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 AN 
 
 EXAMINATION, &, 
 
 \ 
 
 
EXAMINATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 STRICTURES OF THE CRITICAL REVIEWERS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 TRANSLATION OF JUVENAL 
 
 BY W. CIFFORD, ESQ. 
 
 Vituperatus qui sit, haud mediocri sane honori sibi ducat, se tarn absurdis, 
 tain stolidis nebulonibus displicere. Milton. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR J. HATCHARD, BOOKSELLER TO HER MAJESTY, 
 OPPOSITE ALBANY-PLACE, PICCADILLY. 
 
 180 3. 
 
 \ 
 
 
 / 
 
XT.^r5, r 
 
 Printed by W. Bulmer and Co. Cleveland-row, St. James's. 
 
 ** 
 
 
AN 
 
 EXAMINATION, &c 
 
 In the introduction to the Epistle to Peter Pindar, (published 
 about two years ago,) I had occasion to speak of the literary 
 exertions of that egregious personage in our periodical publi- 
 cations ; to this was appended the following note : " I have been 
 M told that the unmanly reflections on me in the Critical Review, 
 " where I have been wantonly insulted — not for what I did write, 
 "for that is a matter of course, but for what I did not — were all 
 " furnished by Peter Pindar! If this be true, the Editors of that 
 " work are more to be pitied than I am. I have offended these 
 41 gentlemen — they, perhaps, know how, for I do not; — and I 
 
 *' NEITHER LOOK FOR CANDOUR NOR JUSTICE AT TIKS1R HANDS, 
 
 " nor indeed, am I at all solicitous about the matter — only, 
 " methinks, I could wish that when I am to be cut up, they 
 4t would call in, if it were but for the credit of their slaughter- 
 44 house, some less bungling butcher than Peter Pindar." p. 7. 
 
 B 
 
[2] 
 
 In this I was perfectly serious : the Translation of Juvenal was 
 at that time in the press ; and a regard for the interests of lite- 
 rature, made me desirous that the ribaldry with which it was 
 sure to be received by the Critical Reviewers, might be dealt out 
 by one that could at least comprehend what he was hired to 
 abuse. I am sorry my wishes were not heard ;— Peter is, indeed, 
 a most wretched reviewer; but the " gentleman"* selected to fill 
 his place is no better: in ignorance, impudence, scurrility, 
 rancour, and falsehood, they are equal : in extent of reading, 
 Peter perhaps has the advantage, which, on the other hand, seems 
 to be balanced by his rival's superior acquaintance with the 
 Latin vocabulary ! 
 
 I was not mad enough to suppose the Translation of Juvenal 
 a perfect work : I saw many errors myself after it came from the 
 press, and was confident that the most candid observer would 
 see many more : — this is not my case alone ; it is the lot of hu- 
 manity ; but in a work of ancient literature, wholly independent 
 of the prejudices and passions of modern days, and which, from 
 the careful exclusion of temporary topics, could afford no rea- 
 sonable plea for malignant hostility, I ventured to hope that 
 what was reprehensible, would be noticed without personal 
 insult ; and that I should experience some part of that candour 
 which I had invariably shewn in it, to every writer who came 
 under my observation. 
 
 * The Critical Review is said, in the title-page, to be conducted by " A 
 " society of gentlemen," whose standing motto is, 
 
 • nothing extenuate, 
 
 Nor set down aught in malice. 
 Perhaps language does not furnish another instance of words so impudently per- 
 verted from their true meaning. 
 
[*] 
 
 I acknowledge with thankfulness, that I have not been rfi 
 pointed. Greater vanity would be gratified by the praises which 
 I have received; and greater abilities flattered by the little to 
 which men of real taste and learning have objected, in so various 
 and extensive a publication. 
 
 It will be easily conceived that amongst the critics from 
 whom 1 looked for common decency, I did not number the asso- 
 ciates of Peter. I knew too well that the Critical Reviewers 
 reviewed books, as the ancients planted basil, with cursing and 
 swearing; and had been honoured with too many specimens of 
 their hostility, not to foresee that, on the present occasion, I 
 should be favoured with somewhat more than my share of it. Of 
 this, however, I took neither thought nor care; nor should I have 
 condescended to waste a syllable upon them, if they had not 
 " travelled out of the record," and added forgery and false- 
 hood to the usual attributes of their Review. 
 
 In the retort on these " gentlemen," I am anxious that my 
 motives should not be misunderstood. I love criticism, and have 
 studied it; and I honour critics, — genuine ones, I mean; sacred 
 be their strictures! But when they descend from their station, 
 revile instead of examine, and, in the attitude of a drunken 
 porter, thrust their fists into our faces, they lose their privilege, 
 and become just objects of attack in their turn. In this degraded 
 situation stand the Critical Reviewers. I sought no quarrel with 
 them; but since they neglect their office to become pugilists, 
 pugilists too of the most despicable order, fretful, irritating, and 
 litigious, I am content to defend myself. 
 
 Before I begin, it may be necessary to say a few words on the 
 B2 
 
[« ] 
 
 structure of a Review. It is generally supposed to be the pro- 
 duction of a set of independent gentlemen, (independent, as far 
 as human weakness will permit,) zealous for the interests of lite- 
 rature, and labouring to promote them by a series of observations 
 dictated by correct taste, strong and manly sense, candour, and 
 such liberality of sentiment and language as the education of a 
 gentleman may be supposed to instil. And such, with a few 
 exceptions, I believe to be the plan on which the majority of our 
 Reviews is formed and conducted : with that of which I am now 
 to speak, it is not so. 
 
 The Critical Review was begun in spleen, and has grown up 
 in hatred and malignity. At its establishment it underwent a 
 prosecution for defamation; and there have not probably been 
 many numbers produced since, in which one article or another 
 has not exposed the vender to the cart's-tail or the whipping- 
 post. 
 
 The consequences of this have been such as might be antici- 
 pated; for though the love of slander, too common among " the 
 " race" that read, as well as those " that write," has always pro- 
 cured it a certain number of purchasers ; yet, as I learn from 
 unexceptionable authority, it has never been a profitable concern, 
 and would long since have, been given up, had not the Robinsons 
 found it a convenient vehicle for the propagation of their peculiar 
 tenets. Thus lingering out a kind of living death,* the proprietor, 
 
 4 
 
 * I never meet with the Critical Review, unless here and there in a bookseller's 
 shop ; and, as the beggar said of the new guineas, I can't think what becomes of 
 them It is true, most of my acquaintance are attached to the religion and govern- 
 ment of the country, and all of them to sound sense and liberal criticism — this 
 
Mr. Hamilton of Falcon-court, who is also the printer, finds him- 
 self unable to pay men of ability for their labour; and the 
 Review is therefore thrown open to ignorance and envy. Every 
 scribbler devoured with malice, every splenetic blockhead who 
 trembles lest his merits should be eclipsed, every one, in short, 
 who has a real or imaginary grievance to revenge, has an easy 
 access to the Critical Review. Few questions are asked ; and 
 provided the views of the state be not furthered, nor those of 
 Messrs. Robinson obstructed, the Publisher is bound to accept 
 with thankfulness whatever Bedlam and Billinsgate in conjunc- 
 tion may put into his hands. 
 
 One of the evils which naturally results from so wretched a 
 system is the uncertainty that pervades this work. The first sa- 
 crifice is constantly made to malice, the second to interest; and 
 as the one is sometimes compromised by a too free indulgence of 
 the other, it produces embarrassments of the most ridiculous 
 kind. 
 
 When the Pursuits of Literature first appeared, it was re- 
 viewed somewhat like the Translation of Juvenal. The author 
 was insulted with the grossest terms, and confident predictions 
 were made that the work would fall into immediate neglect : so 
 ignorant indeed, and so impudent were the strictures on it, that 
 they were generally believed to proceed from the pen of Peter, 
 this at least may be boldly affirmed, that they were truly worthy 
 
 accounts for my not finding it with them ; but that I should never light on it, by 
 any accident, nor know a single purchaser of it, is strange indeed ! It seems to be 
 slowly following the Ana'y'ical Review (which yet possessed infinitely more 
 talents) to the place " where all things are forgotten." 
 
[6] 
 
 of him. What is the result? that work, the memory of which 
 was to expire, before the ink that marked its condemnation was 
 dry, has been rising in reputation, from its first appearance; and 
 having reached the twelfth edition, has just compelled the 
 Critical Reviewers, who have all the saving cunning of foolish 
 knaves, to chaunt a palinodia: and now it is that " popular work," 
 that " favourite work ;" presently it will be that " admirable 
 work \" 
 
 I know not what the learned author of the Pursuits thinks 
 of this, but solemnly declare that I had rather encounter all 
 their enmity to the end of time, than be the humbled object of 
 their repentant, their worthless praise: 
 
 A fool quite angry is quite innocent : 
 
 Alas ! tis ten times worse when they repent. 
 
 I look on the scurrility poured on myself in the Critical Re- 
 view (and there is not a person who knows me but will unequi- 
 vocally vouch for the truth of the assertion) with the most perfect 
 contempt ; yet confess I have felt some indignation at that 
 which I have seen lavished on others; others, perhaps, have ex- 
 perienced the same sensations on my account. 
 
 I could never contemplate with patience the infamous scur- 
 rilities directed against the first geographer in Europe : — but 
 Major Rennell had been guilty of an inexpiable crime : he had 
 pointed out the ignorance of the Reviewer; and the mise- 
 rabe quack, struggling between impudence and detection, 
 poured forth a torrent of abuse on a work which will confer a 
 lasting honour on the country. Nor was this all ; Major Rennell, 
 
[ I ] 
 
 with that modesty which is inseparable from true worth, had 
 confessed his want of acquaintance witli the Greek language. 
 Here was an opportunity of triumphing over an adversary not 
 to be overlooked. Comment (quoth the Critic, in the words of 
 his prototype the Mock Doctor), vous nc savez pas le dec! 
 What ! you do not understand Greek ! 
 
 Crofth deletok abaneb exafna tembybe cyrutz — 
 
 Oh, le bel langage ! O the Greek is a fine language ! And thus 
 it is that impudence and imposture amaze the ignorant, confound 
 the modest, and over-awe the timid. 
 
 But mark the consistency of these Critics. The men, who in 
 their reviling of Major R. arrogantly pronounce that they are 
 " chary of praise," which "must be earned before it is bestowed," 
 were lavishing, at that same instant, whole pages of it on a 
 jumble of incomprehensible trash called Gebir, the most vile and 
 despicable effusion of a mad and muddy brain that ever disgraced, 
 I will not say the press, but the " darkened walls" of Bedlam. 
 And what was the answer, when they were told of this infamous 
 prostitution? That they did it " to push off a few of the books." 
 Nota loquor. I speak what I know. 
 
 The name of Dr. Jenner is as familiar to most of my readers, 
 as his extraordinary merits, which have procured him the thanks 
 and blessings, not only of his country, but of all the civilized 
 world. This man, and his laudable exertions in the cause of 
 suffering humanity, have these " disinterested" approvers of a 
 mischievous ideot, these " free and unbiassed" admirers of Gebir, 
 persecuted for months, nay for years, with unvarying ridicule, 
 
until, in one of their last numbers, when the general indignation 
 was already kindled against them, a letter of expostulation is 
 very conveniently received from the country, and the sneaking 
 slanderers are now preparing to retract all they have advanced, 
 and perhaps to place this great and good man almost on a level 
 with the author of Gebir! 
 
 Come we now to the review of the Translation of Juvenal. 
 
 " The historian of declining Rome had obtained by unwearied 
 " efforts the palm of celebrity, his posthumous friends, from his 
 " own records, published the memorials of an indefatigable 
 " life, and failed neither to awaken curiosity nor to remunerate 
 " attention. 
 
 " The humble translator of a Roman satirist anticipates the 
 " office of his executors, and announces himself, his pedigree, and 
 " pristine meanness with a revolting self-complacency, scarcely 
 " exceeded by the luminous Gibbon." September, p. 10. 
 
 What is the deduction from this malicious piece of absurdity? 
 Is it that— because Mr. Gibbon, who wrote a history of Rome, 
 left memoirs of himself to be published by his executors, there- 
 fore every one who does not write a history of Rome must do the 
 same ! Where is the analogy ? Was Gibbon the only p'erson 
 who " left memoirs of himself?" Is the Translator of Juvenal the 
 only one who " anticipated the office of his executors?" What 
 is meant to be said? — And is the Critic well assured that I have 
 " anticipated," Sec? Does he recollect nothing of a respectable 
 associate, who kindly took upon himself the office of my execu- 
 ior? I will answer for him ; he does : and, with equal credit to 
 
[9] 
 
 his head and his heart, has enriched his review with a few cir- 
 cumstances from the interesting narration. 
 
 Let me be forgiven for observing in this place, that the " gen 
 tleman" takes a liberal delight in recurring in contemptuous 
 terms to Mr. Gilford's " source." I could well have spared 
 another word on this subject; but, thus insulted, it may not be 
 amiss to check, his contemptible vanity by informing him that 
 it is neither more " mean," more " degraded," nor move t: ob- 
 scure"* than his own, be he who he may. From my family I 
 •derived nothing but a name, which the poorest of us have, and 
 which is more, probably, than I shall leave — but that family is 
 ancient, was once very respectable, and sunk into insignificance 
 and decay, as many others have done, by a succession of thought- 
 less inheritors. With all this, however, I have nothing to do. 
 Like the iamb in the fable, " I was not then born :" nor should I 
 ever have opened .my lips on the subject (indeed a silence of 
 more than twenty years is no feeble voucher for me), if the in- 
 justice of two such but enough ; retournons a nos moutons. 
 
 I pass over the sneers at the Introduction, which I am neither 
 sorry nor surprised to see them treat with unvarying insolence 
 and contempt. They have the good fortune to be singular in 
 this part of their conduct, and may be contentedly left to the un- 
 disturbed enjoyment of iL 
 
 " Satiated with the self-importance of Mr.Gifford," p. 11, they 
 *' slightly glance over the surface of the original fabric," p. 13, 
 in a cursory flight through Laharpe. Thii is succeeded by a 
 
 * " This place" (Halsworth), says Guillim, " was long the residence of the 
 •Giffords, from whom descended" but it is not worth transcribing. 
 
 c 
 
[ 10] 
 
 most learned list of commentators, fcc. copied from that recon- 
 dite treasury of information, the title-page to Hcnninius's edition 
 of Juvenal ! beyond which the Critics have not looked. To this 
 is tacked an enumeration of the English translations to which I 
 had, or might have, access, among which are " Dryden's, Her- 
 vey's, and Neville's." If we did not know the close and constant 
 alliance of ignorance and impudence, we should scarcely believe 
 that the man who talks so confidently of translations, is indebted 
 for his muster-roll to an imperfect catalogue, copied without in- 
 quiry. Dryden and Hervey ! why not Creech, Congreve, and 
 Tate? The mention of Neville, as one of the translators of Juve- 
 nal, is too ridiculous for notice. Did the Critic ever look into 
 him ? No ! 
 
