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    translators have failed in general , not so much from want of talent or learning , but from aiming to produce poems in modern style , through an excessive fear that a modern reader will endure nothing else . " Yet he thinks something may still be done to give the English reader a taste of Horace . * " I avow myself to despair of finding readers among those who seek solely for amusement . I bespeak for myself a thoughtful and serious reader , anxious for instruction . I assume in him no knowledge whatever of ancient languages or

    literature , except to have read Homer in a translation ; and I endeavour to afford whatever ia subsidiary to full intelligence , —whatever will aid him to that close insight into men and times , which nothing but contemporary literature can ever give /' He has discarded rhyme , and adopted new metres , not such as correspond with the original ( for he rightly sees the fallacy of all modern attempts to write ancient metres ) , but such as , in his opinion , may represent them . But in discarding rhyme , he has not discarded the periphrasis into which ( while excusing ) rhyme seduces a writer . Thus , opening the well-thumbed

    page— " Maecenas atavis edite regibus , " &c , we find— " 0 my bulwark and sweet ornament , Sprung from royalty of Lydian eld . " Not only is this periphrastic , but it is inaccurate ; the words " bulwark " and " ornament" do not , in any degree , raise up the ideas of the original , " presidium" and " decus . " ! This fault is constant . We do not blame Professor Newman for the fault—we indicate it . Only a poet can translate a poet , and even a poet will not translate with perfect success . Apart from this general inaccuracy of rendering , which one may erpect to find in translation , there are several instances wherein Professor Newman , as it seems to us , goes directly counter to the meaning . Here is one . In the ode to Necera — " Nox erat , et coelo fulgebat Luna sereno Inter minora sidera , Quum tu , magnorum numen laesura deorum , In verba jurabas mea , Arctius atque hedera procera adstringitur ilex , Lentis adhaerens brachiis , " is translated thus : — " 'Twas night , and in the sky serene The Moon among the smaller lights was shining ' , When tliou , with languid arms to me Clasp'd nearer than to lofty holm the ivy , Ev ' n thou , a scorner soon to prove Of mighty gods , my sacred oath didst utter . " There is one beautiful line in this , beautiful also as a translation" The moon among the smaller lights was shining ;" but we mi 88 the not unintended rapprochement of minora sidera and magnorum deorum ; " a scorner soon to prove , " is bad ; and " languid arms" decidedly questionable . On it he has this note : — " Languid , is an insufficient translation of the Latin epithet lentus , which here means soft , dead , unstrung , yet sticky as glue . I am told that English taste would not bear the phrase ' gluey arms' or even torpid arms . '" Surely , Professor Newman has mistaken the meaning of lentus here ? Horace could never have spoken of torpid arms clinging like the ivy ; nor would the English be justified in tolerating " gluey arms . " Lentis brachiis means " with tender arms , " or " clinging arms , " anything , in short , but languid . We will give an entire ode— Quum tu , Lydia , Tclephi—and bid the reader compare it with the original ( Carm . i . 13 ) : — " Lydia ! whSn thy lips extol Telephus for neck of rosy tint , Telephus for arms of wax , How with burning pain my bile o ' erflows ! Then nor mind to mo nor hue Sound and firm abides : adown my cheeks Steals tho teardrop , and reveals Fires that inly smouldering eat my heart . Stung am I , when tipsy frays Leave dishonour on thy shoulders bright ; Stung , whene ' er tho frenzied boy Scars thy lip with self-recording tooth . jNny , —if me" so far thou hear , — Hope not constant him , who barbarous marn Kisses sweet , which Venus' self Drugs with nil her nectar ' s quintessence . Happy , thrice and more , are , they , Whom , in bonds unbroken , Faith retains . Them no foolish wvil strife Itcnds apart , but Love and Life , uro one . " " Tipsy frayH , " conveys none of tho peculiarity of immodicee nicro rix / e- ; nor is " scars thy lip with self-recording tooth , " a translation of Imprcssit memorem dente labris notam ; the tooth records tho piisflion of Telophus , not its own existence . Tho phrase is met with in Catullus : " Quoin bnftiuhis ? quoi luhella mordebis ?" But apart from details , consider this odo , and ask whether , if Horace had written in that stylo , Professor Newman would now bo translating him F Wo need not await tho answer . One moro example , it shall bo the lust , illustrates tho variations ol moaning . Horace bids tho vessel" IntcrftiHit nitenten Vites icquoru Cycludtut ;" which runs easily into verse" Avoid the fieus That dash amongst tho shining Cycludea . "

    Professor Newman , renders it quite as penphrastically as we have done , and without a verse : — " O mayst thou shun fhe rocks Studded close in the Cyclad deep . " From what has been said , it will be gathered that we do not look for much success in rendering Horace the companion of the English reader , either by Professor Newman or another . There are two things possible : a prose translation , useful as a " crib , " and a poetic paraphrase delightful in itself ; but the man capable of writing the latter would be better employed on original works . There is a class , however , to whom this volume will not be unacceptable ; but it will be so from its scholarship , not from its translations . To

    that class , also , we commend the second work placed at the head of this article , one of a handsome series , BibliotJieca Glassica , edited by George Long and Arthur Macleane . It is at once a valuable library edition and an useful college book . The commentary is ample and minute , but not overloaded , as other commentaries are , with those eternal citations repeated from edition to edition . The introductions are erudite , dogmatic , and to the purpose . The fragments of Greek writers to whom Horace is indebted , or supposed to be indebted , are given -when attainable , and six indexes facilitate reference to the works and notes . Thus much a brief inspection , critical inspection , enables us to say of Mr . Macleane's Horace . To form a more absolute opinion would require weeks of close application , and many columns to substantiate it . We must leave it to scholars to settle its claims .

