TO THE LORD THURLOW.
My Lord,—We are of one mind as to the agreeable effect of rhyme, or euphony, in the lighter kinds of poetry. The pieces which your lordship mentions would certainly be spoiled by the loss of it, and so would all such. The "Alma" would lose all its neatness and smartness, and "Hudibras" all its humour. But in grave poems of extreme length, I apprehend that the case is different. Long before I thought of commencing poet myself, I have complained, and heard others complain, of the wearisomeness of such poems. Not that I suppose that tedium the effect of rhyme itself, but rather of the perpetual recurrence of the same pause and cadence, unavoidable in the English couplet. I hope, I may say truly, it was not in a spirit of presumption that I undertook to do what, in your lordship's opinion, neither Dryden nor Pope would have dared to do. On the contrary, I see not how I could have escaped that imputation, had I followed Pope in his own way. A closer translation was called for. I verily believed that rhyme had betrayed Pope into his deviations. For me, therefore, to have used his mode of versifying, would have been to expose myself to the same miscarriage, at the same time that I had not his talents to atone for it.
I agree with your lordship that a translation perfectly close is impossible, because time has sunk the original strict import of a thousand phrases, and we have no means of recovering it. But if we cannot be unimpeachably faithful, that is no reason why we should not be as faithful as we can; and if blank verse affords the fairest chance, then it claims the preference.
Your lordship, I will venture to say, can command me nothing in which I will not obey with the greatest alacrity.
Ει δυναμαι τελεσαι γε, και ει τετειεσμενον εστι.
But when, having made as close a translation as even you can invent, you enjoin me to make it still closer, and in rhyme too, I can only reply, as Horace to Augustus,
"—— cupidum, pater optime, vires
Deficiunt ——"
I have not treacherously departed from my pattern that I might seem to give some proof of the justness of my own opinion, but have fairly and honestly adhered as closely to it as I could. Yet your lordship will not have to compliment me on my success, either in respect of the poetical merit of my lines, or of their fidelity. They have just enough of each to make them deficient in the other.
Oh Phœnix, father, friend, guest sent from Jove!
Me no such honours as they yield can move,
For I expect my honours from above.
Here Jove has fix'd me; and while breath and sense
Have place within me, I will never hence.
Hear, too, and mark me well—haunt not mine ears
With sighs, nor seek to melt me with thy tears
For yonder chief, lest, urging such a plea
Through love of him, thou hateful prove to me.
Thy friendship for thy friend shall brighter shine—
Wounding his spirit, who has wounded mine.
Divide with me the honours of my throne—
These shall return, and make their tidings known,
But go not thou—thy couch shall here be dress'd
With softest fleeces for thy easy rest,
And with the earliest blush of op'ning day
We will consult to seek our home, or stay.
Since I wrote these I have looked at Pope's. I am certainly somewhat closer to the original than he, but farther I say not. I shall wait with impatience for your lordship's conclusions from these premises, and remain, in the meantime, with great truth, my lord, &c.