Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/427

. ii. NOV. 19, '98.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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collector of pictures, his sale including numerous Works of Raphael, Correggio, Parmigiano, Guercino, the Caraeci, &c., and " the best works of the Eng- lish masters, particularly of Sir Joshua Reynolds, the most complete perhaps in England"; that he was in more or less close communication with men such as Smollett, Macpherson, Home, the Wood- falls, Adam Smith, Brummell rather a miscel- laneous lot ; and that it was at one of his celebrated dinners that Garrick and Foote were reconciled, and it will be seen how much interest attaches to his correspondence. Special attention is drawn by the editor to the facts concerning Sterne which are given by John Croft, facts which until the appear- ance of Mr. Lee's life of Sterne in the ' Dictionary of National Biography' were unreported. Among the services rendered to Sterne by Croft of Stilling- tou was the obtaining for him from Lord Falconberg of the living of Coxwold.

Charles Whitefoord, meanwhile, who in 1738 was in the Royal Irish in Minorca, displays occasionally in his correspondence a Pepys - like freedom of utterance, and has had to be rather carefully edited. He says: "I am grown so fat that it is become uneasie to me. I indulge too much, am return'd to suppers. Three meals a day and no exercise has put me out of all shape ; and wou'd you beleive [sic] it. I am become an Assembly man, play at quad- rille with the Ladies, go to Church on Sundays, but then I swear most intolerably all the rest of the week. My bad luck continues, and my damn'd temper grows worse, neither the folly of the thing nor respect to the Fair can bridle my passion." He was at Edinburgh when news was received of the landing of the Pretender. At Prestonpans he behaved with conspicuous gallantry, and he won the friendship of Sir John Cope by writing in his defence. He left directions as to his funeral, ex- pressing a wish to be buried in unconsecrated ground, without any military honours, and with no stone or decoration on his grave.

Caleb Whitefoord, meanwhile, returning in De- cember, 1752, from the play, describes Garrick strutting on the stage and Lady Coventry ogling in the stage box, and depicts very graphically in 1756 the effects of the earthquake at Lisbon, where he arrived soon after the calamity. Very striking are the pictures of Foote and of Garrick which are given, pp. 166, 167, from the Whitefoord MS. The whole oook, indeed, brims over with interest, and must have a place in every collection of works on the eighteenth century.

The Iliad of Homt~. Rendered into English Prose

by Samuel Butler. (Longmans & Co.) MR. BUTLER has followed up his speculations as to the authoress of the 'Odyssey' (see 8 th S. xii, 458) with a prose translation 01 the ' Iliad,' intended for the use of those who cannot read the original. No student of Homer more zealous, accomplished, and devoted than he can our country boast. By way of motto to his book, he puts on his title-page two sentences from a letter of Baron Merian, elicited by an utterance of his own : " I entirely agree with you after due rumination. Homer and Shakespeare are the only two poets in the wide world " an enthu- siastic declaration, fully to accept which requires some fresh definition of " poet." On points such as this we will not be lurea into controversy. We will content ourselves with saying that the new translation is wholly delightsome, and that we know 110 English work which will give the average

English reader a better insight into Homer. Mr. Butler owns to having consulted, with regard to every passage, the prose translation of Messrs, Leaf, Lang, and Myers, which he calls " the best prose translation that has been made." How far he has benefited by this devotion we are unable to say, knowing the translation in question by hearsay only, and having, indeed, read no prose translation at all previous to this, with which we are more than contented. The rendering is praiseworthily free from the affectations and mannerisms with which it is the fashion in some circles to encumber our written speech. We agree with Mr. Butler that a translation " should depart hardly at all from the modes of speech current in the translator's own times," and applaud his utterance that the Eliza- bethans " did not lard a crib with Chaucerisms and think that they were translating." What they did was to aim " fearlessly, and without taint of affecta- tion, at making a dead author living to a generation other than his own." While, however, Mr. Butler avoids conscious archaisms, a certain appearance of antiquity attributable, perhaps, to the very nature of the work undertaken appertains to his style, which, for the rest, is picturesque and vigorous. Space fails us to do justice to the rendering of separate passages, and we resist the temptation to compare nis work with the poetic renderings of recent days. One thing Mr. Butler carefully avoids that Morrisian beginning of consecutive sentences with "and " which is really a survival of the most primitive modes of narration. Without dipping far into the volume, one can find in the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles full illustration of the method adopted. Says Achilles, scowling at the King of Men, "You are steeped in insolence and lust of gain. With what heart can any of the Achfeans do your bidding, either on foray or in open fighting? I came not warring here for any ill the Trojans had done me. I have no quarrel with them. They have not raided my cattle nor my horses, nor cut down my harvests on the rich plain of Phthia : for between me and them there is a great space, both mountain and sounding sea. We have followed you, Sir Insolence ! for your pleasure, not ours to gain satisfaction from the Trojans for your shameless self and for Menelaus." Subsequently Mr. Butler speaks of " Nestor, knight of Gerene." In the dispute between Venus and Helen (bk. iii. 11. 414 et sea.) the goddess, who is "very angry," addresses Helen: "Bold hussy, do not provoke me ; if you do, I shall leave you to your fate, and hate you as much as I have loved you."

This translation at least does not err on the side of want of courage. We can only repeat that we know no work in which the man ignorant of Greek can study the ' Iliad ' with more comfort, pleasure, and advantage. It is gratifying to hear that a translation of the ' Odyssey ' will form a companion volume.

Memoirs of D'Artagnan. Translated into English by Ralph Nevill. Part I. The Cadet. (Nichols.)

THE appearance of the first English translation of the ' Me"moires de M. d'Artagnan' of Courtilz de Sandras is well timed. That Dumas or Maquet took from this strange blending of history and romance much of the story and most of the more important characters 01 his ' Trois Mousquetaires ' was Known, Few Englishmen, however, were aware of either