it, nor the graces of it; which is manifest in his "Juvenilia," or verses written in his youth, where his rhyme is always constrained and forced, and comes hardly from him, at an age when the soul is most pliant, and the passion of love makes almost every man a rhymer though not a poet. Essay on Dramatic Poesy. ON TRANSLATION. Thus it appears necessary that a man should be a nice critic in his mother-tongue before he attempts to translate in a foreign language. Neither is it sufficient that he be able to judge of words and style, but he must be a master of them too: he must perfectly understand his author's tongue, and absolutely command his own: so that to be a thorough translator he must be a thorough poet. Neither is it enough to give his author's sense, in good English, in poetical expressions, and in musical numbers; for, though all these are exceeding difficult to perform, yet there remains a harder task; and it is a secret of which few translators have sufficiently thought. I have already hinted a word or two concerning it; that is, the maintaining the character of an author, which distinguishes him from all others, and makes him appear that individual poet whom you would interpret. For example, not only the thoughts but the style and versification of Virgil and Ovid are very different; yet I see, even in our best poets, who have translated some parts of them, that they have confounded their several talents; and by endeavouring only at the sweetness and harmony of numbers, have made them both so much alike, that if I did not know the originals, I should never be able to judge by the copies which was Virgil and which was Ovid. It was objected against a late noble painter, that he drew many graceful pictures, but few of them were like. And this happened to him because he always studied himself more than those who sat to him. In such translators I can easily distinguish the hand which performed the work, but I cannot distinguish their poet from another. Suppose two authors are equally sweet; yet there is as great distinction to be made in sweetness, as in that of sugar and that of honey. I can make the difference more plain by giving you (if it be worth knowing) my own method of proceeding in my translations out of four several poets in this volume,-Virgil, Theocritus, Lucretius, and Horace. In each of these, before I undertook them, I considered the genius and distinguishing character of my author. I looked on Virgil as a succinct and grave majestic writer; one who weighed not only every thought, but every word and syllable; who was still aiming to crowd his sense into as narrow a compass as possibly he could: for which reason he is so very figurative that he requires (I may almost say) a grammar apart to construe him. His verse is everywhere sounding the very thing in your ears whose sense it bears; yet the numbers are perpetually varied, to increase the delight of the reader, so that the same sounds are never repeated twice together. On the contrary, Ovid and Claudian, though they write in styles differing from each other, yet have each of them but one sort of music in their verses. All the versification and little variety of Claudian is included within the compass of four or five lines, and then he begins again in the same tenor, perpetually closing his sense at the end of a verse, and that verse commonly which they call golden, or two substantives and two adjectives, with a verb between them to keep the peace. Ovid, with all his sweetness, has as little variety of numbers and sound as he [Claudian]; he is always, as it were, upon the hand-gallop, and his verse runs upon carpetground. Ile avoids, like the other, all synalæphas, or cutting off one vowel when it comes before another in the following word; so that, minding only smoothness, he wants both variety and majesty. But to return to Virgil: though he is smooth where smoothness is required, yet he is so far from affecting it, that he seems rather to disdain it; frequently makes use of synalæphas, and concludes his sense in the middle of his verse. He is everywhere above conceits of epigrammatic wit and gross hyperboles; he maintains majesty in the midst of plainness; he shines, but glares not; and is stately without ambition, which is the vice of Lucan. I drew my definition of poetical wit from my particular consideration of him; for propriety of thoughts and words are only to be found in him; and where they are proper, they will be delightful. Pleasure follows of necessity, as the effect does the cause, and therefore is not to be put into the definition. This exact propriety of Virgil I particularly regarded as a great part of his character; but must confess, to my shame, that I have not been able to translate any part of him so well as to make him appear wholly like himself; for where the original is close no version can reach it in the same compass. Hannibal Caro's, in the Italian, is the nearest, the most poetical, and the most sonorous of any translation of the Eneids; yet, though he takes advantage of blank verse, he commonly allows two lines