 " His situation appears to have been peculiarly propitious for 
 " accomplishing his task with finished elegance," p. 13. This is 
 meant to insinuate, that at the period here spoken of, I had 
 boasted of having consulted that formidable body of commenta- 
 tors and translators so ostentatiously displayed : — but what are 
 my own words? " I now discovered (i. e. after the period men- 
 tioned by the Critic) for the first time, that my own inexperience, 
 and the advice of my too partial friend, had engaged me in a 
 work for which my literary attainments were by no means suffi- 
 cient. Errors and misconceptions appeared in every page. I 
 had, indeed, caught something of the spirit of Juvenal, but his 
 meaning had escaped me, and I saw the necessity of a long and 
 painful revision." p. xix. Does this savour of the " revolting 
 self-sufficiency" of which Mr. Gifford is accused? The truth 
 is, that few of the number were better known to me at that 
 
[ " ] 
 
 " propitious moment" than to the Critic at this; indeed, scarcely 
 so well; for I had not even heard of their names. 
 
 The account of my " advantages" is followed by an accusation 
 of dishonesty ; and lest the charge should escape the cai> 
 reader, it is one while put into italics, and another, set off with 
 notes of admiration. It has frequently happened, that the injus- 
 tice of my enemies has given me opportunities, which I should 
 never have sought, of justifying myself from wandering calumnies 
 and falsehoods. The history of the subscription i| shortly this. 
 My ever-regretted friend Mr. Cookesley fell ill the week after it 
 was opened, and died. It was found that he had set down four 
 names only; but what they paid, or whether they paid any 
 thing, was not ascertained. Some months afterwards, the sub- 
 scription was revived by the kindness of Servington Savery, to 
 whom I had transmitted a number of receipts. How many he 
 disposed of I never knew ; certainly, it was a very small number: 
 •and of the few who subscribed, all who could be found had their 
 money returned, at my express desire. Mr. Savery left that part 
 of the country on a sudden call elsewhere, and many years 
 elapsed before we met. 
 
 Besides this gentleman, Thomas Taylor, Esq. a magistrate of 
 great worth and respectability, undertook to exert himself in my 
 favour. When the translation was suspended, the subscriptions 
 he had collected were scrupulously returned. From Mr. Taylor, 
 who is happily still living, I received (about the time that the 
 slanderous doers of the Crit. Rev. were indirectly charging 
 me with picking the pockets of my subscribers) a congratulatory 
 letter on the appearance of the translation ; this I fortunately 
 
 C2 
 
[ 12] 
 
 preserved, and now trouble the reader with the following extract 
 from it: " It is long since that on your issuing proposals, I used 
 my endeavours to procure subscriptions, and in some measure 
 succeeded, but you returned me the money to be repaid to those 
 from whom I received it. I believe you returned me my own 
 subscription also ; however, I must have the book," 8cc. 
 
 From Devonshire, therefore, I never received one farthing on 
 account of the translation. At Oxford I set it on foot myself, and 
 procured many names: the money, however, was intrusted to 
 the care of a young gentleman of the name of Brown, whose 
 melancholy catastrophe is mentioned in the Introduction : — the 
 Critical Reviewers, perhaps, were " sated with Mr. Gifford's 
 " self-importance" before they had read so far; this must be their 
 apology for insulting me with having pocketed what I honestly 
 (however they are pleased to scoff at the word) set aside with a 
 purpose of returning, if the translation did not proceed ; and 
 which nothing but an event as dreadful as it was unexpected, 
 prevented me from immediately executing. 
 
 In a word, I never received to my own use a single sixpence 
 of the subscription money for the translation of Juvenal, from 
 the moment of its being announced, to that of its appearance! 
 So stands my account with my subscribers : let us next see how 
 theirs stands with me. 
 
 The work was originally proposed at sixteen shillings : it 
 was to be a thin quarto, without notes, or introduction of any 
 kind. It is now a large, and beautifully printed book,* with 
 
 * Minim ! the Reviewer, or rather the Reviler, allows this. " It is," quoth 
 he, " a fairly -printed book ;" but this is Mr. Bulmer's praise, not mine. 
 
[ '3 ] 
 
 much prefatory matter, and a body of notes more than equal in 
 bulk to the text, and sells lor a guinea and a half". This the sub- 
 scribers of sixteen shillings have received, without any advance 
 whatever; and amongst these are several of whose names I 
 never heard, until they applied lor their copies: — this, 1 hope, will 
 be a sufficient answer to another offence with which 1 am mali- 
 ciously charged — that of not printing a list ; which I had no 
 better means of doing than my calumniators : — the subsciibers of 
 eight shillings have had the same, and in many cases greater 
 advantages; for several of them have trebled their advance 
 money • the reader has now a faithful account of my nefarious 
 attempt to pick the pockets of my benefactors. 
 
 I am next reminded that " in the relation of my adventures I 
 " omit to record that I had indulged my taste for other literary 
 " occupations, and published two virulent and vulgar paraphrases 
 " or travesties of Horace and Persius." O that Baviad! this seems 
 to have nothing to do with Bacchus, whatever it may with the 
 Critical Reviewer, who forgets, in his turn, that " my adventures" 
 — (I call them my no-adventures) terminated with my arrival in 
 town. 
 
 If it were worth inquiry, (which it certainly is not,) I might ask 
 why I am marked out for the persecution of these people. I have 
 written some things which I. have avowed, and more, which I 
 have not — but not a line which I shall ever blush to own. I 
 wrote, it is true, a satire, in which I introduced, as the Critic says, 
 " naked names," and amongst them most probably his own — 
 hinc iras et lachrymae, — but from no unworthy motives ; and I 
 prefixed my own name to my strictuies. My conduct, I trust, is 
 
[ 14] 
 
 somewhat different from that of the lurking cowards of the 
 Critical Review, who spring forward in the dark to stab the un- 
 suspecting passenger, and then slink back, to revel over the 
 assassination in gloomy security. 
 
 Add, that my satire was wholly levelled at the poetry of the 
 Cruscan school. I reviled no man's person, I traduced no man's 
 character, nor was it, till I was wantonly defamed by such as I 
 had never injured, that I added a single name or circumstance to 
 those first introduced. 
 
 " The literary treasures which Mr. G. has rifled, we have 
 " already unveiled," p. 14. No, Sir, you neither have nor can 
 unveil them. Your ignorance confines you to the knowledge of 
 such as I have casually specified, which form a very small part 
 of the number consulted. The illiberal sneer conveyed in the 
 word rifle, is worthy of you. I did my duty in applying to 
 every source which promised assistance: let the merit rest with 
 you and your gang, of terming a laborious and honest investiga- 
 tion of authorities, a robbery. 
 
 "The 16th Satire is entirely omitted. Does the unsupported sus- 
 " picion that it is the work of an old scholiast, authorize Mr. G. to 
 " reject a composition which preceding editors, critics, and transla- 
 " tors, British and foreign, have published as legitimate?" p. 15. 
 
 It was a maxim of the Stoics, that a fool could not thrust out 
 his finger without demonstrating his folly ; and the Critic before 
 us, fully proves it. My words are: " With respect to the 16th 
 Satire, Dodwell hesitates to attribute it to Juvenal ; and indeed 
 the old scholiast says that, in his time many thought it to be the 
 work of a different hand/' xxvii. Is this suspecting it to be the 
 
[ is ] 
 
 work of an old scholiast? Shame on such conduct ! fabrications, 
 falsehoods, of every species, are exhausted to injure the reputation 
 of a writer whose sole crime is that of exposing some conceited 
 scribbler in the Baviad. 
 
 But is the " suspicion," that it was not written by Juvenal, 
 11 unsupported?" I have Rupcrti before me; and, without ad- 
 verting to the improbability of the Critics understanding him, 
 will extract a short passage for those who do. At the same time 
 let me say, that I had read and maturely weighed all the autho- 
 rities here advanced, before a syllable was written on the subject. 
 " De auctore vero hujus satirse (16mae) jam olim fuere, qui 
 u addubitarent. Schol. Iijsc adnotavit : ' Quidam dicunt non 
 11 esse Juvenalis, sedabejusamicoadpositam.' Vet. Schol. Pithoei. 
 " Ilia a plerisque exploditur, et dicitur non esse Juvenalis. 
 " His adslipulantur Grotius, Rutgers. Barth. Plathnerus, Bahrdt 
 " et alii ; sed refragantur Dempster, Scaliger, aliique multi. 
 " Neque haec lis facile dirimenda est, (our booby of a Bavian sees 
 no difficulty in this, or any thing else,) quum in utramque partem 
 11 quaedam, eaque satis gravia, disputari possint." Vol. II. 791. 
 The conclusion from all this is, that the Reviewer is totally 
 ignorant of what he so confidently prates about. A careless 
 glance at a note, which he can scarcely read, is not sufficient to 
 qualify him for criticizing a work of literature : I mention this 
 for the sake of his employers : their cause, it is true, cannot be 
 disgraced ; but I am mortified to see them act as if they really 
 thought it could. 
 
 " Conscious of meriting reproof, Mr. G. avows under the 
 41 shadow of a note," (the malicious insinuation here is ob- 
 
[ 16] 
 
 vious: to those who have not seen the translation, however, 
 it may be observed that the whole of what is said, not only of 
 the 16th, but of every other Satire, is under " the shadow of a 
 " note!") that he would have presented a translation of it to the 
 M reader, if a friend had not disappointed him when it was too 
 " late to apply elsewhere, or to attempt it himself." " Conscious of 
 " meriting reproof!" Certainly I am conscious of no such matter: 
 nor will I submit to receive it from an illiterate slanderer, who 
 belies my authorities, and perverts my words. " Why he was 
 " too late to apply elsewhere, or to attempt it himself, he fails to 
 " inform us." p. 15. It may be done in three words; the 
 fifteenth Satire was printed before I was aware of the disappoint- 
 ment : and the publisher was impatient for the delivery of the 
 book, as the month of May was already commenced. Such is the 
 simple story ! and to such minutiae can the malevolence of one im- 
 pertinent blockhead, frequently force an honest mind to descend. 
 In the next section it is insinuated that I consulted no autho- 
 rities ; but contented myself with moulding the collections made 
 from original writers by — Dryden, Laharpe, and Dussaulx ! ! ! 
 The malice of this falsehood is happily counteracted by its inex- 
 pressible stupidity. He who can seriously talk of the original 
 writers consulted by Dryden, Laharpe, and Dussaulx, may be 
 boldly flung aside as one of those clamorous pretenders who 
 infest literature on the score of being acquainted with catalogues 
 and sale-rooms. From " the elegant Ruperti.," who is every 
 thing but elegant, arid into whom this dashing coxcomb most 
 assuredly never looked, I took nothing but a hint respecting the 
 age of Lucretius, yet I spoke of him with gratitude; and may 
 
[ M I 
 
 reasonably flatter myself that what was said has not proved alto- 
 gether unserviceable to hiin. From Laharpel took even less than 
 from lluperti: from Dnssaulx, whatever suited my purpose, 
 which I have on every occasion fairly and openly avowed: and 
 from Dryden — but he is in every one's hand. 
 
 Upon the whole, I charge the Reviewer with a deliberate and 
 wicked falsehood. I consulted every original work which related 
 to my subject : and, without an ostentatious display ofliterature, 
 " moulded" my own collections, not " Dryden's," into what I 
 hope was a plain, but not inelegant narrative. That it has been 
 termed so by critics of a different description from this, is at 
 once my pride and my reward. 
 
 We are now arrived at the translation. Review, Oct. p. 169. 
 
 " Semper ego auditor tantum? nunquamne reponam, 
 11 Vexatus toties rauci Theseide Codri ? 
 
 " These lines display nothing low or colloquial."' It will be well 
 for the reader (as he will find ere long), to believe what the 
 Critic shall prove, rather than what he shall assert. Oi style he 
 is grossly ignorant; he professes indeed a high-bred horror 
 (very excusable in one of Mr. Hamilton's corps of" gentlemen") 
 of what is low, but when he confounds it with what is colloquial, 
 he carries the privilege of his " gentility" to a culpable excess. 
 The truth is, that these two lines, though spirited and correct, 
 are altogether colloquial! and even of their spirit, no small 
 portion is derived from the bold termination of the second, in 
 ('<>dri; a happiness unattainable by an English translation. 
 • Mr. Giffbrd, coarse as Dryden, is inferior in brevity and 
 
 n 
 
[ 18} 
 
 " spirit," p, 169. Coarse as Dryden ! good: but the Critic 
 blunders again. The fact seems to be that Dryden tried to 
 render this passage in two lines, and failing to please himself, 
 adopted the version of Stapylton. In two lines it will never be 
 rendered with effect; for Holyday, who ambitiously labours to 
 number line for Kne with Juvenal, and who frequently attains 
 his object, by the aid of his barbarous monosyllables, is con- 
 strained to exceed his measure here. 
 
 " Shall I always be only a hearer? Shall I never repay, who am 
 " teized (vexatus), so often with theTheseis of the hoarse Codrus? 
 
 Mad an. 
 11 Still shall I hear, and never quit the score, 
 " Stunn'd with hoarse Codrus' Theseid o'er and o'er : 
 
 Dryden. 
 " What ! while with one eternal mouthing hoarse, 
 " Codrus persists, on my vex'd ear to force 
 " His Theseid, must I, to my fate resign'd, 
 " Hear, only hear, and never pay in kind!" 
 
 Gifford. 
 "The alliterative cacophony of What ! while with one,8cc. the 
 11 insupportable vulgarity of ' eternal mouthing,' the tame inter- 
 " polation of must /, (which, with the Critic's leave, is no " inter- 
 " polation") and the inelegance of pay in kind, startled us for a 
 44 moment, but prepared us for subsequent froth and fustian." 
 p. 189. 
 
