Besides several inferior versions, those of the "Jerusalem Delivered," by Fairfax, Hoole, Hunt, and Wiffin, have each some peculiar merit, though it must be confessed, that, in each, so far as regards the diction, that peculiar merit belongs rather to the translation than to the author, the grace and harmony of whose verse, unsurpassed in his own language, is absolutely unapproachable in ours. Fairfax's version, in the original stanza, is masculine and free; Hoole's, in the heroic couplet, is easy and commonplace, but as a mere entertaining tale, the most _readable_ of the four; Hunt's, in the same measure, may lay great claim to indulgence for any defect in vigour, on the score of the classic taste and learning which it displays. Wiffin's is unquestionably the best; and it is his own fault that it is not as good as any reasonable judge could desire a translation of Tasso to be: but, having chosen to hamper himself, and to encumber his author, with the intricate stanza of Spenser, containing an extra-Alexandrine line beyond the Italian octave, he has been compelled to amplify his original _one eighth_, which must deduct at least in the same proportion from the compactness, precision, and symmetry of every corresponding section. How could a master of versification like Mr. Wiffin, himself a genuine poet, choose to run such a race, carrying such a weight? He has won it, nevertheless, though not in the style that might have been wished; yet he that shall hereafter beat him must be a rival, who, beyond the Alps, would have been a worthy competitor with Tasso himself, had they been countrymen and contemporaries.
[Footnote 37: The translation is from Dr. Black's valuable Life of Tasso, from which other occasional quotations may be hereafter made, with this brief but grateful acknowledgment.]
[Footnote 39: It is curious and provoking to observe in how momentary and contemptible a circumstance originated this enduring injury to the reputation of one of the greatest poets by one of the greatest critics. In a note to the clause in Satire IX., Boileau says, "_Un homme de qualité fit un jour ce beau jugement en ma présence._" So, because "a fool of quality" ("_un sot de qualité_," as he words it in the verse) once happened to "say, in the hearing of a wit, that he preferred the "Gerusalemme" to the "Æneid," "all Europe" has been made to "ring from side to side," for a century and a half, with the _clinquant_ of Tasso against the gold of Virgil.]