for one of Virgil, and does not always hit his sense. lines, which are more according to the au Nor ask I life, nor fought with that design: SAMUEL PEPYS, Tasso tells us in his letters that Sperone Speroni, a great Italian wit, who was his contemporary, observed of Virgil and Tully, that the Latin orator endeavoured to imitate the copiousness of Homer, the Greek poet; and that the Latin poet made it his business to reach the conciseness of Demosthenes, the Greek orator. Virgil, therefore, being so very sparing of his words, and leaving so much to be imagined by the reader, can never be translated as he ought in any Secretary to the Admiralty in the reigns of modern tongue. To make him copious is to Charles II. and James II., born 1632, died alter his character; and to translate him 1703, left a valuable chronicle of his times, line for line is impossible; because the Latin is naturally a more succinct language than of Memoirs of Samuel Pepys, Esq., comprisa portion of which appeared under the title either the Italian, Spanish, French, or even ing his Diary from 1659 to 1669, deciphered than the English, which, by reason of its by the Rev. John Smith from the Original monosyllables, is far the most compendious short-hand MS. in the Pepysian Library, and of them. Virgil is much the closest of any a Selection from his Private Correspondence. Roman poet, and the Latin hexameter has Edited by Richard, Lord Braybrooke, Lond., more feet than the English heroie. . . . He 1825, 2 vols. royal 4to; and other editions. who excels all other poets in his own language, were it possible to do him right, musting: The Diary and Correspondence of SamBut the only correct edition is the followappear above them in our tongue, which, as my Lord Roscommon justly observes, approaches nearest to the Roman in its majesty; nearest, indeed, but with a vast interval betwixt them. There is an inimitable grace in Virgil's words, and in them principally consists that beauty which gives so inexpressible a pleasure to him who best understands their force. This diction of his (I must once again say) is never to be copied; and since it cannot, he will appear but lame in the best translation. The turns of his verse, his breakings, his propriety, his numbers, and his gravity, I have as far imitated as the poverty of our language and the hastiness of my performance would allow. I may seem sometimes to have varied from his sense; but I think the greatest variations may be fairly deduced from him; and where I leave his commentators, it may be I understand him better; at least, I writ without consulting them in many places. But two particular lines in "Mezentius and Lausus" cannot so easily excuse. They are, indeed, remotely allied to Virgil's sense; but they are too like the trifling tenderness of Ovid, and were printed before I had considered them enough to alter them. The first of them I have forgotten, and cannot easily retrieve, because the copy is at the press. The second is this, When Lausus died, I was already slain. This appears pretty enough at first sight; but I ain convinced, for many reasons, that the expression is too bold. That Virgil would not have said it, though Ovid would. The reader may pardon it, if he please, for the freeness of the confession; and instead of that, and the former, admit these two in the Pepysian Library, with a Life and uel Pepys, Esq., F.R.S., from his MS. Cypher Notes by Richard, Lord Braybrooke; deciMynors Bright, M.A., President and Senior phered with Additional Notes by the Rev. Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, Bickers and Son, 1875, 6 vols. med. 8vo, containing about one-third fresh and unpublished inatter. "If quitting the broad path of history, we seek for minute information concerning ancient manners and customs, the progress of arts and sciences, and the various branches of antiquity, we have never seen so rich a mine as the volumes before us. The variety of Pepys's tastes and pursuits led him into almost every department of life."-SIR WALTER SCOTT: (London) Quarterly Rev., xxxiii. 308. "Of very great interest and curiosity."-LORD JEFFREY: Edin. Rev., xliii. 26. THE PLAGUE IN LONDON IN 1665. September 20th. To Lambeth. But, Lord! what a sad time it is to see no boats upon the river, and grass grows all up and down White Hall court, and nobody but poor wretches in the streets! and, which is worse than all, the duke showed us the number of the plague this week, brought in the last night from the Lord Mayor; that it is increased about 600 more than the last, which is quite contrary to our hopes and expectations, from the coldness of the late season. For the whole general number is 8297, and of them the plague 7165; which is more in the whole by above 50 than the biggest bill yet: which is very grievous on us all. October 16th. I walked to the Tower; but, Lord! how empty the streets are and melancholy, so many poor sick people in the streets full of sores; and so many sad stories overheard as I walk, everybody talking of this dead, and that man sick, and so many in this place, and