Back to the camp; but Sextus there could find Thus at her wheel she sat! and thus was drest! Hos habuit vultus: hic illi verba fuere! Comparat indigno vimque dolumque toro. Condere jam vultus sole parante suos. Hostis, ut hospes, init penetralia Collatina: Comiter excipitur: sanguine junctus erat. Quantum animis erroris inest! parat inscia rerum Infelix epulas hostibus illa suis. Functus erat dapibus: poscunt sua tempora somni. Et venit in thalamos, nupta pudica, tuos. Utque torum pressit; ferrum, Lucretia, mecum est, Sed tremit, ut quondam stabulis deprensa relictis, Quid faciat? pugnet? vincetur femina pugna. Nunc primum externa pectora tacta manu. Interimam famulum; cum quo deprensa fereris. Quid, victor, gaudes? hæc te victoria perdet. Grandævumque patrem fido cum conjuge castris Utque vident habitum: quæ luctus causa, requirunt : Illa diu reticet, pudibundaque celat amictu Ora. Fluunt lacrymæ more perennis aquæ. Hinc pater, hinc conjux lacrymas solantur, et orant So though by absence lessen'd was his fire, That what he could not win, he might command; She a weak woman, he a vig'rous man. But neither prayers, rewards, nor threats, she hears : When these my warm desires have had their fill, By your dead corpse I'll kill and lay a slave, And begg'd she would the cruel cause declare." Our readers will easily perceive by this short specimen, how very unequal Mr. Massey is to a translation of Ovid. In many places he has deviated entirely from the sense, and in every part fallen infinitely below the strength, elegance, and spirit of the original. We must beg leave, therefore, to remind him of the old Italian proverb,—“ Il tradattores Tratatore,”—and hope he will never for the future traduce and injure any of those poor ancients who never injured him, by thus pestering the world with such translations as even his own school-boys ought to be whipped for. (1) (1) ["It was the merit which Goldsmith discovered in criticising a despicable translation of Ovid's Fasti by a pedantic schoolmaster, and his Enquiry into Polite Literature,' which first introduced him to the acquaintance of Dr. Smollett."—AIKIN.] XIII.-MARRIOTT'S " FEMALE CONDUCT; AN ESSAY ON THE ART OF PLEASING." [From the Critical Review, 1759. "Female Conduct; being an Essay on the Art of Pleasing. To be practised by the Fair Sex, before and after Marriage. A Poem, in two books. Inscribed to Plautilla. By Thomas Marriott, Esq." 8vo.] THIS performance is dedicated to her royal highness the Princess of Wales, as the distinguished patroness of female virtue. In the preface, the author gives some account of the poem, and endeavours to anticipate the malevolence of the critics. He expresses apprehension on one subject, which, however, we will venture to say is groundless; that is, "some people will say he is too much a poet." He might also have spared his apology, for having used "every art of persuasion and argument, either by repetition, amplification, tale, fable, example, or allegory, and every pleasing manner of conveying precepts, and enforcing doctrines.” Mr. Marriott needs no excuse for that which cannot be displeasing. This poem, we are informed, is intended for the use and amusement of the female sex only; and the author hopes the salutary precepts and precautions it contains, may prove an antidote to the poison of Ovid, and all modern productions of the like pernicious nature. We hope so too, and commend the author for the morality of his undertaking. Prefixed to the poem we find an ode on the death of the Duke of Marlborough, together with an imitation of the eighth ode of the fourth book of Horace, intended to be sent to his grace at the beginning of the new year.(1) In this piece, the most remarkable circumstance is this: Mr. (1) [Charles Spencer, second duke of Marlborough. He died at Munster, in Westphalia, in October 1758.] Marriott, thinking Horace begins and ends too abruptly, has ventured to introduce the original with two Latin lines of his own composition, and added six at the end, to render Horace more complete. He might, however, have saved himself the trouble of lacing his own lines in the margin: the reader would have distinguished them without this precaution. Perhaps the public may be curious to see this improvement on a Roman classic. He begins, then, in this manner: "Annus quando novus nascitur, illius He concludes thus: "Orco, Musa, pios eripiens nigro, Arces, carminibus, tollit ad igneas; Nomen grande tuum fiet amabilis, Vatum materies, Musa tuis dabit Mercedem meritis, Te faciet sacrum, Sublimem, astra supra, Te vehet, ardua.” The poem itself is divided into two books, and contains many curious particulars. His account of Portia's death is very sublime: "Fam'd Portia, worthy of her mate and sire, Express'd such friendship, when she swallowed fire; Her consort breathless, she disdain'd to breath; Each instrument of death, to her deny'd, 'Shall Portia be debarr'd from death?' she cry'd, We wish Mr. Marriott would explain the manner in which the ancients drank live embers. In p. 59, he candidly owns, that he has laboured hard in bringing these poems to perfection : "Hear me, fair pupil, ne'er despise the bard Whose muse for your instruction labours hard." In the next page we meet with this curious paradox : "Her witty child, let the fond mother boast, You show most wit, when you conceal it most." |