled towns, the Grecians navy-bound, the ftrong-winged lance, and many more which might be collected. Dryden reports, that Waller never could read Chapman's Homerwithout a degree of transport. Pope is of opinion, that Chapman covers his defects" by a daring "fiery spirit that animates his "tranflation, which is fomething "like what one might imagine "Homer himself to have writ "before he arrived to years of "difcretion." But his fire is too frequently darkened, by that fort of fuftian which now disfigured the diction of our tragedy." Chapman alfo, in the year 1614, published the Odysea, which he dedicated to Carr Earl of Somerset. In addition to the antient authors of Greece and Rome, translations of most of the Italian poets into English took place towards the clofe of this century. Ariosto, the tales of Boccafe, Bandello, and of other Italian authors, were tranflated into our language, and became the foundation of many of the works of Shakespear, Dryden and others. Whatever could enrich, or furnish with matter our future poets, was now fhowered down upon them with uncommon exuberance. Our language was confiderably improved, the beauties of antient literature were ftudied and copied with fuccefs, the works of the modern claffics, if I may fo call them, were laid open to our ancestors et in medium proferuntur, and finally our poetry was arrived at that point, when fhe had neither contracted the feverity of age, nor was fo much a child as to be pleafed most with what was most strange and unnatural. As a confiderable part of the laft fection of this volume, containing a general view and character of the poetry of Queen Elizabeth's age, is inferted in another part of our Register for this year*, we fhall not touch upon it here. *See p. 141. of this last part, THE May drawe the plyant king which way I please. Therefore I'll have Italian mafques, by night, * * * * * * Shall bathe him in a spring: and there hard by, The Iliad of Homer was tranflated by George Chapman towards the latter end of this reign, Mr. Warton's account of this poet is as follows. "In the Preface, he declares that the last twelve books were tranflated in fifteen weeks: yet with the advice of his learned and valued friends, Mafter Robert Hews (6), and Mafter Harriots. It is certain that the whole performance betrays the negligence of hafte. He pays his acknowledgements to his "moft ancient, 66 learned, and right noble friend, "Mafter Richard Stapilton (c), "the first moft defertful mouer "in the frame of our Homer." He endeavours to obviate a popu lar objection, perhaps not totally groundless, that he confulted the profe Latin verfion more than the Greek original. He fays, fenfibly enough," it is the part of "euery knowing and iudicious "interpreter, not to follow the "number and order of words, but "the materiall things themfelues, "and fentences to weigh dili"gently; and to clothe and a"dorne them with words, and "fuch a ftile and forme of ora❝tion, as are most apt for the "language into which they are "conuerted." The danger lies, in too lavish an application of this fort of cloathing, that it may not difguife what it should only adorn. I do not fay that this is Chapman's (a) That is, acting the part of Diana. (b) This Robert Hues, or Hofus, was a fcholar, a good geographer and mathematician, and published a Tract in Latin on the Globes, Lond. 1593, With other pieces in that way. There was alfo a Robert Hughes whe wrote a Dictionary of the English and Perfic. See Wood, ATH. OXON. i. 571. HIST. ANTIQUIT. UNIV. Oxon. Lib. ii. p. 238. b. 8vo. (c) Already mentioned as the publisher of a poetical mifcellany in 1593Supr. p. 401. "The spirituall poems or hymnes of R. S." are entered to J. Bufbie, Oct. 17, 1595. REGISTR. STATION. C. fol. 3. b. fault; |