The bee enclos'd, and through the amber shown,
Seems buried in the juice which was his own.
So honour'd was a life in labour spent:
Such might he wish to have his monument.

JOHN MILTON.

Born 1608. Died 1674.

TO CHRISTINA, QUEEN OF SWEDEN, WITH A PORTRAIT OF CROMWELL.

Translated by Sir Fleetwood Shepheard.

Bright martial maid, queen of the frozen zone,
The northern pole supports thy shining throne;
Behold what furrows age and steel can plough,
The helmet's weight oppress'd this wrinkled brow.
Through fate's untrodden paths I move, my hands
Still act my free-born people's bold commands:
Yet this stern shade to you submits his frowns,
Nor are these looks always severe to crowns.

This epigram is by some ascribed to Andrew Marvell. A long and interesting note on the subject, will be found in Warton's edition of Milton's Minor Poems, ed. 1791, 489.

Mr. Bryan Proctor (better known as Barry Cornwall) has given us a portrait of Cromwell, probably as true to life as the "Shade" which was sent to the Queen of Sweden, and certainly more so than Milton's flattering lines which accompanied it:

* Like some dark rock, whose rifts
Hold nitrous grain, whereon the lightning fires
Have glanced, and left a pale and livid light,
So he, some corp'ral nerve being struck, stood there
Glaring, but cold and pitiless.-Even hope
(The brightest angel whom the heavens have given
To lead and cheer us onwards) shrank aghast
From that stern look despairing.

TO LEONORA, SINGING AT ROME.

Translated by Cowper.

Another Leonora once inspired

Tasso with fatal love, to frenzy fired;
But how much happier lived he now, were he,
Pierced with whatever pangs for love of thee!
Since could he hear that heavenly voice of thine,
With Adriana's lute of sound divine,

Fiercer than l'entheus' though his eye might roll,
Or idiot apathy benumb his soul,

You still with medicinal sounds might cheer
His senses wandering in a blind career;

And sweetly breathing through his wounded breast,
Charm with soul-soothing song, his thoughts to rest.

Adriana of Mantua, and her daughter Leonora Baroni, were esteemed by their contemporaries the finest singers in the world. Tasso is said to have been enamoured of three ladies of the name of Leonora; the one mentioned in the epigram is supposed by Dr. J. Warton (quoted in his brother's notes on Milton) to have been Leonora of Este, sister of Alphonso, Duke of Ferrara, at whose court Tasso resided.

Milton, in "L'Allegro," has exquisitely painted the power of mus e; and Shakespeare in the "Tempest" (Act I. sc. 2), niakes Ferdin: nd say:

This music crept by me upon the waters;

Allaying both their fury and my passion,
With its sweet air.

Pope, in his "Ode on S. Cecilia's Day," shows the influence of music over the passions, in terms which bear much resemblance to those of Milton in his epigram:

Music the fiercest grief can charm,

And fate's severest rage disarm:

Music can soften pain to ease,

And make despair and madness please:

Our joys below it can improve,

And antedate the bliss above.

JOHN PETER BELLORI.

Born at Rome about 1616. His maternal uncle, Francis Angeloni, secretary to the Cardinal Aldobrandini, cultivated in him a love of antiquities, and he became greatly celebrated as an antiquary. Christina, Queen of Sweden, made him her librarian and keeper of her museum. He died in 1696, having passed his life in the composition of various works.

EPITAPH ON NICHOLAS POUSSIN
("Vite de Pittori, Scultori, &c." 1672).

Translated by C.

Forbear to weep where Poussin's ashes lie;
Who taught to live himself can never die!
Though silent here, from whence no language breaks,
Yet in his Works he lives, and eloquently speaks.

The thought that he "being dead yet speaketh," is quaintly expressed in an epigram on Marcus Tullius Cicero, by Nicholas Grimoald, who was born in the early part of the 16th century; was a lecturer on rhetoric in the University of Oxford; and is supposed to be the same as one Grimbold, mentioned by Strype as chaplain to Bishop Ridley ("Poetical Works of Surrey and others," Bell's ed. 1854, 220):

For Tully late a tomb I gan prepare,

When Cynthie, thus, bade me my labour spare:
"Such manner things become the dead," quoth he,
"But Tully lives, and still alive shall be."

