use in the philosophy of mind; another specimen, therefore, and we have done. It appears that at Amsterdam, he determined to hear a sermon, and knowing nothing of the Dutch language, he very naturally, but, as it afterwards appeared, unnecessarily, sought out for a German preacher; but was disappointed after all, for the sermon was in Dutch; notwithstanding which, he gives us the very words of the text, and then adds, "It is known to the all-knowing God alone, who searcheth the heart and reins, with what emotions of heart I remember this sermon, even to this very day; and much more what my soul felt at the hearing it. I was so transported in spirit by the explication of the text, that it seemed to me as if the minister spake plain Hebrew, so perfectly could I understand every word he said." ART. VI.-Amorum Troile et Cresseida, libri duo priores AngloLatine, per Franc. Kinaston. Oxon. 1635. 4to. Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide was the first example of a regular serious narrative poem, on a large scale, in the English language. It may be considered as our oldest epic, to use the word in its common, though sufficiently vague, acceptation; and for a long time, with the exception of the Knyghtes' Tale by the same author, it continued to be the only one. Hence, it was held in that value which always attaches to the first of any thing, and which adheres to it even for some time after it has been superseded by more beautiful and finished specimens of the same kind. It was reverenced as the earliest work in which the powers of English, as a cultivated language, were developed; its author was regarded as the Virgil of his country; his poem was made the foundation of the fictions of subsequent writers; and, according to a practice common in former ages, when, as a contemporary critic expresses it," the notion of the perishableness of modern tongues, and of the necessity of preserving works worthy to last, by embalming them in the immortal language of Rome," was not yet exploded, it was thought expedient, upwards of two centuries after its publication, to translate it into Latin. We have deemed this translation worthy of notice as a literary curiosity, and as one of the most successful specimens of a rare species of composition-rare, we mean, when attempted on so large a scale; for the practice itself, of writing Latin verses in vernacu lar metres, is of old standing, and has been applied to a great variety of subjects, from the early hymns of the Romish church, (many of them celebrated for their beauty) to the sportive jeux d'esprits of our own days.* We cannot say much in praise of this species of composition. Like other devices, in which two things, each by itself pleasing and familiar to us, but wholly unallied to each other, are forced into combination, it is productive of pleasure indeed, but a pleasure purely fantastic, and incapable of long continuance, unless sustained by some other and more durable source of interest. Such are the whimsically-compounded figures of barbarian sculpture; such is macaronic verse, of which we shall have another occasion to speak; such, to ascend a little higher, is that joco-serious style of poetical narrative, which has lately become so fashionable from merits not its own; and the glaring contrasts of which, compared with the easy shading of Whistlecraft, serve to illustrate the difference between a natural mode of writing and an unnatural one. But what bears the most analogy to the practice of which we are now speaking, is the attempt at naturalizing the Greek and Roman metres in various modern languages: on both, especially on the latter, eminent wits have been employed; and in neither case with any extraordinary success. To say the truth, neither of these experiments has had a fair trial; for on the one hand, our Latin rhymers have generally, if not universally, written as if the Roman pronunciation was precisely the same with the modern; and on the other, later writers at least have substituted modern accent for ancient quantity, so that, instead of naturalizing the Roman metres, they have merely introduced new varieties into their own metrical system. Thus, Dr. Watts's and Dr. Southey's sapphics are merely repetitions of a particular form of the English ten-syllable verse, wound up with a shorter species of line, which, though less common, is equally English. Such attempts, however, may by a happy accident produce excellent harmony of the vernacular kind; as in the last-mentioned writer's Vision of Judgment, a poem more abused than read, and of which the assailants, in their animosity to its Sometimes, as in the Leonine verses, the ancient Roman metres are employed, with the addition of rhyme. The oldest instance which we remember of this is a hymn of Damasus, who was Bishop of Rome, A.D. 366-384. "Martyris ecce dies Agatha Virginis emicat eximiæ, author, and their eagerness