The Satires and Epistles of Horace Interpreted, by DAVID HUNTER,
Esq., seem to have been prompted by a long study of the author, and a sufficient, though a somewhat unspiritual per- ception of his style and character. But the qualities of the reader or the critic are not those of the poet; and the most thorough com- prehension of a poem will not enable a translator to convey the exquisite ease, the delicate irony, and the careless grace of the Roman bard ; whilst the very charge against him—the half prosaic, negligent nature of his versilication—is merely a trap to deceive the presumptuous imitator, who only zrawls when 'Ionics is quietly gliding. As we formerly observed, the spirit and manners of this author must be sought in the Imitations and Satires of POPE : his meaning may be got at from Mr. HUNTER, who has also struggled, and not unsuccessfully, to imitate his terseness, though he does it by squeezing rather than packing.
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