Page images
PDF
EPUB

himself as in the country, probably in one of his usual retirements, humorously petitions in his letter for an out-riding lion, or a couple of jackalls, for the accommodation of those who by distance are rendered incapable of paying their respects to his metropolitan Majesty *.

38. Golding, MR. To Mr. Golding, concerning whose life and character no circumstances have reached the present times, has been attributed the first letter in No 250 of the Spectator. It is an elegant and entertaining essay on the language of the eyes, as descriptive of the various passions which agitate the human breast. "Love, anger, pride, and avarice," remarks the author, "all visibly move in those little orbs."

The expression of love and desire in the eye, has more particularly been the theme of the poets in every age; and some have been peculiarly happy in painting that tender languor, that tre

*The following paragraph, which I copy from the London papers, announces the fate of this celebrated, and I may say, classical head. "The beautiful carved and gilt Lion's Head Letter-box, which was formerly at Button's coffeehouse, was on Wednesday, November the 7th, 1804, knocked down at the Shakspeare tavern, Covent-garden, to Mr. Richardson, for 177. 10 s. The Antiquarian Society offered Mr. Campbell 100 guineas for this piece of curiosity not twelve months since."

mulous and voluptuous light, that dewy radiance which imparts to the eye a fascination so irresistibly attractive. Anacreon possesses several exquisite delineations of this kind, and in his twenty-eighth ode has applied the term TTPOZ, or humid, to the eyes of Cytherea; an epithet which has probably given birth to an admirable line in Collins's Ode to Pity:

Long, Pity, let the nations view

Thy sky-worn robes of tenderest blue,
And eyes of dewy light.

No bard, however, has on this subject equalled Tasso; nor can there readily be found two lines of greater beauty, or descriptive accuracy, than what the following exhibit:

Qual raggio in onda le scintilla un riso
Negli umidi occhi tremulo et lascivo.

39. ROBERT HARPER, the author of a letter with the signature of M. D. in N° 480 of the Spectator, was an eminent conveyancer of Lincoln's-inn. It is related, that in this letter, which does not occupy a single page, Steele made several alterations, and that the original draught was communicated to the annotators by the Rev. Mr. Harper, of the British Museum. The tenor of this brief epistle is such as to induce us to suppose, that Mr. Harper was a man of consider

able merit, but that his abilities were obscured by an excessive, and therefore injurious, degree of diffidence.

40. PETER ANTHONY MOTTEUX, a native of France, was born at Rouen, in Normandy, in 1660. He chose. England as his place of residence on the revocation of the edict of Nantz, and for some time lived with his relation, Paul Dominique, Esq. Mr. Motteux is one of the few Frenchmen who have obtained a perfect knowledge of our language; he acquired, indeed, such an intimacy with its idiom and colloquial expression, that his translations from the Spanish and the French exhibit completely the air of original composition. "Motteux," observes Mr. Tytler, speaking of his version of Don Quixote, "with no great abilities as an original writer, appears to me to have been endowed with a strong perception of the ridiculous in human character; a just discernment of the weaknesses and follies of mankind. He seems, likewise, to have had a great command of the various styles which are accommodated to the expression both of grave burlesque, and of low humour. Inferior to Smollet in inventive genius, he seems to have equalled him in every quality which was essentially requisite to a translator of Don Quixote.-On

the whole," he concludes, "I am inclined to think, that the version of Motteux is by far the best we have yet seen of the romance of Cervantes *."

Our author engaged, likewise, in the still more difficult task of translating Rabelais, a writer whose style is so obsolete, that but few of his own countrymen are fully able to develope his meaning. The first three books of this singular satire had been so well translated by Sir Thomas Urquhart, that Motteux only continued the version; and the whole was afterwards revised by Mr. Ozell. Mr. Tytler has pronounced the version, thus corrected, "one of the most perfect specimens of the art of translation. The best critics," says he, "in both languages have borne testimony to its faithful transfusion of the sense, and happy imitation of the style of the original; and every English reader will acknowledge, that it possesses all the ease of original composition +."

In addition to these literary labours, Motteux translated several plays, which were brought with some success on the stage; he wrote also several prologues and epilogues, and dedicated a poem On Tea to the Spectator. All his exertions, how

* Essay on the Principles of Translation, p. 267, 268, and 312, 2d edition, 8vo. 1797.

+ Ibid. p. 396, 397.

ever, as a member of the republic of letters, were inadequate to his support; and he found it necessary to relinquish his pen for the more profitable returns of trade. He opened, therefore, an East India warehouse in Leadenhall-street, and obtained a valuable appointment in the General Post-office. His contribution to the Spectator is relative to this change in his condition, and the letter in N° 288, signed with his name at length, may be considered as a species of adver tisement, descriptive of the elegant and costly articles in which he dealt.

These new employments soon placed our quondam translator in easy circumstances; he married a beautiful and amiable woman, and became the father of a family of fine children. All that life affords for rational and domestic enjoyment appeared to be now within his reach; when the indulgence of licentious appetite, at an age too which seems to indicate that it was the result of habit rather than of sudden temptation, not only exposed his character to the world, but deprived him of existence. He was found dead, on the morning of the 19th of February, 1717-18, in a brothel near Temple-bar; and so strong was the suspicion, arising from the combination of circumstances, that he had been murdered by the wretches who surrounded him, that the offer of

« PreviousContinue »