 So, Sir, you were startled at the inelegance of " pay in 
 kind !" Very possibly .: it is however taken from one of the most 
 
I '9] 
 
 elegant poems ol the most elegant poets that this country ever 
 produced : 
 
 To some a dry rehearsal he assign'd, 
 
 And others, harder still ! he paid in kind. Pope. 
 
 Perhaps language does not furnish a happier combination of 
 words, not only to express repoiiam, but the precise idea whiclj 
 occupied the mind of Juvenal : — and shall we be told by an 
 obscure scribbler, who has crept into a degraded publication for 
 the sake of venting his malice, that the choicest expressions of 
 our correctest writers are coarse and vulgar, because his sottish 
 ignorance conceives they originated with me ! 
 
 " Et nos ergo manum ferulae subduximus, — is thus rendered 
 more intelligible." — I must observe here, once for all, that the 
 Critic has crowded his sagacious observations with italics, and 
 notes of admiration, that no part of their poignancy may be 
 lost : thus more intelligible ! is recommended to notice. 
 
 " I too can write, and, at a pedant's frown, 
 M Once pour'd my frothy fustian on the town." 
 
 Would it be believed, unless we had the Critic's mark for it, that 
 he imagines the translation of the line he quotes to be, " I pour'd, 
 Sec. ?" yet it is really so. But I will drag you, Sir, from your 
 lurking-place ; you shall find no resources for your malice in 
 your suppressions ; no shelter for your ignorance in your muti- 
 lated quotations : every passage shall be given at full. 
 
 1)2 
 
Et nos ergo manum ferulae subduximus, et nos 
 Consilium cletlimus Syllae privatus ut altum 
 Dormiret, Sec. 
 
 And I therefore have withdrawn my hand from the ferule, 
 and I have given counsel to Sylla, that, a private man, soundly 
 he should sleep. Madan. 
 
 Our hand then from the ferula we have 
 - Withdrawn ; advice we once to Sylla gave 
 
 To sleep retired and safe. Holyday. 
 
 Provoked by these incorrigible fools, 
 
 I left declaiming in pedantic schools; 
 
 Where, with men-boys, I strove to get renown, 
 
 Advising Sylla to a private gown. Drydex. 
 
 I would humbly ask whether any of these translations (how- 
 ever literal) convey, to an English reader, the drift of Juvenal's 
 arguments. Conceiving, perhaps erroneously, that they did not, 
 I was less solicitous to render the original word for word, than 
 to give the general sense, and connect it with what immediately 
 follows : 
 
 I too can write : Once at a pedant's frown, 
 I pour'd my frothy fustian on the town, 
 And idly proved that Sylla, far from power, 
 Had pass'd, unknown to fear, the tranquil hour; 
 Now, I resume my pen, Sec. 
 
 The idle declamations to which the author alludes, such as, 
 Whether Hannibal should have marched to Rome? Whether 
 
Mi J 
 
 Sylla should, or should not have resigned the dictatorship ? kc. 
 
 had long been a serious grievance, and are spoken of" with dis- 
 gust by all the writers of Juvenal's lime. As they were pro- 
 duced, however, in every rhetoric-school,— to have written them 
 proved that the author had received sonic kind of education, 
 and was, at least, as well qualified to write, as most of those who 
 infested the town. This is the purport of the passage, and this 
 I endeavoured to express. How it is done, is not mine to judge : 
 but when a Reviewer, either through ignorance or malice, has 
 the audacity to affirm with a sneer, that et nos ergo manum is 
 translated, " I pour, kc." it is perfectly competent for me to expose 
 the perversity of his heart, or the invincible stupidity of his 
 head. The short passage that answers to the quotation is, 
 " Once, at a pedant's frown." 
 
 " Causidici nova cum veniat lectica Mathonis 
 " Plena ipso, 
 
 11 When bloated Matho, in a new-built chair 
 M Stuft with himself, is borne abroad for air. 
 
 " That Matho was borne abroad for air we were first informed 
 14 by Dryden, whose gratuitous hemistich Mr. G. inserts ; but 
 11 he omits an essential word, causidici, which glares before him 
 li in the original text ; while in a note he wanders to procure 
 11 evidence from the seventh satire that the gentleman followed 
 11 the profession of a lawyer." p. 190. 
 
 Rats and mice and such small deer, 
 
 Have been Tom's food for seven long year ! 
 
[22] 
 
 What infantine puling is this? It is the first time, perhaps, that 
 an attempt to illustrate an author from himself, has fallen under 
 the censure of criticism : the reader, however, shall have my 
 " wanderings." 
 
 " Matho (as we find from the seventh Satire) originally fol- 
 lowed the profession of a lawyer ; but meeting, perhaps deserv- 
 ing, no encouragement, he fell into the extremes of poverty, and 
 broke. He then turned, informer ; the dreadful resource of men 
 of desperate fortunes and desperate characters. In this he 
 seems to have been successful: he has a chair, which Juvenal 
 takes care to tell us had not been long in his possession, and he 
 is grown immoderately fat, for he fills it himself." p. 12,. The 
 reader now sees why the ic essential word" causidici, which is 
 not essential at all, is omitted. At this period, according to my 
 ideas of the date of the satires, which are. recorded at length, 
 Matho was no lawyer; although the name might, and probably 
 did, attach to him, as a term of contempt : to translate the word 
 therefore, could only serve to mislead the English reader: — 
 enough of this. To the heavy charge of adopting the hemistich 
 from Dryden, I plead guilty; perhaps, Matho might be borne 
 abroad for business ; and as this is an affair of the utmost con- 
 sequence, I will endeavour to ascertain it by the time of our 
 next meeting : — meanwhile, with the Critic's permission, let me 
 observe that when he says I have translated " plena ipso by 
 " bloated/' he says the thing which is not; plena ipso, still with 
 submission, is translated, " stuff'd with himself;" which does 
 not mean, as he shrewdly supposes, that the man was stuffed 
 with himself, but that the " chair" was. And I am bold enough to 
 
[23 ] 
 
 add, that if Juvenal had written in English, lie would have varied 
 little from this expression. The Critic, however, is so delighted 
 with his sagacity, that he exclaims upon his own blunder, 
 il Mr. Gifford over-stuffs us." Simpleton! 
 
 Soon shot, indeed, thy bolts are, but ne'er hit; 
 Or short, or wide, is all thy squirting wit! 
 
 " Ex quo Deucalion, nimbis tollentibus aequor, 
 
 11 Navigio montem ascendit, sortesque poposcit, 
 
 " Paullatimque anima caluerunt mollia saxa, 
 
 11 Et maribus nudas ostendit Pyrrha puellas : 
 
 " Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas, 
 
 " Gaudia, discursus, nostri est farrago libelli. 
 
 11 Count from the time since old Deucalion's boat 
 
 " Rais'd by the flood, did on Parnassus float, 
 
 11 And, scarcely mooring on the clifF, implor'd 
 
 " An oracle how man might be restor'd, 
 
 " When soften'd stones, and vital breath ensu'd, 
 
 " And virgins naked were by lovers view'd. 
 
 11 Whatever since that golden age was done, 
 
 44 What human kind desire, and what they shun, 
 
 44 Rage, passions, pleasures, impotence of will, 
 
 44 Shall this satyrical collection fill. Dryden. 
 
 44 E'er since Deucalion and his Pyrrha stood 
 
 44 On old Parnassus, (by the general fl >od 
 
 44 Uprais'd) and, taught by heaven, behind them threw 
 
 44 Their mother's bones, that soften'd as they flew, 
 
[24 ] 
 
 11 Soften'd, and, with the breath oflife made warm, 
 
 " Assumed, by slow degrees, the human form; 
 
 Ci Whatever wild desires have swell'd the breast, 
 
 " Whatever passions have the soul possest, 
 
 11 Joy, Sorrow, Fear, Love, Hatred. Transport, Rage, 
 
 " Shall form the motley subject of my page." Gifford. 
 
 This is said to be imperfect, incorrect, languid, careless, and 
 prosaic; and, to be exceeded by Dryden. p. 190. 
 
 This is fair enough: but mark how I am overwhelmed with a 
 torrent of criticism. " Mr. G. suffers the navigium to founder at 
 " sea, and leaves Deucalion drenched on Parnassus, deprived 
 " of his boat ! ! !•" Bravo ! Mr. Hamilton " is blessed in this 
 man, as I may say, even blessed." But how is the navigium 
 suffered to founder at sea? If Deucalion and Pyrrha were up- 
 raised by the flood, it is probable they were in it, otherwise they 
 might have sunk with the rest of mankind. But is not this the 
 very dregs of criticism? Is it necessary to render every word by 
 a correspondent one; or when an obscure illusion is made to an 
 old story, is it a crime worthy of hard language, to endeavour to 
 illustrate it ? But the facility with which such remarks are made, 
 gives confidence to fools, and produces those spiteful drivellings, 
 which, under the name of criticism, defile our literature. Suppose 
 for a moment, that Dryden and I had changed places, and that 
 this great man was to be insulted, reviled, and calumniated, for 
 having exposed the ears of some Mac Flecknoe of a reviewer; 
 how easily might this be done, and in the critic's own way ! 
 " Mr. Dryden suffers Deucalion to sink at sea (and probably the 
 
[25 ] 
 
 hapless Pyrrha with bun, for of her lie says nothing!) and brings 
 the navigium alone to Parnassus, deprived of both its pas- 
 sengers ! ! ! We need not remark how improbable it is, that the 
 navigium should alsomoor itself "on the cliff" — credaljudaus 
 Apella! — or that it should implore the Oracle how " man might 
 14 be restored !" We know that the woods of Dodona were vocal, 
 but it remains with Mr. Dryden to prove that the navigium was 
 actually built of this limber!!!" 
 
 Is not this " somewhat after the manner of Longinus !" 
 11 But Mr. G. remains, insensible to the sweetness of Paul- 
 " latim anima caluerunt mollia saxa ; unexpectedly introducing 
 " his own Deucalion and Pyrrha, with their mother's bones 
 
 " flying." p. 190. 
 
 In my younger days I got by heart a stanza made on a 
 wretched succession of mayors in some Cornish town, and I am 
 glad I yet remember it. " Let us cast away nothing," says Pan- 
 darus, " for we know not what use we may have for it :" 
 
 If thus we go on, 
 
 And from bad to worse run, 
 
 Who shall be elected next year? 
 To fill up the place 
 Of so worthy a race, 
 
 The Devil himself must be mayor ! 
 
 Peter Pindar, Mr. ! who will be the next? 
 
 After the flood had subsided, Deucalion and Pyrrha enquired 
 of the Oracle, how mankind might be restored. They were an- 
 swered, by throwing their mother's bones behind them. These, 
 
 E 
 
[as] 
 
 a Tier sonic consideration, they concluded to be the stones of 
 their general mother, the earth; which they therefore picked 
 up, and Hung over their heads. The stones grew warm with life 
 in their progress, and became men and women:-— thus the 
 world was repeopled. To this story, which is told at length by 
 Ovid, Juvenal alludes: however familiar it might be to the 
 Romans, it seemed necessary to open it a little to the English 
 reader: and this is all my crime. Indeed, I had written a 
 note on the passage, but suppressed it as superfluous: — that 
 it was not so, is now apparent ; since this " gentleman/' who 
 has taken upon himself to review a work of ancient litera- 
 ture, is wholly ignorant of the circumstance. He supposes 
 Deucalion and Pyrrha to be introduced by me, and represented 
 (taking the words literally,) with " their mother's softened 
 " bones, "-—in their hands, I suppose, " flying." And this is 
 criticism ! 
 
 But Juvenal adds, Pyrrha shewed the naked females to the 
 males, i. e. produced the women ; (as her husband did the men ;) 
 this circumstance, as of no importance to the story, was passed 
 over. The Critic however is determined to bring it forward, and 
 he has the impudence to assert, that I omitted it through stupi- 
 dity, not an innate sense of decency. lam" torpidly incurious, 
 "not sensitively timid:" and, that the charge might not be over- 
 looked, it is, as usual, put in italics. I despise alike the assertor 
 and the assertion ! — It is not a little singular, however, that the 
 same line, from the omission of which occasion is taken to tax 
 me with a predilection for impurity, is quoted by Rigaltius to 
 prove that Juvenal laughed at the superior sanctity of Deucalion 
 
[27] 
 
 and Pyrrlni, unci considered the latter as no better than a 
 
 procuress ! 
 
 quid confert purpura majus 
 
 " Optandum, si Laurenti custodit in agro 
 
 11 Conductas Corvinus oves? Ego possideo plus 
 
 11 Pallante et Licinis. 
 
 " Your boasted nobles! can they say as much? — 
 " There's poor Corvinus, of patrician stock, 
 " Tends, for a groat a day, a grazier's flock : 
 " Tush, I can buy 'em all; Sec. 
 
 " In this impure jargon speaks the freedman of Mr. Gifford. — 
 " We invoke the manes of Phcedrus, for power to charm our 
 " groveling versifier into a persuasion that the language of 
 " emancipated slavery is not necessarily disgusting." p. 191. 
 
 This, I doubt not, was thought very clever by Mr. Hamilton ;* 
 but see on what fallacious foundations one fool builds up the 
 reputation of another ! 
 
 Because Phaedrus, — where did the Critic hear of his name? — 
 a man of modesty and learning, celebrated for the uncommon 
 elegance of his style, and the ingenuity of his apologues, was a 
 
 * I should not have condescended to notice this man, if he had contented 
 himself with being the vehicle of his agent's ribaldry: but when he comes 
 forward (as I hnnu he does) and insists on its being admired, he must not ex- 
 pect either his ignorance or his insignificance to screen him from the lash of 
 contempt. 
 
 E2 
 
[28] 
 
 freed man, therefore his manes must be invoked to prove that the 
 language of emancipated slavery is not necessarily disgusting. 
 Gracious powers ! to what a despicable pitch of barbarism must 
 that country be reduced, where such ineffable stupidity as this, 
 is suffered to pass for criticism ! 
 
 It was this, among many other passages, that induced my 
 friends to dissuade me from noticing what would only excite a 
 momentary contempt by its rancour, or commiseration by its 
 folly, and be forgotten for ever. That it would so, is certain : 
 nay, it is already forgotten ; and this consideration alone deter- 
 mined me to drag it forward once more to notice. It is not for 
 the true interests of literature, that obtrusive and malicious 
 blockheads should be forgotten: — they should be gibbeted for the 
 scorn of wise men, and the terror of fools. This has been always 
 my opinion, and I rejoice when a name, whose impotence would 
 not have preserved its rancour from oblivion for a day, is 
 snatched from the gulph, and hung aloft in terrorem. Were 
 this to be more frequently done, we should have fewer imperti- 
 nent scribblers, and no Critical Reviews. 
 
