The Press.
London, England, 1855-03-24 00:00:00

287

The Works of Virgil. Closely rendered into English
Rytbm. By the Rev. R. C. Singleton, M.A. Two
Vols. Vol. I. London : Bell.
THE "Curiosities of Literature" might supply a
motto for Mr. Singleton's translation. " The erudi-
" tion of words is frequently found not to be allied to
" the sensibility of taste." Account for it as we may,
textual critics are frequently unable to appreciate
the meaning and spiritof their authors, while among
the instructors of youth we often ttnd total inability
to comprehend much more than the grammatical
structure of language. Mr. Singleton tells us that
" he has for several years had his attention directed to
" the training of the young," and it might be thought
that he would be competent to give a decent version
of a poet so well known as Virgil ; but his endeavour
to introduce " a higher order of translation " than has
yet been attempted is a ludicrous failure. In his
pedantic preface, he dwells particularly on the " poe-
tical expression" of his version. "In quarterq," he
says, " where an unpoetical expression in a Latin
" verse exercise would be eliminated from it with as
" much zeal as a cobra from the couch of the Anglo•
" Indian, a prosaic word in the version of a poet is
" tolerated as if it were neither nuisance nor intru-
" sion ;" and a little later he instructs us that, " As
" the penumbra of an eclipse presents a region where,
" if one may so speak, light and darkness both have
" libtrty to range, so there is a common of language
" to which both poetry and prose have the freest ac-
" cess." Unfortunately, his notion of poetical expres-
sion something resembles that of "slashing Bentley,"
who, in his efforts to improve Milton, would substitute
his own " transpicuous gloom" for the poet's "nark-
" ness visible." In Virgil, the goddess mother of
/Eneas opens her history of Dido with the words,
Longa eat Nulls, long.
Ambages: sed SWIMS sequir facig a rerum.
And this, with his genius for "poetical expression,"
Mr. Singleton renders :

Tedious is her wrong,
Its intricacies tedious; but I'll trace
The points most prominent of her Mgrs.
We give his version of the lines, " Musa, mihi causas
" inemora" complete, that lie may not complain of
injustice by the selection of detached passages :-
0 Muse, the reasons unto me rehearse,
What godhead outraged, or the queen of the gods
At what a fretting, should ha%e furred a man
Marked for religiousness to undergo
Mishaps so many, meet so many toils.
[Dwells there J such grievous wrath in heavenly souls?
Lengthened criticism must be thrown away on a
translator who deliberately renders " Quidve dolens
" regina clam" by
The queen of the gods
At what a fretting.
Mr. Singleton's notion of " rigid accuracy " in trans-
' lation is curious. " Hospitio probibeniur arouse" is
rendered by
From a hosklry of sand

We are barred.
In another place, " hospitio" has the same significa-
tion given to it:—

That the Infant towers
Of Carthage for a hostelry may he
Open unto the Trojans.
He claims credit for his choice of Anglo Saxon words,
and, as the translation of " ne fati neacia Did° fiuibus
arceret," presents us with—
Lest, of fats
Unknowing, Did° fend them from her bourns.
The " improvida pectora turbat," ushering in the
catastrophe of Laocoon, is rendered by
Our weetless breasts it blanks.
Were this version much better done than it is, we
doubt whether there would be any place for it. A
literal rendering, line for line and word for word,
might be useful, and would convey some notion of
the poetry of the original; but this attempt has
neither the accuracy of such a plan, nor has it the
grace and spirit of a free translation. Taking the
first book of the " /Eneid," we find that the 760
lines of the original are expanded into what. on Mr.
Singleton's authority, we may (-all 1,074 of his
"blanks." We can tolerate literal accuracy in a
translation, but the kind of style indicated better than
any words of oars can express by one example we
have selected from Mr. Singleton, the rendering of
" summa fastigia rerum" by
The points most prominent of her affairs,
seems to us equally futile and tasteless, without
value t the youthful stdent, and merely contemptible
if intended for personus who desire to obtain some
knowledge of Virgil through the medium of our
English tongue.

God's Word the Basis of Faith. An Appeal to
Common Sense. By Charles E. Parry, 8.A., late
Curate of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge. London
Burns and Lambert.
" A LATE Curate of St. Paul's, Knightahridge " may,
perhaps, hope to find some reader, for a pamphlet set
tine forth in plain terms that A nglicanism is " a sham,'"
and that faith can only find repose in Rom.