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NOTES.

TRANSLATIONS OF JUVENAL--WORDSWORTH.

Mr. Markland's ascertainment (Vol. i., p. 481.) of the origin of
Johnson's "From China to Peru," where, however, I sincerely believe our
great moralist intended not so much to borrow the phrase as to profit by
its temporary notoriety and popularity, reminds me of a conversation,
many years since, with the late William Wordsworth, at which I happened
to be present, and which now derives an additional interest from the
circumstance of his recent decease.

Some mention had been made of the opening lines of the tenth satire of
Juvenal:

"Omnibus in terris, quae sunt a Gadibus usque
Auroram, et Gangem pauci dignoscere possunt
Vera bona, atque illis multum diversa, remota
Erroris nebula."

"Johnson's translation of this," said Wordsworth, "is extremely bad:

"'Let Observation, with extensive view,
Survey mankind from China to Peru.'

"And I do not know that Gifford's is at all better:

"'In every clime, from Ganges' distant stream,
To Gades, gilded by the western beam,
Few, from the clouds of mental error free,
In its true light, or good or evil see.'

"But", he added, musing, "what is Dryden's? Ha! I have it:

"'_Look round the habitable world_, how few
Know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue.'

"This is indeed the language of a poet; it is better than the original."

The great majority of your readers will without doubt, consider this
compliment to Dryden well and justly bestowed, and his version, besides
having the merit of classical expression, to be at once concise and
poetical. And pity it is that one who could form so true an estimate of
the excellences of other writers, and whose own powers, it will be
acknowledged, were of a very high order, should so often have given us
reason to regret his puerilities and absurdities. This language,
perhaps, will sound like treason to many; but permit me to give an
instance in which the late poet-laureate seems to have admitted (which
he did not often do) that he was wrong.

In the first edition of the poem of Peter Bell (the genuine, and not the
pseudo-Peter), London, 8vo. 1819, that personage sets to work to bang
the poor ass, the result of which is this, p. 36.:

"Among the rocks and winding crags--
Among the mountains far away--
Once more the ass did lengthen out
More ruefully an