The Genius of the Translator should be akin to that of the Original Author.-The best Tranflators have fhone in Original Compofition of the fame Species with that which they have Tranflated.—Of Voltaire's Tranflations from Shakespeare.— Of the Peculiar Character of the Wit of Voltaire.-His Tranflation from Hudibras. -Excellent Anonymous French Tranflation of Hudibras. - Tranflation of Rabelais by Urquhart and Motteux.

ROM the confideration of those ge

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neral rules of tranflation which in the foregoing effay I have endeavoured

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voured to illuftrate, it will appear no unnatural conclufion to affert, that he only is perfectly accomplished for the duty of a tranflator who poffeffes a genius akin to that of the original author. I do not mean to carry this propofition

fo far as to affirm, that in order to give a perfect tranflation of the works of Cicero, a man muft actually be as great an orator, or inherit the fame extent of philofophical genius; but he must have a mind capable of difcerning the full merits of his original, of attending with an acute perception to the whole of his reafoning, and of entering with warmth and energy of feeling into all the beauties of his compofition. Thus we shall observe invariably, that the best translators have been thofe writers who have compofed original works of the fame fpe

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cies with those which they have tranflated. The mutilated verfion which yet remains to us of the Timæus of Plato tranflated by Cicero, is a masterly compofition, which, in the opinion of the best judges, rivals the merit of the original. A fimilar commendation cannot be bestowed on those fragments of the Phanomena of Aratus tranflated into verfe by the fame author; for Cicero's poetical talents were not remarkable: bút who can entertain a doubt, that had time spared to us his verfions of the orations of Demofthenes and Æfchines, we should have found them poffeffed of the moft tranfcendent merit?

We have obferved, in the preceding part of this effay, that poetical translation is lefs fubjected to reftraint than profe tranflation, and allows more of the free

dom of original compofition. It will hence follow, that to exercise this freedom with propriety, a translator must have the talent of original compofition in poetry; and therefore, that in this fpecies of tranflation, the poffeffion of a genius akin to that of his author, is more effentially neceffary than in any other. We know the remark of Denham, that the fubtle fpirit of poefy evaporates entirely in the transfufion from one language into another, and that unlefs a new, or an original fpirit, is infufed by the translator himself, there will remain nothing but a caput mortuum. The best tranflators of poetry, therefore, have been those who have approved their talents in original poetical compofition. Dryden, Pope, Addifon, Rowe, Tickell, Pitt, Warton, Mafon, and Murphy, rank equally

equally high in the list of original poets, as in that of the tranflators of poetry.

BUT as poetical compofition is various in its kind, and the characters of the different fpecies of poetry are extremely dif tinct, and often oppofite in their nature, it is very evident that the poffeffion of talents adequate to one fpecies of tranflation, as to one fpecies of original poetry, will not infer the capacity of excelling in other fpecies of which the character is different. Still further, it may be obferved, that as there are certain fpecies of poetical compofition, as, for example, the dramatic, which, though of the fame general character in all nations, will take a strong tincture of difference from the manners of a country, or the peculiar genius of a people; fo it will be found,

that