The works of John Dryden :: :: University of Virginia Library

Whene'er great Virgil's lofty verse I see,
The pompous scene charms my admiring eye.
There different beauties in perfection meet;
The thoughts as proper, as the numbers sweet;
And, when wild Fancy mounts a daring height,
Judgment steps in, and moderates her flight.
Wisely he manages his wealthy store,
Still says enough, and yet implies still more:
For, though the weighty sense be closely wrought,
The reader's left to improve the pleasing thought.

Hence we despaired to see an English dress
Should e'er his nervous energy express;
For who could that in fettered rhyme inclose,
Which, without loss, can scarce be told in prose?

But you, great Sir, his manly genius raise,
And make your copy share an equal praise.
Oh! how I see thee, in soft scenes of love,
Renew those passions he alone could move!
Here Cupid's charms are with new art exprest.
And pale Eliza leaves her peaceful rest—

285

Leaves her Elysium, as if glad to live,
To love, and wish, to sigh, despair, and grieve,
And die again for him that would again deceive.
Nor does the mighty Trojan less appear
Than Mars himself, amidst the storms of war.
Now his fierce eyes with double fury glow,
And a new dread attends the impending blow:
The Daunian chiefs their eager rage abate,
And, though unwounded, seem to feel their fate.

Long the rude fury of an ignorant age,
With barbarous spite, profaned his sacred page.
The heavy Dutchmen, with laborious toil,
Wrested his sense, and cramped his vigorous style.
No time, no pains, the drudging pedants spare,
But still his shoulders must the burden bear;
While, through the mazes of their comments led,
We learn, not what he writes, but what they read.
Yet, through these shades of undistinguished night,
Appeared some glimmering intervals of light;
Till mangled by a vile translating sect,
Like babes by witches in effigie rackt:
Till Ogleby, mature in dulness, rose,
And Holbourn doggrel, and low chiming prose,
His strength and beauty did at once depose.
But now the magic spell is at an end,
Since even the dead, in you, have found a friend.
You free the bard from rude oppressors' power,
And grace his verse with charms unknown before.
He, doubly thus obliged, must doubting stand,
Which chiefly should his gratitude command—
Whether should claim the tribute of his heart,
The patron's bounty, or the poet's art.

Alike with wonder and delight we viewed
The Roman genius in thy verse renewed:
We saw thee raise soft Ovid's amorous fre,
And fit the tuneful Horace to thy lyre:
We saw new gall embitter Juvenal's pen,
And crabbed Persius made politely plain.
Virgil alone was thought too great a task—
What you could scarce perform, or we durst ask;
A task, which Waller's Muse could ne'er engage;
A task, too hard for Denham's stronger rage.
Sure of success, they some slight sallies tried;
But the fenced coast their bold attempts defied:
With fear, their o'ermatched forces back they drew,
Quitting the province Fate reserved for you.

286

In vain thus Philip did the Persians storm;
A work his son was destined to perform.

O! had Roscommon lived to hail the day,
And sing loud pæans through the crowded way,
When you in Roman majesty appear,
Which none know better, and none come so near;
The happy author would with wonder see,
His rules were only prophecies of thee:
And, were he now to give translators light,
He'd bid them only read thy work, and write.

For this great task, our loud applause is due;
We own old favours, but must press for new:
Th'expecting world demands one labour more;
And thy loved Homer does thy aid implore,
To right his injured works, and set them free
From the lewd rhymes of grovelling Ogleby.
Then shall his verse in graceful pomp appear,
Nor will his birth renew the ancient jar:
On those Greek cities we shall look with scorn,
And in our Britain think the poet born.

TO MR. DRYDEN, ON HIS TRANSLATION OF VIRGIL.

I

We read, how dreams and visions heretofore
The prophet and the poet could inspire,
And make them in unusual rapture soar,
With rage divine, and with poetic fire.

II

O could I find it now!—Would Virgil's shade
But for a while vouchsafe to bear the light,
To grace my numbers, and that Muse to aid,
Who sings the poet that has done him right.

287

III

It long has been this sacred author's fate,
To lie at every dull translators will:
Long, long his Muse has groaned beneath the weight
Of mangling Ogleby's presumptuous quill.

IV

Dryden, at last, in his defence arose:
The father now is righted by the son;
And, while his Muse endeavours to disclose
That poet's beauties, she declares her own.

