What could be more well-mannered, more delicate, and truly Virgilian, than the Sweetness, and Softness of that remote, insinuating Expression, oblitos famæ melioris amantes? For this Piece of a Verse Mr. Dryden gives us Three entire ones; which I will not transcribe. The two first are totally his own; and to One who is not himself insensible of Shame, those fulsom Expressions must be very nauseous. Part of the last Verse indeed is Virgil's; and it comes in strangely, after the odious Stuff that goes before it. If Virgil can be said to be remarkable for any one good Quality more than for Modesty, it is for his awful Reverence to Religion. And yet, as Mr. Dryden represents him describing Apollo's Presence at one of his own Festivals, he speaks Thus; Book iv. V. 210.
Himself, on Cynthus walking, sees below
The merry Madness of the sacred Show.
Virgil says, He walks on the Top of Cynthus; That's all: The rest is Mr. Dryden's. And it is exactly of a Piece with a Passage in the Third Georgick; in which, without any sort of Provocation, or the least Hint from his Author, He calls the Priest the Holy Butcher. If Mr. Dryden took Delight in abusing Priests, and Religion; Virgil did not. It is indeed wonderful that a Man of so fine, and elevated a Genius, and at the same time of so good a Judgment, as Mr. Dryden certainly was, could so much as endure those clumsey Ideas, in which he perpetually rejoices; and that to such a degree, as to thrust them into Translations, contrary not only to the Design, and Meaning, but even to the Spirit, and Temper, and most distinguishing Character of his Author. Thus in his Translation of the last Lines of Homer's First Iliad he describes the Gods, and Goddesses as being drunk; and that in no fewer than three Verses, and in some of the coarsest Expressions that our Language will admit of: Whereas the Original gives not the least Intimation of any such thing; but only says that they were sleepy, and went to bed. And therefore here again I cannot be of Mr. Pope's Opinion, that it is a great Loss to the Poetical World that Mr. Dryden did not live to translate the Iliad. If we may judge of what the Whole would have been by the Specimen which he has left us; I think it was a Gain to the Poetical World that Mr. Dryden's Version did not hinder us from Mr. Pope's. Which may be said, without any great Compliment to the latter.
As to the Instances of Mr. Dryden's sinking, where his Author most remarkably rises, and being flat where his Author is most remarkably elegant; they are many: But I am almost tired with Quotations; quite tired with such invidious ones, as these are; it being (as I said) much more agreeable to my Temper to remark upon Beauties, than upon Faults, and Imperfections; especially in the Works of great Men, who (tho' they may have written many things not capable of being defended, yet) have written many more, which I can only admire, but do not pretend to equal. And That is the present Case. I shall therefore mention but one Example of this Kind; And it is the unutterable Elegancy of these Lines in the Fourth Book, describing the Scrietch-Owl:
Solaque culminibus, ferali carmine bubo
Sæpe queri, & longas in fletum ducere voces.
How is This translated in the following Verses? Or rather is it translated at all?
——With a boding Note
The solitary Scrietch-Owl strains her Throat;
And on a Chimney's Top, or Turret's height,
With Songs obscene disturbs the Silence of the Night.
To produce more Instances would be needless; because One general Remark supersedes them all. It is acknowledged by every body that the First Six Books in the Original are the best, and the most perfect; but the Last Six are so in Mr. Dryden's Translation. Not that even in These Virgil properly sinks, or flags in his Genius; but only he did not live to correct them, as he did the former. However, they abound with Beauties in the Original; and so indeed they do in the Translation, more, as I said, than the First Six: Which is visible to any one that reads the Whole with Application.
I observed in the last place, that where Mr. Dryden shines most, we often see least of Virgil. To omit many other Instances, the Description of the Cyclops forging Thunder for Jupiter, and Armour for Æneas, is elegant, and noble to the last degree in the Latin; and it is so to a very great degree in the English. But then is the English a Translation of the Latin?
Hither the Father of the Fire by Night
Thro' the brown Air precipitates his Flight:
On their eternal Anvils here be found
The Brethren beating, and the Blows go round.