can fcarcely derive from them any ad vantage * To the moderns the art of translation is of greater importance than it was to the ancients, in the fame proportion that the great mafs of ancient and of modern literature, accumulated up to the prefent times, bears to the general stock of learning in the most enlightened periods of antiquity. But it is a fingular confideration, that under the daily experience of the advantages of good tranflations, in opening to us all the ftores of ancient knowledge, and creating a free intercourse of science and of literature between all modern nations, there should have * There remain of Cicero's tranflations fome fragments of the OEconomics of Xenophon, the Timæus of Plato, and part of a poetical verfion of the Phenos mena of Aratus, have been fo little done towards the im provement of the art itself, by investigating its laws, or unfolding its principles. Unless a very fhort effay, published by M. D'Alembert, in his Mélanges de Litterature, d' Hiftoire, &c. as introductory to his translations of fome pieces of Tacitus, and fome remarks on translation by the Abbé Batteux, in his Principes de la Litterature, I have met with nothing that has been written profeffedly upon the fubject. The obfervations of M. * When the firft edition of this Effay was published, the Author had not feen Dr Campbell's new translation of the Gofpels, a moft elaborate and learned work, in one of the preliminary differtations to which, that ingenious writer has treated profeffedly "Of the chief "things to be attended to in tranflating." The gene, ral laws of the art as briefly laid down in the first part of that differtation are individually the fame with thofe contained in this Effay; a circumftance which, indes pendently of that fatisfaction which always arifes from finding our opinions warranted by the concurring judgement of perfons of distinguished ingenuity and taste, M. d'Alembert, though extremely judicious, are too general to be confidered as rules, or even principles of the art; and the remarks of the Abbé Batteux are employed chiefly on what may be termed the Philofophy of Grammar, and feem to have for their principal object the ascertainment of the analogy that tafte, affords a ftrong prefumption that thofe opinions are founded in nature and in common fenfe. Another work on the fame fubject had likewife efcaped the Author's obfervation when he firft publifhed this Effay; an elegant poem on tranflation, by Mr Francklin, the ingenious tranflator of Sophocles and Lucian. It is, however, rather an apology of the art, and a vindication of its juft rank in the fcale of literature, than a didactic work explanatory of its principles. But above all, the Author has to regret, that, in spite of his moft diligent refearch, he has never yet been fortunate enough to meet with the work of a celebrated writer, profeffedly on the fubject of translation, the treatise of M. Huet, Bishop of Avranches, De optimo genere interpretandi ; *whofe doctrines, however, he has fome knowledge, from a pretty full extract of his work in the Dictionnaire Encyclopédique de Grammaire et Litterature, article Tray duction, of that one language bears to another, or the pointing out of thofe circumstances of construction and arrangement in which languages either agree with, or differ from each other *. WHILE fuch has been our ignorance of the principles of this art, it is not at all * Founding upon this principle, which he has by no means proved, That the arrangement of the Greek and Latin languages is the order of nature, and that the modern tongues ought never to deviate from that order, but for the fake of sense, perspicuity, or harmony; he proceeds to lay down fuch rules as the following : That the periods of the translation fhould accord in all their parts with those of the original that their order, and even their length, fhould be the fame that all conjunctions fhould be fcrupulously preferved, as being the joints or articulations of the members that all adverbs should be ranged next to the verb, &c. It may be confidently afferted, that the Tranflator who shall endeavour to conform himself to these rules, even with the licence allowed of facrificing to fenfe, perfpi- • cuity, and harmony, will produce, on the whole, a very forry compofition, which will be far from reflect. ing a juft picture of his original. 1 all wonderful, that amidst the numberless translations which every day appear, both of the works of the ancients and moderns, there fhould be fo few that are poffeffed of real merit. The utility of translations is universally felt, and therefore there is a continual demand for them. But this very circumftance has thrown the practice of tranflation into mean and mercenary hands. It is a profeffion which, it is generally believed, may be exercised with a very fmall portion of genius or abilities *. "It seems to me," fays Dryden, "that the true ❝reafon * Such is our pride, our folly, or our fate, That few, but such as cannot write, translate. Denham to Sir R. Fanshawe hands impure dispense The facred ftreams of ancient eloquence; Pedants affume the task for fcholars fit, Tranflation by Franckline |