tempt, it should seem that a more intimate acquaintance than others can possibly have of the nature of the difficulty, should make them at least indulgent to each other: the public may complain of an unsatisfactory result; but as to the authors themselves, they have but one line of becoming conduct, and that is, to concede the indulgence they must require. I have not found it so.

The first edition of the translation of Juvenal, now again presented to the English reader, was published many years ago, and is scarcely perhaps known to the public at all, or at any rate not much beyond the circle of the author's friends, except by a critique on it which appeared in the Quarterly Review, and which, although as unjust, to my apprehension, in many of its remarks as I consider it to have been discourteous and arrogant in its general tone, could not, considering the talent embarked in that publication, but materially affect its success. Nobody thinks of inquiring for a book of which the report has been even moderately unfavourable, or cares to disturb a sentence in criticism, although the judge that may have pronounced it has not only not given in any case a pledge of his integrity, but be plainly obnoxious in some to suspicion of unfairness or hostility. I may well feel entitled to express myself after the fashion, yet must not be understood to appeal to the reader of the present work from the remarks on the former-they are too materially different to make such an appeal altogether legitimate; but I do most confidently appeal to the preface of that edition, whether I had announced myself so ostentatiously as to provoke an enemy or offend a rival. I will also add, that had the reviewer confined himself to criticism merely, however unfair, I should probably on the present occasion have come to the resolution of delivering my work into the hands of the public without notice; for, after a lapse of several years, one might, without any very troublesome feelings of resentment, recollect even so very determined and unusual an instance of discourtesy, and of the abuse of an accidental advantage-for the editor of the Quarterly Review was, it is well known, himself a fellow-labourer in the same attempt; and whether he wrote, or merely authorized an article proffered to him as likely to be acceptable, is quite immaterial. It was not thought sufficient in this article to advert to defects, the great liability to which might have been less known to a person less exercised in thern than the reviewer evidently was; but it was imputed to me to have treated my immediate predecessors with contempt, by the act of passing over all mention of their labours, which I had deemed rather respectful than otherwise, and much more than insinuated that I had, notwithstanding, not scrupled to appropriate some of their labours, and follow at least one of them as my guide! The invention, however, of mere rhymes (for these were the spoils chiefly in controversy) I

hold at infinitely too low a rate to be indebted willingly for them to anybody the correspondence of a considerable number of these valuables in my own translation with those of others, was an accident which common candour would have seen to be almost unavoidable, except to those who avoided them studiously, as there are hundreds of expressions in every ancient author that suggest of necessity the same tournure to any translator.

As Mr. Gifford's Juvenal, concerning which I had formerly expressed no opinion, now stands in exactly the same predicament with those of Dryden or Stapylton, I might now, even had no disposition been manifested to depreciate my attempt, as the reviewer seems to insist on my making mention of it, have stated without reserve that I think very moderately of his success; that I hold his version to be not very remarkable for the graces of poetry; that I know it to abound with vulgar and vernacular expressions; and consider it to be much more distinguished by abruptness than by energy of expression. Had I known this work indeed as intimately as I was alleged to have done, I am satisfied that not only was it among the last I should have preferred as a model, but that I should have derived from its abound. ing defects more encouragement to proceed than I actually felt. Or, if I were writing a review of it, and disposed to reprisal in the language I employed, I might be tempted to designate it rather as the buoy which tells us of a shipwreck, than as the brilliant Pharos, the revolving light, which invites to the security of the harbour.

Of the many improvements I hope to have made in the present version, not a few, I am satisfied, are attained only by an unscrupulous sacrifice of the exact to the general meaning; a line of proceeding to which I have been determined, partly by experience, and partly by the design of the present work. To some infidelities, then, I plead guilty, if that be the word, and not a few sacrifices of whole passages I have been obliged to make, from the very nature of this publication; but it is still my hope some day to bring this version again before the public in a larger form, and with such illustrations as opportunities have for several years thrown in my way.

