one fort of harmony in the Latin and which a more animated and more.

Greek sentences, which we can be sensible of to a certain degree; this is that which results from the proportion between the members of one fingle fentence, and between the number of fyllables, of which each member is composed; to this I think is reducible almost the only pleasure which we feel from the sentences of Cicero, a pleasure which does not seem altogether chimerical, especially when we compare the periods of that orator with those of others; for example, to the concise and abrupt stile of Tacitus, and of Seneca.

To this principal source of real, or fuppofed pleasure, which the harmony of the Latin language procures us, we may add a fecond, though in truth a much more flight and imperfect one. This is the difference of long and short fyllables, which is much more fenfible in that language than in ours, or perhaps in any of the modern languages, which, however, are not quite destitute of prosody. It must be confessed, that, in pronouncing Latin, we often maim these long and short fyllables, we fometimes however mark the quantity, and even oftener than in our own language, though it too has its long and short fyllables; but they are indeed less frequent. For, among the ancients, every particular fyllable was decidedly long or thort; with us, the greater number are neither short hor long. This determined quantity must make us fenfible of a greater variety in the harmony of the Latin language, than in that of ours, and likewife of more pleasure, all other things being supposed equal. An air compofed all of crotchets, or all of quavers, would certainly be more monotonous, and confequently less agreeable than if, in the fame air, without any other alteration, the crotchets and quavers were intermixed with judgment and taste, from

varied measure would result.

On these principles, or rather on the facts we have just established, it is easy to explain why the French, the English, the Italians, the Germans, and others, are sensible of a certain degree of harmony in the Latin language, and in Latin poetry; but it must be allowed, at the same time, and for the fame reafons, that the pleasure which this harmony procures is very imperfect, greatly mutilated, if one may use the expref. fion, and much inferior to the pleafure which the Romans must have enjoyed, in reading their orators and poets. We may add, that even this pleasure is not enjoyed in the fame manner by the different nations of modern times; that one verse of Virgil will appear more harmonious to a Frenchman, another more harmonious to a German, and so on; but that on the whole, these nations will experience the fame degree of pleafure from the harmony of a page of Cicero or of Virgil. They are musicians who all equally corrupt the fame air, but who corrupt it in a different way, tho' at the same time, they preserve nearly the fame proportions in the value of the notes. Hence they experience, nearly in an equal and fimilar degree, the pleafure which arifes from the meafure, a pleafure which is afterwards differently modified by the proportion of the notes in each particular measure, and by the different way in which these notes effect them. But how great is the difference between this maimed pleafure, if I may so speak, and that which the fame air would excite, if it were fung in the taite and stile that belong to it, and especially if executed by the composer himself, and before an audience well versed in the musical art. The fame thing would happen to it that happens to Italian music, when fung sung by foreigners, or by Italians. These think, and with justice, that foreigners murder their music. A Frenchman, or Englishman, finging their music before them, set their teeth on edge; but these foreigners, nevertheless, while they murder the Italian music, have a certain degree of pleasure in it, and are even able to communicate a good deal to their countrymen, who are not destitute either of ear or taste. It is the same body for both, appearing animated to the one, and half dead to the other, bat still preferving, in the opinion of these last, the striking features of beauty and proportion.

offend the greater part of our mo dern scholars; I have known, however, fome who were ingenious enough to confefs themselves unable to difcover the difference.

If we were all equally fo, with regard to the harmony of the dead languages, we would make the fame confession that a Frenchman and an Italian, both of them men of genius, of taste, and of fincerity, mutually made to each other, when converfing on the harmony of their respective tongues. The Frenchman owned to the other, that he never could perceive the harmony of Italian po etry, though he had read a great deal of it, and thought himself pretty much master of the language. "I must accuse myself, faid the Italian, of a fimilar incapacity with regard to French poetry; I think I understand your language tole'rably well; I have read many of your poets; and yet the veries of Chapelain, of Brebeuf, of Racine, ' of Rouffeau, and of Voltaire, feem the fame to my ear; they have no other effect on it, than that of profe rhyme."

This is all that I think can, with reason or truth, be maintained, with regard to the pleasure we experience from the harmony of the dead languages. But are we well enough acquainted with it to diftinguith those shades, I do not mean the strong thades, but those that are more or lefs broken, which mark a difference between the harmony of one author, and that of another I know that there are authors, in whose works we perceive fuch a difference of har-in mony, to a certain degree. Virgil, for instance, seems to us more har monious than Horace in his epistles; because the choice and connection of the words have more softness, melody, and fullness in the former, than in the latter; but the difference vanishes almost entirely, in my opinion, when we compare the harmony of two authors who have written nearly in the same manner, such as Virgil and Lucan. I speak here only of the harmony, I am not talking of the taste which distinguishes those authors, which, proceeding from the energy of the mind alone, may be more eafily appretiated than the sentiment which refults from the cadence of their lines. I very much doubt, if we can perceive the fshades that difcriminate the harmony of each. Such a doubt will probably

This confession brings to my remembrance another pretty fimilar, which I have often heard made by a foreigner, a man of genius, who had been long fettled in France; he several times owned to me, that he was unable to apprehend the merit of Fontaine. I could easily believe him, but how can I, after that, credit the fincerity of a Frenchman, who pretends to be in an extacy at the reading of Anacreon. Don't let me be accused, however, on this account, of an intention to detract from the merits of that poet; I have no doubt, that the Greeks actually thought him a charming author, but I have far less any doubt that a great part of his merit is lost to us; because that merit surely confisted, almost entirely, on the happy use he made of his language, the delicacies of which eannot now be perceived by modern ears. Do the greater part of foreigners who understand the French, feel all the merit of our fongs?

