Adams Family Correspondence, volume 5
1783-05-29
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.
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.
Robert Ainsworth, Dictionary, English and Latin, London, 1773 (
Catalogue of JA's Library
).
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).
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.
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).
1783-05-30
Here I am, out of all Patience. Not a Word from America. The British Ministry, lingering on. Mr. Hartley uncertain what to do. No Regulation of Commerce agreed on. No definitive Treaty of Peace, Signed, nor likely to be Signed very Soon. My Spring Passage home lost. To embark in July or August, would be the worst Season of the whole Year—on Account of Heat and Calms. I dont See a Possibility of embarking before September or October.
The total Idleness, the perpetual Uncertainty We are in, is the most insipid and at the Same Time disgusting and provoking Situation imaginable. I had rather be employed in carting Street Dust and Marsh Mud.
Neither do I know how or where, I shall get a Passage. I could now go with Mr. Van Berckel in a fine new 68 Gun ship. In the Fall, I suppose I shall be obliged to step on board a Merchant ship loaded down to the Brim. But whether from Holland, or from Some Port in France I know not. So many Vessells will run away to England, that I fear it will be difficult to find a Passage from France or Holland.
But We must bear it all, if We can.
Our Son is at the Hague pursuing his Studies with great Ardour. They give him a good Character wherever he has been, and I hope he will make a good Man.
It is unaccountable that not one Vessell should have arrived from any Part of New England, Since the Peace nor for so long a Time before. But all is Mystery. Pray write me. Dont omit to write, untill I arrive home, direct to the Care of Mr. Dumas a L'hotel des Etats Unis D'Amerique, at the Hague, or to the Care of Mr. Jay, at Paris. These Gentlemen will take Care of your Letters, if I should be gone.