sists of fourteen syllables, and has been therefore stiled the long verse. It seems to have been a favourite metre with the poets of the sixteenth century, probably from its facility; but is by no means a fit vehicle for heroic poetry, though it has been employed to more advantage by Chapman than by Phaer.

Among modern critics, our translator has obtained some notice, and even occasional approbation. The description. which Æneas gives, in the second book, of his visionary interview with Hector, has been considered a favourable specimen of Phaer's talents. A few lines will enable the reader to judge for himself.

"That time it was, when slumber first, and dead sleep deep opprest,

On weary, mortal men doth creep, through God's gift, sweet at rest:
Unto my sight (as dream I did), all sad, with doleful cheer,

Did Hector stand; and large him weep with sobs I well might hear;
With horses haled, as bloody drawn sometime he was in dust,
And all to swolne his worthy feet, where through the thongs were
thrust,

Alas, to think how sore berayed-how from that Hector sore
He changed was, that in Achilles' spoils came home before;
Or when, among the ships of Greece, the fires so fierce he flung:
But now in dust, his head bedaubed; his hair with blood is clung;
With naked wounds, that in defence of Trojan walls sustained
He often had; and me to weep for pity, woe constrain'd,
With heavy voice, methought I spake, and thus to him I plain'd."

There is such extreme monotony of manner extending through the whole of this version, that this short extract may be considered as affording a tolerably fair sample of it. The finest passages of the original have no splendor of diction to distinguish them in the translation. The description of the calm season of nature's repose, and the contrast it afforded to the agitation of mind under which Dido laboured, so finely pourtrayed in the fourth book, is thus rendered:

"Then was it night, and creatures all that weary were on ground Did take their slumber sweet; both woods and seas had left their

sound,

And waves of waters wild, when stars at midnight soft do slide,
When whist is every field, and beasts and birds of painted pride,
In bushes broad that breed, and country fowls of land and lake,
By night, in silence, still are set on sleep, their ease to take,
Forgetting labours long, and care away from heart they shake.

But not so Dido could, nor never rest relieves her mind;

On sleep she never falls; her eyes, or heart, no night can find:
Her cares increasing rise; with raging lover in breast she boils
Afresh, and surges wild of wrath within herself she toils:
Between them thus she strives, and thus her heavy heart turmoils."

The following short extract, from the account of the shooting of the Dove, is not ill done:

"Then Mnesteus, his bow to draw, forthwith with strength stood

out;

And stretching hand aloft, his heart and eye did level right;
Yet could not he, (good man), for all his art, the culver smite,
But hit the hempen cord; and of the knot the bands he brast,
Whereby the bird was bound, and by her foot did hang at mast:
She took the wind forthwith, and to the clouds full fast she flew.
And even at that time, as he his bow and dart directing drew,
Eurition, and for his brother's help, in heaven, he cried :
The bird he saw was loose; and sporting her in skies, he spied:
Yet, marking well with eyes and stedfast hand, in clouds above,
He quickly brake her play with sudden stroke, and slew the dove,
That tumbling down she fell, and in the stars her life she left,
And dead she came to ground, and in her body brought the shaft.”

The description of the bay, into which Eneas and his companions were driven, on the coast of Africa, is rather poetically translated :

"Far in the shore there lieth an isle, and there besides a bay, Where, from the channel deep, the haven goeth in and out alway: On either side, the reaches high, to heaven up climb to grow, And under them the still sea lieth, for there no breath can blow; But green wood like a garland grows, and hides them all with shade, And in the midst a pleasant cave there stands, of nature made, Where sit the nymphs, among the springs, in seats of moss and

stone,

When ships are in, no cables need, nor anchors need they none."

This is his sketch of Mount Etna:

"A haven right large there is, whom force of wind can never

move,

But Etna's brasting noise, and grisly thundering, roars above :
Sometimes thereout a blustring cloud both break, and up to skies,
All smoking, black as pitch, with flakes of fires among it, flies;

And flames, in foldings round, to sweep the stars, the mouth doth

cast.

Sometime the rocks, and mountain's deep entrails, asunder brast;
It belch, and bolketh out; and stones it melts and up it throws
In lumps with roaring noise, and low beneath the bottom glows."

The above specimens will suffice to give the reader an idea of the manner in which this very early translation of the Æneid is executed.

Twyne's poetical abilities were much inferior to those of his coadjutor, so that his portion of the undertaking is, as might be expected, utterly beneath criticism.

We may dismiss this publication with observing, that it has long since found its place among those books which are scarce, because they have been supplanted by superior productions on the same subject; and consequently, the demand for them having ceased, they are no longer reprinted.

ART. XIII.—Bishop Burnet's History of his Own Time. 1724.

