100 



Monthly Review of Literature. 



[JAN. 



But the most remarkable point about 

 him was the elasticity of his intellect. 

 It is a perfect marvel that his imagi- 

 nation was not smothered beneath the 

 mass and weight of his acquisitions 

 had he studied others less, and trusted 

 more to his own resources, he had been 

 a Milton. Though dying at forty- 

 seven, he was successively eminent, 

 among eminent cotemporaries, as a 

 scholar (in the university sense), a ma- 

 thematician, a theologian. He has left 

 proofs of extensive acquirement in each 

 department, though making no disco- 

 veries, nor in any shape enlarging the 

 borders of science, system, or criticism. 

 Of his command of the Latin language, 

 his communications to his college, dur- 

 ing his tour, which extended to Con- 

 stantinople, in prose and verse, afford 

 ample testimony; and as to Greek, he 

 was appointed professor, on the special 

 recommendation of the very learned 

 Duport, who had been driven from the 

 office for political reasons, and might 

 have been replaced at the Restoration. 



publis 



tion of Euclid, and a volume on Optics, 

 which was not quite useless to Newton. 

 Of his theology, the dissertation on po- 

 pery is evidence enough ; it attests his 

 labour, if not his skill, in polemics ; 

 while his sermons are still read for their 

 eloquence by those who care nothing for 

 the topics, nor the spirit which ani- 

 mated their excellent, and amiable, and 

 harmless author. Charles called him an 

 unfair preacher, for he left nothing for 

 any body else to say which marks, hap- 

 pily enough, the wit of the speaker, and 

 the peculiarity of the preacher. 



Born in 1630, of a good family, on 

 both sides, though his father was a man 

 of business in the City, Barrow was 

 educated at the Charter-house, Felsted, 

 and Trinity, Cambridge, of which he 

 became a fellow, immediately after tak- 

 ing his bachelor's degree. After spend- 

 ing some years on the continent, with 

 very straitened means, he returned to 

 England at the Restoration, when he 

 took orders was successively Greek and 

 mathematical professor ; and, in 1G72, 

 master of his college a situation which 

 he held but five years with a modesty 

 and moderation singularlv contrasted 

 with Bentley, whose contentious pro- 

 pensities have so recently been brought 

 to our notice by Bishop Monk's intelli- 

 gent biography. Barrow was wholly a 

 man of letters, and his sermons by 

 which he is now best known have more 

 of the speculations of a recluse than 

 knowledge of life and manners. He 

 talks rather of what may by possibility 

 judging from given characteristics of 

 men influence mankind, than what no- 



toriously does what men of experience 

 expect to meet with, and rarely miss. 

 He is rather amu ing and amazing than 

 useful clever and dazzling than pre- 

 cise or skilful the target is filled with 

 his arrows, but few or none will be found 

 in the bull's eye, or indeed very near 

 it. 



The Classical Library, Vols. X. and 

 XI. Of this cheap, and, beyond all 

 cavil, useful series of translations of the 

 classics, one of the volumes before us 

 contains Pindar and Anacreon new ver- 

 sions of them. Of the former volumes 

 the translations were old ones, and we 

 have been disposed to grumble at some 

 of them, not at their not being the best 

 possible, but at their not being the best 

 attainable. This was strictly the_ case 

 with Herodotus. Beloe's is a pitiful 

 performance it is full of misapprehen- 

 sions. Beloe had what is called Greek 

 enough, that is, he could construe his 

 author so far as his lexicon enabled him, 

 but he had not brains to comprehend 

 him. He had no notion of simplicity, 

 and wanted common sense to catch the 

 meaning of a man eminent for the pos- 

 session of that valuable quality. If he 

 even got scent of his author, he was 

 always in danger of losing it in chace of 

 a phrase. Isaac Taylor's version, pub- 

 lished two or three years ago, would 

 have been an ornament to the series ; 

 he has generally caught the plain sense 

 of Herodotus, and for the most part 

 conveyed it successfully and forcibly, 

 without any of the frippery of superflu- 

 ous verbiage. 



Mr. Wheelwright's Pindar is obvi- 

 ously superior to West's, and is indeed, 

 upon the whole, as effective as any ver- 

 sion is ever likely to be, though it is 

 easy to conceive a better. He has fol- 

 lowed the example set by Heber in an 

 ode or two, in rejecting the form of 

 strophes and antistrophes, and breaking 

 the whole into paragraphs. The pre- 

 vailing fault is mcumbrance of words. 

 More terseness of phrase, and vivacity 

 of manner would have brought the ver- 

 sion nearer the characteristics of the 

 original. But every thing is against a 

 successful version of Pindar. The very 

 topics find no sympathy in the poetical 

 associations of Englishmen. No racing 

 in the world can ennoble sentiment or 

 illustrate morals. Steeds and drivers 

 are unused among us to the stilted eulo- 

 giums of ancient days ; nor uncoupled 

 with divinities, as they are with us, 

 can they sustain the solemnity of even 

 serious description. The first half-dozen 

 lines is a fair specimen. The original is 

 Water is the best (liquor, apparently), 

 and gold is as conspicuous among noble 

 wealth (metals) as glowing fire in the 

 night (darkness). 