so many in that. And they tell me that in Westminster there is never a physician, and but one apothecary left, all being dead; but that there are great hopes of a great decrease this week: God send it! 29th. In the streets did overtake and almost run upon two women crying and carrying a man's coffin between them; suppose the husband of one of them, which, methinks, is a sad thing. November 27th. I into London, it being dark night, by a hackney-coach; the first I have durst to go in many a day, and with great pain now for fear. But it being unsafe to go by water in the dark and frosty cold, and unable, being weary with my morning walk, to go on foot, this was my only way. Few people yet in the streets, nor shops open, here and there twenty in a place almost; though not above five or six o'clock at night. 30th. Great joy we have this week in the weekly bill, it being come to 544 in all, and but 333 of the plague, so that we are encouraged to get to London as soon as we can. January 5th. I with my Lord Brouncker and Mrs. Williams, by coach with four horses to London, to my Lord's house in Covent Garden. But, Lord! what staring to see a nobleman's coach come to town; and porters everywhere bow to us; and such begging of beggars! And delightful it is to see the town full of people again; and shops begin to open, though in many places seven or eight together, and more, all shut; but yet the town is full compared with what it used to be; I mean the city end; for Covent Garden and Westminster are yet very empty of people, no court nor gentry being there. 13th. Home with his lordship to Mrs. Williams's in Covent Garden, to dinner (the first time I ever was there), and there met Captain Coke: and pretty merry, though not perfectly so, because of the fear that there is of a great increase again of the plague this week. people have been buried of the plague. I JOHN LOCKE, the famous author of An Essay concerning the Human Understanding, Lond., 1690, fol., and of other works,-philosophical, theological, political, etc.,-was born 1632, and died 1704. The last, being the 12th, collective edition of his Works was published, Lond., 1824, 9 vols. 8vo. Philosophical Works, with a Preliminary Essay and Notes by J. A. St. John, Lond., 1843, 8vo, and again 1854, 2 vols. 8vo. and unpolished, has always the merit of that char"His phraseology, though in general careless acteristical unity and raciness of style which demonstrate that, while he was writing, he conceived himself to be drawing only from his own resources. With respect to his style, it may be further observed that it resembles that of a well educated and well informed man of the world, rather than that of a recluse student who had made an object of the art of composition. . . . It may be presumed to have contributed its share towards his great object of turning the thoughts of his contemporaries to logical and metaphysical inquiries."-DUGALD STEWART: First Prelim. Dis sert. to Encyc. Brit., 7th ed., i. 104. "Locke and [Adam] Smith chose an easy, clear, and free, but somewhat loose and verbose, style,more concise in Locke, more elegant in Smith,in both exempt from pedantry, but not void of ambiguity and repetition."-SIR JAMES MACKIN. TOSH: Works, Lond., 1854, i. 309. CAUSE OF WEAKNESS IN MEN'S UNDER- There is, it is visible, great variety in men's understandings, and their natural constitutions put so wide a difference be tween some men in this respect, that art and industry would never be able to master; and their very natures seem to want a foundation to raise on it that which other men easily attain unto. Amongst men of equal education there is a great inequality of parts. And the woods of America, as well as the schools of Athens, produce men 22d. The first meeting of Gresham Col- of several abilities in the same kind. Though lege since the plague. Dr. Goddard did fill this be so, yet I imagine most men come very us with talk in defence of his and his fellow-short of what they might attain unto in their physicians going out of town in the plague time; saying that their particular patients were most gone out of town, and they left at liberty; and a great deal more, &c. 30th. This is the first time that I have been in the church since I left London for the plague, and it frighted me indeed to go through the church more than I thought it could have done, to see so many graves lie so high upon the churchyards, where several degrees by a neglect of their understandings. A few rules of logic are thought sufficient in this case for those who pretend to the highest improvement; whereas I think there are a great many natural defects in the understanding capable of amendment which are overlooked and wholly neglected. And it is easy to perceive that men are guilty of a great many faults in the exercise and improvement of this faculty of the JOHN LOCKE. mind, which hinder them in their progress, and keep them in ignorance and error all their lives. Some of them I shall take notice of, and endeavour to point out proper remedies for, in the following discourse. Besides the want of determined ideas, and of sagacity and exercise in finding out and laying in order intermediate ideas, there are three miscarriages that men are guilty of in reference to their reason, whereby this faculty is hindered in them from that service it might do and was designed for. And he that reflects upon the actions and discourses of mankind, will find their defects in this kind very frequent and very observable. 