Notes and Queries, Number 40, August 3, 1850Various
History
Notes and Queries, Number 40, August 3, 1850
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
In the year 1801 there was published at Oxford, in 12mo., a translation
of the satires of Juvenal in verse, by Mr. William Rhodes, A.M.,
superior Bedell of Arts in that University, which he describes in his
title-page as "nec verbum verbo." There are some prefatory remarks
prefixed to the third satire in which he says:
"The reader, I hope, will neither contrast the following, nor the tenth
satire, with the excellent imitation of a mighty genius; though similar,
they are upon a different plan. I have not adhered rigidly to my author,
compared with him; and if that were not the case, I am very sensible how
little they are calculated to undergo so fiery an ordeal."
And speaking particularly of the third satire, he adds:
"This part has been altered, as already mentioned, to render it more
applicable to London: nothing is to be looked for in it but the
ill-humour of the emigrant."
The reader will perhaps recollect, that in the opening of the third
satire, Juvenal represents himself about to take leave of his friends
Umbritius, who is quitting Rome for Canæ: they meet on the road (the Via
Appia), and turning aside, for greater freedom of conversation, into the
Vallis Egeriæ, the sight of the fountain there, newly decorated with
foreign marbles, leads to an expression of regret that it was no longer
suffered to remain in the simplicity of the times of Numa:
"In valem Egeriæ descendimus, et speluncas
Dissimiles veris. Quanto præstantius esset
Numen aquæ, viridi si margine clauderet undas
Herba, nec ingenuum violarent marmora tophum?"
_Sat._ iii. 17.
In imitating this passage, Mr. Rhodes, finding no fons Egeriæ, no Numa,
and perhaps no Muses in London, transfers his regrets from a rivulet to
a navigable stream; and makes the whole ridiculous, by suggesting that
the Thames would look infinitely better if it flowed through grass, as
every ordinary brook would do.
"Next he departed to the river side,
Crowded with buildings, tow'ring in their pride.
How much, much better would this river look,
Flowing 'twixt grass, like every other brook,
If native sand its tedious course beguil'd,
Nor any foreign ornament defil'd."
W (1.)
* * * * *
DEDICATION TO MILTON BY ANTONIO MALATESTI.
Dr. Todd, in his _Life of Milton_, ed. 1826, mentions the accidental
discovery of a manuscript by Antonio Malatesti, bearing the following
title:
"La Tina Equivoci Rusticali di Antonio Malatesti, c[=o]posti nella sua
Villa di Taiano il Settembre dell' Anno 1637. Sonetti Cinqu[=a]nta.
Dedicati al' III'mo Signore et Padrone Oss'mo Signor Giovanni Milton,
Nobil' Inghilese."
It seems that this MS. had been presented, together with Milton's works,
to the Academy della Crusca, by Mr. Brand Hollis, but had by some chance
again found its way to England, and was sold by auction at Evans's some
short time before Mr. Todd published this second edition of Milton's
Life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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