Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry | Page 5

have
turned it, into a sardine. In money again it would surely be needless
pedantry in the translator of a satirist to talk of sestertia rather than
pounds. I fear I have not always been at the pains to make the English
sum even roughly equivalent to the Roman, but have from time to time
introduced a particular English sum arbitrarily, if it appeared to suit the
context or even the metre. Thus, where Philip gives or lends Mena
fourteen sestertia that he may buy a farm, I have not startled the
modern agricultural reader by talking about a hundred and twenty
pounds, but have ventured to turn the sestertia into so many hundreds.
On the whole, however, while I certainly cannot recommend any one to
try to distil Latin antiquities from my translation as they are sometimes
distilled from the original, I hope that I have not been unfaithful to the
antique spirit, but have reflected with sufficient accuracy the broad
features of Roman life.
Taken altogether, this translation will be found less close to the original
than those with which I have formerly troubled the public. The
considerations pointed out in the last paragraph will to a great extent
account for this: generally too I may say that where the main
characteristic of the original is perfect ease, the translator, if he is to be
easy also, will be obliged to take considerable latitude. I trust however
that I shall be found in most cases not to have translated irrespectively

of the Latin, but to have borne it in mind even while departing from it
most widely. I have studied the various commentators with some care,
and hope that my version may not be without its use in turn as a sort of
free commentary. I have omitted two entire satires and several passages
from others. Some of them no one would wish to see translated: some,
though capable of being rendered without offence a hundred or even
fifty years ago, could hardly be so rendered now. Where I have not
translated I have not in general cared to paraphrase, but have been
silent altogether. I have in short given so much of my author as a
well-judging reader would wish to dwell on in reading the original, and
no more.
I have made acquaintance with such of the previous translations as I did
not already know, though it seemed best to avoid consulting them in
any passage till I had translated it myself. The few places in which I
have been consciously indebted to others have been mentioned in the
notes. Besides these, there are many other coincidences in expression
and rhyme which might be detected by any one sharing my taste for
that kind of reading, probably one or two in each poem: but as I believe
them to be mere coincidences, I have not been at pains either to avoid
them or to call attention to them. The only one of my predecessors in
translating all the poems contained in this volume whom I need
mention particularly is Mr. Howes. His book was published
posthumously in 1845; but though it is stated in the preface to want the
author's last corrections, a good deal of it must have been written long
before, as the translation of the Satires is announced as nearly half
finished in the introduction to a translation of Persius by the same
author published in 1809, and some specimens given in the notes to
that volume correspond almost exactly with the passages as they finally
appear. The translation of Persius is a work of decided ability, but, in
common I am inclined to think with all the other translations, fails to
give an adequate notion of the characteristics of that very peculiar
writer. The translation of the Horatian poems, on the other hand, seems
to me on the whole undoubtedly successful, though, for whatever
reason, its merits do not appear to have been recognized by the public.
It is unequal, and it is too prolix: but when it is good, which is not
seldom, it is very good, unforced, idiomatic, and felicitous. In one of its

features, the habit of supplying connecting links to Horace's not
unfrequently disconnected thoughts, perhaps I should have done wisely
to follow it more than I have done: but the matter is one where a line
must be drawn, and I am not without apprehension as it is that the
scholar will sometimes blame me for introducing what the general
reader at any rate may thank me for. I should be glad if any notice
which I may be fortunate enough to attract should go beyond my own
work, and extend to a predecessor who, if he had published a few years
earlier, when translations were of more account,