talogue of fhips was a fufficient fubject in the hands of Ho-' mer; the fymptoms of the plague in thofe of Lucretius; and a lift of inftruments for husbandry beneath the plastic power of Virgil. Nor is this convertibility of talent unknown. to modern times: Fracaftorius has exhibited it in his delineation of the fyphilis; Dyer in his defcription of wool-combing and weaving; and Armstrong in the fymptoms of the fweating ficknefs; while Polignac has put into very refpectable verfe the tenets of Defcartes on natural philofophy, and thofe of St. Auguftin on free-will; and, as minor effufions, might be enumerated a poem in the Mufæ Anglicanæ on the circulation of the blood, and another on Dr. Hale's vegetable ftatics; which two, indeed, are among the beft in the collection.

But it becomes us to return to Virgil, and the prefent translator of his Georgics. Of this poem we have already a variety of verfions; and two of them, we mean thofe of Dryden and Warton, are of fuch fuperior merit, that the question of cui bons may perhaps be propofed with refpect to the attempt before us, by fome fevere and fpectacle-beftrid critic. But the Georgics of Virgil are in our opinion entitled to all competi tion; and we are happy to fee fo refpectable a poct as Mr. Sotheby unite in a generous rivalry, with those who have preceded him, in transfufing the multitudinous and dating beauties of this exquifite effay into our own language. The Georgics, if, in the language of Dryden, they be not the first poem of the first Roman poet,' are at least the mafter-piece of Virgil himself. They, poffefs his higheft finith and his boldeft originalities: he wrote them in the mott perfect leisure and convenient privacy, and in the full ftrength and vigour of his age, when his judgement was at its height, and his imagination had not declined. They occupied his fole attention for nearly five years; and were exhibited as he proceeded, and probably fubjected to the occafionak Aictures of Herace and Macenas. He afpires to the praife of the firft Roman poet who had written upon the subject of fural life: and to this praife he is fully entitled. Indeed the poem may be regarded altogether as an original production; for though Nicander, a phylician of Iönia, had long before compiled one upon the fanie fubject, and with the fame title, it does not appear that this Greek production was ever in any high degree of repute, even in lonia itfelf; and Quintilian, in his catalogue of Grecian pocts, fcarcely condefcends to make mention of the writer. The Georgica of Nicander have, kowever, been loft for ages: but we may reft affured that, if they were poffeffed of any beauties that were worth tranfcribing they are fill to be found in the poem of the Latin bardy

who never hesitated to copy from his predeceffors every line and thought which he apprehended would enrich his own workmanship.

With refpect to a new verfion into English of this admirable poem, we have long thought there was ample room, largely as we acknowledge ourselves indebted to the labours of both Dryden and Warton, and particularly to thofe of the latter. Each has his excellencies, and, to fpeak plainly, each has his defects: nor will it be contended, we apprehend, by the partifans of either, that we have hitherto been put into poffeffion of a tranflation that can pretend to any competition with the uniform elegancies of the original. But whence does this imperfection proceed? Is it that the English lan guage is inadequate to a perfect verfion of this exquifite poem? or that the interpreters, with whom we are yet acquainted, have not exhibited the fum total of its energies' and excellencies? Of the defects of Dryden, Dr. Warton has-already given us an epitome, in which, for the most part, we cannot but coincide. There are,' fays he, fo many grofs miftakes, fo many careless incorrect lines, and fuch wild deviations from his original, as are utterly aftonishing in fo great and true a genius.' At the fame time we alfo agree with him, that even in the midft of thefe lowneffes and inequalitics, his native fpirit and vigour, the veteris veftigia flammæ, frequently break forth, and that it is difficult to work, after fo great a mafter, on the fame fubject.' The errors fo judiciously pointed out by this elaborate critic, we are free to confefs, he has very largely avoided in his own excellent verfion: we do not encounter Dryden's grofs mistakes, or his wild deviations.' Generally fpeaking, we meet with a very confiderable portion of elevation and energy, and a much more literal adherence to the fenfe of this highly-polifhed original: but the version is, nevertheless, extremely unequal. The rhymes are often incorrect; a negligence of labour is too frequently indulged, and the very best paffages are occafionally spoiled by the introduction, into their very centre, of a needlefs and limping Alexandrine verfe. At the fame time we affert, without hefitation, that the tranflation of Dr. Warton is poffeffed of uncommon merit, and is by far the best with which the public have hitherto been acquainted.

We now proceed to the verfion immediately before us, which is the production of a poet who has already acquired no common thare of praife for his elegant and fpirited transfufion into our own language of the Oberon of the German Spenfer, Weiland. It is announced by the following modeft preface.

See Crit. Rev. New Arr. Vol. XXIV. p. 5

To offer to the public, without apology, another verfion of The Georgics, after several tranflations by authors of no mean reputation, and particularly by Dryden and Warton, would argue a difregard of their merits, and an arrogance, which I wholly dif claim. On their defects, if any, it becomes not me to defcant, but rather to acknowledge their respective excellencies, which it has been my endeavour to imitate. For the grace, the spirit, and dignity, of the versification of the most harmonious of our poets in the last century, combined with the learning, the refined taste, and correct judgement of the most eminent of our critics in the prefent, could alone have conveyed to the English reader an adequate fense of the perfection of the Latin original.

That, with thefe fentiments of the difficulty of the execution, I should have ventured on the work, may justly subject me to the feverity of criticism: to which I fhall filently fubmit, from the consciousness, that the version, which I now offer to the public, has not been lightly undertaken, nor negligently laboured.' P. vii.