1. The first is of those who seldom reason at all, but do and think according to the example of others, whether parents, neighbours, ministers, or who else they are pleased to make choice of to have an implicit faith in, for the saving of themselves the pains and trouble of thinking and examining for themselves. 2. The second is of those who put passion in the place of reason, and being resolved that shall govern their actions and arguments, neither use their own, nor hearken to other people's reason, any farther than it suits their humour, interest, or party; and these, one may observe, commonly content themselves with words which have no distinct ideas to them, though in other matters, that they come with an unbiassed indifferency to, they want not abilities to talk and hear reason, where they have no secret inclination that hinders them from being untractable to it. 3. The third sort is of those who readily and sincerely follow reason, but for want of having that which one may call large, sound, round-about sense, have not a full view of all that relates to the question, and may be of moment to decide it. We are all shortsighted, and very often see but one side of a matter; our views are not extended to all that has a connexion with it. From this defect, I think, no man is free. We see but in part, and we know but in part, and therefore it is no wonder we conclude not right from our partial views. This might instruct the proudest esteemer of his own parts how useful it is to talk and consult with others, even such as come short with him in capacity, quickness, and penetration: for since no one sees all, and we generally have different prospects of the same thing, according to our different, as I may say, positions to it, it is not incongruous to think, nor beneath any man to try, whether another may not have notions of things which have escaped him, and which his reason would make use of if they came into his mind. The faculty of reasoning seldom or never deceives those 103 who trust to it; its consequences from what it builds on are evident and certain; but that which it oftenest, if not only, misleads us in, is, that the principles from which we conclude, the grounds upon which we bottom our reasoning, are but a part: something is left out which should go into the reckoning to make it just and exact. PRACTICE AND HABIT. We are born with faculties and powers capable almost of anything, such at least as would carry us farther than can be easily imagined; but it is only the exercise of those powers which gives us ability and skill in anything, and leads us towards perfection. A middle-aged ploughman will scarce ever be brought to the carriage and language of a gentleman, though his body be as well proportioned, and his joints as supple, and his natural parts not any way inferior. The legs of a dancing-master, and the fingers of a musician, fall, as it were, naturally with out thought or pains, into regular and admirable motions. Bid them change their parts, and they will in vain endeavour to produce like motions in the members not used to them, and it will require length of time and long practice to attain but some degrees of a like ability. What incredible and astonishing actions do we find ropedancers and tumblers bring their bodies to! not but that sundry in almost all manual arts are as wonderful; but I name those which the world takes notice of for such, because, on that very account, they give money to see them. All these admired motions, beyond the reach and almost the conception of unpractised spectators, are nothing but the mere effects of use and industry in men whose bodies have nothing peculiar in them from those of the amazed lookers on. As it is in the body, so it is in the mind, practice makes it what it is; and most even of those excellencies which are looked on as natural endowments, will be found, when examined into more narrowly, to be the product of exercise, and to be raised to that pitch only by repeated actions. Some men are remarked for pleasantness in raillery, others for apologues and apposite diverting stories. This is apt to be taken for the effect of pure nature, and that the rather, because it is not got by rules, and those who excel in either of them never purposely set themselves to the study of it as an art to be learnt. But yet it is true, that at first some lucky hit which took with somebody, and gained him commendation, encouraged him to try again, inclined his thoughts and endeavours that way, till at last he insensibly got a facility in it without perceiving how; and this is attributed solely to nature, which was much more the effect of use and practice. I do not