It appears to me, that many of the disputes, with regard to the merit of the ancients, may in this manner be settled. They are certainly our models in many things; they have beau, ties which we can perfectly enjoy.; but they had many which now escape us, which their contemporaries could

sufficiently judge of, and which cur modern scholars cry up, they know not why. The philosopher and man of taste, will often smile at these enthusiasts, without lessening his re spect for the object of their admiration; either an account of the beau, ties which he actually perceives in it, or of those he supposes to have been in it, from the unanimous teftimony of contemporary judges.

Obfervations on the Art of Translation. From the same.

!

AM I rules: this I leave to our writers who have successfully employed themselves in the art of translation, who are best entitled to do so; but they have done better, they have given us-examples. Let us study the art in their works, and not in difputed dogmas';, for what precepts are preferable to the study of good, models? This always diffuses light, while these often darken the subject; in all kinds of literature, reafon has laid down a certain number of rules whichcaprice has extended; pedantry, has clogged these with fetters, which prejudice respects, and which merit dares not shake off. On whatever fide we view the fine arts, we fee mediocrity dictating laws, and genius fubmitting to them, like a monarch imprisoned by flaves. However, if it ought not to allow itself to be fubdued, neither ought it to have unlimited freedom. This rule, so necessary to the progress of literature, should, I think, be extended not onLy to original works, but to works of imitation, such as translations. Let me here endeavour to avoid the two extremes, severity on the one hand, and indulgence on the other, both of them equally dangerous. I shall first examine the laws of tranflation as they respect the genius of authors,

not here about to lay down and then as they relate to the prin ciples which may be laid down in this kind of writing.

It is generally believed, that the art of translating would be most easy, were languages exactly formed on one another; but Limagine in this cafe, we would have many indiffer -ent tranflator., and few good ones. The first would content themselves with a version servilely literal, and. would never attempt any thing fare ther; the others would with, befides, for harmony and smoothness of style, two qualities which good writers havs never neglected, and which, even form the character of some. Thus the translator would have occafion for an extreme acuteness, in order to diftinguish in what cafes the exact perfection of resemblance ought to yield to the graces of diction, without being too much enfeebled. One of the great difficulties in the art of writing, and particularly of travilating, is to knowhow far energy is to be facrificed to dignity, correctness to elegance, and propriety to the mechanism of stile. Reason is a fevere censor, which must be feared, and the ear is a faftidious judge, which must be humoured. We must not, therefore, allow ourselves to tranflate literally, even in places where the geni us of the language seems to permit

it, when the tranflation becomes by But it will be said, is it really that means dry, haríh, and unharmonious.

But however this may be, the difference in the genius of languages, not always allowing literal versions, delivers the tranflator from that difficulty we have just mentioned, from the neceffity in which he would sometimes find himself, of facrificing elegance to precision, or precision to elegance. But the impoffibility of rendering his author word for word, leaves him a dangerous liberty; not being able to give the portrait a perfect resemblance, he ought to be on his guard to give it all it is capable of. Besides, if the nicer beauties of our own language require fo much study in order to be well known, how much more will it require to attain those of a foreign language: and what is a translator without this twofold knowledge? There are some whom we might suppose to be less constrained on this head than the rest, I mean the tranflators of the ancients; if the peculiar beauties of the originals escape them, they likewise escape their judges; and yet, by a strange prejudice, these tranflators are more severely handled than any others. A superslitious reverence for antiquity makes us imagine, that the ancients always expressed themselves in the happiest manner; our ignorance turns every thing to the advantage of the original, and to the disadvantage of the copy. The tranflator always appears to us, not below the idea which the original itself assumes, but below *that which we have of it; and to make the contradiction compleat, we admire, at the fame time, that crowd of modern latinifts, the greater part of whom, infipid in their own language, impose upon us in a tongue which is dead; so true it is, that in languages as in authors, the dead engross all our praife.

true that there is a different genius in languages? I am not ignorant that some modern literati, who picque themselves on a philofophical turn, have supported the contrary opinion; and this absurd opinion has, according to custom, been very unjustly attributed to a spirit of philofophifing. In the hands of a man of genius, every language will conform itself to every stile; it will, according to the subject and the writer, be grave or gay; simple or fublime; in this sense languages have no particular distinguishing character; but if all are equally proper for every fort of composition, they are not equally fit to express the fame idea, and in this the diversity of their genius confifts. Languages, in consequence of this diversity, ought to possess reciprocal advantages: but these advantages will be confiderable in proportion to their variety, brevity, construction, freedom, and copioufness. This last property does not confift in being able to express a fingle idea, by an unmeaning abundance of fynonimous terms, but the different ways of representing the same idea by different terms.

Of all the languages cultivated by man of letters, the Italian is the most varied, the most pliant, the most sufceptible of the different forms which it is necessary, at times, to make it affume; accordingly it is not less rich in good translations, than in excellent vocal music, which is itself a kind of tranflation. The French language, on the contrary, is the most unaccommodating, the most uniform in its construction, and the most constrained in its walk. Is it surprising then, that it should be the touchstone of tranfiators, as it is of poets? And should not its difficulties serve to make us value our good authors the more?

If languages have each their different