es into modern speech is generally
admitted to be one of the most difficult tasks to which a versifier can
apply himself. And yet there is no task so often essayed. It is a common
saying in France that, when a lawyer quits the bar and retires, he is
certain to publish a new translation of Horace after a year or two's
studious ease. M. Loubet, we know, is a zealous devotee of the Sabine
bard. Not the least droll of Mr. Gladstone's many feats was the
publication, shortly before his death, of a translation of Horace's
Odes, a translation wholly worthless indeed, in spite of the writer's
immense scholarship, but valuable as showing the fascination exercised
by Horace over the most austere and ecclesiastical of minds. It seemed
strange indeed to see the great statesman turn aside from his study of
Butler and the Fathers of the Church, in order to put into English verse
the gay, and often scandalous odes, of an old Pagan epicure. Mr. Morley,
who revised the translation, must have smiled as he read the old man's
rendering of--

"_Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa._"

It is a fact, I suppose, that poetic translations of Horace are rarely
read, save by scholars, and the verdict is almost always unkind. Yet an
excellent anthology could be compiled by selecting the happiest
renderings of the most talented translators. Dryden's paraphrase of
III., 29, has been uniformly praised, and was a great favourite of
Thackeray's. Cowper's nimble wit and classic taste are seen in his
translation of II., 10, an ode beautifully rendered also by Mr. William
Watson. Sir Theodore Martin and Connington are always readable, Francis
is uniformly insipid, and Professor Newman, with his metrical capers,
absolutely absurd. Pope's "Imitations of Horace" are so brilliant, that
no student of English literature can afford to neglect them. Pope's
method of replacing ancient allusions by modern ones, was employed by
Johnson in some magnificent renderings of Juvenal, and no doubt
suggested to our Scotch vernacular poets a mode (still popular) of
translating Horace into Doric speech. Our Scotch bards preferred, as a
rule, to work on the Odes, and they succeeded best when they departed
most widely from the Latin text.

SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS.

The same blessed quality of brevity that attracts one in Horace is to me
one of the recommendations of Shakespeare's Sonnets. I am glad the
mystery of them is never likely to be discovered. From frequent perusal