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From The Quarterly Review.

1. The Works of Virgil. Translated by the Rev. Rann Kennedy and Charles Rann Kennedy. 2 Vols. 1849.

passages of rampant extravagance and undisguised absurdity.

A very few words are all that need be spent on the first translation of Virgil into English by Caxton. The title, or rather tailpiece, runs as follows: "Here fynyssheth the boke of Eneydos, compyled by Vyrgyle, whiche hathe be translated oute of latyne in to frenshe, And oute of frenshe reduced in to Englysshe by me Wyllm Caxton the xxii. daye of Iuyn, the yeare of our lorde m.iiii clxxxx. The fythe yeare of the Regne of Kynge Henry the seuenth." Some account of the original work (by Guillaume de Roy) may be found in Warton's "History of English Poetry," Section xxiv. It seems, in fact,

2. My Book. By James Henry. 1853. 3. The Works of Virgil: closely rendered into English Rhythm. By Rev. Robert Corbet Singleton. Vol. I. 1855. 4. Virgil: literally translated into English Prose. By Henry Owgan, LL.D. 1857. NOT long ago we invited the attention of the public to Horace and his translators. From Horace to Virgil is a natural and easy transition, and we are now accordingly going to offer some remarks on the English translators of Virgil, though we cannot plead the excuse of the appearance of any recent versions by eminent hands, by noble lords to be a romance made out of the Eneid by or accomplished statesmen. Our intention is to furnish some answer to two distinct though connected questions: How has Virgil been translated? and how may he be

translated ?

numerous excisions and some additions, the bulk of the whole being comparatively small. We have only glanced at the translation, the printing as well as the language of which is calculated to repel all but black-letter students; but its chief characteristic seems to be excessive amplification of the Latin. This is apparently the version of Virgil's two lines (Æn. IV. 9, 10) :—

"Anna soror, quæ me suspensam insomnia terrent!

Quis novus hic nostris successit sedibus hospes!"

"Anne my suster and frende I am in ryghte

To attempt an exhaustive account of all the translations of the whole or parts of Virgil which have been made in English is a task which would exceed our own opportunities, as it probably would the wishes of our readers. Many of these productions are doubtless unknown to us: with others we are acquainted by name or by character, but they do not happen to be within our reach. It is obvious, too, that there must be a consid-gret thoughte strongely troubled and incyted, erable number which do not deserve even the by dremes admonested whiche excyte my slender honor of a passing commemoration. courage tenquire the maners & lygnage of this man thus valyaunt, strong, & puyssaunt, Here, as elsewhere, something will depend whiche deliteth hym strongely to speke, in on the date and consequent rarity of the deuysing the hie fayttes of armes and perbook. A worthless translation of the nine-illys daungerous whiche he sayth to haue teenth century calls for no mention at all; the work can be procured without difficulty, or the reader, if he pleases, can himself produce something of the same character. A worthless translation of the sixteenth century has an adventitious value: it is probably rare, and at any rate the power of producing any thing similar is gone forever. While, therefore, we do not cater for professed antiquaries, we may perhaps hope to interest those who care to see how Virgil has fared at the hands of writers, great and small, belonging to the various schools of English poetry-who for the sake of a few instances of beauty and ingenuity will pardon a good deal of quaintness and even some dulness, and are not too severe to smile at occasional *No. ccviii. Art. 2.

passed, neweli hither comyn to soiourne in our countreys. I am so persuaded of grete obfusked, endullyd and rauysshed." admonestments that all my entendement is

It was not long before Caxton was to meet with one who proved himself both a severe critic and a successful rival. This was "the Reverend Father in God, Mayster Gawin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkel, and unkil to the Erle of Angus," whose "xiii Bukes of Eneados of the famose Poete Virgill translatet out of Latyne verses into Scottish metir," though not published till 1553, was written forty years earlier. In the poetical preface to this work-a composition of some five hundred lines-there is a long paragraph, entitled in the margin, "Caxtoun's faultes," which passes in review the various delin

quencies of the father of printing: his omis- | specimen of English blank verse. As might sion of the greater part of the "thre first be expected, the versification is not entitled bukis," his assertion that the storm in Book to any very high positive praise. It is lanI. was sent forth by Eolus and Neptune, the guid and monotonous, and sometimes un"prolixt and tedious fassyoun" in which he metrical and inharmonious; but the advance deals with the story of Dido, his total sup- upon Gawin Douglas is very perceptible. pression of the fifth Book, his ridiculous re- The language is chiefly remarkable for its jection of the descent into the shades as fab- purity and simplicity; occasionally there is ulous, his confusion of the Tiber with the a forcible expression, but in general a uniTover, his substitution of Crispina for Dei- form medium is kept, and a modern reader phobe as the name of the Sibyl, the whole will still complain a little of prolixity, though being summed up by the assurance that, he will acknowledge that the fault is being "His buk is na mare like Virgil, dar I lay, gradually corrected. Dr. Nott has remarked' Than the nyght oule resemblis the papingay." that some parts of the translation are more The bishop's own version has been highly draws attention to the fact that Surrey has highly wrought than others; and while he praised by competent judges, and we think deservedly. One specimen we will give, have been known to him in MS., he notes frequently copied Douglas, whose work must that these obligations are much more frequent in the Second Book than in the Fourth. The following extract (we quote from Dr. Nott's edition) will perhaps give an adequate notion of Surrey's manner (Æn. II. 228, "Tumvero tremefacta," etc.) ::

and it shall be from the exordium of Book
I. :-

"The battellis and the man I will discriue,
Fra Troyis boundis first that fugitiue
By fate to Italie come and coist lauyne,
Ouer land and se cachit with meikill pyne
By force of goddis aboue fra euery stede
Of cruel Iuno throw auld remembrit feid:
Grete payne in batelles sufferit he also
Or he his goddis brocht in Latio
And belt the ciete, fra quham of nobil fame
The latyne peopill taken has thare name,
And eke the faderis, princis of Alba,
Come, and the walleris of grete Rome alsua."

The reader of these lines will not fail to remark their general closeness to the original, at the same time that he will be struck with a certain diffuseness, such as seems to be an inseparable adjunct of all early poetry. To expect that such rude and primitive workmanship should represent adequately Virgil's peculiar graces would of course be absurd; but the effort was a great one for the time when it was made, and our northern neighbors may well be proud of it.

Not less marked, though not altogether of the same character, is the interest attaching to the next translation, or rather fragment of translation. The Earl of Surrey may or may not have died too soon for the political well-being of England, but his fate was undoubtedly an untimely one for her literature, and the historian who denies his claim to our sympathy expressly acknowledges his "brilliant genius." His version, which embraces the Second and Fourth Books of the Æneid, deserves attention not only for its own sake, but as the first known *Froude's Hist. of England, vol. iv. p. 509.

Children and maids, that holy carols sang; And well were they whose hands might touch the cords."

The next translator, like Surrey, only lived to accomplish a portion of the Æneid: but it was a much larger portion, and it had the good fortune to be completed by another hand. Thomas Phaer, at one time "sollicitour to the king and quene's majesties, attending their honourable counsaile in the marchies of Wales," afterwards "doctour of physike," published seven Books of the Æneid in 1558. At his death, two years afterwards, he left a version of the Eighth and Ninth Books and a part of the Tenth; and in 1573

the residue " was " supplied and the whole worke together newly set forth by Thomas Twyne, gentleman." This translation is in the long fourteen-syllable or ballad metre,