More lovely than the monarch of the sky
In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms. (Sc. xv.)
226. I have of course not concerned myself with those mythological plays which offer no pastoral features. Nor is it possible to go into the question of the Latin plays performed at the Universities. I may, however, mention the Atalanta of Philip Parsons, a short piece preserved in the British Museum, MS. Harl. 6924, and dedicated to no less a person than Laud, when President of St. John's, Oxford, a position he held from 1611 to 1615. The play is founded upon the Boeotian legend of Atalanta, though the laying of the scene in Arcadia would appear to indicate a confusion with the other version. Pastoral characters and scenes are introduced.
227. See the epistle dedicatory to the Countess of Pembroke, prefixed to the Ivychurch, in which the translation appeared, 1591.
228. The choruses to Acts III and IV are omitted, which proves that Fraunce worked, as we should expect, from some edition previous to the Aldine quarto of 1590. There are also certain unimportant alterations in the translation from Watson. For a more detailed examination of Fraunce's relation to his Italian original, see an article by E. Koeppel on 'Die englischen Tasso-Übersetzungen des 16. Jahrhunderts,' in Anglia, vol. xi (1889), p. 11.
229. 'Phillis, alas, tho' thou live, another by this will be dying' would be a more elegant as well as more correct rendering of 'Oimè! tu vivi; Altri non già': it would, however, not scan according to Fraunce's rules.
230. Numerous French translations were, moreover, available for such as happened to be more familiar with that language.
231. Though not a point of much importance, I may as well take the opportunity of endeavouring to clear up the singular confusion which has surrounded the authorship. The ascription to John Reynolds rests ultimately upon the authority of Edward Phillips, in whose Theatrum Poetarum, 1675, we find s.v. Torquato Tasso the note (pt. ii, p. 186): 'Amintas, a Pastoral, elegantly translated into English by John Reynolds.' Who this John was is open to question. The Dic. Nat. Biog. recognizes three John Reynolds in the first half of the seventeenth century: (1) John Reynolds, or Reinolds (1584-1614), epigrammatist, fellow of New College, Oxford; (2) John Reynolds, of Exeter, (fl. 1621-50), author of God's Revenge against Murder, and of translations from French and Dutch; and (3) Sir John Reynolds, colonel in the Parliamentary army. The British Museum Catalogue, on the other hand, distinguishes between John Reynolds, of Exeter, author of God's Revenge and other works, and John Reynolds the translator (to whom the Aminta is tentatively ascribed). I am not aware of any authority for this distinction, though there is nothing in the composition of God's Revenge to make one suppose the author capable of producing the translation of the Aminta. On the other hand, it must be admitted that the incidental verse in some of his other works, notably in the Flower of Fidelity, a romance published in 1650, is distinctly on a more respectable level than his prose. The ascription, however, to John Reynolds has not very much to support it. Phillips' authority is second-rate at best, and is not likely to be at its best in the present case. It is indeed surprising that he should have been acquainted with this early translation rather than with that by John Dancer, which appeared in 1660, and must have been far more generally known at the end of the seventeenth century. The first to identify the translator with Henry Reynolds was, so far as I am aware, Mary A. Scott, in her valuable series of papers on 'Elizabethan Translations from the Italian,' in the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America (vol. xi. p. 112); and the same view was taken independently by the writer of a notice in the Dic. Nat. Biog. This ascription is based upon the entry in the Stationers' Register, which runs: '7º Novembris 1627. William Lee. Entred for his Copye under the handes of Sir Henry Herbert and both the wardens A booke called Torquato Tassos Aminta Englished by Henry Reynoldes ... vjd' (Arber, iv. p. 188). Several songs of his are extant, and an epistle of Drayton's is dedicated to him. This appears to me the more reasonable ascription of the two. The writer in the Dic. Nat. Biog. further claims that the identity of the translator with Henry Reynolds is proved by internal evidence of style. I may add that Serassi, in his remarks prefixed to the Bodoni edition of the Aminta (Parma, 1789), ascribed the present translation to Oldmixon through a confusion of the dates 1628 and 1698.
232. Streams or inlets.
233. The unfortunate cacophony of the opening is the retribution on the translator for not having the courage to begin with a hypermetrical line.
234. Later translations of the Aminta may be mentioned: John Oldmixon, 1698; P. B. Du Bois, in prose, with Italian, 1726; William Ayre [1737]; Percival Stockdale, 1770; and, lastly, the very graceful rendering by Leigh Hunt, 1820. As lately as 1900 a gentleman who need not be named had the impertinence to publish, in an American series, a mediocre version of the Aminta as being 'Now first rendered into English.' I may mention that some confusion has been introduced into the question of the date of Du Bois' translation by the wholly unwarranted opinion on the part of the B. M. catalogue that the second (undated) edition appeared c. 1650. I have compared the two editions at the Bodleian, and have no doubt that the second belongs to c. 1730.