Part 14

Besides this help, which was not inconsiderable, Mr. Congreve has done me the favour to review the “Æneis,” and compare my version with the original. I shall never be ashamed to own that this excellent young man has shown me many faults, which I have endeavoured to correct. It is true he might have easily found more, and then my translation had been more perfect.

Two other worthy friends of mine, who desire to have their names concealed, seeing me straitened in my time, took pity on me and gave me the life of Virgil, the two prefaces—to the Pastorals and the Georgics—and all the arguments in prose to the whole translation; which perhaps has caused a report that the two first poems are not mine. If it had been true that I had taken their verses for my own, I might have gloried in their aid; and like Terence, have farthered the opinion that Scipio and Lælius joined with me. But the same style being continued through the whole, and the same laws of versification observed, are proofs sufficient that this is one man’s work; and your lordship is too well acquainted with my manner to doubt that any part of it is another’s.

That your lordship may see I was in earnest when I premised to hasten to an end, I will not give the reasons why I writ not always in the proper terms of navigation, land-service, or in the cant of any profession. I will only say that Virgil has avoided these proprieties, because he writ not to mariners, soldiers, astronomers, gardeners, peasants, &c., but to all in general, and in particular to men and ladies of the first quality, who have been better bred than to be too nicely knowing in the terms. In such cases, it is enough for a poet to write so plainly that he may be understood by his readers; to avoid impropriety, and not affect to be thought learned in all things.

I have emitted the four preliminary lines of the first Æneid, because I think them inferior to any four others in the whole poem; and consequently believe they are not Virgil’s. There is too great a gap betwixt the adjective vicina in the second line, and the substantive arva in the latter end of the third; which keeps his meaning in obscurity too long, and is contrary to the clearness of his style. Ut quamvis avido is too ambitious an ornament to be his, and gratum opus agricolis are all words unnecessary, and independent of what he had said before. Horrentia Martis arma is worse than any of the rest. Horrentia is such a flat epithet as Tully would have given us in his verses. It is a mere filler to stop a vacancy in the hexameter, and connect the preface to the work of Virgil.

Our author seems to sound a charge, and begins like the clangour of a trumpet:—

“Arma, virumque cano, Trojæ qui primus ab oris,”—

Scarce a word without an r, and the vowels for the greater part sonorous. The prefacer began with Ille ego, which he was constrained to patch up in the fourth line with at nunc to make the sense cohere; and if both those words are not notorious botches I am much deceived, though the French translator thinks otherwise. For my own part, I am rather of the opinion that they were added by Tucca and Varius, than retrenched.

I know it may be answered by such as think Virgil the author of the four lines—that he asserts his title to the “Æneis” in the beginning of this work, as he did to the two former, in the last lines of the fourth Georgic. I will not reply otherwise to this, than by desiring them to compare these four lines with the four others, which we know are his, because no poet but he alone could write them. If they cannot distinguish creeping from flying, let them lay down Virgil, and take up Ovid de Ponto in his stead. My master needed not the assistance of that preliminary poet to prove his claim: his own majestic mien discovers him to be the king amidst a thousand courtiers. It was a superfluous office, and therefore I would not set those verses in the front of Virgil; but have rejected them to my own preface:

“I, who before, with shepherds in the groves, Sung to my oaten pipe their rural loves, And issuing thence, compelled the neighb’ring field A plenteous crop of rising corn to yield; Manured the glebe, and stocked the fruitful plain (A poem grateful to the greedy swain),” &c.

If there be not a tolerable line in all these six, the prefacer gave me no occasion to write better. This is a just apology in this place; but I have done great wrong to Virgil in the whole translation. Want of time, the inferiority of our language, the inconvenience of rhyme, and all the other excuses I have made, may alleviate my fault, but cannot justify the boldness of my undertaking. What avails it me to acknowledge freely that I have not been able to do him right in any line? For even my own confession makes against me; and it will always be returned upon me, “Why, then, did you attempt it?” To which no other answer can be made, than that I have done him less injury than any of his former libellers.

What they called his picture had been drawn at length so many times by the daubers of almost all nations, and still so unlike him, that I snatched up the pencil with disdain, being satisfied beforehand that I could make some small resemblance of him, though I must be content with a worse likeness. A sixth Pastoral, a Pharmaceutria, a single Orpheus, and some other features have been exactly taken. But those holiday authors writ for pleasure, and only showed us what they could have done if they would have taken pains to perform the whole.