deny that natural disposition may often give the first rise to it; but that never carries a man far without use and exercise, and it is practice alone that brings the powers of the mind as well as those of the body to their perfection. Many a good poetic vein is buried under a trade, and never produces anything for want of improvement. We see the ways of discourse and reasoning are very different, even concerning the same matter, at court and in the university. And he that will go but from Westminster-hall to the Exchange will find a different genius and turn in their ways of talking; and one cannot think that all whose lot fell in the city were born with different parts from those who were bred at the university or inns of court. To what purpose all this, but to show that the difference so observable in men's understandings and parts does not arise so much from the natural faculties as acquired habits? He would be laughed at that should go about to make a fine dancer out of a country hedger at past fifty. And he will not have much better success who shall endeavour at that age to make a man reason well, or speak handsomely, who has never been used to it, though you should lay before him a collection of all the best precepts of logic or oratory. Nobody is made anything by hearing of rules, or laying them up in his memory; practice must settle the habit of doing without reflecting on the rule; and you may as well hope to make a good painter or musician, extempore, by a lecture and instruction in the arts of music and painting, as a coherent thinker, or strict reasoner, by a set of rules, showing him wherein right reasoning consists. This being so, that defects and weakness in men's understandings, as well as other faculties, come from want of a right use of their own minds, I am apt to think the fault is generally mislaid upon nature, and there is often a complaint of want of parts, when the fault lies in want of a due improvement of them. We see men frequently dexterous and sharp enough in making a bargain, who if you reason with them about matters of religion appear perfectly stupid. INJUDICIOUS HASTE IN STUDY. The eagerness and strong bent of the mind after knowledge, if not warily regulated, is often a hindrance to it. It still presses into farther discoveries and new objects, and catches at the variety of knowledge, and therefore often stays not long enough on what is before it, to look into it as it should, for haste to pursue what is yet out of sight. He that rides post through a country may be able, from the transient view, to tell in general how the parts lie, and may be able to give some loose description of here a mountain and there a plain, here a morass and there a river; woodland in one part and savannahs in another. Such superficial ideas and observations as these he may collect in galloping over it; but the more useful observations of the soil, plants, animals, and inhabitants, with their several sorts and properties, must necessarily escape him; and it is seldom men ever discover the rich mines without some digging. Nature commonly lodges her treasures and jewels in rocky ground. If the matter be knotty, and the sense lies deep, the mind must stop and buckle to it, and stick upon it with labour and thought, and close contemplation, and not leave it until it has mastered the difficulty and got possession of truth. But here care must be taken to avoid the other extreme: a man must not stick at every useless nicety, and expect mysteries of science in every trivial question or scruple that he may raise. He that will stand to pick up and examine every pebble that comes in his way, is as unlikely to return enriched and laden with jewels as the other that travelled full speed. Truths are not the better nor the worse for their obviousness or difficulty, but their value is to be measured by their usefulness and tendency. Insignificant observations should not take up any of our minutes; and those that enlarge our view, and give light towards further and useful discoveries, should not be neglected, though they stop our course, and spend most of our time in a fixed attention. There is another haste that does often and will mislead the mind, if it be left to itself and its own conduct. The understanding is naturally forward, not only to learn its knowledge by variety (which makes it skip over one to get speedily to another part of knowledge), but also eager to enlarge its views by running too fast into general observations and conclusions, without a due examination of particulars enough whereon to found those general axioms. This seems to enlarge their stock, but it is of fancies, not realities; such theories, built upon narrow foundations, stand but weakly, and if they fall not themselves, are at least very hardly to be supported against the assaults of opposition. And thus men, being too hasty to erect to themselves general notions and ill-grounded theories, find themselves de ceived in their stock of knowledge, when they come to examine their hastily assumed maxims themselves, or to have them attacked |