Memoir of the Rev Francis Hodgson

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. TRANSLATION OF JUVENAL?CONTEMPORARY CRITIQUES. 1807-8. THE translation of Juvenal, to which reference has already been made, appears to have been undertaken partly from admiration of the force and grandeur of the poetry, partly from a desire to make the great satirist more accessible to the...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. TRANSLATION OF JUVENAL?CONTEMPORARY CRITIQUES. 1807-8. THE translation of Juvenal, to which reference has already been made, appears to have been undertaken partly from admiration of the force and grandeur of the poetry, partly from a desire to make the great satirist more accessible to the majority of English readers, and thereby to apply his vigorous teaching to the vices and follies of the age. It must be admitted that there never was a time when English morals more required the strong scourge of satire than the first two decades of the present century. The shameless intrigues of the Prince Regent were but a type of the prevailing immorality, and might well be compared to the excesses of those Roman emperors whose examples were polluting the Imperial city at the time when Juvenal wrote. London at the beginning of the nineteenth century ofthe Christian era was not much better than Rome in the first. The comparison must often have suggested itself to classical scholars. The design and scope of this translation will most readily be understood by an epitome of the Introduction written by its author. It is with the utmost diffidence (he writes) that I offer to the notice of the public a new translation of Juvenal. After the very spirited, although irregular, performance of Dryden and his coadjutors in the way of freer versions, and after the uncommonly faithful and meritorious work of Mr. Gifford, I am certainly called upon to say a few words in explanation of my own plan; and to state in what particulars my judgment has, perhaps erroneously, led me to believe that an improvement might be made upon the plan of my predecessors. That it is possible I still think, but am far from fancying that the design is here carried into execution. After a few prel...