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    BONER'S CHAMOIS HUNTING . Chamois Hunting in the Mountains ofBavaria . By Charles Boner . With Illustrations by Theodore Horschelt , of Munich . Chapman and Hall . To those who have been carried breathless with interest through Scrope's work on Deer Stalking , we commend this as a companion volume . To those , moreover , who , like ourselves , have ineffaceable recollections of happy hours spent among the mountains of Bavaria and the Tyrol , we commend this volume ; it is one that will bring up old familiar scenes to tho mind , like as when we meet in a foreign land with a compatriot who has left our long unvisifced home , and brings with him tidings of those we want to see . Finally , to those who , languid over worn-out tracks of travel , commend this volume fresh

    seek for something new to interest , we as a , a pleasant , and an instructive companion . Mr . Boner writes with gusto , and writes from experience . He enjoys the bracing air of those icy solitudes , he lingers delighted over their craggy precipices , he enters into the sport with the passion of a sportsman , and has the good taste to avoid the sportsman's slang and Munchausenisms . We stalk with him , hope with him , tremble with him , triumph with him . We make friends of his peasant friends ; and almost find ourselves sharing his sportsmanlike " preserving" tendencies . An extract or two will , better than any criticism , introduce the reader to a proper acquaintance with the book . Here , for example , ia a description which will be recognised by every one who has ever been alone among the mountains . THE WAY O ' ER THE MOUNTAINS . " In the mountains , all is on so large a scale , the stranger is constantly deceiving himself as to distance . A trifling change of position , too , makes everything look quite different . In descending from an eminence , the forms selected as landmarks are at once lost sight of ; on getting nearer to the foot of the mountains , the seemingly narrow valley opens Into breadth : hill , mound , dell , all unperceived till now , start into sight ; you become confused by a multitude of objects not calculated on before , and , having already perhaps deviated from the straight line to evade a precipice or to cross a torrent , aro wholly at ii loss what direction to take . You look back to reconnoitre the ground and find your starting-point . Hut it is not to be found : all is changed ; other forms are seen up against the sky ; no single feature that was thero before is now to be recognised . You turn round and ask yourself if in coming downwards yonder peak with snow was not on your right ,

    and you are not sure of the answer , for there is another very like it where snow is also lying : —how then distinguish between them ? And if you determine to go straight on toward the distant ridge , on getting there at last after two hours ' desperate climbing , all again is like an unknown land , and not a single mountaintop that forms part of tho new horizon have you ever I ) eheld before . Landmark you have none—the few you bad are now irrecoverably lost . There you stand in vast spnee , utterly helpless . Far , far around you riso those sharp lines against the sky which bounds your present world . How gladly would you look into the space beyond , and strive ' to catch at hope ! Hut this ' beyond' U shut out from you as impenetrably as that vague unknown which is beyond the grave . And you still keep yonr look fixed on tboso impassable barriers : u utrange irresistible power seems to rivet your staring eyes upon them , and you gii / . o on with awe , and dread ,

    and longing ! ' * Ay , with awe ! for they stand before you , thoso huge forms , in overpowering , unparti ' eiputing stillness . All is motionless . Nothing Ktirs that forms n part of them . A shadow may flit across their face , but that is an extraneous thing , and when it bus swept by , tliero they arc , still in the same cold , rigid imperturbability . If only a tree wort ; there , with its softer outline , and its boughs , though not moving , lit least conveying tho feeling that they might move , as being a thing with life ! lint no , the bard lines of those fixed features are unrelieved by one milder form ; stillness , unwaning stillness , sits on them nverla-st ingly , like Death ! Ami yet you gaze on them with longing;—( he longing that with your vision you could j > enetra < o what is beyond . Jt is a yearning Mich m tho . soul feels to know of that ' other Hi < lo' which will be seen only after death . " Hero , again , is a sketch of HOW WK TUAOKKI ) TlfK CHAMOIS .

    " Tho morning was clear nnd bright , and not a breath of wind was slirrmer , —an essential thing for the clinniois hunter ; for if Mm air be not calm , all bin skill , perseverance , und daring , will avail him nothing . At best even it is difficult to calculate on tho gusts that will sometime * < : omo suddenly riwinp up a ehnsin , or sweeping downwardu just ; as bo gets round a Hhoulder of a , mountain . Thus , when ho thinks all in won , and bo rejoices in his panting heart at tho success which in about to crown his labour , the taint of bis prosonce will bo homo along on tho rippling uir , and tho herd on whom for tho last hour his longing eyo baa been , bo intently fixed

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    April 16 , 1853 . ] THE LEADEE . 379

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 16, 1853, page 379, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1982/page/19/