It has been the fate of Bishop Burnet to experience the severity of criticism, and the license of political scandal, in a greater degree than almost any writer with whom we are acquainted. Indeed he has delivered his opinion so roundly on the characters of men, spoken so many harsh and ungrateful truths, and, without regard to the quality of the offender, denounced the vices of public men in such unsparing terms, that he could hardly fail of alarming a host of prejudices, both personal and political. In directing, therefore, the publication of his history to be deferred so long after his own decease, though he might be chiefly influenced by a delicate regard to the feelings of his more immediate contemporaries, he was not, we suspect, without some foreboding of the storm it was likely to raise; and, doubtless, consoled himself with the reflection, that -let it break as it might-he should then be himself secure beyond the reach of calumny. His reputation has accordingly had to sustain the conflict from which he wisely withdrew his person; and each individual of that hornet's nest his rashness had provoked, has concentrated all its venom to sting wherever there seemed a possibility of inflicting a wound. His character has been assailed in every mode, which dulness, inspired with resentment, could bear to use; or wit, sharpened and set on by

malice, could devise. His veracity has been impeached, his integrity questioned, his candour and fairness utterly denied; and whilst one has termed him a busy meddler in politics,-another, a defamer of honest men, a third, a factious spirit;-there is scarcely a single epithet, which the copious vocabulary of party abuse could supply, that has not, at one time or other, been appended to his name. Abundantly vain, and sufficiently credulous, his foibles have presented a fairer mark for the shafts of ridicule, and his enemies have possibly succeeded as often in raising a laugh at his expense, as they have failed in establishing the more serious charges which, in a graver mood, they have preferred against him. But the liveliest effusions of satirical wit, when directed against real merit, are, as they deserve to be, fleeting and ephemeral-the recollection of them seldom surviving the slightest change in the current of men's thoughts, and in well-constituted minds, dying with the mirth they have created. Those who were once so busy with his fame, and strove so hard to affix a stigma to his reputationthe witty and ingenious, no less than the dull and malignant, sleep the long night of oblivion; whilst all that kindled their resentment, or excited their spleen, his intrepid, manly, and honest exposure of iniquity, wherever it lurked, and his plain and downright dealing with characters, however high in station, or distinguished for talent, still remain to demand the unequivocal applause of more impartial posterity.

Those who, in the history of Bishop Burnet, expect general and extensive views, a luminous narrative of events, or a philosophical exposition of their causes, must not be surprised, if, instead of finding what contemporary historians so seldom exhibit, they are involved, with no clue to guide them, in the confusion of a period more than usually dark and intricate. Want of perspicuity, the result either of bad arrangement, or defective information, and conclusions drawn from statements imperfect or inaccurate, partial views and mistaken opinions, judgement outrun by zeal, and discernment clouded by prejudice-sentiments coloured by party feelings or personal interests, and characters drawn with fondness or resentment,— these are defects incidental, in a greater or less degree, to the works of all, who, however honest in their intentions, or little interested in the transactions they record, have attempted to tell the story of their own times. If Burnet has not risen superior to the weaknesses of our common nature, he had at least a situation of more than ordinary difficulty to plead in excuse; and being not merely a close observer of passing events, but a warm and active partizan, during a period when parties ran high, and delusions abounded, we have less reason to wonder at his occasional errors and wrong conclusions, than to admire the

general fairness of his statements, and the accuracy and extent of his information. Although the light which he throws on the transactions of that day be not of the steady and general kind, which the unprejudiced inquirer of after times is enabled to diffuse, it falls, at least, more strongly on individual objects, and exhibits them with a great deal more distinctness and precision. The forcible impressions, which these occasional glimpses convey to the mind of particular persons and things, repay us for some weariness and much perplexity, and compensate, in a great measure, for the want of more extended and philosophical views. During these momentary gleams, which, though brief in their duration, produce a lasting effect, we seem at once to enter into the spirit of the times, and gain a livelier conception of the sort of people with whom we are engaged, than the most minute detail of their manners, habits, and modes of life could possibly afford us. This is a species of knowledge, which we seldom derive from the perusal of more general history, occupied as it is with national events, and rarely descending into the privacy of individual life. The business, too, of the philosophical historian, being to shew that in ages, however distant, or countries, however remote from one another, man is still the same,-affected in a similar manner by like circumstances from without, and influenced within by the same passions and emotions, we are not made sufficiently aware of the vast difference that subsists, in all other respects, between ourselves and the persons of whom we read; and, could they be presented to our view, should probably be not a little astounded by the strangeness of their aspect and manners, with whose minds we are so conversant, and with whom we claim such a perfect community of interests and feelings.

But besides these emanations of a brighter genius, the tenor of Burnet's History is, in general, so lively and spirited, that we are transported with little trouble into the times of which it treats, involved in the hurry and bustle of life, and made to participate in all the fears, jealousies, and resentments, of that most anxious and eventful period. The rapidity of the narrative seldom permits the attention to falter, and the energy of a strong and powerful style carries it triumphantly through discussions and details, otherwise of a nature sufficiently tedious to threaten it with total extinction. He does not write like one who, from time to time, has disburthened his memory upon paper, and then, with his materials around him, sits down to make a compilation; on the contrary, he seems to pour forth his narrative from the accumulated stores of many years, and from his strong recollection of the incidents related, to be animated with all the feelings that they had originally excited in his breast. Thus telling only what he distinctly recollects, his