Captabat, veluti volucrem si retia claudant Nunc primum, et subita tanquam nive, tempore verno, The second Idyl, "Pudoris Ara," describes the carrying away of Helen by Theseus, and the marriage of Penelope, as related by Pausanias (III.); two subjects, between which it is difficult to discover any connexion, except that of time, according to Plutarch as referred to by our author; which nevertheless are here united in one story. The first part, the rape of Helen, is one of those pieces of gratuitous indecency of which we have formerly spoken as disgracing this volume: all that can be said in palliation of this, as of our author's other impurities, is that they are coarse, open and palpable, like Falstaff's lies; undisguised by any sentimental drapery, and "made easy to the meanest capacity." Of the two, we prefer downright, honest, unsophisticated grossness. The story of Penelope, however, is sweetly told: we extract part of the narrative. Audiit hæc, et lora manu laxata repressit Dulichius; recipit mitissima nata gementem, Dumque senis lævo complexa est colla lacerto Frigida rugosas mulcebant oscula malas. Hunc interpellat juvenis. Me Sparta domusque Penelopes retinere diu natalis amantem Et merito potuere, sed est pater, est mihi tellus, Est populus, neque neglecti sine crimine divi.' 'Si pius es,' pater inclamat, mihi cede volentem. Eligat' ille refert: audito pallida vultum Penelope defigit humi, sed dextera vestem Arcta viri tenet et singultu pectora surgunt. 'Elige,' ait genitor, 'caræ reminiscere matris Debile cum gemitu collum inclinavit amanti. The next poem, intitled "Sponsalia Polyxenæ," is in our opinion the least happy of the whole; the incidents are ill digested and ill told, and the general effect singularly unsatisfactory. The dying speech of Achilles, with which it concludes, and of which we extract a part, contains some examples of the author's proneness to slide into Anglicisms. Ponite..vos jubeo..nemo mortalis Achillem Audeat ulcisci, nisi sanguine cretus eodem Et patre dignus, avoque domi! celerate regressum, Exanime, et minimis vivorum animalibus impar.. Deficio.. voces-ne meas auditis, an ægro Et, quanquam occulto sub vulnere distrahit orcus, "Dryope" is a tale of celestial scandal, related in our author's broad manner, ἀξέστοις ἔπεσι καὶ ἀκαλλωπίστοις; we shall therefore be pardoned if we abstain from making any quotations, and pass on to the fifth Idyl," Corythus," one of the author's best performances, though marked in parts with his besetting faults of flatness and obscurity. It is the story of Corythus, the son of Paris and Enone, who on arriving at manhood was sent to Troy by his mother, where the favorable reception given him by Helen excited the jealousy of Paris, by whom he was slain before he had an opportunity of making himself known. To this cause the poet attributes the inflexibility of Enone, when her assistance was afterwards solicited by Paris in the cure of his wound. We would extract the soliloquy of Enone on Corythus's departure, but our limits forbid. The introduction of Corythus to Helen is well managed. The latter appears here invested with the same graceful majesty as in Homer. ORIENTAL CRITICISM. In the notices of Oriental Literature in your Classical Journal, 48., having observed a party statement of a literary dispute between me and another anonymous writer, under the signature of Munsif, in the Asiatic Register and Journal, I beg leave to draw your attention to the other side of the question; and trust to your impartiality and candor for inserting what I now have to say, in your next number. I passed the best part of my life in the East-India Company's Bengal establishment, and have for some years lived retired at a distant provincial capital in England, with the competent means of a gentleman; and having made the Oriental languages there my study, find in them here that recreation, which many of your learned readers at Oxford and Cambridge, Edinburgh or Dublin, do in Greek and Latin: and having, during the last six years, gratuitously indulged the public with lucubrations in Persian and Arabic Anthology every alternate month, in the Asiatic Journal, I could not, of course, help animadverting upon various and often questionable topics; and though on my own part I rather courted liberal criticism, and was occasionally threatened by the Hayleybury-college Professors, I might have quietly proceeded, had I not incidentally more than intentionally touched upon the tender craft of book-making! And this was the occasion: Professor S., as you notice, had published a translation of the 7th chapter of the Anwāri Sohailī, or Persian text of Bidpai or Pilpai's fables; a work which, next to the Bible with the Jews, the Gospel with Christians, and the Coran with Mohammedans, is highly prized throughout the East. Having had the loan of a copy of it for a few hours from a friend, I was so pleased with it, as to pledge VOL. XXVI. CI. JI. NO. LI. H myself in the A. J. of June to bring it into