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HORACE’S ART OF POETRY, IMITATED IN ENGLISH.[1]
ADDRESSED BY WAY OF LETTER TO A FRIEND.
SHOULD some ill painter, in a wild design,
To a man's head a horse's shoulders join,
Or fish's tail to a fair woman's waist,
Or draw the limbs of many a different beast,
Ill matched, and with as motley feathers dressed;
If you by chance were to pass by his shop,
Could you forbear from laughing at the fop,
And not believe him whimsical or mad?
Credit me, sir, that book is quite as bad,
As worthy laughter, which throughout is filled
With monstrous inconsistencies, more vain, and wild
Than sick men's dreams, whose neither head, nor tail,
Nor any parts in due proportion fall.
But 'twill be said, 'None ever did deny
Painters and poets their free liberty
- ↑ Oldham, in his introduction to this translation, or rather, adaptation of the Art of Poetry, explains the object he kept in view throughout. He says that he thought of turning the work to an advantage which had not occurred to those who went before him in the translation, by making Horace speak as if he were then living. 'I therefore,' he adds, 'resolved to alter the scene from Borne to London, and to make use of English names of men, places, and customs, where the parallel would decently permit, which I conceived would give a kind of new air to the poem, and render it more agreeable to the relish of the present age.' And it may be added, that this is the feature which constitutes its chief attraction for the modern reader. Of his plan of translation, and the liberties he took with his original, he says, ’I have not, I acknowledge, been over nice in keeping to the words of the original, for that were to transgress a rule therein contained. Nevertheless I have been religiously strict to its sense, and expressed it in as plain and intelligible a manner as the subject would bear. Where I may be thought to have varied from it (which is not above once or twice, and in passages not much material), the skilful reader will perceive 'twas necessary for carrying on my proposed design, and the author himself, were he again alive, would (I believe) forgive me. I have been careful to avoid stiffness, and made it my endeavour to hit (as near as I could) the easy and familiar way of writing, which is peculiar to Horace in his Epistles, and was his proper talent above any of mankind.'