Be pleased, my lord, to accept with your wonted goodness this unworthy present which I make you. I have taken off one trouble from you, of defending it, by acknowledging its imperfections; and though some part of them are covered in the verse (as Ericthonius rode always in a chariot to hide his lameness), such of them as cannot be concealed you will please to connive at, though in the strictness of your judgment you cannot pardon. If Homer was allowed to nod sometimes, in so long a work it will be no wonder if I often fall asleep. You took my “Aurengzebe” into your protection with all his faults; and I hope here cannot be so many, because I translate an author who gives me such examples of correctness. What my jury may be I know not; but it is good for a criminal to plead before a favourable judge: if I had said partial, would your lordship have forgiven me? Or will you give me leave to acquaint the world that I have many times been obliged to your bounty since the Revolution? Though I never was reduced to beg a charity, nor ever had the impudence to ask one, either of your lordship or your noble kinsman the Earl of Dorset, much less of any other, yet when I least expected it you have both remembered me, so inherent it is in your family not to forget an old servant. It looks rather like ingratitude on my part, that where I have been so often obliged, I have appeared so seldom to return my thanks, and where I was also so sure of being well received. Somewhat of laziness was in the case, and somewhat too of modesty; but nothing of disrespect or of unthankfulness. I will not say that your lordship has encouraged me to this presumption, lest, if my labours meet with no success in public, I may expose your judgment to be censured. As for my own enemies, I shall never think them worth an answer; and if your lordship has any, they will not dare to arraign you for want of knowledge in this art till they can produce somewhat better of their own than your “Essay on Poetry.” It was on this consideration that I have drawn out my preface to so great a length. Had I not addressed to a poet and a critic of the first magnitude, I had myself been taxed for want of judgment, and shamed my patron for want of understanding. But neither will you, my lord, so soon be tired as any other, because the discourse is on your art; neither will the learned reader think it tedious, because it is ad Clerum: at least, when he begins to be weary, the church doors are open. That I may pursue the allegory with a short prayer after a long sermon.

May you live happily and long for the service of your country, the encouragement of good letters and the ornament of poetry, which cannot be wished more earnestly by any man than by

Your Lordship’s most humble,

Most obliged and most Obedient servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

POSTSCRIPT.

WHAT Virgil wrote in the vigour of his age (in plenty and at ease) I have undertaken to translate in my declining years; struggling with wants, oppressed by sickness, curbed in my genius, liable to be misconstrued in all I write; and my judges, if they are not very equitable, already prejudiced against me by the lying character which has been given them of my morals. Yet steady to my principles, and not dispirited with my afflictions, I have, by the blessing of God on my endeavours, overcome all difficulties; and, in some measure, acquitted myself of the debt which I owed the public when I undertook this work. In the first place, therefore, I thankfully acknowledge to the Almighty Power the assistance He has given me in the beginning, the prosecution, and conclusion of my present studies, which are more happily performed than I could have promised to myself when I laboured under such discouragements. For what I have done, imperfect as it is for want of health and leisure to correct it, will be judged in after-ages, and possibly in the present, to be no dishonour to my native country, whose language and poetry would be more esteemed abroad if they were better understood. Somewhat (give me leave to say) I have added to both of them in the choice of words and harmony of numbers, which were wanting, especially the last, in all our poets; even in those who being endued with genius yet have not cultivated their mother-tongue with sufficient care, or, relying on the beauty of their thoughts, have judged the ornament of words and sweetness of sound unnecessary. One is for raking in Chaucer (our English Ennius) for antiquated words, which are never to be revived but when sound or significancy is wanting in the present language. But many of his deserve not this redemption any more than the crowds of men who daily die, or are slain for sixpence in a battle, merit to be restored to life if a wish could revive them. Others have no ear for verse, nor choice of words, nor distinction of thoughts, but mingle farthings with their gold to make up the sum. Here is a field of satire opened to me, but since the Revolution I have wholly renounced that talent. For who would give physic to the great, when he is uncalled, to do his patient no good and endanger himself for his prescription? Neither am I ignorant but I may justly be condemned for many of these faults of which I have too liberally arraigned others:

“Cynthius aurem Vellit, et admonuit.”

