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know not that the Library of Alexandria adopted any thing from a foreign tongue.

THE Romans confeffed themselves the fcholars of the Greeks, and do not appear to have expected, what has fince happened, that the ignorance of fucceeding ages would prefer them to their teachers. Every man who in Rome afpired to the praise of literature, thought it neceffary to learn Greek, and had no need of verfions when they could ftudy the originals. Tranflation, however, was not wholly neglected. Dramatick poems could be underftood by the people in no language but their own, and the Romans were fometimes entertained with the Tragedies of Euripides and the Comedies of Menander. Other works were fometimes attempted; in an old Scholiaft there is mention of a Latin Iliad, and we have not wholly loft Tully's verfion of the Poem of Aratus; but it does not appear that any man grew eminent by interpreting another, and perhaps it was more frequent to tranflate for exercise or amusement, than for fame.

THE Arabs were the first nation who felt the ardour of Translation; when they had fubdued

fubdued the eastern provinces of the Greek Empire, they found their captives wifer than themfelves, and made hafte to relieve their wants by imparted knowledge. They difcovered that many might grow wife by the labour of a few, and that improvements might be made with speed, when they had the knowledge of former ages in their own language.

They

therefore made hafte to lay hold on Medicine and Philofophy, and turned their chief authors into Arabic. Whether they attempted the Poets is not known; their literary zeal was vehement, but it was fhort, and probably expired before they had time to add the arts of elegance to thofe of neceflity.

THE ftady of ancient literature was interrupted in Europe by the irruption of the northern nations, who fubverted the Roman Empire, and erected new kingdoms with new languages. It is not ftrange, that fuch confufion fhould fufpend literary attention; thofe who loft, and those who gained dominion, had immediate difficulties to encounter and immediate miseries to redress, and had little leisure, amidst the violence of war, the trepidation of fight, the diftreffes of forced migration, or the

tumults

tumults of unsettled conqueft, to enquire after fpeculative truth, to enjoy the amusement of imaginary adventures, to know the hiftory of former ages, or ftudy the events of any other lives. But no fooner had this chaos of dominion funk into order, than learning began again to flourish in the calm of peace. When life and poffeffions were fecure, convenience and enjoyment were foon fought, learning was found the higheft gratification of the mind, and Tranflation became one of the means by which it was imparted.

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AT laft, by a concurrence of many causes, the European world was rouzed from its lethargy; thofe arts which had been long obfcurely ftudied in the gloom of monafteries became the general favourites of mankind; every nation vied with its neighbour for the prize of learning; the epidemical emulation spread from south to north, and Curiosity and Tranflation found their way to Britain,

N° 69.

N° 69. Saturday, August 11.

E that reviews the progrefs of English

HE

Literature, will find that Tranflation was very early cultivated among us, but that fome principles, either wholly erroneous or too far extended, hindered our fuccess from being always equal to our diligence,

CHAUCER, who is generally confidered as the Father of our Poetry, has left a Version of Boetius on the Comforts of Philofophy, the book which feems to have been the favourite of the middle ages, which had been tranflated into Saxon by King Alfred, and illuftrated with a copious Comment ascribed to Aquinas. It may be fuppofed that Chaucer would apply more than common attention to an Author of so much celebrity, yet has attempted nothing higher than a version strictly literal, and has degraded the poetical parts to profe, that the constraint of verfification might not obstruct his zeal for fidelity.

CAXTON taught us Typography about the year 1490. The first book printed in English was a tranflation. Caxton was both the Tranflator and Printer of the Deftruccion of Troye, a book which, in that infancy of learning, was confidered as the beft account of the fabulɔrs ages, and which, tho' now driven out of notice by Authors of no greater use or value, ftill continued to be read in Caxton's English to the beginning of the prefent century.

CAXTON proceeded as he began, and, except the Poems of Gower and Chaucer, printed nothing but Translations from the French, in which the original is fo fcrupulously followed, that they afford us little knowledge of our own language; tho' the words are English the phrase is foreign.

As Learning advanced, new works were adopted into our language, but I think with little improvement of the art of Translation, tho' foreign nations and other languages offered us models of a better method; till in the age of Elizabeth we began to find that greater liberty was neceffary to elegance, and that elegance was neceffary to general recep