Anecdotes.
��When he parodied the verses of another eminent writer x , it was done with more provocation, I believe, and with some merry malice. A serious translation of the same lines, which I think are from Euripides, may be found in Burney's History of Music 2 . Here are the burlesque ones :
Err shall they not, who resolute explore Times gloomy backward with judicious eyes ; And scanning right the practices of yore, Shall deem our hoar progenitors unwise.
They to the dome where smoke with curling play Announc'd the dinner to the regions round, Summon'd the singer blythe, and harper gay, And aided wine with dulcet-streaming sound.
The better use of notes, or sweet or shrill, By quiv'ring string, or modulated wind; Trumpet or lyre to their harsh bosoms chill, Admission ne'er had sought, or could not find.
��1 Thomas Gray. Gray's friend Bonstetten was walking with him about the year 1 769, ' when he ex claimed with bitterness, " Look, look, Bonstetten ! the great bear ! There goes Ursa Major?" This was Johnson. Gray could not abide him.' Sir Egerton Brydges's Autobio graphy, ii. 394.
2 Medea, 11. 193-206.
The translation in Burney's History of Music, 1782, ii. 340, is also by Johnson. See Works, i. 142 n. It is as follows :
' The rites deriv'd from ancient days With thoughtless reverence we
praise,
The rites that taught us to combine The joys of music and of wine, And bad the feast and song and bowl O'erfill the saturated soul ; But n'er the Flute or Lyre apply'd To cheer despair or soften pride, Nor calFd them to the gloomy cells Where Want repines and Vengeance swells,
��Where Hate sits musing to betray
And Murder meditates his prey.
To dens of guilt and shades of care
Ye sons of Melody repair,
Nor deign the festive dome to cloy
With superfluities of joy.
Ah, little needs the Minstrel's pow'r
To speed the light convivial hour,
The board with varied plenty
crown'd May spare the luxuries of sound.'
A General History of Music, by Charles Burney.
' Mr. Norgate, the publisher, has a specimen of Porson's minute writing, comprising in a circle of an inch and a half in diameter the Greek verses on music from the Medea, with John son's translation of them, in all more than 220 words, with a considerable space left blank in the centre. It is written on vellum, a portion of a leaf which fell from the Photius which he copied.' J. S. Watson's Porson, p. 422.
Oh!
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