V

In your smooth pompous numbers drest, each line,
Each thought, betrays such a majestic touch,
He could not, had he finished his design,
Have wished it better, or have done so much.

VI

You, like his hero, though yourself were free,
And disentangled from the war of wit—
You, who secure might others' danger see,
And safe from all malicious censure sit—

VII

Yet, because sacred Virgil's noble Muse,
O'erlaid by fools, was ready to expire,
To risk your fame again, you boldly choose,
Or to redeem, or perish with your sire.

VIII

Even first and last, we owe him half to you:
For, that his Æneids missed their threatened fate,
Was—that his friends by some prediction knew,
Hereafter, who, correcting, should translate.

IX

But hold, my Muse! thy needless flight restrain,
Unless, like him, thou couldst a verse indite:
To think his fancy to describe, is vain,
Since nothing can discover light, but light.

X

'Tis want of genius that does more deny;
'Tis fear my praise should make your glory less;
And, therefore, like the modest painter, I
Must draw the veil, where I cannot express.

Henry Grahme.

288

TO MR. DRYDEN.

No undisputed monarch governed yet,
With universal sway, the realms of wit:
Nature could never such expense afford;
Each several province owned a several lord.
A poet then had his poetic wife,
One Muse embraced, and married for his life.
By the stale thing his appetite was cloyed,
His fancy lessened, and his fire destroyed.
But Nature, grown extravagantly kind,
With all her treasures did adorn your mind;
The different powers were then united found,
And you wit's universal monarch crowned.
Your mighty sway your great desert secures;
And every Muse and every Grace is yours.
To none confined, by turns you all enjoy:
Sated with this, you to another fly,
So, sultan-like, in your seraglio stand,
While wishing Muses wait for your command;
Thus no decay, no want of vigour, find:
Sublime your fancy, boundless is your mind.
Not all the blasts of Time can do you wrong—
Young, spite of age—in spite of weakness, strong.
Time, like Alcides, strikes you to the ground;
You, like Antæus, from each fall rebound.

H. St. John.

289

TO MR. DRYDEN, ON HIS VIRGIL.

'Tis said, that Phidias gave such living grace
To the carved image of a beauteous face,
That the cold marble might even seem to be
The life—and the true life, the imagery.

You pass that artist, Sir, and all his powers,
Making the best of Roman poets ours,
With such effect, we know not which to call
The imitation, which the original.

What Virgil lent, you pay in equal weight;
The charming beauty of the coin no less;
And such the majesty of your impress,
You seem the very author you translate.

'Tis certain, were he now alive with us,
And did revolving destiny constrain
To dress his thoughts in English o'er again,
Himself could write no otherwise than thus.

His old encomium never did appear
So true as now: “Romans and Greeks, submit!
Something of late is in our language writ,
More nobly great than the famed Iliads were.”

Ja. Wright.

290

TO MR. DRYDEN, ON HIS TRANSLATIONS.

As flowers, transplanted from a southern sky,
But hardly bear, or in the raising die,
Missing their native sun,—at best retain
But a faint odour, and but live with pain;
So Roman poetry, by moderns taught,
Wanting the warmth with which its author wrote,
Is a dead image, and a worthless draught.
While we transfuse, the nimble spirit flies,
Escapes unseen, evaporates, and dies.

Who then attempts to show the ancients' wit,
Must copy with the genius that they writ:
Whence we conclude from thy translated song,
So just, so warm, so smooth, and yet so strong,
Thou heavenly charmer! soul of harmony!
That all their geniuses revived in thee.

Thy trumpet sounds: the dead are raised to light;
New-born they rise, and take to heaven their flight;
Deck'd in thy verse, as clad with rays, they shine,
All glorified, immortal, and divine.

As Britain, in rich soil abounding wide,
Furnished for use, for luxury, and pride,
Yet spreads her wanton sails on every shore,
For foreign wealth, insatiate still of more;
To her own wool, the silks of Asia joins,
And to her plenteous harvests, Indian mines;
So Dryden, not contented with the fame
Of his own works, though an immortal name—

291

To lands remote he sends his learned Muse,
The noblest seeds of foreign wit to choose.
Feasting our sense so many various ways,
Say, is't thy bounty, or thy thirst of praise,
That, by comparing others, all might see,
Who most excelled, are yet excelled by thee?

George Granville.