to expose its great and manifold absurdities, forgot to notice the many instances, both of rhythmical and poetical beauty, which it contained. But this is digression. Sir Francis Kinaston, the author of the translation before us, figures in Anthony Wood's compilation as one of the minor worthies of Oxford. Having studied at that university, and afterwards at Cambridge, he went to court, where, "being esteemed a man of parts, he was knighted in 1618, and afterwards made esquire of the body to Charles I." He was the author, or at least the chief promoter, of an abortive project for a college in London, under the name of Museum Minerva, for the education of the gentry and nobility in the liberal arts, of which he was also appointed the first president. He appears, indeed, to have held a high reputation with his contemporaries for scholarship and various accomplishments, though, according to the chronicle, he was "more addicted to the superficial parts of learning, poetry and oratory, wherein he excelled, than learning and philosophy." One other fact Anthony records concerning him, which we leave to the judgment of our brethren of the philosophical journals. "This is the person who, by experience, falsified the alchymist's report, that a hen, being fed for certain days with gold, beginning when Sol was in Leo, should be converted into gold, and should lay golden eggs; but indeed became very fat." Besides the present work, he wrote Leoline and Sydanis, a poetical romance, which Peck commends, and Cynthiades, Sonnets to his Mistress, His death happened between 1640 and 50. If the above account be rather meagre, it is at least proportioned to the importance of the subject. From the dedication to the second book (which is inscribed to John Rous, the Oxford librarian, as the first is to his equally distinguished brother, Patrick Young,) it appears that it was the author's intention, in case this specimen should be approved of by the learned public, to complete the translation, with the addition of short notes to the whole; but this design was frustrated by his death, an event of which he seems to have had some presentiment at the time of publishing this work. In his preface, he assigns a motive for his undertaking, which would in our days appear rather a paradoxical one; that of rescuing Chaucer from the neglect to which his obsolete language had condemned him, by rendering him generally intelligible. "Video Chaucerum nostrum, hujus insulæ ornamentum et poëseos decus egregium, non solum senescentem, et sub obsoleto et jam spreto Anglici vetusti idiomatis vestimento vilescentem, sed (prô dolor) prorsus tabescentem et ferme emortuum. Cujus deploratæ conditioni dum aveo ferre suppetias,-visum est mihi consultissimum, illum nova lingua donare, et novato rhythmi et carminis genere decorare; eumque perenni Romani eloquii columna fulcire, et per omnia sæcula (quantum in nobis est) stabilem et immotum reddere." To the same purpose the commendatory poems, fifteen in number. Thus Cartwright: "'Tis to your happy cares we owe, that we Read Chaucer now without a dictionary." Another advises him to extend the same favour to Spenser. One piece, by " William Barker, M.A., Fellow of New College," is worth quoting for its happiness, and the zeal it shews for the poetical honour of Chaucer. "I'm glad, the stomach of the time's so good, Let others praise thy how, I admire thy what: A book not tractable to ev'ry hand, And such as few presum'd to understand. In judgment of the language they ne'er view'd, And, because they are lazy, Chaucer's rude; a In this piece, the old form Eneids occurs in the singular : second Eneids." The Eneids (and, in the same manner, the Iliads and Last, comes a Fellow of All Souls, according to whom Time can silence Chaucer's tongue, But not his wit, which now amɔng The Latins hath a louder sound, And what we lost, the world hath found." Of the translation, thus extolled, we proceed to offer a few specimens. If they are not such as altogether to justify these partial eulogies, they are entitled to the praise of very tolerable Latin, perfect clearness of style, and unembarrassed fluency; and they certainly answer the character given of them in one respect; they are more universally intelligible than the original. Considering the difficulties of his task, Sir Francis must be allowed to have acquitted himself with much dexterity; and he deserves praise for the fidelity with which he adheres to his original, in spite of the temptations afforded by so ornamental a language as the Latin. We now proceed to our extracts from the translation. The exordium is very well rendered in parts. "The double sorrow of Troilus to tellen, To thee I clepe, thou goddesse of torment, For I, that god of love's servants serve, the Odysseys) appear to have been considered as the proper name of of verses of King Charles the Second's time, we In a copy the poem. |