 I return from the digression into which the stupid analogy 
 attempted to be made out between the rude and unmannerly 
 gabble of the ignorant, insolent, and boastful upstart of Juvenal, 
 and the refined language of the modest Phaedrus seduced 
 me; his manes, I trust, will be henceforth left to their repose: 
 if the Critic have any farther invocations to make on the 
 subject, Plautus, or Terence, or at worst Horace, may serve 
 his turn. 
 
I 29] 
 
 " Ense velut stricto quoties Lucilius ardens 
 11 Infremuit, rubet auditor, cui frigida mens est 
 11 Criminibus, tacita sudent praecordia culpa. 
 11 Inde irae et lacrymae, 8cc. 
 
 11 But vvlien Lucilius brandishes his pen 
 
 M And flashes in the face of guilty men, 
 
 " A cold sweat stands in drops on every pari, 
 
 " And rage succeeds to tears, revenge to smart. 
 
 11 Muse be advis'd; 8cc. Dryden. 
 
 " But when Lucilius, fired with virtuous rage, 
 
 " Nerves his bold arm to scourge an impious age, 
 
 11 The conscious villain shudders at his sin, 
 
 11 And burning blushes speak the pangs within. 
 
 " Cold drops of sweat from every member roll, 
 
 ' 5 And growing terrors harrow up his soul. 
 
 " Then tears of shame, and dire revenge succeed. Gifford 
 
 " Scourge is less dreadful than unsheathed falchion ; tacita 
 " culpa evaporates in paraphrase," kc. p. 191. This taking a 
 sentence to pieces, and commenting on the abstract meaning of 
 every word, is the wretched trick of such feeble scribblers as 
 have not sufficient powers of mind to comprehend and carry with 
 them the meaning of a whole sentence. The Critic, indeed, seems 
 inclined to overlook my version of Infremuit, " as our language 
 is perhaps inadequate to its force." Nugae ! see how all this may 
 be amended ; not indeed in rhyme, but in blank verse ; in which 
 1 would advise all future translations of Juvenal to be made. 
 
[so] 
 
 Oft as Lucilius, ardent, with drawn sword, 
 
 Hath roar'd aloud, reddens the auditor, 
 
 To whom a mind is cold with crimes, to whom [subaud.) 
 
 A midriff sweats with silent faults! Hence ires, 
 
 And tears 
 
 Indeed Madan has nearly rendered all such attemps super- 
 fluous ; and I congratulate the Critic on the persevering delight 
 with which he appears to grovel over him. 
 
 " As with a drawn sword, as often as Lucilius, ardent raged" 
 here the " language is inadequate !"— the hearer reddens, who 
 has a mind frigid with crimes. — Euge ! what would the world 
 have more? 
 
 With the " general" condemnation that follows I shall not 
 meddle. My object is not to defend the translation, but to shew 
 the incompetence of the Critic, whose inveterate malignity, by 
 the way, would utterly disqualify him for a judge, were he 
 abundant in the talents of which he has so " plentiful a lack." 
 
 '*' After the strictest revision by a priest, a barrister, and a 
 \< bookseller combined son linge sale a blancher, his sheets, in a 
 41 single poem, are sullied by numerous spots." p. 192. Not to 
 say that I afford (at least I conceive so) a solitary instance of an 
 author's being insulted for the language of gratitude, I must 
 observe, that in pretending to quote my words, they are guilty 
 for the twentieth time, of a wanton perversion : — in plain lan- 
 guage, a lie. For these " conscientious" Critics, who set down 
 nothing in malice, have no objection to fabricate what they cannot 
 find, to serve their " honest" purposes. 1 boast, indeed, that Mr. 
 
[3. ] 
 
 Ireland revised the translation ; but of Mr. Moore, 1 '■ lament," 
 (for that is my word,) that he only saw it in its progress through 
 the press;— indeed, the last lour satires were never submitted 
 to him : and of Mr. G. Nicol, — but will either of these gentlemen 
 thank me for attempting to screen them from the attack of a 
 despicable hireling, whose forgery is as apparent as his malice; 
 and whose profligacy is lost in his stupidity? 
 
 " Wit is admitted as responsive to yet." It is so by Pope and 
 Dryden in numerous instances; and if it were not, it is nothing 
 to me, for the " responsiveness" is not only not to be fourd in 
 the first satire, as the Critic asserts, but in no part of the book ! 
 * feast to guest :*' What of that? 
 
 How pale each worshipful, each reverend guest, 
 
 Rise from a clergy, or a city feast ! Pope. 
 
 and so in a thousand couplets that I could quote: " raise to 
 " please ;" this is a bad rhyme : it is, indeed, an oversight of the 
 transcriber, which was not discovered till the whole was printed : 
 this, however, the Critic could not know, and his reproof is, 
 therefore, just. " Freight, weight, and heat, are inserted as a triplet ! 
 In ten consecutive lines one couplet alone is correct." p. 192. 
 I will quote the passage ; for by this time, I suppose, the reader's 
 faith in the Critic's assertions is somewhat Aveakened : 
 
 Who call'd, of old, so many seats his own, 
 Or on seven sumptuous dishes supp'd alone ? 
 Then plain, and open, was the frugal feast, 
 And every client was a bidden guest; 
 
[32] 
 
 Now for the scanty dole aloof they wait, 
 
 Nay, scramble for it at the outward gate. 
 
 And first the porter, trembling fbr his place, 
 
 Walks round and round, and pries in every face; 
 
 Lest, strangers to the patronage you claim, 
 
 You take the largess in a borrow'd name ; p. 2,1. 
 
 " The poetic license is employed with harshness. Our ears," 
 — hide them, good Critic ! "are mortally wounded with, 
 
 " Hath trimm'd the exuberance of this sounding beard." 
 
 I cannot even now, that the " gentleman" hath so kindly held up 
 his farthing candle, discover what there is in this line to wound 
 his ears to death. It is given, as the note declares, as an imita- 
 tion of the mock-heroic of the original, 
 
 Quo tondente gravis juveni mihi barba sonabat, 
 
 and I feel no inclination to change it. 
 
 In quoting this obnoxious line the Critic has committed two 
 errors ; one maliciously, to make nonsense of it ; the other 
 
 it matters not why ; in the next, only one: "Still as he 
 
 runs he refines," and may prove " honest" at last. To encou- 
 rage him I will relieve " his grammatical feelings," and instead 
 of 
 
 When he hopes ! presumptuous ! a command ! 
 
 allow him to read in future, 
 
 When he, presumptuous ! hopes for a command. 
 
[33] 
 
 But what would the Critic have? To make amends for the 
 •' lameness and stupidity" of my version; 
 
 When he, who oft, since manhood first appeared, 
 Hath trimm'd the exuberance of this sounding beard ; 
 
 I favoured him witli Holiday's, 
 
 One whose officious scizzars went snip, snip. 
 As he my troublesome young beard did clip. 
 
 I now add Stapylton's, 
 
 Who to my youthful beard, offensive grown, 
 Correction with his nimble razor gave. 
 
 And Dryden's 
 
 by his wealth outvy'd, 
 
 Whose razor on my callow beard was try'd. 
 
 Humbly hoping, that one or all of those may close the mortal 
 wound in his ear, made by the " griding sword" of my harshness, 
 1 proceed to ask him whether he understands the passage ? If 
 he does; I will then add, though at the hazard of being again 
 taxed with " presumption," that he is more fortunate than any of 
 the former translators, who have not at all entered into the sarcas- 
 tic allusion of the original, which is only, I repeat it,only touched 
 upon in my " execrable" translation ! " Work upon that now," 
 as Goldwire says. 
 
 " In his notes, which are drawn from sources of easy access, 
 F 
 
[34 ] 
 
 " the phraseology is contemptibly colloquial:" but how is this 
 made out ? — very easily. And this is the process ! . I beseech the 
 reader to mark it. The Critic ranges over six hundred closely 
 printed quarto pages (twelve hundred in the present mode of 
 printing) and collects the following fragments : 
 
 Smack. Not a whit. 
 
 Sad to see. Might be shuffled off. 
 
 What signifies it. To be plain. 
 
 As every one knows. A great deal. 
 
 Bring forward. Without going too far. And 
 
 Cannot away with. We fancy. 
 
 I am willing to take the Critic's word (though I will not do 
 it on every occasion), and allow that all these are to be found in 
 the translation ; for in truth I have not the courage to examine, 
 nor was such a task, I believe, ever undertaken before. But what 
 is the object of all this laborious thrashing for chaff? Are not 
 the same words, and combinations of words, to be found in every 
 book that issues from the press? So the simple reader might 
 naturally exclaim: but he knows little of the Critic's cunning. 
 Surely his mother " called him Solomon in his childhood !" He 
 takes these remote scraps, strings them together, and produces, 
 what he is pleased to call, a specimen of Mr. Gilford's prose ! 
 Here it is, as it stands in the Review : for— to be plain — what 
 signifies it — when — sad to see — we — cannot away with — a great 
 deal — of his verse — not a whit — less familiar — our duty — as 
 every one knows — might be shuffled off — yet — as we don't sleep 
 
[35 ] 
 
 for every body*— wc fancy — wc cannot refuse to— bring forward 
 —glaring defects— without going a little loo far!!! p. 192. 
 
 Is this criticism, or the malicious grin of a conceited idiot? 
 But he, poor wretch, is wonderfully tickled with it, and exclaims, 
 in the pride of his heart, that the " expressions marked in italic 
 characters may convince the reader how strongly Mr. G. smacks 
 of vulgarity, and confirms, by his example, how long one that 
 smells of the stall keeps the scent !" 
 
 In a foolish puff just issued by Mr. Hamilton, to call the at- 
 tention of the public to his rickety Review, he is pleased to take 
 credit for the " dignified liberalilif of its criticisms. Is this a 
 specimen of it ? 
 
 Why all this outrageous hostility? I spoke with candour of 
 my predecessors ; I do not mean that mawkish good-nature 
 which never introduces a name without the epithets excellent, 
 admirable, %iz. for that to me has an appearance of silliness, but 
 with decent freedom, more ready to praise than to blame ; and 
 solicitous, above all things, of truth. I did not think I had pro- 
 voked a single enemy,— no, not even the ferocious hordes of the 
 Critical Review, whose abuse, notwithstanding, I anticipated 
 wiili equal certainty and contempt. But I am " presumptuous," 
 it seems : hinc iree ! When I have had occasion to mention 
 myself, or my publication, it has been done with manly modesty. 
 Assuredly, it was never in my mind to come sneakingly forward, 
 
 * Of all these detached pieces I recollect but this one. It is a translation of a 
 Latin proverb, " non omnibus dormio :" and the object was to render it (as all 
 proverbs should be rendered) by a familiar expression of correspondent import. It 
 is given in the notes, p. 16, as a proverb, and nothing more ; this the Critic had 
 the honesty (to use his own language,) to suppress. 
 
 F3 
 
[36] 
 
 and sue for praise in forma pauperis; nor, on the other hand, 
 was I disposed to submit in silence to wanton defamation, and 
 gratuitous injustice. On this latter account, I now inform the 
 Reviewer, that in asserting the notes on Juvenal to be " drawn 
 11 from sources of easy access," he is either deliberately false, or 
 ignorantly presumptuous : I incline to the last supposition, for 
 a more poverty-struck scribbler never disgraced the press. 
 
 I have yet a word to say on the notes : to attempt a refutation 
 of the charge of " vulgarity" would be superfluous ; it is only 
 brought against them by this Critic : by writers of a different 
 stamp, the language in which they are composed is said to be 
 light, elegant, and easy. 
 
 Since my dear soul was mistress of herself, 
 And could of books distinguish 
 
 I have been principally conversant with those of the best age of 
 English literature : I shall not, perhaps, gain much credit for 
 judgment, in saying that the period to which I allude is from the 
 last years of Elizabeth to the death of James. I know it is now an 
 inveterate custom to sneer at the name of James ; and that every 
 witling thinks himself competent to scoff at his witches, his 
 tobacco-blasts, and his dog stenie : but the age 1 have mentioned 
 produced something better than all these ; and, amongst the 
 rest, great masters of a style pure, copious, elegant, nervous, 
 flowing, light, airy, and harmonious. These I have studied: if 
 without profit, it is not from want of industry, but of ability; 
 and I never could perceive, either that they shunned the use 
 of familiar phrases, and such as were employed in ordinary 
 
[37 ] 
 
 conversation ; or, that if they did, their language was much 
 improved by it. 
 
 This had not escaped the observation of Dryden. Every 
 reader — I speak from my own feelings; but I presume that every 
 reader of his prose works, has experienced a sweetness that hung 
 upon his mind; a nameless something that operated as a spell, 
 and seduced him onward. The principal agent in this powerful 
 necromancy is the frequent and judicious interspersion of words 
 and phrases in common use. In extent and variety of learning, 
 Dryden is surpassed by many; in consistency and truth, by 
 more. Less is to be gleaned from his criticisms than a careless - 
 reader would imagine ; yet what reader of taste ever laid him 
 down without regret. If this be true of his prose, it is no less 
 so of his verse : " truth," as Shakspeare says, " is truth to the end 
 of the reckoning ;" it cannot therefore be more true; but cer- 
 tainly the poetry of Dryden has a greater portion of colloquial 
 language diffused through it, than his prose. How much of the 
 irresistible sweetness of his fables arises from this cause! the 
 mind is insensibly led on : it is soothed, it is lulled into a deli- 
 cious languor by terms familiar to it ; by combinations which 
 are instantly acknowledged ; not jolted and startled, as in some 
 of the admired writings of the present clay, where harsh and 
 affected inversions encumber every page. It is as pleasant to 
 dance barefoot over Derbyshire spar, as to pore upon many of 
 our popular compositions, which, like the prose of Gibbon,* and 
 
 * Accustomed to think for myself ; I have a kind of contempt for a cockatoo 
 critic, who merely repeats another's words. In the introductory sentence to this 
 egregious Review, my " self-complacency," — G — knows why — unless it be that 
 

 [38] 
 
 the poetry of Darwin are stuck full of points and sparkles, that 
 dazzle and confound the sight no less than the judgment. 
 
