The Fourth Book of Virgils Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaires Henriad

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Title: The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad
Author: Virgil and Voltaire
Translator: Anonymous
Release Date: December 20, 2006 [EBook #20144]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
? START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIRGIL AND VOLTAIRE ***
Produced by Zoran Stefanovic, Rénald Lévesque and the?Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at?http://dp.rastko.net. This file was produced from images?generously made available by the Bibliothèque nationale?de France (BnF/Gallica)
THE FOURTH BOOK
of
VIRGIL'S ?NEID,
and
THE NINTH BOOK
of
VOLTAIRE'S HENRIAD.
Translated into English verse with a view of comparison
between the Latin, French, and English poetry.
By the Translator of the HENRIAD.
PARIS:
PRINTED BY CH. CRAPELET.

1804.
TO?MONSIEUR DELILLE.
SIR,
After reading with infinite pleasure your masterly translations of Virgil, I have been led into a train of reflection on the mechanism of words, and on the manners, the ideas, and pursuits of Nations in as much as they frequently give rise to the difference of character which we remark in their language. Few literary discussions would I think be more curious than an impartial comparative enquiry of this kind.
Not only have the easy elegance and courtly air of your verses displayed the French tongue in these respects worthy of your original; but have inclined me to think that they have raised it near the highest pitch of perfection of which it is at present capable, in the translation of a Latin poet. After two brillant ages of literature the French language did not, till you appeared, possess one translation of the great masterpieces of antiquity, which might fairly be said to have attained the rank of a classical work: while the English had been long enriched with such translations of most of them, as will like yours, in all probability share the immortality of their originals. In the cloud of critics which superior lustre necessarily attracts, many perhaps were not sufficiently aware of the peculiar difficulties of your undertaking, from the nature of the materials which you had to employ, and some not candid enough to compare the work which you have raised out of them, with what they had hitherto been made to produce.
That the English language might be so managed as to surpass the French in expression of strong sentiments, in boldness of imagery, in harmony and variety of versification I will not be sufficiently hardy to assert. The universality of the latter must be admitted as a strong presumption of its general excellency. Yet I cannot help wishing, that some pen worthy to be compared with Monsieur Delille's would give the world an opportunity of judging whether the former may not have some pretensions to superiority in the instances which I have mentioned.
Besides the length of time which has elapsed since the