Only planet which was thought big enough for a poetical vifit. Although fuddenly deserted by his myftic intelligencer, he finds himself weary and defolate, on the fea-fhore, in an impaffable forest, or a flowery meadow. The following is the paffage which Pope has copied from Palingenius and as Pope was a great reader of the old English poets, it is most probable that he took it immediately from our tranflator, or found it by his direction. An Ape, quoth she, and iefting-stock Is Man, to god in skye, As oft as he doth truft his wit Too much, prefuming hie, Dares fearche the thinges of nature hid, Her fecrets for to speake; When as in very deed his minde Is dull, and all to weake'. These are the lines of the original. Simia cælicolum rifufque jocufque deorum est, Cum revera ejus craffa imbecillaque fit mens *. Googe, fuppofed to have been a native of Alvingham in Lin colnshire, was a scholar, and was educated both at Chrift's college in Cambridge, and New-college in Oxford. He is complimented more than once in Turberville's SONNETS'. He pub lished other tranflations in English. I have already cited his verfion of Naogeorgus's hexametrical poem on ANTICHRIST, or the PAPAL DOMINION, printed at London in 1570, and dedicated to his chief patron fir William Cecill". The dedication is dated from Staples-inn, where he was a student. At the end of the book, is his verfion of the fame author's SPIRITUAL AGRICULTURE, dedicated to queen Elisabeth ". Elifabeth". Thomas Naogeorgus, a German, whofe real name is Kirchmaier, was one of the many moral or rather theological Latin poets produced by the reformation *. Googe alfo tranflated and enlarged Conrade Herefbach's treatise on agriculture, gardening, orchards, cattle, and domeftic fowls'. This verfion was printed in 1577, and dedicated from Kingston to fir William Fiztwilliams. Among Crynes's curious books in the Bodleian at Oxford, is Googe's tranflation from the Spanish of Lopez de Mendoza's PROVERBES, dedicated to Cecill, which I have never feen elsewhere, printed at London by R. Watkins in 1579. In this book the old Spanish paraphraft mentions Boccace's THESEID, But it was not only to these later and degenerate claffics, and to modern tracts, that Googe's induftry was confined. He also tranflated into English what he called Ariftotle's TABLE OF THE TEN CATEGORIES, that capital example of ingenious but Latin verfions from the vernacular German. See Oporin. DRAM. S. vol. ii. p. 107. In quarto, for Richard Watkins. In the Preface to the first edition, he fays, "For my fafety in the vniuerfitie, I craue "the aid and appeal to the defence of the "famous Chrift- college in Cambridge "whereof I was ons an vnprofitable member, and [of] the ancient mother of "learned men the New-college in Oxford." 2 Feb. 1, 1577. There were other edi tions, 1578, 1594. Lond. 4to. a Cod. CRYNES, 886. b Sm. 8vo. c Fol. 71. a. ufelefs useless fubtlety, of method which cannot be applied to practice, and of that affectation of unneceffary deduction and frivolous investigation, which characterises the philosophy of the Greeks, and which is confpicuous not only in the demonstrations of Euclid, but in the Socratic difputations recorded by Xenophon. The folid fimplicity of common fense would have been much lefs fubject to circumlocution, embarrassment, and ambiguity. We do not want to be told by a chain of proofs, that two and two make four. This specific character of the schools of the Greeks, is perhaps to be traced backwards to the loquacity, the love of paradox, and the fondness for argumentative discourse, so peculiar to their nation. Even the good fenfe of Epictetus was not proof against this captious phrenzy. What patience can endure the folemn quibbles, which mark the ftoical conferences of that philofopher preferved by Arrian? It is to this fpirit, not folely from a principle of invidious malignity, that Tully alludes, where he calls the Greeks, "Homines conten"tionis quam veritatis cupidiores "." And in another part of the fame work he says, that it is a principal and even a national fault of this people, "Quocunque in loco, quofcunque inter "homines vifum eft, de rebus aut DIFFICILLIMIS aut non NE"CESSARIIS, ARGUTISSIME DISPUTARE." The natural liveliness of the Athenians, heightened by the free politics of a democracy, feems to have tinctured their converfation with this fort of declamatory difputation, which they frequently practiced under an earnest pretence of discovering the truth, but in reality to indulge their native difpofition to debate, to difplay their abundance of words, and their address of argument, to amufe, furprife, and perplex. Some of Plato's dialogues, profeffing a profundity of fpeculation, have much of this talkative humour. De ORATORE, Lib. i. §. xi. Ibid. Lib. ii. §. iv. 3 M 2 Befide Befide these verfions of the Greek and Roman poets, and of the antient writers in profe, incidentally mentioned in this review, it will be sufficient to obferve here in general, that almost all the Greek and Roman claffics appeared in English before the year 1600. The effect and influence of these translations on our poetry, will be confidered in a future section. SECT. SECT. XLII. BU UT the ardour of tranflation was not now circumfcribed of was now within the bounds of the claffics, whether poets, hiftorians, orators, or critics, of Greece and Rome. I have before obferved, that with our frequent tours through Italy, and our affectation of Italian manners, about the middle of the fixteenth century, the Italian poets became fashionable, and that this circumftance, for a time at least, gave a new turn to our poetry. The Italian poets, however, were but in few hands and a practice of a more popular and general nature, yet ftill refulting from our communications with Italy, now began to prevail, which produced still greater revolutions. This was the translation of Italian books, chiefly on fictitious and narrative fubjects, into English. The learned Ascham thought this novelty in our literature too important to be paffed over without obfervation, in his reflections on the course of an ingenuous education. It will be much to our purpose to transcribe what he has faid on this subject: although I think his arguments are more like the reasonings of a rigid puritan, than of a man of liberal views and true penetration; and that he endeavours to account for the origin, and to state the confequences, of these translations, more in the spirit of an early calvinistic preacher, than as a fenfible critic or a polite scholar. "These be the inchauntments of Circe, brought out of Italie "to marre mens manners in England: much, by example of "ill life, but more by precepts of fonde bookes, of late tran"flated oute of Italian into English, folde in euery shop in London, commended by honeft titles, the fooner to corrupt 66 "honeft |