 To return to the Critical Reviewers. • A compliment to Juvenal 
 gives occasion to fresh insults on his unfortunate translator. 
 11 Mr. Gifford — good man — in the simplicity of his heart — is 
 " rarely— -guilty of the crime of poetry." With this deplorable 
 attempt at wit ends the list of my u merits." They are at length 
 arrived, they say, at my " defects, which crowd upon them in 
 " such overwhelming multitudes, that to pass through them 
 " without cursory animadversion is impracticable." Nov. 321- 
 
 What were the difficulties of" passing through" the crowded 
 streets of Rome (so fully depicted in the third Satire,) compared 
 to those of my miserable Critic ! 
 
 ferit hie cubito, ferit assere duro 
 
 Alter, at hie lignum capiti incutit, ille metretam ; 
 
 but his shoulders are broad, and his scull of a comfortable 
 thickness ! 
 
 The first " defect" is a superabundance of indecency. In every 
 other part Mr. G. has not so much " translated as travestied" 
 Juvenal, " but in his indelicacies, he has rendered him with 
 
 our names begin with the same letter, is said to be scarcely exceeded by that of 
 the luminous " Gibbon." The luminous Gibbon ! He is indeed luminous, to such 
 as bring to his work a greater portion of information than himself possessed ; 
 but is he so to this purblind Reviewer! The luminous Gibbon, in short, is one 
 of the obscurest writers in the English language, affectedly so : — hints, inuendos, 
 paraphrastic designations occur in every page of his latter volumes ; and un- 
 less the reader be previously acquainted with the subject, he will seldom know 
 about whom, or what, the author is writing. 
 
[39] 
 
 " licentious fidelity. Even this," it adds, " might be pardoned; 
 41 but when lie complacently enlarges on subjects of nauseating 
 11 crapule" — what stuff is this ! — " Mr. G. saving his reverence, 
 " must be reminded, Sec. His vain affectation of delicacy ill 
 11 atones for profanely introducing the crucifixion of the divine 
 " founder of Christianity to elucidate a frightful narrative of 
 " heathen debaucheries." 321. 
 
 By what authority does this man assert that my respect for 
 delicacy is either vain or affected? Let him look to himself; 
 every word that he has here set down is a gross and wilful per- 
 version of the truth. Far from profanely introducing the crucifixion, 
 I have mentioned it with deep-felt awe ; and instead of eluci- 
 dating the profane by the sacred narrative, endeavoured (as the 
 most pious and learned biblical commentators of all ages have 
 done,) to elucidate the sacred by the profane ; the only, or, at 
 least, the chief object for which heathen literature merits to be 
 sedulously explored ! And what will the reader say, when he 
 learns that " this frightful narrative of debauchery" is neither 
 less nor more than mingling myrrh or some similar perfume with 
 wine? But I will give the passage : the Critic, as is already said, 
 shall find no subterfuge for his malicious falsehoods in studied 
 suppression. 
 
 Cum perfusa mero spumaiit unguenta Falerno. 
 " And froths with unguents her Falernian cups. 
 
 "This most extravagant custom of pouring precious ointments 
 into wine, and drinking tbem off together, is mentioned in terms 
 of great indignation by the elder Pliny." Extracts (but of trie 
 
[40] 
 
 most inoffensive nature) are then given from him, from Martial, 
 ^Elian, 8cc. and the note proceeds thus ; " it is not very easy to 
 conceive the motives for this singular practice, to which I have 
 just alluded. Savage nations, it is well known, are fond of having 
 recourse to the most nauseous mixtures for the sake of procuring 
 a temporary delirium : strong infusions of aromatic ointments 
 in wine are said to produce giddiness : and it is not altogether 
 improbable, but that this corrupt and profligate people (as the 
 extremes of barbarism and .refinement sometimes meet) might be 
 influenced by considerations of a similar nature, to adopt so 
 disgusting and extravagant an expedient, for the mere purpose of 
 accelerating and heightening the effects of intoxication. 
 
 " 1 would not -lightly introduce sacred matters ; but I wish to 
 observe here, that the Jews were accustomed to give condemned 
 persons a draught of wine and myrrh. This is apparent from the 
 last scene of our blessed Saviour's life. St. Mark calls the wine 
 which they gave him, nr^via-^vov avov (wine prepared with myrrh). 
 This was according to the usual practice; and the merciful pur- 
 pose of it was to stupify the feelings of the sufferer." Juv. 197. 
 
 What is there here profanely introduced ! These are charges 
 that I will not hear in silence, even from this miserable agent of 
 malevolence. That I can " neither write verse nor prose," 
 I would as soon be told by him as by another; I have heard 
 it all and more from Parsons and Jerningham, from Morley and 
 Weston ; and though it might discompose my muscles, it never 
 disturbed the serenity of my mind — but, to tax me with impiety 
 in the face of my own proofs to the contrary, is extending the 
 "licence of the " society" to rail, insult, calumniate, and belie, 
 somewhat too far ! 
 
["' ] 
 
 The next charge is of (he same nature. I have "dwelt on a 
 "detestable passage, and indulged my fondness for nauseating 
 crapule" in a note on the ninth Satire. The detestable passage, 
 which is fortunately pointed out, is, candelam apponere valvis; 
 the crapulous note follows. 
 
 " As I would have the reader pass over this satire as lightly 
 as possible, I have studiously avoided detaining him by notes, kc. 
 I cannot, however, resist the temptation of laying before him 
 one short specimen of the perverse pruriency of the old critics. 
 What I have translated " fire," is, in the original, candelam appo- 
 nere valvis, a simple phrase, hardly possible to be misunderstood, 
 for setting a house on fire : yet hear D. Calderinus ; candelam 
 apponere valvis, i. e. produci, hoc supplicii genus notavk 
 Catullus : 
 
 Ah, turn te miserum malique faii, 
 Quern attractis pedibus, patente porta, 
 Percurrent raphanique, mugilesque. 
 
 Pa ten (em portam dixit Catullus, ut valvam Juvenalis, Upon 
 which Britannicus remarks with surprising gravity ; domum ac- 
 cendere adhibita candela ; hoc magis placet quam ut intelligas 
 candelam per inferiora immissam : illud enim minime letale esset 
 supplicium." p. 316. 
 
 This " nauseating crapule," as the reader sees, is in Latin, so 
 that no great injury can accrue from it to those for whom the 
 translation was chiefly made. But it is time to be serious : the note 
 is perfectly innocent, and might be presented to the purest mind, 
 without exciting a shadow of disgust. It relates to a species of 
 
 G 
 
[42] 
 
 punishment for adulterers, mentioned not only by Juvenal, but 
 by almost every writer in the Greek and Roman languages. If 
 it did not contain a play on words which have no correspondent 
 relation in English, I would translate it. 
 
 As Nasvolus could entertain no fears of a punishment of this 
 nature, it is obvious that the words " perverse pruriency" allude 
 to the inveterate itch of commenting, which could produce so 
 absurd a meaning from a plain and simple passage; and to 
 nothing more. But the Critic, seeing the word pruriency, and 
 unable to read the rest of the note, imagined that he had found a 
 mare's nest ; and, with the conceited complacency of his brother 
 blockhead in the play, exclaimed. "Call up the right master 
 Constable:" call up Mr. Hamilton ; "we have here recovered the 
 most dangerous piece of lechery that ever was known in the 
 commonwealth!" 
 
 This is the-favourable side of the Critic's conduct : if he could 
 read the note, he is the most infamous miscreant that ever dis- 
 graced himself in the Critical Review ; — et c'est beaucoup 
 dire. 
 
 Not content with this, he immediately adds, in his vile jargon, 
 that u the translator seems to trace a labyrinth of disgust con 
 amore." p. 32,1 . Say you so, Sir? — To such unprovoked attacks 
 what fitting return can be made ? That you are a fool and a liar 
 
 is abundantly proved ; let me now add- If you will permit Mr. 
 
 Hamilton to pull the crape from your face, I will speak out ; but as 
 you have the gloomy ferocity, so you have the guilty cowardice, 
 of the footpad ; and I shall never know you. 
 
 We now come again to the poetry — no, not poetry, but to 
 
[43] 
 
 " tlie vulgar prose" divided into lines of ten or twelve syllables : 
 the couplet, 
 
 11 O for an eagle's wings ! for I could fly 
 11 To the bleak regions of the polar sky, 
 
 4 ' is, forsooth, no fortunate commencement". 3521 . 
 
 The delicacy of this paltry scribbler is so exquisite, that he 
 trembles lest the word " forsooth" should be attributed to him, 
 and therefore carefully marks it as a quotation. But has the 
 reader discovered the " uncommon carelessness" which the Critic 
 " discerns" in these lines ? If he has, I honestly confess his 
 sagacity to be greater than mine. Perhaps Dryden's version 
 may assist him in the search : 
 
 I'm sick of Rome, and wish myself convey'd 
 Where freezing seas obstruct the merchant's trade. 
 
 I should however do the Critic an injury, if 1 failed to inform 
 the reader that the passage above quoted is meant for wit ! 
 should this too escape him, the writer will be peculiarly unfor- 
 tunate : 
 
 By his curs'd stars, doom'd all his life in vain 
 To struggle with a stranguary of brain. 
 
 11 The spirited line, 
 
 " Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes? 
 
 " Who could bear the Gracchi complaining of sedition? is thus 
 " diluted, 
 
 G2 
 
[44] 
 
 all must hear, the while, 
 
 4k The Gracchi rail at faction, with a smile." 
 
 This is not very animated, it must he confessed; and, indeed, 
 if this, and a hundred other passages, had been pointed out by a 
 man of sense, in the true spirit of criticism, I should have kissed 
 the rod in silence, and bent all my faculties to improve by the 
 correction ; but when an illiterate bully, like the present, mingles 
 obloquy and insult with his tritical remarks, he excites no feelings 
 but those of disgust and aversion, unless where he is happily 
 secured from both by contempt. The observation, such as it is, 
 had been anticipated by others, long before the Critic picked it 
 up; but the artifice of altering the pointing in order to make the 
 passage nonsense, is exclusively his own. 
 
 The next couplet is reprobated on account of the frequent 
 recurrence of the W. If I fall into alliteration, it is accidentally; 
 the most incurious reader may see that my writings are not re- 
 markable for a gratuitous display of rhetorical figures; but as I 
 do not affectedly seek, so neither do I squeamishly avoid them. 
 Assuredly I shall never reject a proper word, because that im- 
 mediately preceding it begins with the same letter. If a cacophony 
 be produced, it is a fit subject for reprehension: but of this, 
 with " reverence" be it said, I think myself, at least, as good a 
 judge as the Critic : — this, indeed, is not saying much; for with 
 one so completely ignorant of English literature, I do not re- 
 member to have met. It is but fair, however, to quote the pas- 
 sage to which he objects. 
 
[45 ] 
 
 »' Why Wait We? Ice 
 
 " Do Wc, kc." Sat. ii. 176. 
 
 Would the reader believe, if he had not already witnessed the 
 infamous conduct of this man, that he has altered Ike lines to 
 serve his detestable purpose, and that they stand thus in the 
 translation? 
 
 Why wait They ? Sec. 
 Do They, Sec. ! ! ! 
 
 Is this " setting down nothing in malice?" What think you of 
 it, Mr. Hamilton? 
 
 O Proceres, censore opus est, an haruspice nobis? 
 O ye nobles, have we occasion for a censor, or for a 
 soothsayer? Mada.n. 
 
 In the translation of this passage the Critic's indignation is 
 kindled at the repetition of the word do; he has heard it termed 
 an expletive ; and therefore concludes it can never be any 
 thing more — but do is sometimes emphatic : 
 
 And do we now, O Peers, a censor need, 
 Or an aruspex ! 
 
 So the passage is given by me: the Critic, whose end it would 
 not fully answer in this form, has again recourse to his " honest" 
 arts, and falsifies the line ! He prints, 
 
 11 And do we not, O Peers, a censor need, 
 
 " Or an Aruspex! Do not, Sec." p. 322. 
 
[46] 
 
 By which two excellent objects are attained ; first, the passage 
 is made very much like nonsense ; and. secondly, as not appears 
 in the second line, it gives a greater air of" carelessness" to the 
 translation ; and both together tend admirably to prove, as 
 before, that " nothing is set down in malice." 
 
 " The mighty Mr. G. does" — what is become of the Critic's 
 horror of expletives, so prevalent in the last sentence? "The 
 " mighty Mr. G. does not condescend to applaud Johnson's imita- 
 " tions in his notes either to the third or to the tenth Satire." 
 p. 322. 
 
 Why the mighty Mr. G. ? Is it another specimen of that 
 " dignified liberality," by which, as Mr. Hamilton assures us, 
 the Critical Review is distinguished! 
 
 It is possible to tell a lie in the words of truth, and this " gen- 
 tleman" is a proficient in the mystery. If he intended to convey 
 any meaning, it must be, that through vanity, or some worse 
 motive, all mention of Johnson's imitations is omitted. Of such 
 translations of Juvenal as I was acquainted with, I spoke with 
 unaffected liberality ; but of the innumerable modernizations of 
 the author, it never was my design to treat. Yet this " honest" 
 Critic (I cannot repeat the words too often) knew that I had 
 frequently mentioned Johnson, and with the respect due to his 
 name ; nay, what is still more, that I had spoken of his imita- 
 tions, in the only place where it could be done with propriety ; 
 in the Essay on Satire. There, after several quotations from 
 him, I add, " Johnson knew Juvenal well. The peculiarity, he 
 says, of this author, is a mixture of gaiety and stateliness, of 
 pointed sentences and declamatory grandeur. — A good idea of it 
 
[41 ] 
 
 may be formed from his own beautiful imitation oj the third 
 satire. His imitation of the tenth, [still more beautiful as 
 a poem) has scarcely a trait of the author's manner."* p. lxi. 
 With this passage, and several others staring him in the face, 
 could the Critic descend to the baseness of insinuating that " the 
 " mighty Mr. Gilford has not deigned to notice Johnson !" — And 
 this too, " is setting down nothing in malice." 
 
 11 Quid Romas faciam? mentiri ncscio : librum 
 M Si malus est, ncqueo laudare, et poscere. 
 
 " What can I do at Rome ? I know not how to lie : if a poem 
 11 be bad, 1 am not able to praise, and ask for a copy of it. 
 
