The Fourth Book of Virgils Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaires Henriad | Page 2

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 production of
Dryden's translation, you will recollect with a sigh, as I do, his own
expression: «What Virgil wrote in the vigor of age, in plenty and at
ease, I have undertaken to translate,» says Dryden, «in my declining
years, struggling with want, oppressed with sickness, curbed in my
genius, liable to be misunderstood in all I write.--What I now offer is
the wretched remainder of a sickly age, worn out by study and
oppressed by Fortune»!
It might not therefore be deemed sufficient to compare a work,
produced under such disadvantages, in the seventeenth century,
(notwithstanding the extraordinary powers of its author) with what is
now becoming the admiration of the nineteenth. Much less, sir, will it
be just or candid to suppose me capable of publishing my feeble
attempt with any view of comparison as to the merit of the
performance.--Should it be asked, what then could have been my
inducement?--First, if I am fortunate enough to excite others more
capable than myself to try again the comparative force of English
language in a new translation, as you have just shown how much can be
done in French, I shall have obtained the utmost bounds of my
ambition.
Secondly, I am happy to acknowledge the pleasure which I felt an
employing some long moments of leisure, on a subject wherein your
genius had taken such delight: I hove chosen the fourth book as that
which I have had the good fortune of hearing in your own verses, with
all the charms of your own recitation; and have pursued this
occupation.
Non ita certandi cupidus, quam propter amorem
Quod te imitari

aveo----
I have the honor to be with great respect,
Your most obedient humble
servant,
P. L.
PREFACE.
The motives and design of this attempt are sufficiently explained in the
foregoing address, the ideas which gave rise to it have been confirmed
and enlarged in its progress. As some apology for them, it may not be
improper to observe here, that the English language seems to owe a
great portion of that energy for which it is remarked, to the old Anglo
Saxon idiom, which still forms its basis. It was enriched and softened
by the introduction of the French, though some are of opinion that most
of its foreign words, were adopted immediately from the Latin and not
from any modern tongue: and this opinion is corroborated by the
observation, that, during more than a century after the conquest, very
little mixture of French is perceivable in the style of English authors.
Be that as it may, it is certain that the constant attention of its earliest
writers to the Greek and Latin models, though sometimes carried to
excess, has added grace, variety, and extent to its construction. Sir
Thomas Brown who wrote his _Pseudodoxia Epidemica_, or Enquiry
into Vulgar Errors, about the middle of the seventeenth century, and
whose style is still much commended, says in his preface to that
interesting work: «I confess that the quality of the subject, will
sometimes carry us into expressions beyond meer English
apprehensions. And indeed if elegancy of style proceedeth, and English
pens maintain that stream we have of late observed to flow from many,
we shall, in a few years, be fain to learn Latin to understand English,
and a work will prove of equal facility in either». Milton, both in his
verse and prose, has carried this affectation to such a degree, as not
only to be frequently beyond a meer English apprehension, but even
beyond that of an ordinary proficient in the learned languages. Yet, so
far were these innovations from being considered as prejudicial, that
one of the most admired writers of our days, Dr. Johnson, did not

scruple to confess, that he formed his style upon the model of Sir
Thomas Brown. The great number of excellent translations which were
constantly appearing through all its progressive stages of improvement,
must naturally have given the language a classical turn. It is scarcely
possible that a work so extensive, and so universally read, as Pope's
admirable translation of Homer, should not leave some gloss of
grecism upon the idiom into which so many of its greatest beauties had
been transfused. At the same time the early and proud independence of
the middle orders of people in England, prevented them from
conforming their language, their manners, or their sentiments to the
model of a court. Whereby if their expression did not acquire politeness
from that quarter, it did not loose any of its strength. While the energy
which their