On the whole, I do not fear that this translation will be accounted, by those who know the original, to have departed very far from the sense of an author above all others difficult and untractable. I would apprize the reader that he must expect many passages sufficiently tame and uninteresting: but that is not always my fault; Juvenal himself is very unequal; even whole satires are of very unequal merit; nor can any Latin author be read with equal interest throughout. But in his great and best-known efforts he is inimitable, and applicable to all the stages and states of human society.

I think his first satire has much more merit than is generally

allowed; his second contains one or two of the finest passages in known poetry; his third, universally known, is universally interesting the fourth, from the 36th line, is one of the happiest efforts of comic satire, and well merits the commendation of Gibbon. The fifth I account among the least interesting; though the poet finds occasion, in contrasting the mortifications of a tolerated guest with the entertainment of one on the footing of equality, for introducing some admirable passages. As to the sixth, as I do not suppose that any class of females who can read at all will ever be permitted to read it, I cannot expect that any will "shudder and reform."* The seventh is a curious pic ture of literary labour, abounding with excellent commonplaces, at all times applicable to that subject, and possessing often a noble strain of poetry. The eighth must ever be read with the deepest impression of its power and truth, and with the profoundest admiration of its genius: it has been imitated by modern poets continually, and with very considerable effect. The ninth I cannot wish unwritten, although the point and humour which greatly characterize it are scarcely indemnities for the selection of a subject, which might be only too necessary and obvious a theme in those abominable times, and which Churchill was so injudicions as to make the subject of one of his invectives in our own. The tenth, though it halts occasionally, and might be a little abridged, is one of the most perfect and dignified compositions in any language, and must be read and pondered on to the end of time. Of the remaining satires, I could best spare the eleventh and twelfth. The thirteenth and fourteenth are not only very fine compositions, but replete with the most important truths on the subjects they respectively treat of, especially that on the influence of example in education. The fifteenth is scarcely a satire at all, but it is full of fine poetry, and at the same time a most curious record of the barbarous state of Egypt under the emperors, and an interesting document of the author's residence in the country. Lastly, I am one of those who think the fragment of the sixteenth unquestionably authentic; and the spirit of what is preserved makes me regret the loss of the remainder.

* Gifford's Argument to the Sixth Satire.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

OF

JUVENAL.

As our information concerning the lives of most of the classic authors of antiquity seldom depends on any express documents which they have left, and is for the most part deduced from collateral authorities, we need not be surprised that all which is recorded of Juvenal, in the brief account which passes under the name of Suetonius, should be so far from satisfying that curiosity, which a character so energetic, and of necessity so conspicuous, would naturally invite. The historian of a turbulent, or the satirist of a corrupt period of society, if at all formidable from their talents, must, necessarily, provided they have the courage to avow their productions, attain a dangerous eminence among the public characters of their times. We may therefore well conceive, from the power of his compositions at this distance of time, what

must have been the sensation produced by the satires of Juvenal, when read by thousands who understood every line, entered into every allusion, and when many or most of the characters exposed in them were familiar to the streets of Rome.

The exact period during which Juvenal flourished is far from being uncontested or accurately settled. If he was born about the beginning of the reign of Claudius, A.D. 42, and lived to be eighty years of age, and there is reason to think he did, he must necessarily have seen the Roman empire under a great variety of masters, and have witnessed the enormities of its capital through the successive reigns of Nero, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, as well as those of Vespasian, Titus, Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan.

Aquinum, the place of his birth, is still represented by Aquino, a town in the Neapolitan territory, situated among the mountains, but interdicted to the traveller's research by the banditti who harbour in this part of Italy. He is supposed to have died at the commencement of the reign of Adrian.

Only one event of his life is well established; namely, his visit to Egypt under Domitian, a circumstance recorded by Suidas, and alluded to by himself. This visit is commonly supposed to have been involuntary-that he was exiled thither by Domitian, at the instance of Paris, a pantomime