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TRANSLATIONS AND IMITATIONS.

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THE following Translations were selected from many others done by the Author in his youth; for the most part indeed but a sort of Exercises, while he was improving himself in the languages, and carried by his early bent to Poetry to perform them rather in verse than prose. Mr. Dryden's Fables came out by that time, which occasioned the translations from Chaucer. They were first separately printed in the Miscellanies by J. Tonson and B. Lintot, and afterwards collected in the quarto edition of 1717. The Imitations of English Authors, which are added at the end, were done as early, some of them at fourteen or fifteen years old; but having also got into Miscellanies, we have put them here together to complete this Juvenile volume.

THE TEMPLE OF FAME.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR MDCCXI.

THE hint of the following piece was taken from Chaucer's House of Fame. The design is in a manner entirely altered, the descriptions and most of the particular thoughts my own: yet I could not suffer it to be printed without this acknowledgment. The reader who would compare this with Chaucer, may begin with his third Book of Fame, there being nothing in the two first books that answers to their title: wherever any hint is taken from him, the passage itself is set down in the marginal notes.

In that soft season ", when descending show'rs
Call forth the greens, and wake the rising flow'rs;
When opening buds salute the welcome day,
And earth relenting feels the genial ray;
As balmy sleep had charm'd my cares to rest,
And love itself was banish'd from my breast,
(What time the morn mysterious visions brings,
While purer slumbers spread their golden wings)

"This poem is introduced in the manner of the Provençal poets, whose works were for the most part visions, or pieces of imagination, and constantly descriptive. From these Petrarch and Chaucer frequently borrow the idea of their poems. See the Trionfi of the former, and the Dream, Flower and the Leaf, &c. of the latter. The Author of this therefore chose the same sort of exordium.

H

A train of phantoms in wild order rose,
And join'd, this intellectual scene compose.

I stood, methought, betwixt earth, seas, and skies The whole creation open to my eyes:

In air self-balanced hung the globe below,
Where mountains rise, and circling oceans flow;
Here naked rocks and empty wastes were seen,
There towery cities, and the forests green;
Here sailing ships delight the wandering eyes;
There trees and intermingled temples rise:
Now a clear sun the shining scene displays,
The transient landscape now in clouds decays.
O'er the wide prospect as I gazed around,
Sudden I heard a wild promiscuous sound,
Like broken thunders that at distance roar,
Or billows murmuring on the hollow shore:
Then gazing up, a glorious pile beheld,
Whose towering summit ambient clouds conceal'd.
High on a rock of ice the structure lay,
Steep its ascent, and slippery was the way;
The wondrous rock like Parian marble shone,
And seem'd, to distant sight, of solid stone.
Inscriptions here of various names I view'd,
The greater part by hostile time subdued ;

• These verses are hinted from the following of Chaucer, Book ii.

"Tho' beheld I fields and plains,

Now hills, and now mountains,
Now valeis, and now forestes,
And now unneth great bestes,
Now rivers, now citees,

Now towns, now great trees,
Now shippes sayling in the sees."

P Chaucer's third book of Fame.

"It stood upon so high a rock,

Higher standeth none in Spayne-
What manner stone this rock was,
For it was like a lymed glass,
But that it shone full more clere;
But of what congeled matere
It was, I niste redily;
But at the last espied I,

And found that it was every dele,
A rock of ise, and not of stele."

"Tho' saw I all the hill y-grave
With famous folkes names fele,
That had been in much wele
And her fames wide y-blow;
But well unneth might I know

Yet wide was spread their fame in ages past,
And poets once had promised they should last.
Some fresh engraved appear'd of wits renown'd ;
I look'd again, nor could their trace be found.
Critics I saw, that other names deface,
And fix their own, with labour, in their place:
Their own, like others, soon their place resign'd,
Or disappear'd, and left the first behind.
Nor was the work impair'd by storms alone,
But felt the approaches of too warm a sun;
For fame, impatient of extremes, decays
Not more by envy than excess of praise.
Yet part no injuries of heaven could feel,
Like crystal faithful to the graving steel:
The rock's high summit, in the temple's shade,
Nor heat could melt, nor beating storm invade.
Their names inscribed unnumber'd ages past
From time's first birth, with time itself shall last;
These ever new, nor subject to decays,
Spread, and grow brighter with the length of days.
So Zembla's rocks (the beauteous work of frost)
Rise white in air, and glitter o'er the coast;
Pale suns, unfelt, at distance roll away,
And on the impassive ice the lightnings play;

S

Any letters for to rede

Their names by, for out of drede
They weren almost off-thawen so,
That of the letters one or two
Were molte away of every name,
So unfamous was woxe her fame;
But men said what may ever last."

