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But many of the narrations in Aristaenetus are incapable of being elevated into poetry; and, unluckily, these familiar parts seem chiefly to have fallen to the department of Halhed, who was far less gifted than his coadjutor with that artist-like touch, which polishes away the mark of vulgarity, and gives an air of elegance even to poverty.
Aristaenetus did not become the talk of the town even in spite of an ingeniously promulgated rumor assigning the authorship of the verses to Dr. Johnson. Neither did the plays and essays in which the friends collaborated meet with any prosperous fate.
But whatever were his other desires and pursuits, a visit to Bath, to that place which contained the two persons he most valued in friendship and in love, was the grand object of all his financial speculations; and among other ways and means that, in the delay of the expected resources from Aristaenetus, presented themselves, was an exhibition of L20 a year, which the college had lately given him, and with five pounds of which he thought he might venture "adire Corinthum."
Even the translation of Aristaenetus, though a task more suited, from its amatory nature, to the existing temperature of his heart, was proceeded in but slowly; and it appears from one of Halhed's letters, that this impatient ally was already counting upon the spolia opima of the campaign, before Sheridan had fairly brought his Greek grammar into the field.
On the contrary, one may represent true wit by the description which Aristaenetus makes of a fine woman: "When she is dressed she is beautiful: when she is undressed she is beautiful;" or, as Mercerus has translated it more emphatically, Induitur, formosa est: exuitur, ipsa forma est. Fifth Paper. Scribendi recte sapere est et principium, et fons. HOR., Ars Poet. 309.
You will pardon this liberty I take, and set it down to the account of old-fashioned friendship." Mr. At length in August, 1771, Aristaenetus made its appearance contrary to the advice of the bookseller, and of Mr. Ker, who represented to Sheridan the unpropitiousness of the season, particularly for a first experiment in authorship, and advised the postponement of the publication till October.
But whatever may have been the industry of these youthful authors, the translation of Aristaenetus, as I have already stated, was the only fruit of their literary alliance that ever arrived at sufficient maturity for publication.
But neither of them ever deserved to be wakened from that sleep, in which the commentaries of Bergler, De Pauw, and a few more such industrious scholars have shrouded them. The translators of Aristaenetus, in rendering his flowery prose into verse, might have found a precedent and model for their task in Ben Jonson, whose popular song, "Drink to me only with thine eyes," is, as Mr.
How strongly the young translators of Aristaenetus were under the influence of this sort of inspiration appears from every paragraph of Halhed's letters, and might easily, indeed, be concluded of Sheridan, from the very limited circumstances of his father, who had nothing besides the pension of L200 a year, conferred upon him in consideration of his literary merits, and the little profits he derived from his lectures in Bath, to support with decency himself and his family.
Though Sheridan had informed his friend that the translation was put to press some time in March, 1771, it does not appear to have been given into the hands of Wilkie, the publisher, till the beginning of May, when Mr. Ker writes thus to Bath: "Your Aristaenetus is in the hands of Mr. Wilkie, in St.
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