notice by a favorable review of it; but on a closer view, and putting it to the test afterwards of a comparison with the Persian text, I found I could not honestly praise it; and though so far committed, yet having no wish to wound the translator's feelings, I abstained from exposing his mistakes to a greater degree, than a just regard for truth, and the duty I owed the public, as a literary critic, required of me; and confining my lenient remarks to the first and last sentence of it, volunteered a translation of my own to supply its object and place. This appeared in the Asiatic Journal of October. In the A. J. of November the translator answers me; and seems at first, as he expresses it, inclined" to let the public decide on its merits:" and had he maintained this prudent resolution, he and I would have been of one mind, and parted good friends. But he unfortunately adds, "the attempt of Gulchin appears very little calculated to recommend literal translations; its numerous errors and inaccuracies relieve me from all anxiety as to the effects of his censure." Here he concludes, without specifying what those errors and inaccuracies are: like a junior counsel, he thus contents himself with reading his brief, and cunningly, he thinks, manages to let his cause be opened, and his case detailed, by a leading counsel, and his evil spirit, Munsif. This the latter attempts in the Journal of November, not by justifying the mistaken translation of the Professor, but by recriminating on Gulchīn; as a specimen of which I may quote the Persian compound substantive : Abar-bahārī, which "Gulchin," he says, "renders a spring cloud-it should be a vernal cloud!" and two thirds of the 18 errors, which he thus specifies, are of a like hypercritical, trifling, and quibbling stamp! But the other six are of a more serious complexion, not as bearing against Gulchin, but as forcing upon me glaring examples, and what in mercy to the translator I had myself avoided, of the grossest blundering of himself in false grammar, and of his assistant in incorrect rhyme, quantity and accent! But to prevent any misconception of my motives in these remarks, let me in justification of myself premise, that I consider the East-India Directors as the most liberal corporation in England, and the establishment of their colleges at Hayleybury and Addiscombe, as well as the mother-college at Calcutta, as an honor to the British nation. Nor can I ever bring myself to speak or think ill of the College Professors as a learned body; but when individuals of them submit to become book-makers and pseudo-critics, they become in their turn the subject of fair criticism. To follow Munsif through all his windings, and bring his own and party's blunders into entire view, would require a constant reference to the Persian text and type; and therefore in order to prove my assertions, we must be content with two examples in Persian, and one in Arabic; but as they are strong and full in point, and as I shall accompany them with an analysis and ordo verborum, a process I find Munsif flies from, or silently passes over, I can have no doubt of convincing your learned readers of the ignorance of this pretender to Oriental Litera ture. My first example is a clause of the first sentence of the 7th chapter of the Anwari Sobailī; and, as indeed it first struck me, it is an instance of the inadequateness of the Professor's translation for the purpose which he intended, and his own incapacity for the task. In the Persian characters it runs thus: the literal translation of which : جحر چکوف قدم ودين کارخر 1s; "that he may, through any manner of exertion, put forward his foot in this business with safety;" the analysis and ordo verborum running thus: ↳ in order that, any, or any sort of, exertion, جح ر خر through, this, he may put forward, or plant, the foot, in, (the contraction of business, with, safety and no young gentleman of a month's standing in the first term at his college could find any difficulty in construing this: yet Professor S. divides it into two clauses; and Munsif repeats this division, and makes them thus separately the 11th and 12th articles of my imputed 18 errors! The first of these two clauses the Professor translates, " in order to effect his liberation:" and his assistant Munsif, after a month's deliberate consultation and study, alters it a little, but does not mend it, by re-echoing it as a charge against me in these words: so that he may escape in safety;" both of them thus converting the substantive noun jah'd, signifying effort, into the third person singular of the aorist of the verb jahidan, signifying to leap, spring, gallop, trot; but admitting it were otherwise right, in no sense implying, to effect liberation or escape! This is not, however, the worst part of it; the second of his two clauses the Professor translates," say, how shall he attempt this?" thus giving the adjective noun , signifying any, and which in this sense should agree with its substantive jah'd, |