The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-17 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Odes of Horace. Literally translated in
English verse. By Henry George Robinson.
Vol. IL, Part 11. Longman and Co.
Fifteen years ago Mr. Robinson gave to the
public the first instalment of this in many respects
really remarkable, and in some, we believe, per-
fectly unique translation. The ambitious design
bas now at length, with the issue from the press of
this second part of the second volume, been brought
happily to its completion. The immortal Odes of
Horace—the most exquisite of all the gems of classic
poetry—gems of the purest water, each of them
most dexterously cut, and each of them set to very
perfection—the glorious Odes and Epodes of Horace,
so often before now " done into English," with
various success by other zeholars, have been by this
one adventurous scholar our contemporary, here, we
may safely say, for the first time Literally Trans-
lated. So far as the spirit, the tone, the style of
the great Roman Lyrist are concerned we must still
regard the version of the Rev. Philip Francis,
—father of the reputed author of " Junius"—to
remain yet to this day unrivalled. We are still
in a great measure disposed to say, with Dr. John-
son, " Francis has done it the best. I'll take his,
five out of six, against the best of them !" Bearing
in mind that the apparent enthusiasm thus indi-
cated in favour of Francis by that authoritative
Critic was somewhat tempered, however, by the
Doctor's previous dictum, to the effect that "The
Lyrical part of Horace never can be properly trans-
lated ; so much of the excellence is in the numbers
and the expression." Yet it is precisely this
Lyrical part that Mr. Robinson has selected for
translation. And strange to add, he has translated
the Odes throughout in a spirit in which he has
ever been prepared to sacrifice both " numbers"
and " expression " to the end that he might secure
at least coute qui coute, the one great and para-
mount quality in his eyes—literalness. The result,
we repeat, is certainly very remarkable. It is such
that we have now (we are bold to say, yet once
more), for the first time, a scrupulously faithful, and
accurate translation of the Odes of Horace—one in
which verbal exactitude is alone so far forgone at
intervals that idiom is translated by idiom—but a
version otherwise entirely, literally, absolutely an
Echo in English ode for ode, line for line, word
for word, without one solitary sin that we, at least,
have been able to discover in the way of para-
phrase. That the work has been a labour of love
to the translator he indicates significantly upon
his title-p, ge by that motto from his favourite and
beloved Horatius Flaccus—
" Dulee periculum est."
It is a peril that, while it was sweet in the
contemplation must have been doubly sweet in the
vanquishing. Vanquished it is now after fifteen
yews have elapsed. One by one the odes have
been re-echoed from the page of Mr. Robinson in our
Saxon vernacular--one by one, throughout the four
books of the Odes and the fifth book, the Book of
the Epodes: in effect, throughout the whole of the One
Hundred and Twenty Odes and Epodes of Horace
taken collectively. The main difficulty of translat-
ing Horace at all we believe lies precisely, as Dr.
Johnson intimated with his unerring sagacity in that
lyrical part of his works which has thus been given
to us entire by Mr. Robinson in a literal English
version. His success has been so conspicuous
throughout, as far as we have examined the
translation, that we should gladly welcome
a new and revised issue of the whole work
in a single volume. We commend the early pro-
duction of this one volumed edition of Robinson's
Horace to the attention of both the author and his
publishers. It must be remembered especially in
the writer's regard, that he has, with what the late
Judge Talfourd called, and called truly,' " so just
a daring" placed on opposite pages—leaf:by leaf—
the Original and the Translation. It is surprising
to us that a version like this, which is avowedly
designed to be, and which, for that matter, really
and truly, is above all things, literal, should be so
frequently (as it alio is) at once, so musical, and so
flowing. The translation dances through the
maze of the lyric, so to speak, in fetters—but the
clanking of the fetters is but seldom heard, they are
so gracefully muffled in harmonious language. The
charm springing from the very literalness, by theway,
is sometimes really and singularly effective. Take
for example the closing passage of that exquisite
cairn. I. lib. iv. Ad Venerem—thus blandly but
feebly syllabled by Francis :
"Yet why, ah ! fair one, still too dear,
Steals down my cheek th' involuntary tear ?
Or why thus falter o'er my tongue
The words which once harmonious forced along ?
Swift through the field and flowing streams,
I follow thee in visionary dreams ;
Now, now I seize, I clasp thy charms
And now you burst, ah cruel ! from myi arms."
