PREFACE.
During the attacks of gout, a disorder to which I am subject, being incapacitated for pursuits of a more serious and strictly professional character, I have lately sought for occupation and entertainment, in composing the translations which follow, and print them in the hope, that they may be found not altogether unworthy of the perusal of those into whose hands they may come. My recurrence to Claudian for this purpose—as I have in my younger days translated several of his historical poems—may perhaps be accounted for by a passage in my relative Lord Carlisle's "Lecture on the Writings of Gray," where he says, "I believe there to be something instinctive, which leads every one of us, not to what in our unimpassioned judgment we think the best and greatest of its kind, but to what we are sensible is most specially attractive and congenial to ourselves." A translator indeed need wish for nothing better, than to be, mesmerically speaking, "en rapport" with his original; into whose spirit, in such a case, he could not fail to enter. A simpler reason however for liking Claudian, is that he is a good and pleasing poet, and deserves to be liked: and I am encouraged in my