 Madan. 
 " What's Rome to me, what bus'ness have I there? 
 " I, who can neither lie, nor falsely swear: 
 " Nor praise my patron's undeserving rhymes, 
 " Nor yet comply with him, nor with his times. Dryden 
 
 11 What should I do at Rome ? I know not, I, 
 
 " To cog and flatter ; I could never lie ; 
 
 " Nor, when I heard a great man's verses, smile, 
 
 11 And beg a copy, if I thought them vile." Gifford. 
 
 To this there are numerous objections. The first is the re- 
 duplication of the pronoun, which is styled " an inelegance." 
 To the Critic who has no other ideas of elegance than those 
 
 * That is to say, of that " mixture of gaiety and stateliness" which, according 
 to his own definition, constitutes the "peculiarity of Juvenal." Johnson's tenth 
 Satire, admirable as it is, is uniformly severe, and without those light and popular 
 strokes of sarcasm which abound so much in the third. 
 
[48] 
 
 which he has gleaned in the school of Crusca, it may appear so ; 
 to me, whose studies have taken a different direction, it has no 
 such aspect. It is to be found in all our ancient writers, and 
 from Shakspeare alone, I could, if it were necessary, bring as 
 many examples as would fill the page. That it may be obsolete 
 is granted: but the question, and one which it requires. talents 
 somewhat above the Critic's to determine, is, whether it deserves 
 to be so ; and whether, at a moment when our language is pol- 
 luted and debased by quaint and affected neologisms, it may not 
 be excusable to attempt the revival of some part, at least, of the 
 old and genuine simplicity. 
 
 The Critic's delicacy, however, reminds me of that of the 
 poor savages of New Holland, who snuffed up the odour of 
 rotten blubber with great delight, but turned with every mark of 
 abhorrence from the smell of wholesome bread : " subjects of 
 nauseating crapule" he swallows with avidity ; but " I know 
 not, I," absolutely turns his stomach. 
 
 The next objection is to " cog." " Mrs. Ford," says Falstaff, "I 
 cannot cog" I cannot wheedle; — is this sufficient? but the 
 Critic, perhaps, was dreaming of cogging a wheel or a" die ! — 
 The third is to the word lie ; it is a very good word ; and I hope 
 I have applied it properly, not only here, but elsewhere. 
 
 So much at present for his English: come we now to his 
 Latin. " Inelegance here is only exceeded by tameness, the 
 " single word poscere> swells into two lifies." p. 322. Poscere, is 
 literally translated into " beg a copy ;" two words instead of two 
 
 lines! Ah, Sir! but to be serious: if you are not the last of 
 
 fools, you must be the first of knaves. I believe, in my conscience, 
 
[49] 
 
 you are both ; and am sometimes sorry that I ever dirtied my 
 fingers with you. — But that you should escape with impunity ! 
 — no ! I cannot bear that. 
 
 " Exeat, inquit, 
 " Si pudor est, et de pulvino surgat equestri 
 11 Cujus res legi non sufficit ; et sedeant hie 
 " Lenonum pueri quocunque in fornice nati. 
 
 " Up ! Up ! those cushion'd benches, Lectius cries, 
 
 11 Are not for such as you : for shame ! arise." 
 
 " Not such?" — but you say well; the pander's heir, 
 The spawn of bulks and stews, is stationed there. 
 
 " This flippancy is intolerable." 
 
 It consists, as the reader sees, in rendering Quocunque in 
 fornice nati, " the spawn of bulks and stews." The Critic, who 
 construed the passage by his vocabulary, nati born, in in, quo- 
 cunque whatever, fornice vault, is justly enraged at this, and 
 lays about him in a surprising manner. Let not the English 
 reader, however, make himself miserable about it ; he may be 
 assured that my " flippancy," is not greater than that of Juvenal ; 
 who could not have found terms more expressive of his contempt 
 for this generation of " low-born, cell-bred," upstarts, than those 
 he uses, and I have faithfully translated. " But amidst his 
 11 bulks and stews, Mr. GifFord forgets his more serious business, 
 " and deprives the English reader of Cujus res legi non sufficit." 
 
 If it were so, it were a grievous fault, 
 And grievously hath Caesar answered it ; 
 H 
 
[ 50] 
 
 Not to observe that the whole of this passage is explained in a 
 very long historical note ; it may be sufficient to mention, that 
 the sense of the hemistich he regrets, is to be found only two 
 lines below those he quotes. Does the " learned" Critic think 
 that I translated Juvenal as he read him, with an ordo verborum 
 in my hand ! 
 
 44 But Mr. G. follows preceding translators principally in 
 " faults. We exemplify by an amusing specimen." I am glad, 
 Sir, you can be so amused : 
 
 Joy in your flippant folly, and remain 
 
 A simpering blockhead, impotent and vain. 
 
 " Lectus erat Codro Procula minor. Juvenal remarks only 
 " that the bed of Codrus was too short* for Procula." Was ever 
 man so correct? lectus a bed, erat was, Codro to Codrus, minor, 
 too short, Procula for Procula. Euge ! the ushers of Camberwell, 
 and Walham-Green can do nothing like this. " This translator 
 44 imitating Holyday" — Mr. Hamilton may thank me, perhaps, 
 for hinting, that it will be adviseable for his '* society of gentle- 
 " men" to steer clear of Holyday — 4 ' measures the lady also, 
 " and adds that Codrus had no other bed." 
 
 Codrus had but one bed, and that more short 
 Than his short wife, 8cc. 
 
 * Too short ! the absurd gravity with which this poor creature delivers his 
 modicums of wisdom, is truly laughable. He sees minor rendered too short in out 
 versions, and therefore pompously affirms it to be so. — Thereal meaning however, 
 (as every one knows,) is too small — probably to hold himself and Procula. The 
 translators saw the poet's drift, of which, the Critic has in no instance obtained a 
 single glimpse ; and to aggravate the poverty of Codrus, exchanged one ridiculous 
 circumstance for another. This is all. 
 
The notion that Codrus had but one bed, then, is mine in 
 your " reverend" judgment ! I am peculiarly circumstanced with 
 the Critical Reviewers. IF there be a wretch in the kingdom pro- 
 fligate above the common rate, he is hired to tniducc my character; 
 if there be a day-hack, ignorant and brutal beyond credibility, he 
 is selected to abuse my works. If Codrus had more beds than 
 one, what becomes of his poverty? — but this is trifling: there is 
 not a school-boy in the kingdom, who does not know that the 
 words lectus erat Codro, have, nay can have no other meaning 
 than that which I have given them. 
 
 With respect to the height of his wife, I will not, as Panurge 
 says, put my fingers in the fire about it. I never measured her, 
 notwithstanding the Critic's assertion ; no more, perhaps, did he. 
 — All I can say on this momentous affair is, that the commen- 
 tators and translators, out of wantonness perhaps, have generally 
 agreed in taking the name for a diminutive : — but something may 
 be learned from a fool, especially from a meddling fool : If I live 
 to reprint the translation for" his short wife," I will say Procula. 
 
 " To the ear of Bavius alone can share and war, past and 
 " chaste, care and bar, amidst a maze of sounds linked in equal 
 11 harmony, seem sweetest unisons." p. 234. This jargon is not 
 easily understood: if all, however, that is meant by it be, that 
 the rhymes here adduced are not sweetest unisons, it is freely 
 granted: but by what poet were they ever rejected on that 
 account? By none that I know; and yet I may boast, without 
 vanity, of an acquaintance with them, somewhat more extensive 
 than the Critic's. However this be, I am a hardened offender* 
 
 * The Critic adds, " under the shadow of a note," " We must attempt to 
 ** shame Mr. G. by a discovery that, in four hundred, more than one hundred 
 
[52] 
 
 in these cases ; and should no more think of rejecting such 
 rhymes as past and chaste in a work of length, than of taking 
 the Critic's opinion on this or any other subject. In a sonnet I 
 might be more nice ; nay, were I even to publish two riddles and 
 an acrostic, like Mr. Parsons, I might perhaps look round for 
 more perfect tags: but in a collection of satires, a collection too 
 of six thousand lines, better objects may justly occupy the writer's 
 attention, and nobler game the Critic's, than such miserable mi- 
 nutiae. Not so, thinks the " gentleman" of the Critical Review: 
 he absolutely foams at the mouth ; and, as he cannot wound me 
 with his teeth, madly attempts to fling his slaver over me. These 
 examples, he cries, ¥ will excite every scholar to hope that for- 
 " tune may rather reduce this eleve of Crispin to his ancient craft, 
 " than allow that he should" write again, p. 324. 
 
 This was so imperiously called for by the occasion, is so 
 much in the spirit of true criticism, and so exquisite a specimen 
 of that " dignified liberality," which distinguishes Mr. Hamilton's 
 Review, that I think it but justice to the " gentlemanly" feelings 
 which dictated it, to observe, once for all, that if with my present 
 means, whatever they be, I subject myself to the power of " for- 
 tune," I not only deserve to be reduced to my " ancient craft," 
 but, what I consider as infinitely more degrading, to write like 
 this poor wretch, for bread, or rather for infamy, in the Critical 
 Review. 
 
 " and fifty pages are incorrect in the circumstance of rhyming !" I must attempt to 
 shame the Critic in my turn, by il discovering" that Mr. Bulmer's devil, (for all 
 his journeymen turned with ineffable scorn from the dirty job,) affirmtd, on his 
 honour, that after a close examination of several days, with Truster's rhymes in 
 his h: nd, he could find but one hundred and forty nine ! Who now will trust the 
 Critic ? 
 
[53] 
 
 All (Ills fury is lavished on the translation of the third Satire. 
 In an unobtrusive note, (p. Ixiv.) 1 ventured to observe it was '* the 
 •* only one which had escaped a* "ion." Twenty years after it 
 was written,* it was found amongst »*Ir. Ireland's papers, copied 
 from my school-exercise ; and I confess — to my shame, as the 
 Critic will affirm — that I felt a slight visitation of pride, in print- 
 ing it " with all its imperfections on its head." I said to myself, 
 some generous spirit, some liberal protector of indigent industry 
 struggling with difficulties in the laborious pursuit of knowledge, 
 may be curious — may be pleased, perhaps, to see what could 
 be done after an education of eighteen months, by the help of 
 such poor aids, as a country school of no reputation, could sup- 
 ply. All this I thought; but I made no parade of it, not even to 
 my dearest friend: nor would the circumstance have been ever 
 mentioned by me, had not the Reviewer with an ungenerous and 
 unfeeling triumph over my situation, dragged forward this very sa- 
 tire, and commented upon it with all the virulence of insolent bruta- 
 lity, as an impartial specimen of Mr.Gifford's general manner. 
 
 tnstes 
 
 " Personam, thyrsumque tenent. 
 
 11 we observe most curiously amplified : 
 
 " Sicken for business, and assume the airs, 
 
 " The dress, and so forth, — of their favourite play rs." p. 171. 
 
 •Yet the Critic has the " honesty" to print in italics, that this very satire cost 
 me, in my own words, " twenty years solicitude" ! ! ! This is so much like a trick 
 of Mr Parsons in his observations on the Masviad, (see p. 24,) that I am almost 
 tempted to cry out, aut P. aut Diabolus! Yet Mr. Parsons, I am inform- I, has 
 been at school lately ; he cannot therefore bj so grossly ignorant as my Reviewer, 
 and. must stand acquitted of this egregious performance. 
 
[54 ] 
 
 What you have observed, Sir, you have told : I have now 
 somewhat to observe, in my turn; — It is that you have, with 
 deliberate baseness, sunk that part of the original to which the 
 passage marked alludes. In Juvenal it stands thus : 
 
 tnstes 
 
 " Personam thyrsumque tenent, et subligar Acci. 
 
 This " subligar of the player,"' which Holyday translates a truss, 
 Stapylton, a c — piece, and Dryden borrowed breeches, I passed 
 over, as the reader sees, little solicitous of rendering word for 
 word, where the general sense was sufficiently expressed. Yet 
 could this " honest" Critic, with the verse before him, stop 
 short in the midst, and, between a subterfuge and a lie, stammer 
 out that I had amplified the part he had quoted, though he knew 
 the words printed in italics, belonged to what he had suppressed ! 
 
 I am now sneered at, and for the third or fourth time, for 
 " boasting" of having raised Juvenal. It is necessary to explain 
 this. 
 
 The passage beginning, Nam prseter pelagi casus, Sec. is thus 
 translated : 
 
 First from a cloud that heav'n all o'er-cast, 
 
 With glance so swift the subtle lightning past 
 
 As split the sail yards ; trembling, and half dead 
 
 Each thought the blow was levell'd at his head. 
 
 The flaming shrouds so dreadful did appear, 
 
 All judg'd a wreck could no proportion bear. 
 
 So fancy paints, so does the poet write 
 
 When he would work a tempest to the height. Dryden. 
 
[U] 
 
 For not the gods' inevitable fire, 
 
 The surging billows that to heaven aspire, 
 
 Alone perdition threat; black clouds arise, 
 
 And blot out all the splendour of the skies : 
 
 Loud and more loud the thunder's voice is heard, 
 
 And sulphurous fires Hash dreadful on the yard. — 
 
 Then shrunk the crew, and, fix'd in wild amaze, 
 
 Saw the rent sails burst into sudden blaze; 
 
 While shipwreck, late so dreadful, now appear'd 
 
 A refuge from the flames, more hoped than fear'd. 
 
 Horror on horror ! earth, and sea, and skies, 
 
 Convuls'd, as when poetic tempests rise. Gifford. 
 
 Of these lines a friend observed, that they were too elevated 
 for the original. I acquiesced in this opinion, but did not alter 
 them. Apprehending, however, that tlie same objection, might be 
 made by others, I endeavoured to obviate it by hinting my fears, 
 not arrogant boasts, as the Critic, with equal falsehood and 
 malignity, insinuates, that it was "perhaps (for that is my ex- 
 pression) raised a little :" and I modestly proceeded to account 
 for it. 
 
 11 In the twelfth satire,'* I add, " and in that alone, the style is, 
 perhaps, raised a little : but it appeared so contemptible a per- 
 formance in the doggrel of Dryden's coadjutor, that I thought 
 somewhat more attention than ordinary was in justice due to it ; 
 it is not a chef-d'oeuvre by any means; but it is a pretty and a 
 pleasing little poem, deserving more notice than it has usually 
 received." p. lxiv. 
 
[56] 
 
 By this I flattered myself the objection would be, not indeed 
 done away, but weakened : for I must confess that, though fully 
 aware of the rancour of the Critical Reviewers, and sensible that 
 every thing which falsehood and detraction could produce, 
 would be directed against me, I was not provided against so 
 impudent a perversion of my words. 
 
