Membranis intus positis”—[[73]]
we put it away to be taken up again and again, lingered over fondly, touched up and polished, until the exact word is found for every elusive epithet, the precise equivalent for every tantalizing phrase, and the entire ode lies before us, its foreign garb bagging, indeed, a little here and there, but fitting as snugly as our art can make it, and we are content. That is a moment of such supreme satisfaction, of such tranquil triumph, as life but rarely yields. Less than any other that dabbles in ink has your true Horatian the fever of the type. His virtue is really—what virtue, alas! so seldom is in this perverse world—its own reward. Like Joubert, il s’inquiète de perfection bien plus que de gloire; to have hit upon what he feels to be a happy rendering is glory enough; enough that he and Horace should share his exultation; a felicitous adjective will put him in good-humor for a week. And so, before he well knows it, his portfolio is nearly full, and the notion first dawns upon him—the duty it almost seems—of sharing his good fortune with his fellows. “Rather would I have written the Quem tu Melpomene semel or the Donec gratus eram tibi,” cried Scaliger, “than to be king of Aragon.” Rather would I make a perfect translation of these or any other of the Odes, cries our Horatian, than to be king of all Spain, with all Cuba libre to boot—
“Quam si Libyam remotis
Gadibus jungas et uterque Pœnus
Serviat uni.”[[74]]
Somewhat in this wise, we fancy, have most versions of Horace come to be and to be printed; certainly, we incline to think, all the best versions. Thus, too, partly for the reason M. Sainte-Beuve gives, partly from the poet’s universality and the charm which lies in the very difficulty of the task—an impossibility Johnson called it, but it is one of those “sweet impossibilities” which ennoble failure—do we count so many renderings of single odes by famous men. There are few names eminent in English letters or statesmanship that are not thus allied to the genial Venusian—names, too, of the most diverse order. Not only poets like Cowper and Montgomery, Chatterton and Byron,[[75]] essayists like Addison, or dramatists like Congreve, Rowe, and Otway, but grave historians such as Mitford and Merivale, judges like Lord Thurlow and Sir Jeffrey Gilbert, philosophers like Atterbury and Sir William Temple, bitter satirists like Swift, tender sentimentalists like “Namby Pamby” Phillips, professors and prime ministers, doctors and divines, lords and lawyers, archdeacons and archtraitors, have joined in paying court to the freedman’s son. In his ante-room, or atrium, prim John Evelyn is jostled by tipsy Porson humming somewhat huskily one of the bacchanalian lyrics to a tune of his own (perhaps the Ad Sodales, i. 27, which that learned Theban has rendered with true Porsonian zest—a little too much so to quote); Warren Hastings there meets Edmund Burke in friendlier contest than at the bar of the House of Commons; Dr. Bentley takes issue with Archdeacon Wrangham over a doubtful reading; Mr. Gladstone leads a poetic opposition to Lord Derby in Englishing the Carmen Amabœum. In that modest cœnaculum we can greet these great men all on a familiar and equal footing, made one of them for the nonce by the fellowship of a common taste—nay, may even flatter ourselves that here, at least, we are at their level; that our poet’s door may even be opened to us sooner than to the tallest and wisest among them. It is true greatness has no prerogative in Horace; the meanest may win to his intimacy, be admitted to his penetralia, sooner than the mightiest. Of all the distinguished names we have quoted, few would have had much distinction as translators alone, though Bishop Atterbury’s versions, especially that of the Ad Melpomenen, iv. 2, are deservedly famous. Hastings’ translation of the Ad Grosphum, written during his passage from Bengal to England in 1785 (he was going home to the famous trial), merits notice for its curious adaptation to his Indian experiences:
“For ease the slow Mahratta spoils
And hardier Sikh erratic toils,
While both their ease forego....
“To ripened age Clive lived renowned,