PSALM CXIV*. Ἰσραὴλ ὅτε παιδὲς, ὅτ ̓ ἀγλαὰ φυλ ̓ Ἰακώβου * Whoever will carefully compare this Psalm with Duport's version, will find this of Milton far superiour; for in Duport's version are many solecisms. “Quod infortunium,” says Dawes very candidly, " in cæteros itidem quosque, qui à sæculis recentioribus Græcè scribere tentârunt, cadere dicendum est." Miscellan. Crit. p. 1. Jos. WARton. 66 Milton sent this translation to his friend Alexander Gill, in return for an elegant copy of hendecasyllables. "Mitto itaque quod non planè meum est, sed et vatis etiam illius verè divini, cujus hanc oden alterâ ætatis septimanâ, nullo certo animi proposito, sed subito nescio quo impetu, ante lucis exortum, ad Græci carminis heroici legem, in lectulo ferè concinnabam." He adds, It is the first and only thing I have ever written in Greek, since I left your school; for, as you know, I am now fond of composing in Latin or English. They in the present age who write in Greek are singing to the deaf. Farewell, and on Tuesday next expect me in London among the booksellers." Epist. Fam. Dec. 4, 1634. Prose-Works, vol. ii. 567. He was now therefore twenty-eight years old. In the Postscript to Bucer on Divorce, he thus expresses his aversion to translation. Me, who never could delight in long citations, much less in whole traductions; whether it be natural disposition or education in me, or that my mother bore me a speaker of what God made mine own, and not a translator." Prose-Works, vol. i. 293. It was once proposed to Milton to translate Homer. T. Warton. Ver. 2. βαρβαρόφωνον,] As in the original, A people speaking barbarously. So, in our elder translation of this Psalm, “a people of strange language." And Duport, in his version, “ ἀπ' ἀνδρῶν ΒΑΡΒΑΡΟΦΩΝΩΝ.” Homer thus denominates Ἐν δὲ Θεὸς λαοῖσι μέγα κρείων βασίλευεν. Τίπτε σύγ', αἰνὰ θάλασσα, πέλωρ φύγαδ' ἐῤῥώησας 5 10 15 20 the Carians, Il. ii. 867. Καρῶν ΒΑΡΒΑΡΟΦΩΝΩΝ. See also Apollinarius's translation of this Psalm: *Αλκιμος Ἰσραηλος ὅτ ̓ ἤλυθεν ἠερίηθεν, Δῶμα δὲ ΒΑΡΒΑΡΟΦΩΝΟΝ Ἰακώβου λίπε λαός. TODD. Philosophus ad regem quendam, qui eum ignotum et insontem inter reos fortè captum inscius damnaverat, τὴν ἐπὶ θανάτῳ πορευόμενος, hæc subit misit. ει επι Ὦ ἄνα, εἰ ὀλέσης με τὸν ἔννομον, οὐδέ τιν' ἀνδρῶν 5 Ver. 4. ΜΑΨΙΔΙΩΣ δ' αρ' ἔπειτα ΤΕΟΝ ΠΡΟΣ ΘΥΜΟΝ ὀδυρὴ, ΜΑΨ ΑΥΤΩΣ δ' αρ' ἔπειτα ΧΡΟΝΩ ΜΑΛΑ ΠΟΛΛΟΝ ὀδύρῃ, The passage was altered, as it stands at present, in the edition of 1673. Τ. WARTON. In the following verses in the Iliad, ΠΟΛΕΩΣ occurs both in the text of Barnes, and Clarke, Il. ii. 811, xi. 168, xx. 52, xxi. 563, 567, 608. In all these places, except the second, ΠΟΛΙΟΣ is noted as a various reading. This is mentioned in consequence of the remark made by the learned annotator on the Greek verses in p. 285, whose assertion I conclude to be founded on the defect of Seber's Index Homericus, in which there are only two direct references to Πόλεως. TODD. In Effigiei Ejus Sculptorem. Αμαθεί γεγράφθαι χειρὶ τήνδε μὲν εἰκόνα Ver. 2. · εἶδος αὐτοφυές] See αυτοφυές κάλλος, nativa, naturalis, genuina pulchritudo, in Hen. Stephens's Thesaur. Gr. Ling. Tom. iv. col. 284. TODD. * This inscription, a satire on the engraver, but happily concealed in an unknown tongue, is placed at the bottom of Milton's print, prefixed to Moseley's edition of Milton's poems, 1645. The print is an oval: at the angles of the page are the Muses Melpomene, Erato, Urania, and Clio; and in a back-ground a landscape with Shepherds, evidently in allusion to Lycidas and L'Allegro. Conscious of the comeliness of his person, from which he afterwards delineated Adam, Milton could not help expressing his resentment at so palpable a dissimilitude. Salmasius, in his Defensio Regia, calls it comptulam imaginem, and declares that it gave him no disadvantageous idea of the figure of his antagonist. But Alexander More having laughed at this print, Milton replies in his Defensio pro se, " Tu effigiem mei dissimillimam, præfixam poematibus, vidisti. Ego verò, si impulsu et ambitione librarii me imperito scalptori, proptereà quòd in urbe alius eo belli tempore non erat, infabre scalpendum permisi, id me neglexisse potius eam rem arguebat, cujus tu mihi nimium cultum objicis." Prose-Works, vol. ii. 367. Round it is inscribed JOHANNIS MILTONI ANGLI EFFIGIES ANNO ETATIS VIGESSIMO PRIMO. There was therefore some drawing or painting of Milton in 1629, from which this engraving was made in 1645, eo belli tempore, when the civil war was now begun. The engraver is William Marshall; who, from the year 1634, was often employed by Moseley, Milton's bookseller, to engrave heads for books of poetry. One of these heads was of Shakspeare to his Poems in 1640. Marshall's manner has sometimes a neatness and a deli cacy discernible through much laboured hardness. It is diverting enough, that M. Vandergucht engraved for Tonson's edition, 1713, a copy of Marshall's print, with his own name, and the accompaniment of this Greek inscription, an unperceived reflection on himself. T. WARTON. Marshall's engraving is the first published portrait of Milton. TODD. |