Page:A study of Ben Jonson (IA studyofbenjonson00swinrich).pdf/122

 are adequately rendered by the words

Fate and fire did a double injury, if not a double injustice, to Ben Jonson, when his commentary on Horace's Art of Poetry was consumed and his translation of the text preserved. The commentary in which Donne was represented under the name of Criticus must have been one of the most interesting and valuable of Jonson's prose works: the translation is one of those miracles of incompetence, incongruity, and insensibility, which must be seen to be believed. It may be admitted that there is a very happy instance of exact and pointed rendering from the ninth and tenth lines of the original in the eleventh and twelfth lines of the translation.

Pictoribus atque poetis Quidlibet audendi semper fuit aequa potestas. Scimus.

Pope himself could not have rendered this well-known passage more neatly, more smoothly, more perfectly and more happily than thus—

But equal power to painter and to poet Of daring all hath still been given: we know it.

And in the seventh line following we come upon this indescribable horror—an abomination of which