With more in the same style. We might have given some better samples; but, unfortunately (as is sometimes the case in poems of more consequence), the best parts are the least intelligible. We know nothing of the author, and have not thought it worth our while to seek for information. Is the Nightingale the Herald of Day, as well as the Messenger of Spring? No. IV. [Concluded from No. LVIII.] My best acknowlegements are due to P. V. for his satisfactory references to Sir W. Ouseley's Travels and his Persian Miscel lanies, on the subject of the Nightingale. The following additional notices may be acceptable to him and the readers of the Classical Journal in general. He, that should attempt a translation of this most artful composition (Strada's Contest of the Musician and Nightingale), 'dum tentat discrimina tanta reddere,' would probably, like the Nightingale, find himself impar magnanimis ausis.' The attempt, however, has been made. Without mentioning the miserable imitation by Ambrose Philips, in his fifth Eclogue, there is in a little volume, entitled Prolusiones Poetica, by the Rev. T. Bancroft, printed at Chester, 1788, a version of the Fidicinis et Philomela Certamen, which will please every reader of taste, who forbears to compare it with the original; and in the Poems of Pattison, the ingenious author of the Epistle of Abelard to Eloisa, is a fable, entitled The Nightingale and Shepherd, imitated from Strada. But these performances serve only to con vince us that a perfect translation of that composition is a thing almost impossible." Lord Woodhouselee's Essay on Translation, p. 349, 3d Ed. An article on this subject of the Musician and the Nightingale will be found in Leigh Hunt's Essays, entitled Indicator. That it is the male bird only, which sings, was well understood by the ancients. Eust. 395. Φανερὸν δὲ καὶ ὅτι ἄῤῥενες τέττιγες ᾄδουσιν, οἱ καὶ ἀχέται (Ι. ἠχέται) παρ' Ησιόδω ("Εργ. 580. καὶ ἠχέτα τέττιξ, Α. 393. κυανόπτερος ἠχέτα τέττιξ·) ἄφωνοι δὲ τὸ τῶν θηλειῶν εἶδος, οἳ καὶ τιγόνια (1. τιτιγόνια, see the New Gr. Τhes. 307. n.) ὃ διδασκαλία εἴη ἂν σιγῆς κοσμούσης γυναῖκας, κατὰ τὸ, Γύναι, γυναιξὶ κόσμον ἡ σιγὴ φέρει. Εἰς δὲ τὸ αὐτὸ συντελεῖ πρὸς ἄλλοις καὶ τὸ Tüv Onλeiæv åndóvwv åpeλés. Virgil, however, has on one occasion given the power of song to the female bird. "The poet compares the complaint of Orpheus to the wailing of a Nightingale, robbed of her young, in those well-known beautiful verses: Qualis populea morens Philomela sub umbra, So, close in poplar shades, her children gone, Whose nest some prying churl had found, and thence By stealth convey'd the feather'd innocence. But she supplies the night with mournful strains, And melancholy music fills the plains. How poor is this translation when compared with its original! It is evident that there is a complete evaporation of the beauties of the original in this translation; and the reason is, that the French poet has substituted sentiments for facts, and refinement for the simple pathetic. The Nightingale of Delille melts all nature with her complaint, accuses with her sighs the inhuman fowler, who glides his thievish hand into her nest, and plunders the tender fruits, that were hatched by love! How different this sentimental foppery from the chaste simplicity of Virgil!" Lord Woodhouselee's Essay on Translation, p. 124. The following additional testimonies to the fact that the Nightingale welcomes the approach of day were overlooked in the previous articles. In the poem, entitled Philomela incerti Auctoris, and subjoined to Ovid's works, we read: Dulcis amica, veni, noctis solatia præstans, Inter aves etenim nulla tibi similis. Tu, Philomela, potes vocum discrimina mille; Nam quamvis aliæ volucres modulamina tentent; A Nightingale, that all day long Had cheer'd the village with his song, Nor yet when even-tide was ended. Cowper's Nightingale and Glow-worm. "Desbillons, an author of very high merit among the modern Latin poets, who rivals, in his Fabula Esopia, the naïveté of Phædrus, and who unites to that quality an elegance, tenderness, and even dignity of composition, (in justification of this praise, the reader is referred to the fable, entitled Philomela, Corvus, et Bubo,) has adopted many of the fables of La Fontaine; but, judiciously limiting himself to an imitation of the manner of his original, he never attempts to discharge the duty of a translator. If we compare his Bellua pestilentia laborantes with its original, Les Animaux malades de la Peste, we shall have a just idea of perfect imitation, as distinguished from poetical translation." Lord Woodhouselee, l. c. p. 343. Philomela, Corvus, et Bubo. Natura vernis pinxerat coloribus Extulerat ab agris molliter tepentibus Et in parentis regna telluris sinens Philomela tales avida delicias capit, Et deficere videtur, et medullitus Favonius, quem lilia inter et rosas Ne cesset illa, metuit. Evigilat quoque Mihi cantilenæ, moneo, valde displicent; Fabella scripta est in homines quosdam feros, ON FABLES, AND THE EASTERN ALL fables of antiquity had a connexion with the different mysteries, and originated in the DW, or parabolical and allegorical representation of facts: hence Aphthonius observed, σti dě μῦθος λόγος ψευδὴς, εἰκονίζων ἀλήθειαν, on which account #sop was called μulózolos. It is not an easy task to define the difference between allegory and fable:-for instance, the principal points in Nathan's parable to David and in the D of the Prophets, such as Ezekiel's figurative chapter on Aholah and Aholibah, partake in a very great degree of the nature of both. We, however, detect the legitimate fable in the history of Jotham (Judges ix. 7 et sqq.), and of Joash (2 Chr. xxv. 18; 2 Kings xiv. 4). This was, doubtless, the most ancient way of popularly recommending truth, and was consequently adopted by Vishnu Sarma, Lokmán or Æsop; for as the love of fiction and legendary tales had always been cherished in the East, as it is to this day, it was natural to suppose, that the moralist would adapt this prevailing style to the higher purposes of instruction. The existence of this class of writers may be traced to the days of Moses (Numb. xxi. 27); they were probably antecedent to him, having flourished from time immemorial in Chaldæa and Egypt. The most ancient collection of fables known is in the Pancha Tautra, and Hitopadésa of Vishnu Sarma; from whence Pilpai's fables, the Kalíla wa Dimna, Anvari Soheili, Ayári Danish, Túti-námah, Humayun-námah, &c. are derived. The Hindus refer these apologues to the Niti-Sastra, or Ethical class; and as early as the sixth century a translation of them was made by Anushirván's chief physician, who was afterwards promoted to the rank of vizier :-in the 380th year of the Hejra, the Sultan Mahmud versified the collection. There is a considerable difference between these translations and the Sanskrit original, which might be reasonably expected; because they were first translated into the Pablávi, from thence into the Arabic, and thus from one language into another, until they assumed the character rather of imitations than of translations; and in the course of these numerous versions, fables were added to the collection either by the translator or copyist, and some were omitted. If such men as Lokman and sop ever lived, they were |