The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1853-07-18
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.

Inc matt OF Saturday has Tor lis leader
we'll written article upon Public Opinion. The
writer holds truly that it is now the governing
power ofthe world, and that during the last
century it has been the primary cause of all
the great moral and political changes which
have taken place. 1t is indeed now true that
the ''pen is mightier than the sword" II, in
the middle ages, a statesman could exclaim,
"give me but the making of the ballads for
still more justly might one say. in this age,
give me but the control of the public press
the great organ and fashioner of public opinion
and care not who makes the laws, or what
forms of error may rise up to oppose it. In
this country, public opinion is omnipotent.-
To influence it is every mans privilege-to
despise it, is to contemn the decisions of an ir
resistible power.
The Wing has an article relative to the in.
cidents of the Presidents tour, in which the
| writer attempts to show that Mr.. Davis, the
Secretary of War, in an after dinner speech at
Philadelphia, by admitting the right to make
| appropriations for internal improvements I'M
der the "war power" admits, also, the whole
Wing doctrine of internal Improvements
There is also an article concerning the "Elec-
tive Judiciary" system, in which doubts are
expressed as to the propriety of candidates for
the Bench taking the ''stump" and playing
demagogue. In several minor editorials of a
political stamp, men and things are discussed,
| with which party politicians are mostly inter.
| ested.
The Enquirer discusses the advantages
| which would accrue to the United States from
| general war in Europe. Among these the
writer mentions the powerful impulse which
would necessarily be given TO the agricultural
interests of this country, in consequence of the
necessarily increased demands for provisions
ofall sorts in Europe, and the increased immi.
grafton of the better classes, who would seek
our shores to avoid the calamities of war.
The Times has very little political matter.
The chief article 10 the editorial column is
concerning Rowe's Translation of Lucan's
Pharsalia. 1t contains some very just views
as to the difficulty Of rendering the thoughts oil
an author from one language into another, and
as to the nature, office and power Of language
generally. lThose who are conversant with
the classics, and with the various attempts to
translate them, will at once see the force oil
the writer's remarks. We cannot call to mind
more than one or two translations of any elias
sic writer, worthy of the name. At the best,
translators have only succeeded in producing
elegant pharaphrases. This is true even oil
tfansIations of prose works. But from transla-
tons of the classic poets and dramatists gen.
orally, "good Lord deliver u.s." The profound
and matchless harmony that rolls along the
| or SoPhocles, gives place in their translations
to silt walking, ambitious English, in which
the sense of the originals is murdered, and to a
| harmony not unlike the ereaking of a hinge,
| or that of a "braZen candlestick turned" Per.
| haps the best real translation ever made, ia
Dryden's Juvenal. Pope's Homer is beau
tiful paraphrase-nothing more. But it Ger.
tainly gives far better idea of the real spirit
and meaning OF Homer than any one of the
multitude Of his professed translators, literal
or otherwise. One great mind seems to have
been transfused into another, and the result is
a poem, different, yet how like the same."]
| II Judge J. Caleb Smith, of California,
the new consul to Lima, is the son of CT. Go
vernon VIM. Smith, of Virginia.
| gThe Petersburg Library is to be opened
to the public Of that city to-day.
Eon each of the days Of Wednesday ana