sun Runs with her every way, wherever she doth run." There is nothing in all antiquity more truly beautiful than this; and there is, and God forfend there should be, nothing beautiful which is not true. But morning leads to evening through the gentle day's decline, and there is nothing poetical in the sultry hour, save only in Rubens' picture of his own château and grounds. Is not the setting sun more touching than the rising one? We think so. The one ap- Εσπερέ παντα φέρεις, that fragment so exquisitely filled : Oh, Hesperus! thou bringest all good things Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer, To the young bird the parent's brooding wings, The welcome stall to the o'er-labour'd steer; Whate'er of peace about our hearth-stone Are gather'd round us by thy look of rest; Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast." Enough of this rattling rambling. Now, reader, we request your attention in the first instance to the translation by C. Cotton, 1681, close as can be, save where, occasionally, welldevised equivalents are used, and, upon the whole, excellent. We cannot, however, too strongly insist upon the exquisite music which is flung into an English version by the scrupulous use of the Greekderived proper names. Only look to the pages of Milton and Shelley; take, above all, the invocation in Comus, by the attendant spirit to Sabrina. But now for gentle Horace's delicious ode in praise of a country life: 'Happy's that man that is from city care Sequester'd, as the ancients were; That with his own ox ploughs his father's lands, Untainted with usurious bands: state Of his more potent neighbour's gate. Therefore, he either is employ'd to join The poplar to the sprouting vine, Pruning luxurious branches, grafting some More hopeful offspring in their room; In the mellow fields with apples covered, wear! Of which to thee, Priapus, tithes abound, He lies, now in the flowery meads: Whilst through their deep-worn banks the murmuring floods Do glide, and birds chant in the woods; And bubbling fountains, flowing streams, do weep, A gentle summons unto sleep. But when cold winter does the storms " more, sweeps this coast. Nor oysters from the Lucrine shore, Or kid redeem'd from the wolf's prey. Whilst thus we feed, what joy 'tis to behold The pastured sheep haste to their fold! And the o'er-wearied ox with drooping neck to come, Haling the inverted culture home; And swarms of servants from their labour quit, About the shining fire sit.' Thus when the usurper Alphius had said, Now purposing this life to lead, I' the Ides call'd in his money; but for gain I' th' Kalends put it forth again." We now present our friend's translation, something more free, being cast in the more modern mould of versified expression : Happy the man in busy schemes unskill'd, Who, living simply like our sires of Or seeks the thrush, poor starveling, to ensnare In filmy net with bait delusive stored, Entraps the travell'd crane and timorous hare, Rare dainties these to glad his frugal board. Who amid joys like this would not forget The pangs that love to all its victims bears, The fever of the brain, the ceaseless fret. And all the heart's lamentings and despairs? This is the original of the phrase " silly sheep," common among poets, wards come, To see the wearied oxen, as they creep, Dragging the up-turn'd plough-share slowly home! Or, ranged around his bright and blazing hearth, To see the hinds, a house's surest wealth, Beguile the evening with their simple mirth, And all the cheerfulness of rosy health. Thus spake the miser Alphius; and, bent Upon a country life, call'd in amain The money which at usance he had lent; But ere the month was out, 'twas lent again." "# We turn from the soft and sentimental to a jolly strain, in which Horace is quite at home : "Natis in usum lætitiæ scyphis Vino et lucernis Medus acinaces Et cubito remanete presso. Vultis severi me quoque sumere Vulnere, qua pereat sagitta. Cessat voluntas? non alia bibam Mercede. Quæ te cunque domat Venus, Non erubescendis adurit Ignibus, ingenuoque semper Amore peccas: quicquid habes, age, Digne, puer, meliore flamma. Pegasus expediet Chimerâ." We are not satisfied with any serious attempt at a translation of this; so none do we quote. But as a matter of curiosity we will give you an imitation by Professor Porson (1802), which clearly exhibits the coarse, vulgar, nasty mind of the man. The portrait of this most unclassically-minded classical mechanic hangs up still in the cider-cellars, where, nightly, the congenial fumes of reeking gin and beer, and the vira of tobacco-pipes mount up to salute it. Fie, friends, were glasses made for fighting, And not your hearts and heads to lighten ? Quit, quit, for shame, the savage fashion, Nor fall in such a mighty passion. 'Pistols and balls for six!' what sport! How distant from Fresh lights and port!' Get rid of this ungodly rancour, And bring your elbows to an anchor. Why, though your stuff is plaguy heady, You won't? then, damme if I drink! And were your girl the dirtiest drab— * MS. March 2, 1845. quis sub Arcto Rex gelidæ metuatur oræ, Quid Tiridatem terreat, unicè Securus. O quæ fontibus integris Gaudes, apricos necte flores, Necte meo Lamiæ coronam, Pimplea dulcis. Nil sine te mei Prosunt honores. Hunc fidibus novis, Hunc Lesbio sacrare plectro, Teque tuasque decet sorores." "Beloved by the Muses, I cast them astray, I am utterly careless Without thee, to praise him |