The Fourth Book of Virgils Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaires Henriad | Page 3

language is allowed to possess is the old inheritance of their
Anglo Saxon ancestors, whatever elegance it may have acquired, is
derived rather from Athens and Rome than from St. James's.--The
varied and extended occupations of a maritime and commercial people
have increased the fund from which imagery in discourse is drawn, and
as all occupations in such a nation are deemed honorable, no metaphor
is rejected as ignoble that is apt and expressive.
A number of ideas conveyed by monosyllables gives great force and
conciseness, but leaves the poet frequently to struggle with the
harshness of sound; nevertheless those who are conversant with
English poetry will have perceived that this difficulty is not always
insuperable. The different accentuation of the old Anglo Saxon words,
with those adopted from other tongues, affords uncommon variety and
emphasis to the numbers of English verse. The measure commonly
used in poetry of a higher style is of ten syllables, as that in French is of
twelve. Three English verses of ten syllables generally contain nearly
the same number of syllables as two Latin or Greek hexameters, but are
in most instances capable of conveying more ideas, especially in
translating from Greek which abounds so much in what seem to us
expletive particles. The _cæsura_, or pause is not invariably fixed on
the same syllable of the verse, as in French; in the choice and variety of
its position, consists the chief art of appropriate harmony. Accentuation
of syllables, which seems, to answer the idea of long and short syllables
in the dead languages, is the foundation of English, metre.--Tripple

rhymes used with judgment have been admitted by the best English
poets, and now and then the introduction of an Alexandrine, or verse of
six feet.
Though blank verse has still many admirers, the English ear is grown
remarkably delicate as to the consonance of rhymes; Dryden and Pope
have used many, which would not now be received. Masculine and
feminine rhymes are unknown in English. As the character of a
language appears to be the result of all the affections of the people who
speak it, it did not seem foreign to this design to compare the manner in
which two such great genius's as Virgil and Voltaire, have treated the
same subject, and to place the loves of Henry and Gabrielle in
comparison with those of Æneas and Dido. The elegance, the delicacies,
the nicest touches of refined gallantry come admirably forward with the
brillant colouring, the light and graceful pencil of Voltaire. The verse
seems to flow from his pen without effort into its natural channel, and
some of his descriptions would not loose by a comparison; but perhaps
he has let it be seen, that it would not be so easy a task to convey in the
same language the exquisite and deep strokes of passion, which the
Roman master has left to the admiration of the universe. To which of
these styles the English and the French languages are most fitted, and
how far they may be made to succeed in both, is one of the objects of
an inquiry which this undertaking was intended to promote.
Whatever can be said by way of comment on the fourth book of the
Æneid has been so often repeated, and is so easily to be met with, that
it was thought needless to add any notes to this new translation. The
few instances in which there may appear some difference in the

interpretation of the original are scarce worth noticing. One perhaps
may appear to require some apology; most of the translators of Virgil
have represented Dido under the most violent impression of rage in her
first speech to Æneas. Whereas it would seem that the situation of her
mind is meant to be described before she addresses him, rather as wild
and frantic with doubt and fear, than actuated by rage. Whatever anger
she may feel, is yet so much tempered by love and hope, that she
breaks out, not into the language of rage, but of the most tender

expostulation, the most lively interest in his own welfare, the most

pathetic painting of her feelings and situation. It is a beautiful appeal to
love, to honor, and to pity. Not till after his cold answer, does she burst
into all the violence of rage, of contempt, and of despair. This gradation
has often been remarked as a principal beauty. As some excuse for the
coldness of Æneas which takes away so much of the interest of the
poem, Virgil is careful to recoil continually to our attention, that he is
acting under the impulse of the divinity. Such has been the constant
practice of the ancients to prevent our disgust, for the action which they
represent. In Orestes and Phoedra it is the