It is enough for me if the government will let me pass unquestioned. In the meantime I am obliged in gratitude to return my thanks to many of them, who have not only distinguished me from others of the same party by a particular exception of grace, but without considering the man have been bountiful to the poet, have encouraged Virgil to speak such English as I could teach him, and rewarded his interpreter for the pains he has taken in bringing him over into Britain by defraying the charges of his voyage. Even Cerberus, when he had received the sop, permitted Æneas to pass freely to Elysium. Had it been offered me and I had refused it, yet still some gratitude is due to such who were willing to oblige me. But how much more to those from whom I have received the favours which they have offered to one of a different persuasion; amongst whom I cannot omit naming the Earls of Derby and of Peterborough. To the first of these I have not the honour to be known, and therefore his liberality as much unexpected as it was undeserved. The present Earl of Peterborough has been pleased long since to accept the tenders of my service: his favours are so frequent to me that I receive them almost by prescription. No difference of interests or opinion has been able to withdraw his protection from me, and I might justly be condemned for the most unthankful of mankind if I did not always preserve for him a most profound respect and inviolable gratitude. I must also add that if the last Æneid shine amongst its fellows, it is owing to the commands of Sir William Trumbull, one of the principal Secretaries of State, who recommended it, as his favourite, to my care; and for his sake particularly I have made it mine. For who would confess weariness when he enjoined a fresh labour? I could not but invoke the assistance of a muse for this last office:—

“Extremum hunc, Arethusa; . . . . . . neget quis carmina Gallo?”

Neither am I to forget the noble present which was made me by Gilbert Dolben, Esq., the worthy son of the late Archbishop of York, who (when I began this work) enriched me with all the several editions of Virgil and all the commentaries of those editions in Latin, amongst which I could not but prefer the Dauphin’s as the last, the shortest, and the most judicious. Fabrini I had also sent me from Italy, but either he understands Virgil very imperfectly or I have no knowledge of my author.

Being invited by that worthy gentleman, Sir William Bowyer, to Denham Court, I translated the first Georgic at his house and the greatest part of the last Æneid. A more friendly entertainment no man ever found. No wonder, therefore, if both these versions surpass the rest; and own the satisfaction I received in his converse, with whom I had the honour to be bred in Cambridge, and in the same college. The seventh Æneid was made English at Burghley, the magnificent abode of the Earl of Exeter. In a village belonging to his family I was born, and under his roof I endeavoured to make that Æneid appear in English with as much lustre as I could, though my author has not given the finishing strokes either to it or to the eleventh, as I perhaps could prove in both if I durst presume to criticise my master.

By a letter from William Walsh, Esq., of Abberley (who has so long honoured me with his friendship, and who, without flattery, is the best critic of our nation), I have been informed that his Grace the Duke of Shrewsbury has procured a printed copy of the Pastorals, Georgics, and six first Æneids from my bookseller, and has read them in the country together with my friend. This noble person (having been pleased to give them a commendation which I presume not to insert) has made me vain enough to boast of so great a favour, and to think I have succeeded beyond my hopes; the character of his excellent judgment, the acuteness of his wit, and his general knowledge of good letters, being known as well to all the world as the sweetness of his disposition, his humanity, his easiness of access, and desire of obliging those who stand in need of his protection are known to all who have approached him, and to me in particular, who have formerly had the honour of his conversation. Whoever has given the world the translation of part of the third Georgic (which he calls “The Power of Love”) has put me to sufficient pains to make my own not inferior to his; as my Lord Roscommon’s “Silenus” had formerly given me the same trouble. The most ingenious Mr. Addison, of Oxford, has also been as troublesome to me as the other two, and on the same account; after his bees my latter swarm is scarcely worth the hiving. Mr. Cowley’s praise of a country life is excellent, but it is rather an imitation of Virgil than a version. That I have recovered in some measure the health which I had lost by too much application to this work, is owing (next to God’s mercy) to the skill and care of Dr. Guibbons and Dr. Hobbs (the two ornaments of their profession), whom I can only pay by this acknowledgment. The whole faculty has always been ready to oblige me, and the only one of them who endeavoured to defame me had it not in his power. I desire pardon from my readers for saying so much in relation to myself which concerns not them; and with my acknowledgments to all my subscribers, have only to add that the few notes which follow are par manière d’acquit, because I had obliged myself by articles to do somewhat of that kind. These scattering observations are rather guesses at my author’s meaning in some passages than proofs that so he meant. The unlearned may have recourse to any poetical dictionary in English for the names of persons, places, or fables, which the learned need not, but that little which I say is either new or necessary, and the first of these qualifications never fails to invite a reader, if not to please him.