There is another epigram of similar character by an anonymous author of nearly the same period, which is interesting from its subject—the celebrated Sir Thomas Wyat the elder, the statesman and poet Ibid. 249):

Lo, dead! he lives, that whilome lived here;

Among the dead, that quick goes on the ground;
Though he be dead, yet quick he doth appear
By lively name, that death cannot confound.
His life for aye of fame the trump shall sound.
Though he be dead, yet lives he here alive,
Thus can no death of Wyat life deprive.

M

JOHANNES SANTOLIUS,

The Latin name under which the French poet, better known as Santeul, wrote, was born at Paris in 1630. He devoted himself wholly to poetry, and wrote almost exclusively in Latin. His reputation was chiefly gained by the hymns which, at the request of Bossuet and others, he composed for the Paris Breviary. But he was celebrated not only for his poetry, but also for his wit and eccentricity, and it was said of him, that he spoke like a fool and thought like a sage. He died in 1697.

ON THE DEATH OF LULLI.

Translated in "Selections from the French Anas," 1797.
Perfidious art thou, Death, and thy commands
Harsh and tyrannic; and too bold thy hands:
Such are thy dreadful attributes; in vain,

Though pressed beneath thy yoke, would man complain.
But when your dart, great Lulli to destroy,
You shook, and damp'd a king's and nation's joy,
And robb'd too soon each fond enraptur'd ear
Of strains the earth again shall never hear;
Complain we must, although to ills resign'd,
And mourn that Fate is deaf, as well as blind.

John Baptist Lulli was a Florentine. His musical talents were early noticed, and after being an under-scullion in the kitchen of Madame de Montpensier, he became superintendent of music to Louis XIV.

It is related that while Santeul was composing his lines on Lulli's death, a favourite and tame finch, perching on his head, sung in so charming a manner that the bird seemed actuated by the soul of the departed artist, and appeared desirous by his melody to inspire the poet with thoughts worthy of his subject. Singularly enough it was the finch's last song; he was found dead the next morning.

Santeul may have been acquainted with a Greek "Epitaph on a Flute-player," by Diotimus, to which part of his own bears a resemblance. The translation is by Dr. Merivale, Dean of Ely (Jacobs I. 185,

viii.):

Man's hopes are spirits with fast-fleeting wings.
See where in death our hopeful Lesbus lies!
Lesbus is dead; the favourite of kings!
Hail, light-wing'd Hopes, ye swiftest deities!
On his cold tomb we carve a voiceless flute;
For Pluto hears not, and the grave is mute.

A YOUNG DOCTOR'S APOLOGY FOR THE SMOOTHNESS OF HIS FACE.

Freely translated in "Selections from the French Anas,” 1797.

What! praise my rosy cheeks and youthful face?
Alas! such features would my rank disgrace.
Such beauties suit fair ladies of eighteen,
And not a doctor's philosophic mien.

The beetle brow, the wrinkle deep and wide,
A pompous look by studious thoughts supplied,
Are a sage doctor's charms. No more upbraid
My miss-like visage. Lately I survey'd
In yonder stream my phiz, and found it rough
With wrinkles, and for a doctor's grave enough.
Besides, revolving years will soon destroy
Whate'er remains that marks me for a boy:
Yet still I hope they will not snatch one part
Of the fair image of an honest heart.

These lines were supplied by Santeul to a young licentiate about to take his doctor's degree; and it is said that when they were recited, the learned assembly with one voice declared them to be Santeul's, so well was the poet's Latin style known to the audience.

NINIANUS PATERSONUS,

Was a native of Glasgow, and Minister of Liberton. He published "Epigrammatum Libri Octo" in 1678.

TO TROY (Book IV. 59).

Ah, hapless Troy! the flame, whilst Maro sings,
Around thy blacken'd walls for ever clings;
One conflagration to the Greeks you owe,
In Maro's verse the flames immortal glow.

Alpheus of Mitylene, in a Greek epigram on Homer, shows how poetry has preserved in action all the catastrophes of the Trojan war (Jacobs II. 116, v.). The translation is taken from the 551st No. of the "Spectator":

Still in our ears Andromache complains,
And still in sight the fate of Troy remains: