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contribute to its improvement. I immediately rang my bell to forbid all visitants, when my servant opened the door, with "Sir, Mr. Jeffrey Gape." My cup dropped out of one hand, and my poem out of the other. I could scarcely ask him to sit; he told me he was going to walk, but as there was a likelihood of rain, he would sit with me; he said, he intended at first to have called at Mr. Vacant's, but as he had not seen me a great while, he did not mind coming out of his way to wait on me; I made him a bow, but thanks for the favour stuck in my throat. I asked him if he had been to the coffee-house; he replied, two hours.

Under the oppression of this dull interruption, I sat looking wishfully at the clock; for which, to increase my satisfaction, I had chosen the inscription, "Art is long, and life is short; " exchanging questions and answers at long intervals, and not without some hints that the weather-glass promised fair weather. At half an hour after three he told me he would trespass on me for a dinner, and desired me to send to his house for a bundle of papers, about inclosing a common upon his estate, which he would read to me in the evening. I declared myself busy, and Mr. Gape went away.

went full of vexation, and was involved in business till eight at night; and then, being too much fatigued to study, supped, and went to bed.

It must

Here my friend's journal concludes, which perhaps is pretty much a picture of the manner in which many prosecute their studies. I therefore resolved to send it you, imagining, that, if you think it worthy of appearing in your paper, some of your readers may receive entertainment by recognizing a resemblance between my friend's conduct and their own. be left to the Idler accurately to ascertain the proper methods of advancing in literature; but this one position, deducible from what has been said above, may, I think, be reasonably asserted, that he who finds himself strongly attracted to any particular study, though it may happen to be out of his proposed scheme, if it is not trifling or vicious, had better continue his application to it, since it is likely that he will with much more ease and expedition, attain that which a warm inclination stimulates him to pursue, than that at which a prescribed law compels him to toil. I am, Sir, &c.

No. 68.]

SATURDAY, AUG. 4, 1759.

centuries, none has been more diligently or more successfully cultivated than the art of translation; by which the impediments which bar the way to science, are, in some measure, removed, and the multiplicity of languages becomes less incommodious.

Having dined, to compose my chagrin, I took my Virgil, and several other classics, but could not calm my mind, or proceed in my scheme. At about five I laid my hand on a AMONG the studies which have exercised the Bible that lay on my table, at first with cold-ingenious and the learned for more than three ness and insensibility; but was imperceptibly engaged in a close attention to its sublime morality, and felt my heart expanded by warm philanthropy, and exalted to dignity of sentiment. I then censured my too great solicitude, and my disgust conceived at my acquaintance, who had been so far from designing to offend, Of every other kind of writing the ancients that he only meant to show kindness and re- have left us models which all succeeding ages spect. In this strain of mind I wrote "An have laboured to imitate; but translation may Essay on Benevolence," and "An Elegy on justly be claimed by the moderns as their own. Sublunary Disappointments. " When I had In the first ages of the world instruction was finished these at eleven, I supped and recol- commonly oral, and learning traditional, and lected how little I had adhered to my plan, and what was not written could not be translated. almost questioned the possibility of pursuing When alphabetical writing made the conveyany settled and uniform design; however, Iance of opinions and the transmission of was not so far persuaded of the truth of these events more easy and certain, literature did suggestions, but that I resolved to try once more not flourish in more than one country at once, at my scheme. As I observed the moon shin- for distant nations had little commerce with ing through my window, from a calm and each other; and those few whom curiosity bright sky, spangled with innumerable stars, sent abroad in quest of improvement, deliverI indulged a pleasing meditation on the splen- ed their acquisitions in their own manner, did scene, and finished my "Ode to Astro-desirous perhaps to be considered as the inventors of that which they had learned from others.

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Wednesday. Rose at seven, and employed three hours in perusal of the "Scriptures with Grotius's Comment ;" and after breakfast fell into meditation concerning my projected Epic; and being in some doubt as to the particular lives of some heroes, whom I proposed to celebrate, I consulted Bayle and Moreri, and was engaged two hours in examining various lives and characters, but then resolved to go to my employment. When I was seated at my desk, and began to feel the glowing succession of poetical ideas, my servant brought me a letter from a lawyer requiring my instant attendance at Gray's Inn for half an hour. 1

The Greeks for a time travelled into Egypt, but they translated no books from the Egyptian language; and when the Macedonians had overthrown the empire of Persia, the countries that became subject to Grecian dominion studied only the Grecian literature. The books of the conquered nations, if they had any among them, sunk into oblivion; Greece considered herself as the mistress, if not as the parent of arts; her language contained all that was supposed to be known, and, except the sacred writings of the Old Testament know

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not that the library of Alexandria adopted any thing from a foreign tongue.

The Romans confessed themselves the scholars of the Greeks, and do not appear to have expected what has since happened, that the ignorance of succeeding ages would prefer them to their teachers. Every man, who in Rome aspired to the praise of literature, thought it necessary to learn Greek, and had no need of versions when they could study the originals. Translation, however, was not wholly neglected. Dramatic poems could be understood by the people in no language but their own, and the Romans were sometimes entertained with the tragedies of Euripides and the comedies of Menander. Other works were sometimes attempted; in an old scholiast there is mention of a Latin Iliad; and we have not wholly lost Tully's version of the poem of Aratus; but it does not appear that any man grew eminent by interpreting another, and perhaps it was more frequent to translate for exercise or amusement, than for fame.

The Arabs were the first nation who felt the ardour of translation: when they had subdued the eastern provinces of the Greek empire, they found their captives wiser than themselves, and made haste to relieve their wants by imparted knowledge. They discovered that many might grow wise by the labour of a few, and that improvements might be made with speed, when they had the knowledge of former ages in their own language. They therefore made haste to lay hold on medicine and philosophy, and turned their chief authors into Arabic. Whether they attempted the poets is not known; their literary zeal was vehement, but it was short, and probably expired before they had time to add the arts of elegance those of necessity.

ing; the epidemical emulation spread from south to north, and curiosity and translation found their way to Britain.

No. 69.] SATURDAY, AUG. 11, 1759.

HE that reviews the progress of English literature, will find that translation was very early cultivated among us, but that some principles either wholly erroneous or too far extended, hindered our success from being always equal to our diligence.

Chaucer, who is generally considered as the father of our poetry, has left a version of Bœtius on the Comforts of Philosophy, the book which seems to have been the favourite of the middle ages, which had been translated into Saxon by King Alfred, and illustrated with a copious Comment ascribed to Aquinas. It may be supposed that Chaucer would apply more than common attention to an author of so much celebrity, yet he has attempted nothing higher than a version strictly literal, and has degraded the poetical parts to prose, that the constraint of versification might not obstruct his zeal for fidelity.

Caxton taught us typography about the year 1474. The first book printed in English was a translation. Caxton was both the translator and printer of the Destruction of Troye, a book which, in that infancy of learning, was con sidered as the best account of the fabulous ages, and which, though now driven out of notice by authors of no greater use or value, still continued to be read in Caxton's English to the beginning of the present century.

Caxton proceeded as he began,and except the poems of Gower and Chaucer, printed nothing but translations from the French, in which the original is so scupulously followed, that they afford us little knowledge of our own language; though the words are English, the phrase is foreign.

The study of ancient literature was interrupted in Europe by the irruption of the northern nations, who subverted the Roman empire, and erected new kingdoms with new langua- As learning advanced, new works were ges. It is not strange, that such confusion adopted into our language, but I think with should suspend literary attention; those who little improvement of the art of translation, lost, and those who gained dominion, had im- though foreign nations and other languages mediate difficulties to encounter, and imme- offered us models of a better method; till in the diate miseries to redress, and had little leisure, age of Elizabeth we began to find that greater amidst the violence war, the trepidation of liberty was necessary to elegance, and that flight the distresses of forced migration, or elegance was necessary to general reception; the tumults of unsettled conquest, to inquire some essays were then made upon the Italian after speculative truth, to enjoy the amuse-poets, which deserve the praise and gratitude ment of imaginary adventures, to know the of posterity. history of former ages, or study the events of any other lives. But no sooner had this chaos of dominion sunk into order, than learning began again to flourish in the calm of peace. When life and possessions were secure, convenience and enjoyment were soon sought, learning was found the highest gratification of the mind, and translation became one of the means by which it was imparted.

At last, by a concurrence of many causes, the European world was roused from its lethargy; those arts which had been long obscurely studied in the gloom of monasteries became the general favourites of mankind; every nation vied with its neighbour for the prize of learn

Put the old practice was not suddenly forsaken; Holland filled the nation with literal translation; and what is yet more strange, the same exactness was obstinately practised in the versions of the poets. This absurd labour of construing into rhyme was countenanced by Jonson in his version of Horace; and whether it be that more men have learning than genius, or that the endeavours of that time were more directed towards knowledge than delight, the accuracy of Jonson found more imitators than the elegance of Fairfax; and May, Sandys, and Holiday, confined themselves to the toil of rendering line for line, not indeed with equal

felicity, for May and Sandys were poets, and | ing which he possess himself, and wishes to Holiday only a scholar and a critic. be admired rather than understood, he counFeltham appears to consider it as the esta-teracts the first end of writing and justly sufblished law of poetical tranlation, that the fers the utmost severity of censure, or the lines should be neither more nor fewer than more afflictive severity of neglect. those of the original; and so long had this prejudice prevailed, that Denham praises Fanshaw's version of Guarini as the example of a new and noble way," as the first attempt to break the boundaries of custom, and assert the natural freedom of the Muse.

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But words are only hard to those who do not understand them; and the critic ought always to inquire, whether he is incommoded by the fault of the writer, or by his own.

Every author does not write for every reader; many questions are such as the illiterate part of mankind can have neither interest nor pleasure to discussing, and which therefore it would be a useless endeavour to level with common minds, by tiresome circumlocutions or laborious explanations; and many subjects of general use may be treated in a different manner, as the book is intended for the learn. ed or the ignorant. Diffusion and explication are necessary to the instruction of those who, being neither able nor accustomed to think for themselves, can learn only what is express

In the general emulation of wit and genius which the festivity of the Restoration produced, the poets shook of their constraint, and considered translation as no longer confined to servile closeness. But reformation is seldom the work of pure virtue, or unassisted reason. Translation was improved more by accident than conviction. The writers of the foregoing age had at least learning equal to their genius, and being often more able to explain the sentiments or illustrate the allusions of the ancients, than to exhibit their graces and trans-ly taught; but they who can form parallels, fuse their spirit, were perhaps willing sometimes to conceal their want of poetry by profusion of literature, and therefore translated literally, that their fidelity might shelter their insipidity or harshness. The wits of Charles' time had seldom more than slight and superficial views; and their care was, to hide their want of learning behind the colours of a gay imagination: they therefore translated always with freedom, sometimes with licentiousness, and perhaps expected that their readers should accept sprightliness for knowledge, and consider ignorance and mistake as impatience and negligence of a mind too rapid to stop at difficulties, and too elevated to descend to mi

nuteness.

Thus was translation made more easy to the writer, and more delightful to the reader; and there is no wonder if ease and pleasure have found their advocates. The paraphrastic liberties have been almost universally admitted; and Sherbourn, whose learning was eminent, and who had no need of any excuse to pass slightly over obscurities, is the only writer who in later times has attempted to justify or revive the ancient severity.

discover consequences, and multiply conclu sions, are best pleased with involution of argument and compression of thought; they desire only to receive the seeds of knowledge which they may branch out by their own power to have the way to truth pointed out, which they can follow without a guide.

The Guardian directs one of his pupils "to think with the wise, but speak with the vulgar." This is a precept specious enough, but not always practicable. Difference of thoughts will produce difference of language. He that thinks with more extent than another will want words of larger meaning; he that thinks with more subtility will seek for terms of more nice discrimination; and where is the wonder, since words are but the images of things, that he who never knew the original should not know the copies ?

Yet vanity inclines us to find faults any where rather than in ourselves. He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency; but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood?

There is undoubtedly a mean to be observed. Dryden saw very early that closeness best preserved an author's sense, and that freedom" best exhibited his spirit; he therefore will deserve the highest praise, who can give a representation at once faithful and pleasing, who can convey the same thoughts with the same graces, and who, when he translates, changes nothing but the language.

No. 70.] SATUrday, Aug. 18, 1759.

Few faults of style whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of a more numerous class of readers than the use of hard words.

If an author be supposed to involve his thoughts in voluntary obscurity, and to obstruct, by unnecessary difficulties, a mind eager in pursuit of truth; if he writes not to make others learned, but to boast the learn

Among the hards words which are no longer to be used, it has been long the custom to number terms of art. "Every man," says Swift, is more able to explain the subject of an art than it professors; a farmer will tell you in two words, that he has broken his leg; but a surgeon, after a long discourse, shall leave you as ignorant as you were before." This could only have been said by such an exact observer of life, in gratification of malignity, or in ostentation of acuteness. Every hour produces instances of the necessity of terms of art. Mankind could never conspire in uniform affectation; it is not but by necessity that every science and every trade has its peculiar language. They that content themselves with general ideas may rest in general terms; but those whose studies or employments force them upon closer inspection, must have names for particular parts, and words by which they may express various modes of combination,

such as none but themselves have occasion to | timents, about a state too high for contempt consider. and too low for envy, about homely quiet, and Artists are indeed sometimes ready to sup-blameless simplicity, pastoral delights, and pose that none can be strangers to words to rural innocence. which themselves are familiar, talk to an incidental inquirer as they talk to one another, and make their knowledge ridiculous by injudicious obtrusion. An art cannot be taught but by its proper terms, but it is not always necessary to teach the art.

His friends who had estates in the country, often invited him to pass the summer among them, but something or other had always hin dered him; and he considered that to reside in the house of another man was to incur a kind of dependence inconsistent with that laxity of life which he had imagined as the chief good.

That the vulgar express their thoughts clearly is far from true; and what perspicuity can be found among them proceeds not from the This summer he resolved to be happy, and easiness of their language, but the shallow-procured a lodging to be taken for him at a soliness of their thoughts. He that sees a build- tary house, situated about thirty miles from ing as a common spectator, contents himself London on the banks of a small river, with with relating that it is great or little, mean or corn-fields before it and a hill on each side cosplendid, lofty or low; all these words are vered with wood. He concealed the place of intelligible and common, but they convey no his retirement, that none might violate his obdistinct or limited ideas; if he attempts, scurity, and promised himself many a happy without the terms of architecture, to delinate day when he should hide himself among the the parts, or enumerate the ornaments, his trees, and contemplate the tumults and vexanarration at once becomes unintelligible. The tions of the town. terms, indeed, generally displease, because He stepped into the post-chaise with his they are understood by few; but they are little heart beating and his eyes sparkling, was understood only because few that look upon an conveyed through many varieties of delightedifice, examine its parts, or analyse its co-ful prospects, saw hills and meadows, cornlumns into their members.

The state of every other art is the same; as it is cursorily surveyed or accurately examined, different forms of expression become proper. In morality it is one thing to discuss the niceties of the casuist, and another to direct the practice of common life. In agriculture, he that instructs the farmer to plough and sow, may convey his notions without the words which he would find necessary in explaining to philosophers the process of vegetation; and if he who has nothing to do but to be honest by the shortest way, will perplex his mind with subtile speculations; or if he, whose task is to reap and thresh, will not be contented without examining the evolution of the seed, and circulation of the sap, the writers whom either shall consult are very little to be blamed, though it should sometimes happen that they are read in vain.

No. 71.] SATURDAY, AUG. 25, 1759.

DICK SHIFTER was born in Cheapside, and having passed reputably through all the classes of St. Paul's school, has been for some years a student in the Temple. He is of opinion, that intense application dulls the faculties, and thinks it necessary to temper the severity of the law by books that engage the mind, but do not fatigue it. He has therefore made a copious collection of plays, poems, and romances, to which he has recourse when he fancies himself tired with statutes and reports; and he seldom inquires very nicely whether he is weary or idle.

Dick has received from his favourite authors very strong impressions of a country life; and though his furthest excursions have been to Greenwich on one side, and Chelsea on the other, he has talked for several years with great pomp of language and elevation of sen

fields and pasture, succeed each other, and for four hours charged none of his poets with fiction or exaggeration. He was now within six miles of happiness, when, having never felt so much agitation before, he began to wish his journey at an end, and the last hour was passed in changing his posture and quarrelling with his driver.

An hour may be tedious but cannot be long. He at length alighted at his new dwelling, and was received as he expected; he looked round upon the hills and rivulets, but his joints were stiff and his muscles sore, and his first request was to see his bed-chamber.

He rested well, and ascribed the soundness of his sleep to the stillness of the country. He expected from that time nothing but nights of quiet and days of rapture, and, as soon as he had risen wrote an account of his new state to one of his friends in the Temple.

"Dear Frank.

"I never pitied thee before. I am now as I could wish every man of wisdom and virtue to be, in the regions of calm content and placid meditation; with all the beauties of nature soliciting my notice, and all the diversities of pleasure courting my acceptance; the birds are chirping in the hedges, and the flowers blooming in the mead; the breeze is whistling in the wood, and the sun dancing on the water. I can now say with truth, that a man, capable of enjoying the purity of happiness, is never more busy than in his hours of leisure, nor ever less solitary than in a place of solitude.

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I am, dear Frank, &c."

When he had sent away his letter, he walked into the wood, with some inconvenience, from the furze that pricked his legs, and the briers that scratched his face. He at last sat down under a tree, and heard with great delight a shower, by which he was not wet, rattling

among the branches: this, said he, is the true image of obscurity; we hear of troubles and commotions, but never feel them.

who told him, that, unless he made fariner Dobson satisfaction for trampling his grass, he had orders to indict him. Shifter was offended but not terrified; and, telling the attorney that he was himself a lawyer, talked so volubly of pettifoggers and barraters, that he drove him away.

Finding his walks thus interrupted, he was inclined to ride, and being pleased with the appearance of a horse that was grazing in a neighbouring meadow, inquired the owner, who warranted him sound, and would not sell him, but that he was too fine for a plain man, Dick paid down the price, and, riding out to enjoy the evening, fell with his new horse into a ditch; they got out with difficulty, and as he was going to mount again, a countryman looked at the horse, and perceived him to be blind. Dick went to the seller, and demanded

His amusement did not overpower the calls of nature, and he therefore went back to order his dinner. He knew that the country produces whatever is eaten or drunk, and imagining that he was now at the source of luxury, resolved to indulge himself with dainties which he supposed might be procured at a price next to nothing, if any price at all was expected; and intended to amaze the rustics with his generosity, by paying more than they would ask. Of twenty dishes which he named, he was amazed to find that scarcely one was to be had; and heard, with astonishment and indignation, that all the fruits of the earth were sold at a higher price than in the streets of London. His meal was short and sullen; and he re-back his money; but was told that a man who tired again to his tree, to inquire how dearness could be consistant with abundance, or how fraud should be practised by simplicity. He was not satisfied with his own speculations, and returning home early in the evening, went a while from window to window, and found that he wanted something to do.

He inquired for a newspaper, and was told that farmers never minded news, but that they could send for it from the ale-house. A messenger was despatched, who ran away full speed, but loitered an hour behind the hedges, and at last coming back with his feet purposely bemired, instead of expressing the gratitude which Mr. Shifter expected for the bounty of a shilling, said that the night was wet, and the way dirty, and he hoped that his worship would not think it much to give him half

a-crown.

rented his ground must do the best for himself, that his landlord had his rent though the year was barren, and that, whether horses had eyes or no, he should sell them to the highest bidder.

Shifter now began to be tired with rustic simplicity, and on the fifth day took possession again of his chambers, and bade farewell to the regions of calm content and placid meditation.

No. 72.] SATURDAY, SEPT. 1, 1759.

MEN complain of nothing more frequently than of deficient memory; and, indeed, every one finds that many of the ideas which he desired to retain have slipped irretrievably away; that the acquisitions of the mind are sometimes equally fugitive with the gifts of fortune; and that a short intermission of attention more certainly lessens knowledge than

Dick now went to bed with some abatement of his expectations; but sleep, I know not how, revives our hopes, and rekindles our desires. He rose early in the morning, sur-impairs an estate. veyed the landscape, and was pleased. He walked out, and passed from field to field, without observing any beaten path, and wondered that he had not seen the shepherdesses dancing, nor heard the swains piping to their flocks.

At last he saw some reapers and harvestwomen at dinner. Here, said he, are the true Arcadians, and advanced courteously towards them, as afraid of confusing them by the dignity of his presence. They acknowledged his superiority by no other token than that of asking him for something to drink. He imagined that he had now purchased the privilege of discourse, and began to descend to familiar questions, endeavouring to accommodate his discourse to the grossness of rustic understandings. The clowns soon found that he did not know wheat from rye, and began to despise him; one of the boys, by pretending to show him a bird's nest, decoyed him into a ditch; and one of the wenches sold him a bargain.

This walk had given him no great pleasure; but he hoped to find other rustics less coarse of manners, and less mischievous of disposition. Next morning he was accosted by an attorney,

To assist this weakness of our nature, many methods have been proposed, all of which may be justly suspected of being ineffectual; for no art of memory, however its effect have been boasted or admired, has been ever adopted into general use, nor have those who possessed it appeared to excel others in readiness of recollection or multiplicity of attainments.

There is another art of which all have felt the want, though Themistocles only confessed it. We suffer equal pain from the pertinacious adhesion of unwelcome images, as from the evanescence of those which are pleasing and useful; and it may be doubted whether we should be more benefited by the art of memory or the art of forgetfulness.

Forgetfulness is necessary to remembrance. Ideas are retained by renovation of that impression which time is always wearing away, and which new images are striving to oblite rate. If useless thoughts could be expelled from the mind, all the valuable parts of our knowledge would more frequently recur, and every recurrence would reinstate them in their former place.

It is impossible to consider without some

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