 What now does the Critic ? He omits what I have quoted, 
 and gives the lines which immediately follow, "as a proof how 
 " I have raised Juvenal :" 
 
 11 This danger past, another does succeed, 
 
 " Again with pity, and attention heed : 
 
 11 No less this second, tho' of different kind. Drvden. 
 
 " But lo, another danger! list again, 
 
 " And pity, though 'tis of the self-same strain." 
 
 GlFFQRD. 
 
 The couplet is poor enough ; yet if it be considered as a faithful 
 version of one of the poorest passages in Juvenal, it may escape 
 the virulence of censure. This is the original ; 
 
 Genus ecce ! aliud discriminis ; audi 
 
 Et miserere iterum, quanquam sint csetera sortis 
 Ejusdem. 
 
 This is followed by a quotation from the ninth Satire, the ob- 
 jections to which, I do not understand. It seems by the Critic's 
 italics as if he thought no verse should begin with a W, for he 
 has carefully fixed a mark of reprobation on such as do, though 
 
[57] 
 
 at the distance of five lines from one another ! jlayd too is 
 marked out for reprobation : this however arises from ignorance 
 of the story to whichJuvenal alludes. Ravola and Usurer are also 
 stigmatized; i.e. o in the one, and u in the other! Imagining 
 the spelling to be wrong, I ran for my Dillworth; but I now 
 perceive that the words, in the Critic's opinion, should be written 
 Rav'la and Us'rer! Pope laughs at the " word-catcher who 
 lives on syllables :" with what ineffable contempt would he have 
 regarded this wretched vermin, who only lives on letters! 
 
 But the passage begins, " What, all amort !" This throws the 
 Critic again into a lit of raving. 
 
 All-amort is sneeringly called a classical word, and said to 
 be introduced by me into our vocabulary, p. 325. Did the poor 
 man never look into Shakspeare? 
 
 What, all amort ! Henry VI. 
 
 What, sweeting, all amort ! Taming the Shrew. 
 
 What, all amort ! Ram-Alley. 
 
 What, Sophos, all amort ! W r iley Beguiled. 
 
 No, I am all amort ! P. of Love. 
 
 Indeed, I scarce know an author of any celebrity who has not 
 made frequent use of this phrase, which the critic finds, for the 
 first time, in the translation of Juvenal! 
 
 This is not all: the happy discovery absolutely turns his 
 brain ; and now nothing will satisfy him but a wide range over 
 the volume, in quest of more oc-kuP xeyopsvu, words which are 
 coined by " the learned translator, for the purpose of enriching 
 " our language." Of these he finds, besides amort, 
 
 I 
 
[58 j 
 
 liuh! hull! huisch. 
 
 by loads. hot and hot. 
 
 vinewed. voids his brains, 
 
 very humorous. so ardent withal ; and 
 
 spawl. tossed off. 
 
 These '* novelties," as the Critic calls them, remembering with 
 what success he had exhibited a complete specimen of my prose, 
 (see p. 34) he strings together, as before, and produces another 
 fair example of" Mr. Giffbrd's manner of writing." 
 
 " This classic word amort tempts us to mention that our 
 " learned translator, who has been long anxious to correct the 
 " depravity ol iht public taste* — designs to enrich our vocabulary , 
 « i s — very humorous — and so ardent withal — that he has spawled 
 " — hot and hot, and — tossed off- — many other exquisite novel- 
 " ties. He — voids his brain — his — vinewed-brain, — by loads — 
 " huisch — huh! huh! p. 32,5." Despicable driveller! Tosay that 
 your abortive af tempt at wit is neither grammar nor sense, would 
 perhaps be doing you no injury in the mind of your employer, 
 who appears to estimate the talents of his " society of gentlemen," 
 by the quantities of dirt they are capable of flinging : but, (or 
 the amusement of the public, it may not be unnecessary to 
 
 * This is the second time, Sir, that you have quoted this sentence, and falsely 
 firmed it to be spoken by me of my own intentions. The passage is not in 
 the translation of Juvenal, as you know ; it is in the Baviad (p. xivj, and stands 
 thus: " I waited with patience — for some- one abler than myself to step forth to 
 corr.-tthe growing depravity of the public taste !" Have you no shame, no fear 
 of detection ? Are you so completely skreencd in the Critical Review, as to 
 hazard in every page, what, if you were known, would at once exclude you 
 from society ? — 
 
[59] 
 
 examine your pretensions to judge of such words as I have intro- 
 duced into the language. 
 
 11 The musty fragments of his vine-wed bread," vinewed, (as 
 Johnson says,) and as every one but this malignant idiot knows, 
 is mouldy; the word, perhaps, I should have chosen, if it had 
 not been too near in sound to musty \ — and yet I know not, for 
 vinewed is more expressive of the original, and, at least, as 
 good English as musty, or as any word In the language. 
 
 11 Spawl" — this too is pure English ; it is used by Dryden,and 
 Pope, and Swift, and by almost every writer in the language. 
 Johnson gives several examples; yet this purblind hack sets 
 it down among the " novelties" with which I have " enriched 
 our vocabulary." 
 
 In theCurculio of Plautus, a lover anxious to obtain an inter- 
 view with his mistress, who is closely watched by an old woman, 
 sprinkles the door posts and threshold of her house with wine, 
 that the odour of it may draw forth the duenna. His stratagem 
 succeeds; and she enters upon the stage, snuffing the scent. The 
 original is excellent : 
 
 * Flos veteris, k.c. 
 Bawd. 'Tis good old wine I scent. — 
 
 The love I bear it draws me through the dark ; 
 Where'er it stands 'tis near, — O ho! I have it. 
 All hail, my soul ! joy of my Bacchus, hail ! 
 O how I do adore thy aged age ! 
 The smell of rich perfume's to thee a stink, 
 Thou art to me my myrrh, my cinnamon, 
 
[ 60] 
 
 My rose, my saffron ointment, my sweet cassia, 
 
 My perfume of Arabia; whcresoe'er 
 
 Thou spreads't thy sweets, let me be buried. 
 
 Bonnel Thornton. 
 
 This, though good, seemed scarcely just to the author, and 
 I therefore ventured to retranslate it : 
 
 Old W. Huh ! huh ! the flower, the sweet flower of old wine 
 Salutes my nostrils ; and my passion for it 
 Hurries me, darkling, hither. Where, O where, 
 Is the dear object, sure 'tis near: — Ye gods! 
 Ye gracious gods! I have it. Life of my life! 
 Soul of my Bacchus ! how I dote upon 
 Thy ripe old age ! the fragrance of all spices 
 Is puddle, filth to thine. Thou ! thou ! to me 
 Art roses, saffron, spikenard, cinnamon, 
 Frankincense, oil of myrrh! where thou art found, 
 There would I live and die, and there be buried ! 
 
 Here this harpy of a Reviewer lays his impure talons on huh ! 
 huh ! " It is forsooth a vulgar coinage of the learned translator's." 
 Is it so ! There is a certain comedy called Plutus, written by one 
 Aristophanes, if the Critic ever heard of him : — to say the truth, 
 it was wiitten by Aristophanes, whether he ever heard of him or 
 not. This man then was reckoned a very elegant writer by the 
 Reviewers ot his days, (it is needless to add they were not Critical 
 Reviewers,) yet he introduces a sycophant scenting the smell of 
 roast meat, and uttering himself in this manner: 
 
[61 ] 
 
 11 Hull! liuli! hull! huh!" 8cc. through a complete scnarian 
 verse. Upon which Vossius, after some previous remarks, observes, 
 11 Lepide Aristophanes in Pluto inducit sycophantam olfacientem 
 sacrificiorum nidorem, qui totum senarium naribus absolvit : 
 Huh, huh!" 8cc. 
 
 Thus, what was used by the most elegant of the Attic poets, 
 and praised as full of wit and humour, by one of the most 
 learned of commentators, is condemned as a " vulgarity," by a 
 conceited blockhead, because he imagines it to be " coined" by 
 me ! 
 
 But though this poor creature was ignorant of its having been 
 used before, it had not escaped the notice of very good writers 
 in our own language. " A pig," says the fanatical hypocrite in 
 Ben. Jonson, (a man of uncommon learning and sagacity,) " may 
 offer itself to the sense by way of steam, which I think it doth 
 in this place ; huh ! huh ! yes it doth. And it were a sin of horrible 
 obstinacy to resist the titillation of the famelical sense, which is 
 the smell, therefore be bold, huh! huh! huh! follow the scent." 
 
 And so much for this " novelty," with which 1 have " enriched 
 the language!" 
 
 The next is " huisch !" In the dull towns, and duller inns of 
 Germany, I formerly amused myself with making a complete 
 translation of Rabelais. In his works, which are pretty familiar 
 to me, I found this " novelty" very frequently used, and precisely 
 in the sense to which I have applied it. In the English — but 
 what have I done ! 
 
 Eheu, quid volui misero mihi ! floribus aprum 
 Perditus, immisi. 
 
[62] 
 
 I have unwarily furnished arms against myself; and the Critic, 
 indisputably the dullest that ever took up the trade, will yet 
 have sufficient cunning to discover, that translating Rabelais, 
 when I should have been engaged on Juvenal, was a nefarious 
 attempt to " pick the pockets of my subscribers." 
 
 " Voids his brain:" what " novelty" the Critic found in this 
 I cannot guess, and must therefore leave it to its fate. " Loads," 
 too, sounds like an expression that has been heard before, though, 
 it seems scarcely necessary to waste either my time or the 
 reader's in proving it ! 
 
 " Hot and hot ;" — but away with trifling — the readers of the 
 Critical Review doubtless imagined, that the passages here 
 adduced as proofs of the " vulgarity" and " unauthorized novel- 
 ties of the translator of Juvenal," were all to be found in the 
 translation. It would be strange, indeed, if they thought 
 otherwise ; since to reprobate one book for expressions taken from 
 another ; to produce what has been many years before the 
 public, and insidiously foist it upon the reader as decisive evi- 
 dence of the demerits of a work then under examination for the 
 first time, is to sap at once the foundation of all criticism, and 
 reduce the Critic below the level of a highwayman ! All this, 
 however, and more, is done by the Critical Reviewer : the pas- 
 sages he so insultingly exhibits are not in Juvenal, but in the 
 Baviad, to which he constantly reverts with an unquiet and 
 fearful eye ! Let the indignation of the reader suggest what 
 feelings this mixture of the language of Billingsgate, with the 
 morality of Bagshot, must exdte in every honest mind, and then 
 admire my forbearance. 
 
[63] 
 
 '* Festinat enim, kc." 
 
 For youth, too transient flower' (of" life's short day 
 
 The shortest part,) but blossoms to decay, 
 
 Lo! while we give tiie unregarded hour 
 
 To wine and revelry, in pleasure's bower, 
 
 The noiseless foot of time steals swiftly by, 
 
 And, ere we dream of manhood, age is nigh ! Sat. IX. 
 
 In this passage " Juvenal is miserably blighted by the touch of 
 " Mr. Gifford." p. 325. 
 
 This calamity is brought on him, — by what does the reader 
 think? by the use of the vulgar novelty noiseless! I sometimes, 
 as Rabelais says, lose my Latin, when I consider the inexpres- 
 sible stupidity of this man; he appears to be unacquainted with 
 every book in the language (the Baviad excepted,) and I have 
 been frequently tempted, in the course of this examination, to 
 suppose him some vagabond Swiss or German, who has picked 
 up his language and his manners, in the important post of usher 
 to a boarding-school. But to the " vulgar novelty," noiseless: 
 
 Convinc'd that noiseless piety might dwell 
 
 In secular retreats, and flourish well. Harte. 
 
 So noiseless would I live, such death to find, 
 
 Like timely fruit, not shaken by the wind. Dryden. 
 
 They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Gray. 
 
 France spreads her banners in our noiseless land. Siiaks. 
 
[04] 
 
 And that most beautiful passage in All's Well that Ends 
 Well ; 
 
 For we are old; and on our quick'st decrees 
 The inaudible and noiseless foot of time 
 Steals, ere we can effect them. 
 
 But the Critic is not only the stupidest, but the unluckiest of 
 all two-legged animals : that he should revile and insult me is 
 perfectly in character ; he is paid for it by Mr. Hamilton ; but 
 that, for this purpose, he should select phrases which have long 
 been considered as ornaments of the English tongue ; phrases, 
 taken as peculiarly expressive of the original ideas, and which, 
 being in every one's mouth, would be instantly recognized, is a 
 fatality in blundering, proper only to this poor devil of a Re- 
 viewer, whose wretched case, but for one circumstance, I could 
 almost pity, sed sum petulanti splene cachinno ! 
 
 " In the tenth Satire we admire Mr. Giffbrd's powers of con- 
 " versation !" p. 32,6. No, not mine, Sir, — for of these you know 
 nothing, and if I have any luck " will never know more ;" but of 
 the lowest mob of Rome, which is carefully distinguished from 
 that of the author ; and which you may find delineated in 
 Dryden and others, pretty nearly in the same manner. As for 
 your wit — you have given me a verse,* I see; I will return the 
 compliment ; but mine are not, like yours, " by a distinguished 
 master of the British lyre :" 
 
 * " Tis best sometimes your anger to restrain, 
 " And charitably let the dull be vain." p. 327. 
 
[65 J 
 
 Why should 'st thou take superfluous pains 
 To show thy well-known want of brains, 
 And for vile scoffs thy head perplex, 
 Which can nor tickle me, nor vex ? — 
 Thy censures, by thy dullness, known, 
 Hurt not my credit, nor thy own ! 
 
 "The text of Henninius gives us mi randis ; following Britan- 
 " nicus, Wakefield, 8cc. Mr. Gifford prefers miranti." p. 326. 
 Following Wakefield ! it might be said, with equal justice, that 
 Wakefield followed me, for this Satire was translated long before 
 I had the happiness of knowing that such a commentator existed. 
 But what foolery is here? Mr. Wakefield indeed (dum vita fuit) 
 was " a rated sinew" in Mr. Hamilton's corps, and obliged the 
 literary, world, amongst other choice morsels, with a pitiable ef- 
 fusion of rage and envy, on the Euripides of Mr. Porson; — but 
 even this does not give him a claim to rank with Britannicus, 
 as a restorer of Juvenal. 
 
 And what does the Critic know of Britannicus? I will stake 
 my credit with the world, that he never saw his edition of Ju- 
 venal, and cannot tell at this moment what his text contains ! 
 He read in the notes to the translation (which is all he knows of 
 the matter,) that Britannicus had justly explained miranti; and 
 on this he sets up for a judge, forsooth ! and with no other edition 
 than that of Henninius before him, (this he confesses,) pretends 
 to tell the reader what, and whom I followed ! 
 
