of his consummate oratory, with the result that Catiline, finding his backers stupefied into silence, was forced to leave the city. There is but little doubt that Cicero had slight positive evidence against Catiline when he delivered this speech. There is even a grave suspicion that some of its charges were invented for the occasion; for Cicero was a wily politician, as is shown by his display at one time of his gorget, to create the impression that his life was in danger. However, the oration served its purpose, Catiline departed, and Cicero daily grew in favor with the people.

Like all popular leaders, Catiline had a motley crowd for a following-men with all manner of grievances, agreed in nothing save that they were malcontents. As long as he was personally in Rome, he was able in a measure to curb his subordinates, and to preserve at least a factitious unity in his party. Once he was away, however, things became chaotic. That portion of his followers dominated by the hot-headed Cethegus and the credulous Lentulus, whom the purple lure of empire had made mad, decided on strenuous measures. The slaves were to rise, the senate was to be slaughtered, the city to be fired (possibly it was Cicero's charges that first inspired some of these plans). Of course, the result was inevitable. Catiline was not yet prepared for open war; but the incredible stupidity of his adherents in attempting to tamper with Rome's allies, the Allobroges, and the consequent discovery, compelled him to trust to the fortunes of battle. The outcome is well known. The view I here take of Catiline's conspiracy is substantially that of Ferrero, Merimée, and Speck. That Catiline was bad I admit, but one must give even the devil his due. To the stories as to Catiline's former conspiracy, in which Crassus and Cæsar were alleged to be implicated, and which I have mentioned in my Notes

as part of the current gossip, I give no credence. Not only the evil that men do lives after them, but much that they never even thought of doing. Catiline had the misfortune to have two prejudiced biographers, and has suffered unjustly in consequence. However, as I re

marked before, we cannot blame Jonson for accepting the authorities he found, because his was an uncritical age. But it is a cruel paradox that this tragedy, on which such vast pains were spent for absolute accuracy, should be, after all, so largely mistaken.

6. Jonson as a Translator

'Drummond was right when he wrote, "Above all things he (Jonson) excelleth in a Translation." As his two tragedies show... the thing he could do supremely well was to turn the lifelessness of the classics into terms of contemporary vitality. In the best sense of the word, no better translator ever lived: he never forgot that faithfulness to his original is only half the task of the translator, who adds only to the dead weight of printed matter if he fail to bear to living men, in living language, tidings that without him were to them unmeaning' (Barrett Wendell, in Library of World's Best Literature, vol. 14).

With this criticism I heartily agree. So, also, in the main, does Miss Wright in her unpublished thesis which I have several times mentioned. Indeed, Miss Wright's criticism of Jonson's translations is so lucid and so capable that it would be supererogatory for me to add to it; so I shall reproduce the main portion of it here. 'Let us turn now to a particular consideration of the method employed by Jonson in rendering Sallust and Cicero into Elizabethan English, and the success with which he accomplished his task. Let us take two speeches, one from Sallust and one from Cicero, on which to base our study, in which we must have in mind the

two points of view from which every translation should be judged. We must observe, first, in what way and how successfully the translation preserves the diction and sense of the original,—whether diction is sacrificed to sense, or sense to diction, or whether both or neither have been effectively kept. In the second place, the translation must be judged, with no regard to its origin, as a piece of English composition.

'In comparing Jonson's version of Catiline's address to the conspirators with that speech as found in Sallust's Catiline 20, the first point to be noticed is the number and nature of his original insertions, which are not introduced for the sake of adding any new thought, but for the sake of developing and emphasizing the thought already expressed in Sallust. The best example of such an insertion for emphasis is the one introduced between I. 394 and 405, where Jonson seems inspired by Catiline's indignation at the arrogance and extravagance of the Roman potentates to break away from his model, and to pile up accusation after accusation against the offenders, concluding with one of the most forcible and striking figures of the play:

We, all this while, like calme, benum'd Spectators,

Sit, till our seates doe cracke; and doe not heare
The thundring ruines.

Another example of a passage inserted for the sake of making the point more emphatic is found in the translation of Sallust's "vulgus fuimus," which Jonson renders:

Are hearded with the vulgar; and so kept,
As we were onley bred, to consume corne;
Or weare out wooll; to drinke the cities water.

Many of Jonson's original lines were brought in to make clear the transition of thought between two sentences, the connection between which would not have been

Lines

sufficiently brought out by a literal translation. 345-346 are a good example of this kind of insertion.

In lines 352-353,

The riches of the world flowes to their coffers

And not to Romes,

what has been said in the preceding five lines is summarized, and the main idea emphasized, in a manner which gives the necessary clearness and completeness to the thought.

'Besides taking such pains to bring out clearly the point of thought, Jonson also strives, by the addition of metaphors and figurative language, to make it forcible. and poetic. His most successful attempt thus to beautify some prosaic statement is in his translation of Sallust's, "his obnoxii quibus, si respublica valeret, formidini essemus," which he translates,

Trembling beneath their rods: to whom, (if all

Were well in Rome) we should come forth bright axes.

Other figurative translations are:

"potentium"-the giants of the state. (348)

"quis mortalium tollere potest"—It doth strike my soule. (374)

"

"divitias superare"- Swell with treasure. (377)

'divitiae, decus, gloria in oculis sita sunt” —

Behold, renowne, riches and glory court you (411), etc.

'But Jonson's method of translation in general can be best shown by a word-for-word comparison of some connected passage in Catiline with the passage corresponding to it in Sallust. Let us take, for example, the first ten lines of the speech. The first sentence of this in Sallust is as follows:

Ni virtus fidesque vestra spectata mihi forent, nequidquam opportuna res cecidisset; spes magna, dominatio, in manibus frustra fuissent; neque ego per ignaviam, aut vana ingenia, incerta pro certis captarem.

The first clause, "Ni virtus fidesque vestra spectata mihi forent," is translated by Jonson :

Noblest Romanes,

If you were lesse, or that your faith, and vertue
Did not hold good that title with your bloud.

This is certainly the freest sort of translation. The sense of the clause is kept, but only two words, "virtus fidesque," are translated literally. The address, Noblest Romanes, and the ingenious play on the word noble are original, and the latter adds new suggestion to the original idea, though it must be admitted that the expression is a bit obscure.

'The next two clauses, "nequidquam opportuna res cecidisset; spes magna, dominatio, in manibus frustra fuissent," are rendered by Jonson so freely that the result can be called translation only in the broadest sense of the word. He has gathered up the meaning of the clauses, and expressed it in a very general way, when he says,

I should not, now, vnprofitably spend
Myselfe in words,

in which the word unprofitably carries the whole point of Sallust's meaning.

'The last clause of the sentence follows Sallust more closely, but is still quite free. Sallust had said, “neque ego per ignaviam aut vana ingenia, incerta pro certis captarem" and Jonson translates this:

Or catch at empty hopes

By ayrie ways, for solide certainties;

in which sentence, catch at translates "captarem;" by ayrie ways, "per ignaviam aut vana ingenia ;" empty hopes, "incerta"; and for solide certainties, "pro certis." In these five lines, surely, Jonson has effectually dis