But, whatever other accomplishments he may have possessed, he had certainly no feeling of poetry, and seems to have taken it up as Vernon did rebellion; “because it lay in his way.” At least I know no better reason for his translation of Ariosto than his having made a journey to Italy.
The title-page of his book (in two vols. quarto), bears the date of 1757, and was printed for Rivington in Paternoster Row, and John Cook, a bookseller of Farnham, whose shop I remember frequenting in the days of my boyhood. It is printed with the English and Italian confronted, executed in the same stanza as Harrington’s version, and translated line for line. Though there are to be found in it some very strange mistakes of Ariosto’s meaning, it is, generally speaking, faithful, and as such, has prima facie, strong claims upon attention. But a species of fidelity is hardly to be coveted, which, at the best, does not accomplish the only end which should be proposed by it. For the translator often departs from the sense of the author, while he echoes his very words. Take an instance. Ariosto has this line
“Dove presso à Bordea mette Caronna;”
“where the Garonne disembogues itself near Bordeaux:” which Huggins has rendered,
Where to Bordea runs Caronna near.
The thing, perhaps, most worthy of remark in his book, is a passage of the Preface, which throws a curious light upon the state of Italian literature in England at the period of its publication. “It may not be improper (says the author) to observe, that after this work was pretty far advanced, I was informed there had been a translation published in the reign of Elizabeth, and dedicated to that queen. Whereupon I requested a friend to obtain a sight of that book; for it is (it seems) very scarce, and the glorious original much more so in this country.”
A few years produced a singular revolution in this respect. Several editions of Ariosto have since that period been published in England; and Hoole’s version, the next which succeeded that of Huggins, has, I believe, gone through nearly twenty editions.
This last circumstance may, however, be cited, rather as a proof of the new passion entertained for Italian literature, than as an illustration of the progress which had been made in it: for never was a worse or more faithless translation executed than that of Hoole. Every grace, every shade, every gradation of colouring which distinguishes Ariosto, is lost in it. Thus, where the Italian poet, in imitation of Homer, wishing to diversify a scene of slaughter, by giving something of character or of locality to his victims, tells us that Rodomont wounded Lewis the Provençal, Luigi il provenzal, Hoole has absurdly translated the passage “Provincial Lewis!” thus awakening a most ridiculous train of ideas, and suggesting the notion of some unfortunate provincial who had the misfortune to have his brains knocked out on his visit to the metropolis. Nor are they only tints and shades which are sacrificed in this miserable copy; for the sense of the author, where most obvious, is frequently misinterpreted; and in one couplet the translator has actually mistaken north for south, and sun for wind; the one specified, and the other obviously implied. The words of the original are,
“Wer ponente io andava lungo la sabbia,
Che del settentrion sente la rabbia.”
Canto VI, stanza XXXIV
Which passage is thus rendered by him:
Against the west along those sands we came,
Which feel the southern heat of Phoebus’ flame.3
In addition, however, to the mistakes of Hoole, and what I must call the meanness and monotony of his poetry, I am inclined to consider the metre which he has chosen, as one among the many causes of his failure: this is our heroic couplet, which appears to me to be the measure most opposite to that of Ariosto which could possibly have been selected. Nothing but a stanza can reflect the original; for it is to be observed, that the poet usually closes the idea with it, and that the end of most of them is marked by something epigrammatic either in sense or sound, which would be out of its place except in the concluding couplet. Each canto, or collection of stanzas, then, may be compared to a gallery of cabinet pictures, all perhaps striking or beautiful, but frequently executed on different principles, each of which is often only in harmony with itself. Whoever, therefore, unites any of these little paintings, yet more, he who runs them into one piece, will necessarily either present a picture full of cross lights, and every species of inconsistency, or will only avoid this by leaving out whatever is most characteristic in the original, and by making a smear without light, shade, or distinction of outline.
Entertaining this opinion, I have chosen the stanza in preference to the couplet; and because I would imitate Ariosto as closely as the nature of our language will allow, have, like Harrington and Huggins, chosen his own ottava rima as the most preferable form of it. Like Mr. Huggins, I have also translated stanza for stanza, but have not, however, imitated that gentleman and some German translators by imposing on myself severer restrictions than appeared to me, to be necessary; as in rendering him uniformly line for line; the less so because there is little analogy between the construction of the two languages, and what is easy in the Italian (I need not say that ease is one characteristic of Ariosto) might often appear harsh and inverted in English. It is for this reason that I have not fettered myself by the rule I have mentioned, wherever I conceived any bad effect would result from the adherence to it; but I have, on the other hand, observed it where I thought such a compliance was not objectionable; because I would, wherever it was practicable, tread in the very
