Dr. Charles Badham : Professor of the Practice of Medicine in the University of Glasgow, 1827-1841 / by James Finlayson.

  • James Finlayson
Date:
1900
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Dr. Charles Badham : Professor of the Practice of Medicine in the University of Glasgow, 1827-1841 / by James Finlayson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Review, from the same pen. He is twitted with professing to despise the “ ruffian criticism,” and yet with practically adopting all the corrections and many of the suggestions then made. °He is jeered at for ignoring recent translations (Gifford’s in particular !) and yet with having at least one of them at his elbow! He is held as dishonest in submitting his new work to the public, and commenting in the preface, on the review complained of, without saying that the work, as thus published, was really different from the “ Specimens ” formerly reviewed. He is alleged, in view of his own alterations, to be a more severe critic of himself than the Quarterly had been. Referring to these changes, a note says— “ We could almost venture to affirm that Dr. Badham has borrowed less from himself in that satire [the first] than he has from preceding writers in any of the others.” The accusation of borrowing from recent translations, regarding which he had said, “ it is not for me to interfere,” is supported by copious quotations from each, placed side by side. The following seems the gem of this review :— “ ‘ The brazen frontlet of the uncurtain’d bed Show’d the rude sculpture of an ass’s head.’ “ Still copying !—but of what bed is Dr. Badham thinking? Of his own?” (Quarterly Review, July, 1814.) That the translation thus severely handled was not without merit, may be inferred from its re-issue, with considerable alterations and improvements, in Valyys Classical Library, in 1831. In the preface to this edition (dated College of Glasgow, 1st May, 1831), Dr. Badham refers to Gifford and the attack in the Quarterly Review. By this time he felt free, owing to the death of the rival translator, to express his opinion of Gifford’s version, stating— “ without reserve, that I think very moderately of his success ; that I hold his version to be not very remarkable for the graces of poetry; that I know it to abound with vulgar and vernacular expres- sions ; and consider it to be much more distinguished by abruptness than by energy of expression. Had I known this work, indeed, as intimately as I was alleged to have done, I am satisfied that not only was it among the last I should have preferred as a model, but that I should have derived from its abounding defects more encouragement to proceed than I actually felt. ... I might be tempted to designate it rather as the buoy which tells of a ship- wreck, than as the brilliant Pharos, the revolving light, which invites the security of the harbour.”