LETTER III.

_The following Note and Letter contains the determination of a dispute, and probably of a wager, which had been referred to our author by the parties. It concerns a passage in Creech’s “Lucretius,” and probably was written soon after the publication of that translation in 1682, when it was a recent subject of conversation. The full passage in “Lucretius” runs thus_:

Præterea quæcunque vetustate amovet ætas, Si penitus perimit, consumens materiam omnem, Unde animale genus generatim in lumina vitæ Redducit Venus?----

_Which Creech thus renders_:

_Besides, if o’er whatever years prevail Should wholly perish, and its matter fail, How could the powers of all kind Venus breed A constant race of animals to succeed?_

_The translation of Creech is at least complicated and unintelligible; and I am uncertain whether even Dryden’s explanation renders it grammatical. Dryden speaks elsewhere with great applause of Creech’s translation._

_The original of this decision (in Dryden’s hand-writing) is in the possession of Mrs White of Bownham-hall, Gloucestershire, and was most obligingly communicated to the editor by that lady, through the medium of Mr Constable of Edinburgh._

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The two verses, concerning which the dispute is rais’d, are these:

Besides, if o’re whatever yeares prevaile Shou’d wholly perish, and its matter faile.

The question arising from them is, whether any true grammatical construction can be made of them? The objection is, that there is no nominative case appearing to the word _perish_, or that can be understood to belong to it.

I have considered the verses, and find the authour of them to have notoriously bungled; that he has plac’d the words as confus’dly as if he had studied to do so. This notwithstanding, the very words, without adding or diminishing in theire proper sence, (or at least what the authour meanes,) may run thus:--_Besides, if what ever yeares prevaile over, should wholly perish, and its matter faile._

I pronounce therefore, as impartially as I can upon the whole, that there _is_ a nominative case, and that figurative, so as Terence and Virgil, amongst others, use it; that is, the whole clause precedent is the nominative case to _perish_. My reason is this, and I think it obvious; let the question be ask’d, what it is that should wholly perish, or that perishes? The answer will be, That which yeares prevaile over. If you will not admit a clause to be in construction a nominative case, the word _thing_, _illud_, or _quodcunque_, is to be understood, either of which words, in the femine gender, agree with _res_, so that he meanes what ever _thing_ time prevails over shou’d wholly perish, and its matter faile.

Lucretius, his Latine runs thus:

_Prætereà, quæcunque vetustate amovet ætas, Si penitus perimit, consumens materiam omnem, Unde animale genus, generatim in lumina vitæ Redducit Venus? &c._

which ought to have been translated thus:

Besides, what ever time removes from view, If he destroys the stock of matter too, From whence can kindly propagation spring, Of every creature, and of every thing?

I translated it _whatever_ purposely, to shew, that _thing_ is to be understood; which, as the words are heere plac’d, is so very perspicuous, that the nominative case cannot be doubted.

The word, _perish_, used by Mr Creech, is a verb neuter; where Lucretius puts _perimit_, which is active; a licence which, in translating a philosophical poet, ought not to be taken; for some reason, which I have not room to give. But to comfort the loser, I am apt to believe, that the cross-grain confused verse put him so much out of patience, that he wou’d not suspect it of any sence.

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SIR,

The company having done me so great an honour as to make me their judge, I desire from you the favour of presenting my acknowledgments to them; and shou’d be proud to heere from you, whether they rest satisfyed in my opinion, who am,

Sir,

Your most humble servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.[68]