Not a word here out Cair.pus Martius—not a
touch here of the poetry almunding in that brief
fragment of one of these small but perfect master-
pieces. Note now the words of Horace as they flow
forth from his lips in the mellifluous original :
" Sed cur, lieu! Ligurine, cur
Jlanat rare mats lacrynia per genres?
Cur facunda parum decoro
Inter verla cadit lingua silentio ?
Nocturnis to ego somniis
Jam capture teneo : jam volucrem sequor
Te per gramina Martii
Campi, to per aquas, dure, volubiles."
Now note in its turn the flow of Mr. Robinson's
literal translation :
" But why, oh ! Ligurinus, why
Flows the rare teardrop down mu cheeks?
Why does my tongue, once fluent, die,
Between the very words it speaks,
In graceless silence ? Now, at night,
Thee in my dreams I closely strain
A captive ; now, in thy swift flight
O'er Campus Martius' grassy plain,

Or the fast-rolling waters thro',
Thee, thee, unkind one, I pursue.
The superiority of this faithful adherence to
the very words of the poet is obvious when
compared with the mamby•pamby prettiness
of the version previously excepted from Francis'
Translation. Take, again, the opening verses of
the carm. 1., lib. iv., ad Torquatum—running thus
in the version of Mr. Robinson :

" The snows have vanish'd : to the plain
The herbage now returns again,
To trees their leafy green :
Her functions earth begins to change,
And the subsiding rivers range
Their eustom'd banks between.
And now too with her nymphs the Grace
And her twin sisters dare to pace,
Unzon'd, the dances gay.
So, not to hope for endless pow'r,
Warns us the year, and every hour
That steals the tering day.
The frosts dissolve 'neath Zephyrs' wing,
The Summer tramples upon Spring,
In turn to perish doom'd,
As soon as Autumn, applo-crown'd,
Shall shed its store ; and then around
Dead Winter is resum'd."
Here is caught and echoed back the mellifluous
beauty of many a phrase from the arbori-
busque come to:the poinifer Autuinnus. The "literal"
proving, in truth, the most vigorously poetical—•
and paraphrase, on the other hand, amounting to
little less than emasculation. Enough, however--
the work, now that it has at length been thus hap-
pily completed, will commend itself to all lovers of
Horace—that wittiest, daintiest, most refined and
mast musical of the world's great lyrists, born Poet
and born Gentleman.

A Bandy Book for Be Volunteers. By Captain
W. G. Hartley. Saunders and Otley.
By far the handiest book of all the handy books
recently published for the use of Rifle Volunteers.
Captain Hartley, of the Royal Denbigh Rifles—
already known as the ingenious author of " A New
System of Drill"—was just the very man to write
this very entertaining and instructive compendium
of information. What he writes, he writes from
the fullness of his own knowledge. The scießce of
drill is essentially his metier. He is perfectly well
" up" in his subject ; and, satisfied of this, his
readers will take his advice to heart with all the
more pleasurable reliance. The little volume in-
troduced by " A Few Words to Volunteers on their
Introduction to Drill and the Rifle," followed by a few
words more in regard to arms, clothing, and appoint-
ments, is subdivided into twelve parts or chapters,
and completed by a cluster of valuable appendices.
Squad Drill, subdivided into three sections, with-
out arms, with arms, and with arms in two ranks—
Company Drill—Company Light Drill—Battalion
Light Drill—each has a chapter or part to itself.
Separate chapters aro also accorded to the Forma-
tion of a Battalion—to the Inspection or Review of
a Battalion—to Manuel Exercise—Platoon Exer-
cise—Sword Bayonet Exercise—lnfantry Sword
Exercise—Mounting and Relieving Guard, and
Instruction of Musketry. The whole of the lucid
and comprehensible letter-press is rendered yet
more lucid and yet more comprehensible by a plen-
tiful sprinkling of plates and diagrams, by way of
vivid and most apt illustration. We heartily re-
commend this Handy Book to all the corps now in
course of formation, or already formed, satisfied
that it will be the most acceptable bit of literature
that could well be dropped into the pocket of a
Rifle Volunteer.

Northumberland and the Border. By Walter
White, author of a " A Londoner's Walk to the
Land's End," &c. Chapman and Hall.