 But I have yet a word to say of Mr. Wakefield. I am accused 
 of having rifled him, amongst others : this may be brought to a 
 
 K 
 
[66] 
 
 short issue. If the Reviewer can find in any part of the trans- 
 lation a single hint taken from him, I will consent to plead guilty 
 to all his charges. The truth is, I never thought him worth 
 consulting. I heard once of his translating the tenth Satire of 
 Juvenal, but never looked at it; since I have been twitted with 
 robbing him, however, I have read his magnum opus, his 
 Lucretius, and find no reason to change my opinion : — the man 
 who could mistake the song — but I will say no more on the 
 subject, unless provoked anew. 
 
 " obtritum vulgi pent omne cadaver 
 
 " More animae, Sec. 
 
 " The body, with the soul, would vanish quite, 
 " Invisible as air to mortal sight ! 
 
 " is a languid translation. Mr. G. evinces no poetic sensation 
 " We" 
 
 mark his absolute We, 
 
 This triton of the minows ! 
 
 V We might have been induced to prefer morte animae, and to 
 " mark more poetically 
 
 " The body perish with the dying soul Iff p. 326 
 
 WhenDryden's translation of Virgil appeared, it was attacked 
 by a "Critical Reviewer" of the name of Milboume; dull, 
 petulant, and abusive : a " gentleman" too, as are his succes- 
 sors, — all gentlemen. He did not, indeed, descend to forgery, 
 nor, as far as I can find, pretend to quote passages from the 
 
[67 ] 
 
 translation, which lie knew were not there ; in every other respect 
 
 he resembled Mr. . But hear Johnson. " He (Dryden) 
 
 produced,'! says Tope, •' the most noble and spirited translation 
 that 1 know id any language. It certainly excelled whatever had 
 appeared in English, and appears to have satisfied his friends, 
 and, lor the most part, to have silenced his enemies. Milijourne, 
 indeed, attacked it, but his outrages seem to be the ebullitions of 
 a mind agitated by stronger resentment than bad poetry can 
 excite, and previously resolved not to be pleased." Vol. IX. 
 p. 426. 
 
 This old Reviewer, however, Pope calls " the fairest of 
 critics," and justly, for to his reprobation of Dry den's version he 
 subjoined his own. How often have I wished that our young 
 Milbournes would follow the reverend example of their father! 
 At length — Dii me audivere — and a line is produced to make 
 amends, as is proudly observed, for the " langour and anti- 
 poetic qualities" of mine. As might be expected ; besides being 
 absolute prose, it is rank nonsense, and in direct opposition to 
 the meaning of the author ! 
 
 Juvenal says, the body (of the poor slave) was so ground to 
 dust by the falling of the loaded waggon upon it, — that it was 
 lost, — peril, — it vanished like the soul. I have avoided all 
 ostentation of literature in the castigation of this despicable foe, 
 lest I should be found " casting pearls before swine ;" once more 
 however, I will produce a passage from Rupert i : 
 
 obtritum vulgi perit omne cadaver. 
 
 " Corpora tam minutatim concisa obteruntur, ut non magis 
 K2 
 
[68] 
 
 fere conspiciantur, quam anima, et prorsus evanescant, vel ocu- 
 lorum aciem fugiant." Vol. II. p. 147. 
 
 Nothing can be more just ; yet Wakefield, whom I am ac- 
 cused of rifling, with equal modesty and judgment recommends 
 all future editors to admit morte animae into the context ! " We 
 11 too," say his delighted brethren, " might have been induced to 
 44 prefer morte" — so that the sense will be " the body perishes by 
 the death of the soul ! ! !" These " learned" gentlemen forget that 
 Juvenal was no atheist ; and that the soul, which they with so 
 much self-complacency annihilate in the 561st line, is, in the 
 264 th, said to be sitting on the banks of the Styx, and wistfully 
 looking for a passage. 
 
 The last objection, (to which we are now arrived,) is raised 
 against a note. " Mr. G. pretends to despise a fancy of Bruce," 
 Sec. p. 32,6. There is no pretence in the matter: what I thought 
 I spoke ; and have no objection to repeat. Bruce is unfounded 
 in every thing that he has said respecting Juvenal. But I do not 
 therefore despise him ; though I do his defender, most heartily : 
 first, for his spiteful misrepresentation of me ; and next, for his 
 asinine justification of Bruce; — " the Egyptians devoured human 
 44 flesh in a famine, eleven hundred years after Juvenal's death; 
 44 therefore they were cannibals when he wrote." Q. E. D. Ad- 
 mirable ! As you were pleased, Sir, to refer me to your Review 
 of Abdollatiph (which is contained in the same month, Novem- 
 ber,) I turned to it ; and must take the liberty of observing, that 
 it is truly worthy of you. The review of Juvenal is not more 
 grossly ignorant. I now, too, can account for some of your ma- 
 lignity. 1 have the misfortune, it appears, in dissenting^ from 
 
[69] 
 
 Bruce, to differ also from you : and you feel it ! But the reader 
 shall have your " sage annotations." 
 
 11 Juvenal, who had a military command in Egypt, accuses 
 11 them of devouring dead bodies raw ; 
 
 11 Contenta cadavere crudo. Sat XV. 83." 
 
 If you can read the Latin, you must know that he accuses 
 them only of devouring a dead body raw : — and if you can read 
 any thing, you ought to conclude, from the horror and amaze- 
 ment he expresses at it, and from his forbearing, amidst all his 
 hatred and contempt of the natives, to charge them with canni- 
 balism, that the crime was unknown amongst them. The poor 
 wretch, of whom Juvenal speaks, was killed in a religious fray, 
 and torn to pieces and eaten in a moment of frenzy, by the 
 zealots of a creed different from his own. The French, during 
 the progress of their horrible revolution, have torn out and 
 devoured the hearts of many women and priests, yet who ever 
 thought of describing them, on that account, as a nation that 
 fed on human flesh? Fixed and general manners, not sudden 
 ebullitions of political and religious fury, ought in justice to 
 establish the character of a people. 
 
 " We own that we have spared no pains to find out some 
 " other meaning for ■ cadavere,' besides a human corse, but without 
 " success." If these extraordinary pains procured you a double pot 
 of beer from Mr. Hamilton, it is well — but with what inex- 
 pressible scorn must every man of sense regard such miserable 
 quackery. Juvenal tells a plain story, one man fell in tne ilight 
 of his party; the victorious enemy seized and tore him to 
 
[10] 
 
 pieces — they did not, adds he, wait for fire, and spits to dress 
 him, but were content with the raw carcass, contenta cadavere 
 crudo." What other meaning did the " sage commentator" want 
 for cadavere ? Is it not obvious to a child of three years old that 
 the plain construction of the word is the only one which can 
 make sense of the passage? Yet the Critic " spares no pains," 
 forsooth, to find out some other meaning for cadavere, besides a 
 human corse ! — That they should be unsuccessful, as he says 
 they were, must be a subject of infinite regret to those who duly 
 appreciate the importance of his learned labours: I, though all 
 unworthy, could have helped him to several other " meanings" of 
 cadavere: though the merit is, and ever will be his, of first 
 searching for them on the present occasion. Now we talk of 
 searching, it may be right to notice a " discovery" of my own, 
 which is, that the Critic, who talks so " flippantly" of Juvenal, 
 never read the Satire from which he quotes, and is ridiculously 
 ignorant of its purport and design ! 
 
 " This testimony of Juvenal is unexceptionable,/^ he com- 
 " manded a cohort at Oasis, in the year 837, ab urbe condita, 
 " in the consulship of Appius Junius Sabinus," p. 255. This 
 stuff is from Bruce! While I was carefully collecting, and 
 anxiously comparing every authority which I could find on the 
 subject of Juvenal's life, in ancient and modern writers, with a 
 view of compiling a short narrative, which I " hoped (to use my 
 own words) might bear the stamp of probability," was this oracular 
 " gentleman," with all the confidence of blind ignorance, intrepidly 
 delivering a statement, absurd in all its parts, and which even 
 Dodwell, nay Dussaulx proves to be incredible as well as false ; 
 
1*1 ] 
 
 from no better authority than a few incorrect and incidental 
 observations dropt by one who had never considered the matter 
 for a single moment ! 
 
 " Having examined the work, with the respect due to a classic, 
 " we proceed to judgment, assisted by the translator himself. 
 " His conjecture, — C I do not know the Abdera of England ; my 
 " readers, 1 fear, have been sometimes inclined to fancy it to be 
 M Ashburton,' — is remarkably felicitous. His readers assuredly 
 *' must indulge this idea." p. 3i>7. 
 
 In the tenth Satire is a playful note on the words " folly's 
 atmosphere," that concludes thus: " I recollect an old French 
 epitaph, which says, 
 
 Guillaume de Machault; ainsi avoie nom, 
 Ne en Champagne fus, et si eu grand renom ! 
 
 Champaigne, then, is the Abdera of France; and indeed most 
 countries have some reprobate spot, to which its courteous 
 neighbours assign the exclusive privilege of producing (verveces) 
 bell-weathers. I do not pretend to know the Abdera of England ; 
 my readers, I fear, have been sometimes inclined to fancy it to 
 be Ashburton." (p. 327.) 
 
 This last line my friend advised me to omit, lest it should be 
 construed into an awkward compliment to myself. I let it stand, 
 however, in pure malice; as I was well aware that the grave 
 absurdity of some snivelling Bavian would find a splendid 
 triumph in fastening upon the supposition. Fie smiled at the 
 idea, but he laughed outright at seeing it realized : And this poor, 
 
[ '2 1 
 
 spiteful, mean-spirited sniveller, turns out to be a Critical 
 Reviewer ! this is as it should be. 
 
 Lest, however, the good people of Ashburton, (who know 
 nothing of the matter,) should fall into absolute despondency at 
 being thus held forth as the Abderites of Great Britain ; they 
 are mercifully informed that it is on my account this stigma 
 attaches to them. — " There's life in't yet !" Cucullus non facit 
 monachum ; one swallow does not make a summer; and Ash- 
 burton may therefore still hope to shake off the load of obloquy 
 with which my " dullness" hath surcharged it. And this is 
 criticism ! 
 
 As for Juvenal — he is " rather travestied than translated ; at 
 4C the approach of the enchanter Gifford, eloquence, grace, majesty 
 *' and magnificence, sink into Cimmerian darkness," p. 32,1 . 
 
 This will hardly be credited, though you swear it: 
 
 nam quod vulgo predicant 
 
 Aurito me parente natum, not ita est. 
 
 u From the borrowed plumage of his notes, we have plucked 
 " many sickly feathers of petulance and vulgarity" p. 327. This 
 " execrable jargon" means the direct contrary of what it professes 
 to mean; but rage and malignity have so muddied and confused 
 the few ideas which this miserable scribbler originally possessed, 
 that he no longer knows what he would say. When the daws 
 stript their comrade, it was of his most beautiful feathers, feathers 
 which he had " rifled" from the peacocks! I, it seems, have 
 shewn less pride than the daw, and picked up only petulant and 
 
[ is] 
 
 vulgar feathers, of which the Critic, in pure good will, has 
 courteously disencumbered me ; O te, Bolane ! It is just, however, 
 that I should be heard in my turn respecting this " sickly" 
 plumage: it will be found, that a desire to conceal my thefts, 
 whatever be their value, cannot be justly urged against me. 
 
 "Of the " borrowed learning of notes," which Dryden says he 
 avoided as much as possible, I have amply availed myself. During 
 the long period in which I have had my thoughts fixed on Juvenal, 
 it has been usual with me, whenever I found a passage that related 
 to him, to fix it on my memory, or to note it down. These, on 
 the revision of the work lor the press, I added to such reflections 
 as arose in my own mind, and arranged in the manner they now 
 appear. I confess that this was not an unpleasant task to me, and 
 I will venture to hope, that if my own suggestions fail to please, 
 yet the J req ueni recurrence of some cf the most striking and 
 j.lal mi i. passages of ancient and modern poetry ^ history, Sec. 
 will render it neither unamusing nor uninstructive. p. Ixvii. 
 
 11 Awakened by his 11 and egotism, our indignation 
 
 " might have whirled this pretender from the heights of his 
 11 usurpation, to bitter scorn a sacrifice." p. 311. I cannot 
 compare this magnificent burst of ridiculous vanity in a poor 
 insignificant creature, letting out his liny at twenty shillings a 
 sheet; (for that is the utmost Mr. Hamilton pays him ) I cannot 
 compare it, I say, to any thing so aptly as to that of a goose, 
 when it has thrust its head through the gale of a farm-yard, and 
 hissed with all its might at a passenger carelessly whistling by. 
 Ik ven anil earth! with what innate pride does the creature 
 waddle back to its companions, and cackle to them, by the way, 
 
 L 
 
[74] 
 
 of the prowess he has shewn, and the terror he has excited ! 
 " Our indignation" quoth he, in the very words of the Critic, 
 " might have whirled this pretender" — O Gilray, Gilray ! leave 
 statesmen for a while, and goosify a Critical Reviewer. 
 
 " Our own duty to the public being discharged, we may 
 " administer justice in mercy, and protect" — grammercy, gentle- 
 men, for your protection ! — " this humbled culprit from farther 
 "punishment." p.327. I was about to be seriously angry, but the 
 object is too contemptible : let it pass. It seems, however, to me, 
 that when the " society" have thus lavished their whole fury 
 on some devoted head, they are bound, in justice to themselves, 
 to make their vengeance known to him. Strange as it may appear 
 to Mr. Hamilton, it is nevertheless true, that several months had 
 elapsed before I knew of the fearful destruction that was come 
 upon me. Perhaps, I should never have known it, but for my 
 bookseller, who called on me, one evening, with the Reviews in 
 his pocket. He can witness for me, that if I smiled at the 
 egregious fbllyof the first, I was diverted beyond measure at 
 the comical frenzy of the last. I saw the Critic, (I wish I knew 
 his name,) I saw the Critic "in my mind's eye," struggling to be 
 facetious, with tears of anguish streaming down his cheeks, and 
 every attempt to force a laugh ending in a compromise between 
 an execration and a grin ! Ancient Pistol at his leek, appeared to 
 me but a faint prototype of this unfortunate Bravo of a Reviewer. 
 
 Printed by W. Bulmer and Co. 
 Cleveland-row, St. James's. 
 
LIBRARY OF 
 
 CONGRESS 
 
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 J5EAUTIHJL PASSAGES of ancUnt. and 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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