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able literary abilities, and who pofleffed an uncommon knowledge both of the ancient and modern languages. Of the merits of the tranflation, none could be a better judge, and to these he has given the strongest teftimony, by adopting it entirely in his new edition, and limiting his own undertaking solely to the correction of the text of Urquhart and Motteux, to which he has added a tranflation of the notes of M. Du Chat, who spent, as Mr Ozell informs us, forty years in compofing annotations on the original work. The English verfion of Rabelais thus improved, may be confidered, in its prefent form, as one of the most perfect specimens of the art of tranflation. The best critics in both languages have borne teftimony to its faithful transfufion of the fenfe, and

happy

happy imitation of the style of the original; and every English reader will acknowledge, that it poffeffes all the ease of original compofition. If I have forborne to illuftrate any of the rules or precepts of the preceding Effay from this work, my reafons were, that obfcurity I have already noticed, which rendered it lefs fit for the purpose of fuch illuftration, and that ftrong tincture of licentioufnefs which characterifes the whole work.

A P

N° I.

STANZAS from TICKELL's Ballad of COLIN

and LUCY.

Tranflated by LE MIERRE.

CHERES compagnes, je vous laisse;

Une voix semble m'apeller,

Une main que je vois fans ceffe
Me fait figne de m'en aller.

L'ingrat que j'avois cru fincere

Me fait mourir, fi jeune encor:
Une plus riche a sçu lui plaire :

Moi qui l'aimois, voila mon fort!

Ah Colin! ah! que vas tu faire?

Rends moi mon bien, rends-moi ta foi;

Et toi que fonceur me préfère

De fes baisers detourne toi.

Dès le matin en époufée

A l'eglife il te conduira;
Mais homme faux, fille abufée,
Songez que Lucy fera là.

Filles,

Filles, portez-moi vers ma foffe ;

Que l'ingrat me rencontre alors, Lui, dans fon bel habit de noce,

Et Lucy fons le drap des morts.

I hear a voice you cannot hear,
Which fays I must not flay;
I fee a band you cannot fee,
Which beckons me away.

By a falfe heart, and broken vows,
In early youth 1 die;

Am I to blame, because his bride

Is thrice as rich, as I?

Ab Colin, give not her thy vows,

Vows due to me alone;

Nor thou, fond maid, receive his kifs,

Nor think him all thy own.

To-morrow in the church to wed,

Impatient both prepare,

But know, fond maid, and know, false man,
That Lucy will be there.

There bear my corfe, ye comrades, bear,

The bridegroom blithe to meet ;

He in his wedding-trim fo gay,

I in my winding-sheet.

No II.

N° II.

ODE V. of the First Book of HORACE,

Tranflated by MILTON.

Quis multa gracilis, &c.

WHAT flender youth, bedew'd with liquid odours,

Courts thee on rofes in fome pleasant cave?
Pyrrha, for whom bin't thou

In wreaths thy goiden hair,

Plain in thy neatnefs? O how oft shall he
On faith and changed Gods complain, and seas
Rough with black winds, and ftorms.
Unwonted, fhall admire,

Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold,
Who always vacant, always amiable,

Hopes thee; of flattering gales
Unmindful? Hapless they

To whom thou untry'd seem'st fair. Me in my
Picture the facred wall declares t' have hung

My dank and dropping weeds

To the ftern God of fea,

vow'd

No III.

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