Mr. White's pleasant records of his pedestrian
excursions are familiar to many readers. Those
whom duty or business keep in the turmoil of the
great metropolis, through the long bright summer
days, may wander in fancy over breezy downs and
through rural villages ; may learn something of the
miners and the colliers, may make acquaintance
with the characteristics of the country folk, sit in
their cottages, and listen to their gossip. We have
no doubt that many have learned more of the local
peculiarities and remote districts of their own
country from Mr. White's pages than they would
ever do from personal experience. He penetrates
quiet places which no railways traverse ; he explores
the hills where few wanderers trouble the solitude
of the lonely shepherd ; and in the most unpro-
mising locality he generally finds some local curi-
osity, or tells some anecdote eonnected with it, for
the reader's entertainment. He is well versed
in legendary lore and local tradition ; and
England, so rich in song and ballad, in historic as-
sociations and warlike recollections, requires this
knowledge in the traveller who would give a fair
description of any of her shires. But while Mr.
White makes such rare use of his month's idleness,
turningit to good account in gathering and retail-
ing information, he does not fail to find pleasure in
it as well. Witness his anticipations when setting
out for his holiday between the Tyne and the Tweed 2
" Sweet is the pleasure of going home, as we all know ;
but what can equal the pleasure of going forth ? To rise
ere the dawn has lost its rosy blush on a fine summer morn-
ing, and feel that you are free to go whithersoever you will ;
to wander as inclination prompts for the whole of a sum-
mer month, and with feet as willing to stir as your heart to
enjoy—what pleasure can equal that ? Before you stretches
a long vista of anticipations ; a plan floats loosely in your
mind, to be shaped day by day, or hour by hour, and there
is a sense of power and quiet satisfaction in the reflection
that the shaping depends chiefly on your own wayfaring
capabilities. Where among robust pleasures can this be
matched ?
" It is as if a sceptre were placed in your hand by virtue
of which you become a monarch, going forth on a progress ;
not with glittering train or cumbrous ceremonial, but with
health, imagination, and fancy as attendants. Yet more
than royal pomp may be yours ; for your matins and ves-
pers shall glow with the splendours of the eastern and
western sky, and in the blaze of noon there shall be around
you the garniture of woods, and your pathway shall be
strewn with flowers. You shall be careless of measured
hours ; why should a king count time who can do what he
will, whose days are to be reckoned not by minutes, but by
happy emotions ? For my part, I can clap my hands and
sing when the social yoke is loosened, and I am fairly off,
with no heavier burden than my knapsack.
" One word more, gracious reader : If I begin my story
in Cumberland, do not be impatient, and insist upon the
title-page as a rigorous text ; but consider the appeal with
which this text bgins, and remember that my beginning is
within sight of the hill on which rises the South Tyne—a
branch of the great Northumbrian river. To the Sea-
Kings every wind was favourable, for, wherever borne,
they conquered; so, to an Englishman, any starting-place
within his own country will be fortunate, for travel
whithersoever he will, he finds something lovely and of
good report ; some nobleness of the past that shall make
our present nobler; some triumph of industry to inform
the mind, and rouse its admiration ; and, with all this,
faults and blots which he may help to wipe away, and still
be a conqueror."
Commencing his tour in Cumberland, he explores
all the North Countree—the Border land, so famous
in ballad and tradition, the scene of so many fierce
encounters, from the Border raid of Scottish song
to Chevy Chase or Flodden. In the neighbourhood
of Newcastle, however, more practical associations
are found, and a full description of the mines and
collieries will interest the reader. The author de-
scended two different mines, and gives an account
of the descent and the works going on while he was
there. While there he came in for a social dis-
cussion—
" Old Robert took the opportunity to question two of the
boys who were passing; one of his under-men hearing the
talk drew near, and there we stood leaning on a laden
waggon, our two candles standing on the lumps of coal, the
black roof pressing cbsely down above us, the walls shut-
ting us closely in on both sides. There we stood while the
worthy viewer relieved his heart by an examination.
" ' Well, Jack, how lang wast thee at day-school?'
Mebbie eighteen months.'
" Look at that noo, Jack—eighteen months at school,
and years at cock-fightin'. Canst read? canst figure ?'
" No muckle.'
