Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

XIX, (a) lord surrey. ^c^yguage. Nor has it merely the relative and accidental merit of being acuriosity. It is executed with great fidelity, yet not with a prosiac servility.The diction is often poetical, and the versification varied withproper pauses.'—Warton.Roger Ascham, in the second book of his ' Scholemaster,' says :'The noble lord Th' Earle of Surrey, first of all English men, intranslating the fourth booke of Virgill, and Gonsaluo Periz that excellentlearned man, and Secretarie to kyng Philip of Spaine, in translatingthe Vlisses of Homer out of Greke into Spanish, haue both, by goodiudgement, auoyded the fault of Ryming, yet neither of them hath fulliehit[t]e perfite and trew versifying. Indeed, they obserue iust numbers,and euen feete : but here is the fault, that their feete be feete withoutioyntes, that is to say, not distinct by trew quantite of sillabes : And so,soch feete be but numme feete : and be euen as vnfitte for a verse toturne and runne roundly withall, as feete of brass or wood be vnweeldieto go w^ell withall,' &c. ; Arber's Reprint, p. 147.Mr. Craik thinks that Surrey's translation was suggested by theearliest Italian example of blank verse, viz, ' a translation of the Firstand Fourth Books of the ^neid, by the Cardinal Hippolito di Medici,or as some say, by Molza, which was published at Venice in 1541.' Italso seems probable that Surrey was in some degree indebted to thetranslation made by Gawin Douglas. See also Warton, Hist. Eng.Poetry, ed. 1840, vol. iii. p. 39;ed. 1871, iv. 38.Line 253. The portion of Surrey's translation here printed begins at1. 199 of Virgil's second Book''Hie aliud maius miseris multoque tremendum.'254. Vnarmed, Lat. ' improuida.' Professor Conington translates it byunprophetic in his verse translation, third ed. p. 43. But it is no part ofmy purpose to remark upon the accuracy or inaccuracy of the translation,since the original is sufficiently accessible.255. Laocoji, Laocoon. He was a son of Antenor (some say of Priam),and a priest of Apollo, or, according to others (including Virgil), ofPoseidon, i. e. Neptune. In 1. 269 below, Surrey spells the name Lacon.In the passage preceding our extract, Virgil relates how Laocoon hurledhis spear into the side of the wooden horse, and thus very nearly revealedthe secret of it, which would have saved Troy. Laocoon's deathis then here related. The group of Laocoon and his two sons writhingwithin the folds of two enormous serpents, is well known as one of themaster-pieces of ancient art, and is the subject of the German poetLessing's prose work entitled ' Laocoon.' It was executed by Agesanderof Rliodes and two other sculptors, as related by Pliny (xxxvi. 5). It