"Tho' gan I in myne harte cast,
That they were molte away for heate,
And not away with stormes beate."

"For on that other side I sey

Of that hill which northward ley,
How it was written full of names
Of folke, that had afore great fames,
Of old time, and yet they were

As fresh as men had written hem there
The self day, or that houre

That I on hem gan to poure:
But well I wiste what it made;
It was conserved with the shade

(All the writing that I sye)

Of the castle that stoode on high,
And stood in so cold a place,
That heat might it not deface."

Eternal snows the growing mass supply,
Till the bright mountains prop the incumbent sky:
As Atlas fix'd, each hoary pile appears,
The gather'd winter of a thousand years.
On this foundation Fame's high temple stands ;
Stupendous pile! not rear'd by mortal hands.
Whate'er proud Rome or artful Greece beheld,
Or elder Babylon, its frame excell❜d.
Four faces had the dome, and ev'ry face
Of various structure, but of equal grace:
Four brazen gates, on columns lifted high,
Salute the different quarters of the sky.
Here fabled chiefs in darker ages born,
Or worthies old, whom arms or arts adorn,
Who cities raised, or tamed a monstrous race,
The walls in venerable order grace.
Heroes in animated marble frown,
And legislators seem to think in stone.

Westward, a sumptuous frontispiece appear'd,
On Doric pillars of white marble rear❜d,
Crown'd with an architrave of antique mould,
And sculpture rising on the roughen'd gold.
In shaggy spoils here Theseus was beheld,
And Perseus dreadful with Minerva's shield:
There great Alcides " stooping with his toil,
Rests on his club, and holds the Hesperian spoil.
Here Orpheus sings; trees moving to the sound
Start from their roots, and form a shade around:
Amphion there the loud-creating lyre

Strikes, and beholds a sudden Thebes aspire!
Citharon's echoes answer to his call,

And half the mountain rolls into a wall:
There might you see the lengthening spires ascend,
The domes swell up, and widening arches bend,
The growing towers, like exhalations rise,
And the huge columns heave into the skies.

The Temple is described to be square, the four fronts with open gates facing the different quarters of the world, as an intimation that all nations of the earth may alike be received into it. The western front is of Grecian architecture: the Doric order was peculiarly sacred to heroes and worthies. Those whose statues are after mentioned, were the first names of old Greece in arms and arts.

This figure of Hercules is drawn with an eye to the position of the famous statue of Farnese.

The eastern front was glorious to behold, With diamond flaming, and barbaric gold.

There Ninus shone, who spread the Assyrian fame,
And the great founder of the Persian name :
There in long robes the royal Magi stand,
Grave Zoroaster waves the circling wand,
The sage Chaldeans robed in white appear'd,
And Brachmans, deep in desert woods revered.
These stopp'd the moon, and call'd the unbodied shades
To midnight banquets in the glimmering glades;
Made visionary fabrics round them rise,
And airy spectres skim before their eyes;
Of talismans and sigils knew the power,
And careful watch'd the planetary hour.
Superior, and alone, Confucius stood,
Who taught that useful science, to be good.
But on the south, a long majestic race
Of Egypt's priests the gilded niches grace,
Who measured earth, described the starry spheres,
And traced the long records of lunar

V

X

years. High on his car Sesostris struck my view,

Whom sceptred slaves in golden harness drew:
His hands a bow and pointed javelin hold;
His giant limbs are arm'd in scales of gold.
Between the statues obelisks were placed,
And the learn❜d walls with hieroglyphics graced.
Of Gothic structure was the northern side,
O'erwrought with ornaments of barbarous pride :

Cyrus was the beginning of the Persian, as Ninus was of the Assyrian monarchy. The Magi and Chaldeans (the chief of whom was Zoroaster) employed their studies upon magic and astrology, which was in a manner almost all the learning of the ancient Asian people. We have scarce any account of a moral philosopher except Confucius, the great lawgiver of the Chinese, who lived about two thousand years ago.

* Congfutzee, his real name, flourished about two thousand three hundred years ago. He taught justice, obedience to parents, humility, and universal benevolence: and he practised these virtues, when first minister, and when reduced to poverty and exile. His family still exists in China, and is honoured and respected.

· The learning of the old Egyptian priests consisted for the most part in geometry and astronomy: they also preserved the history of their nation. Their greatest hero upon record is Sesostris, whose actions and conquests may be seen at large in Diodorus, &c. He is said to have caused the kings he vanquished to draw him in his chariot. The posture of his statue, in these verses, is correspondent to the description which Herodotus gives of one of them remaining in his own time.

y The architecture is agreeable to that part of the world. The learning of the northern nations lay more obscure than that of the rest; Zamolxis was the disciple of Pythagoras, who taught the immortality of the soul to

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