Adams Papers Digital Edition

Adams Family Correspondence, volume 5

John Thaxter to John Quincy Adams

John Adams to Abigail Adams
John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 29 May 1783 JA JQA

1783-05-29

 John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 29 May 1783 Adams, John Adams, John Quincy
John Adams to John Quincy Adams
My dear Son Paris May 29. 1783

It gives me great Pleasure to find, that your Situation is agreable to you. An abler Instructor than Mr. Dumas is not to be found. Is not an 100 Verses at a Time too long a Lesson?1 Are you familiar enough with the Latin to comprehend So many Verses at once? You have Ainsworths Dictionary2 I presume. Let no Word escape you, without being understood.

Drydens is a good translation, but it is not Virgil. You will do well to Study the Difference. There is another English Translation of Virgil. It is in blank Verse, done by Dr. Trapp.3 This is thought by Some to be better than Dryden's, but I am not of that opinion. It is worth your while however to have it if you can get it.

I dont know but the Book of Games would be more proper for your young head, than the History of Dido.4

You translate Suetonius in Writing, I hope, and preserve your Translation as you did that of Phaedrus.5 I Should advise you to make a compleat Translation of Suetonius, in order to make yourself Master of the Work.

Your affectionate Father John Adams

RC (Adams Papers).

1.

See JQA to JA, 24 May, above, for JQA's reading of Virgil, and for Dryden's translation of Virgil, to which JA refers below.

 2.

Robert Ainsworth, Dictionary, English and Latin, London, 1773 ( Catalogue of JA's Library ).

 3.

Joseph Trapp, Aeneis of Virgil, Translated into Blank Verse, 2 vols., London, 1718–20. At 167some point JQA acquired Virgil's complete Works in Trapp's blank verse translation (4th edn., 3 vols., London, 1755; now in MQA).

 4.

The romance of Queen Dido of Carthage and the Trojan leader Aeneas is the subject of Virgil, Aeneid, book IV, which JQA was reading (to JA, 24 May, above). Book V of the same work, the “Book of Games,” describes the athletic contests held by the Trojans in Sicily after their departure from Carthage.

 5.

See JQA to JA, 12 May, note 2, above. JQA had studied the Latin fabulist Phaedrus in Paris in 1780 and in Leyden in 1781, but the French translation that he copied out in Leyden was the work of his language teacher, not his own (see vols. 3:307, and note 4; 4:xvi, 113, 118, and note 1).