" Thee speaks truth there, Jack, 'tie no muckle. Thee
canst do better at cock-fightin' and quoits, eh, Jack ?'
" Jack and his companion grinned, and made demonstra-
tions that they would like to be off; but old Robert im-
proved the occasion in his rough homely way, and warned
them of the consequences of quoits and cock-fighting.
While he was speaking, a big boy came up, and would
have passed on, but he too was detained with Look here,
now ; here's a boy lately set on to do a man's work, and
getting man's wages, and what must he do but go with the
men in all their wickedness I What's to become o' thee,
Bill ?'
"Bill grinned in his turn, and hurried away, and old
Robert exhorted the other two to take warning by him,
when the underman interposed and said, " Thee's too hard
on the boys, Robert. There's no harm in quoits. It's a
game I've played at many a time myself, and never felt
the worse. If ye want to do good to the lads ye should gie
'em less time in the pit. Look at them two, now, they've
been down here ever since five o'clock this morning ; and
when they've worked down here twelve hours, then they
go up again. What would ye have the lads to do after
twelve hours in the pit ? What can they do, Robert, if
they don't take to the quoits?'
" I listened, hoping that the question which has so long
baffled philosophers would then and there receive a rough
and ready solution ; that a way, desirable to the rudest ca-
pacity would be shown, to divert the throng from that broad
highway which leadeth—ah ! whither ? which is so delicious
and so fatal ; which entices alike millionaires and miners.
And while listening I wished for the ready pencil that
could have taken a sketch of the group as we stood there
leaning upon the waggon—the two men with broad-brimmed
round-crowned hats ; the two.boys just tall enough to show
their heads above the lumps of coal, their teeth and eyes
glistening in the candle-light in strange contrast with their
black faces, and looking from ono to the other with a wicked
expression; the black roof and walls shutting Us in—a
dimly-lighted group in a vast darkness.
" Old Robert looked at me, looked at his mate, looked at
the boys ; shook his head sadly, breathed out a hoarse sigh,
but said nothing. And I, who hoped to hoar in the sun-
less mine the answer which philosophers have been unable
to give satisfactorily in the sunshine, was disappointed."
Of course, in such an expedition, he could not do
otherwise than make a pilgrimage to Wylam, the
birthplace of George Stephenson '
o tlff
onit
or
a bn
pilgrimage
right pro Pit seeertmo go on a pilgrimage to
to me right and proper
Wylam. In the one place we ren-
dme ra
genius, matchless for insight,
toS t
g Stratford-on-Avon, oAv on , a
s no
to
o does
i ghi
no
amt
taogne t
and
n t
fang
a l
reigning undisputed monarch
wherever books are read; in the other, We recognise the
triumph of intellect over mere brute matter, and do honour
to the genius that battled bravely with adverse circum•
stances i thought, and strove and laboured with rwle appli-

ances, until iron and vapour became tractable in his hands
as a well-trained child ; and in eight hours men could travel
from the Thames to the Tyne.
" I sometimes walk into that stately hall at Euston-
square for the pleasure of looking at the statue of George
Stephenson, which there has a fitting site. A high stal-
wart hero, he stands there as he once stood in a certain
house at Westminster, composed and thoughtful, thumb
button-hole; in
Wisdom before the Wigs, and getting the
better of them.
" After all, I found it hard to realise that George
Stephenson had once been such an urchin as some among'
the groups playing here among the coaly pathways, clad in
corduroy or fustian, and with not a few grimy smears upon
their chubby faces. But inquire of the villagers, and you
will find Geordie Stephenson remembered here and there
among their household words. Jemmy Watt, at the pub-
lic house, recollects how that when he was a boy, his father,
who liked reading religious books, used sometimes to go
and read to Geordie Stephenson's father, then a blind old
man. Geordie was a decent lad, he says, and keen after
the larnin'
" A railway for the transport of coal runs from Wylam
down to Lemington ; follow this railway for half a mile and
you see on the left standing alone one of the ordinary rude
double cottages of the locality, and that is George Stephen-
son's birthplace. It stands on a pleasant spot ; wooded
heights rise beyond the river ; the stream flows past broad
and clear, and sufficiently near for its rippling to be heard,
and hedgerows, plantations, and fields overspread the slopes
in the rear. There is nothing squalid about it ; the village
is out of sight ; all around is sylvan ; so no wonder that
Geordie was fond of birds and birds'-nests I It is just the
place for birds • and, as Jemmy Watt says, Wylam used to
have more wood about it formerly than now : and there is
no disturbance save when the coal-wagons rumble past, or
the trains flit along the farther bank between Newcastle
and Carlisle."