The tranflation, like that of Warton, is accompanied, on the oppofite page, with the original text, taken from the editions in common ufe; yet, in general, with an older and more claffic orthography: but, unlike the preceding publication, it is totally deftitute of either commentary or notes.

'As whatever notes I might have annexed would have consisted, almost entirely, of felections from former publications of eafy purchase, the scholar is referred to Heyne's Latin Commentary, and the English reader to the ample and judicious remarks in professor Martyn's edition of the Georgics.' P. ix.

With this apology, we confefs, we are not altogether fatisfied: the general fashion of the prefent day, in almost every country of Europe, and that too a fafhion founded upon reafon and convenience, would have induced us to expect a compliance with its dictates in the prefent inftance; and as, according to the author's own ftatement, we must yet be put to the additional expenfe of purchafing another book for the purpose of explanation, we would much rather have met with the value of fuch a purchase in a judicious felection of notes from different commentators, either inferted at the foot of the correfpondent page, or annexed to the volume in the form of an appendix, than be compelled to ramble into another publication.

With refpect to the tranflation itself, it is highly meritorious, and worthy of the poetic character which Mr. Sotheby has already obtained. In many inftances, it far furpaffes every preceding effort; though it can fcarcely be expected, but that in fome it fhould fall confiderably below the attempts of antecedent poets. It is the peculiar characteristic of Virgil, that

he is always equally dignified, and never fuffers his fubject to fiuk for want of minute and efficient labour. This, which cannot be faid of any antecedent effayift, we are afraid, will not hold true with respect to the poem before us.. We hall proceed to point out a few fpecimens of what appear to us to conftitute its most prominent merits and deficiencies, comparing them occafionally with the only two attempts that are entitled to a competition.

It is known to every one, we prefume, that the Georgics of Virgil were compiled at the requeft of Mæcenas; and they are, in confequence, addreffed to him by name in the fecond verfe of the introduction:

Quid faciat lætas fegetes, quo fidere terram

Vertere, MECENAS, ulmisque adjungere vites, &c.

In the prefent verfion, however, the name of Mecenas is totally omitted: but for what reafon the poet has thus deviated both from his text, and from all his predeceffors, we yet remain to be informed. We have already had occafion to notice this fame defect in the version of M. De Lifle. In the invocation that immediately follows we concur with Mr. Sotheby, in oppofition to Dr. Warton, in conceiving that the expreffions clariffima mundi lumina, refer metaphorically at least, if not strictly mythologically, to the divinities Bacchus and Ceres; and we do not think that the parallel paffage of Varro, adduced by Warton to rebut this opinion, will by any means fubvert the elaborate and critical decifion of Prætextatus, in the Saturnalia of Macrobius, v. 5.

Vos, o clariffima mundi

Lumina, labentem cœlo qui ducitis annum,
Liber, et alma Ceres !

Ye lights of heaven, whofe fovereign sway

Leads on the year around th' etherial way,
Bacchus and Ceres !

V. 467. Quum caput obfcurâ nitidum ferrugine texit.
What time in iron clouds he veiled his light.

The phænomenon here referred to, of the fun's obumbration upon the death of Cæfar, is doubtful as to its fpecies; fome apprehending that the poet intends a common folar eclipfe, and others fuppofing that he means an anomalous defection of light, which, according to both Plutarch and Pliny, continued, upon the perpetration of this murder, for nearly a twelvemonth. Without entering into the difpute, we thall only observe, that the verfion above characterifes neither event, nor by any means conveys a true interpretation of the original. Objcura ferrugine is an expreffion as precife in its definition as

it is elegant in its imagery; and the verfe is at once beautifully and appropriately rendered by Warton:

With dufky redness veiled his cheerful light.

But what idea are we to understand by iron clouds? We well know that the whole couplet, with but little variation, is copied from Dryden; but we are not the more difpofed to admit the expreffions on that account. Iron is never, that we remember, employed by itfelf in an adjective fenfe, unless metaphorically, to exprefs the hardnefs or rigidity of the metal. Thus Milton fays,

And Gray:

Drew iron tears from Pluto's cheek.

OND

Iron fleet of arrowy fhower.

And thus, not unhappily, Mr. Sotheby himself, in v. 535

of b. iii.

Lathes the earth beneath his iron fold.

In the prefent inftance, however, the term iron is employed literally, and not figuratively, to exprefs a particular colour; but iron in this fenfe, as we have juft before obferved, is never uled by itself, but always in conjunction with an adjective of colour, as iron-brown, iron-green, iron-blue. Then, too, the term clouds does not occur in the original, nor is even hinted at. The poet does not mean to fay that the fplendor of the fun was concealed by the interpofition of clouds of any colour, but exprefsly declares that he covered his bright forehead with a dufky, ferruginous tinge." But the term ferruginous has a very different import from the adjective term iron. In precife oppofition to the latter, it is never ufed metaphorically to fignify the feverity or brittleness of the metal, but literally alone, to indicate its hue. Hence an iron front,' and a ferruginous front,' imply very different ideas.

B. i. v. 477.-fimulacra modis pallentia miris.

This fearful and forcible defcription, which is copied verbatim from Lucretius, de Rer. N. i. 124, it is difficult to transfufe, in the fame concentrated form, into any other language. Warton has thus interpreted it:

glaring ghofts all grimly pale appeared.

We disapprove, most decidedly, the epithet glaring. Mr. Sotheby's verfion is more true to the original, and, in our opinion, more nervous:

Shapes wond'rous pale by night were feen to rove.