When at Newcastle he paid another visit :
" To walk through the works of Messrs. Robert Stephen-
son and Co. is some what amazing, especially after a visit
to that poor little cottage at Wylam. The one so lowly:
the other so mighty I Fifteen hundred men were at work,
busy as bees, with all that clang, bang, and uproar, uh
a,
whirling and sliding, that marvellous ingenuity and tel;
dexterity which Sir Francis Head described so well _a
Stokers and Pokers. The young man who showed_
round talked as coolly of fifty locomotives being in han4
France, amid all the usual work, as a baker would talk of
fifty loaves. I saw the engine building for the Pasha (101.
Egypt, which was to combine Oriental luxury and maglll
ficence with English strength and celerity—and,
proved, the result was a carriagef workmanship. T _
was a door in front of theg from which the ream'
could step out upon " the plate," whenever he took a faneY
to drive the engine himself. out
I wanted to see the ' Rocket,' and it was pointed
to me in a yard, standing neglected amidst a heap of rusty
iron, as a thing of no account. There it stood, without
chimney, the boiler stripped of tubes, the working gear
all
gone ; but there it was the same original frame, the wooden
wheels with flanged tire that gained the victory on dial
eventful day between Liverpool and Manchester. An
although George Stephenson had Mr. Booth artner neverthelessin
its construction, his name and his triumph are,
so much associated therewith, that while looking at it 1;
as
since
ere
said to myself, had my father been the builder, the ragged
old Rocket' should at all events have a shed to itself and
shelter from the weather.
" However, let us not forget Number One,' 'which
stands on the pedestal at Darlington, placed there by
praiseworthy friends, as a memorial of George Stephenson,
who alone achieved it. For many a year did Number
One' do the work it was built to do."
The various processes in the different establish-
ments are all clearly and simply explained. But it
is not alone in the manufacturing districts that the
traveller lingers to admire. He has a ready aPPre:
elation of the beauties of nature, and finds ragnY
romantic locality to wake his enthusiasm. One 0
the finest views he obtained was seen from the
summit of the highest of the Eildon hills—
" Far and wide lay the Border-land—the glorious Ber"
der-land ; birthplace and home of poets, historians,
men, and warriors, now all a-glow with the golden beonle,;
A vast panorama, stretching from Ettrick Forrest and
Yarrow to Cheviot, and Flodden, and Lammermuir, fay°
and woods, parks and meadows, outspread in broad undula-
tions, and here and there a graceful peak, such as the Black
Hill of Cowdenknowes, the
or massive ridge rising above
rest, inspiring a sentiment of the mountains. Every bein"
stands up in brighter relief by contrast with the daric
broadening shadows in their rear; twinkling spots reveal
the places of human habitation which but ,for that goldol
speck would be hardly discoverable ; the Tweed in gilled°.
curves gleams for miles along the vale ; and Melrose re-
poses among trees where plain and hillfoot meet. can
states-
stand on the Eildon Hill, said Scott, and point out forty"
three places famous in war and verse.'
" And the hill itself has a history ; on this central sum'
mit the Romans are said to have had a look-out station.
What magnificent prospects for the sentries ? And legal!
tell that Michael Scott, the mighty magician, having
keep a troublesome fiend in constant work, set him first to
build the dam across the Tweed, which is still to be seen
at Kelso, next to remodel Eildon. The command Ivn's
speedily obeyed, and for one peak there appeared three,
and the familiar was only baffled at last by being ordered+,
to twist ropes out of sea-sand. Another version represen4;
Michael himself as the perpetrator : when attempting
carry away the hill on a spade, it fell and broke into tbreei
What says the aged monk to Deloraine down there ill
abbey concerning the wizard ?
' Some of his skill he taught to me ;
And, warrior, I could say to thee
The words that cleft Eildon hills in three,
And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone.' "
We heartily recommend this pleasant volume for
its fresh and animated style, and for the variety °f
its information. It will maintain the reputation
Mr. White has already acquired by his interesting
panoramas of Cornwall and Yorkshire.