VIRTUE AND RANK (Jacobs III. 210, lxix.).
Translated by the late Dr. Wellesley.

A. John the illustrious. B. John the mortal, say.
A. The son-in-law to the Queen's Highness. B. Nay,
Mortal again. A. Of Anastasius

Descendant prime. B. Mortal like all of us.
A. Of virtuous life. B. Ay, this doth never die,
Virtue is mightier than mortality.

Of similar character is the sentiment expressed by Shakespeare in All's Well that Ends Well" (Act II. sc. 3):

From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,

The place is dignified by the doer's deed:

Where great additions swell, and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honour: good alone
Is good, without a name; vileness is so:
The property by what it is should go,
Not by the title.

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That is honour's scorn

Which challenges itself as honour's born,
And is not like the sire: Honours thrive,
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our fore-goers.

AGATHIAS.

Commonly called Agathias Scholasticus. Flourished in the sixth century. He was born at Myrina, and is supposed to have been a Christian. He is celebrated as the third collector of scattered miscellanies and fragments.

THE TORMENTS OF LOVE (Jacobs IV. 8, xii.).
Translated by Fawkes.

All night I sigh with cares of love opprest,
And when the morn indulges balmy rest,
These twitt'ring birds their noisy matins keep,
Recall my sorrows, and prevent my sleep:
Cease, envious birds, your plaintive tales to tell,
I ravish'd not the tongue of Philomel.

In deserts wild, or on some mountain's brow,
Pay all the tributary grief you owe
To Itys, in an elegy of woe.

Me leave to sleep in visionary charms

Some dream perhaps may bring Rodanthe to my arms.

This is imitated from the 12th Ode of Anacreon.

Shakespeare says of Queen Mab in "Romeo and Juliet" (Act I. sc. 4):

And in this state she gallops night by night

Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love.

Pope, in his imitation of Ovid's epistle, "Sappho to Phaon," 143, expresses in fuller terms the thought in the last two lines of the epigram: 'Tis thou art all my care and my delight,

My daily longing, and my dream by night:
O night more pleasing than the brightest day,
When fancy gives what absence takes away,
And, dress'd in all its visionary charms,
Restores my fair deserter to my arms!

But when, with day, the sweet delusions fly,
And all things wake to life and joy, but I;
As if once more forsaken, I complain,
And close my eyes to dream of you again.

The close of the 1st Ode of the 4th Book of Horace may also be compared.

LOVE AND WINE (Jacobs IV. 9, xvi.).
Translated by Bland.

Farewell to wine! or if thou bid me sip,
Present the cup more honour'd from thy lip!
Pour'd by thy hand, to rosy draughts I fly,
And cast away my dull sobriety;

For, as I drink, soft raptures tell my soul
That lovely Glycera has kissed the bowl.

There are several epigrams in the Anthology upon the same subject, occasioned by a custom, not uncommon at Grecian entertainments, of interchanging the wine-cups. There is an Arabian epigram, addressed to a female cup-bearer, translated by Professor Carlyle, of Cambridge "Specimens of Arabian Poetry," 1796, 65), which is very similar in tone to that of Agathias:

Come, Leila, fill the goblet up,
Reach round the rosy wine;
Think not that we will take the cup
From any hand but thine.

A draught, like this, 'twere vain to seek,
No grape can such supply;

It steals its tint from Leila's cheek,
Its brightness from her eye.

In "New-Old Ballads," by Dr. Wolcot, better known as Peter Pindar, are some lines "To the Glass," which begin thus (Wolcot's Works, 1812, V. 86):

Give me the glasse that felt her lippe,
And happy, happy shall I sippe ;
And, when is fled the daintie wyne,
Something remaineth still divyne.

The modern expression of "kissing the cup" is prettily used by Goldsmith, in the "Deserted Village," when lamenting the past splendour of the village ale-house •

The host himself no longer shall be found
Careful to see the mantling bliss go round;
Nor the coy maid, half willing to be prest,
Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.

ON DEATH (Jacobs IV. 34, lxxxi.).
Translated by C.

Death brings us peace: Oh! fear him not:
Death ends the sufferer's heaviest lot.

He comes but once ; his awful mien
Twice coming, none has ever seen.

Whilst pain and grief, man's sadd'ning doom,

Come often, and are sure to come.

Some beautiful lines by Cardinal Bembo, translated by Mrs. Hemans, thus apostrophise Death:

Thou the stern monarch of dismay,
Whom nature trembles to survey,
O Death! to me, the child of grief,
Thy welcome power would bring relief,
Changing to peaceful slumber many a care.
And though thy stroke may thrill with pain
Each throbbing pulse, each quivering vein;
The pangs that bid existence close,

Oh! sure are far less keen than those,
Which cloud its lingering moments with despair.

PAULUS SILENTIARIUS.

Flourished A.D. 530. He was a Christian-a friend of Agathias, and probably assisted him in his collection of fugitive epigrams. "Silentiarius was the title of an assessor in the Privy Council at the Byzantine Court, an office which Paulus held.

LOVE NOT EXTINGUISHED BY AGE (Jacobs IV. 43, viii.).
Translated by Bland.

For me thy wrinkles have more charms,
Dear Lydia, than a smoother face!
I'd rather fold thee in my arms
Than younger, fairer nymphs embrace.
To me thy autumn is more sweet,
More precious than their vernal rose,
Their summer warms not with a heat
So potent as thy winter glows.

There is an epigram in the Anthology by an uncertain author, which very prettily expresses the same thought. The translation is by Merivale (Jacobs IV. 130, lxii.):

Whether thy locks in jetty radiance play,

Or golden ringlets o'er thy shoulder stray,

There beauty shines, sweet maid, and should they bear

The snows of age, still love would linger there.

A piece by Thomas Carew, a poet of the reign of Charles I., is very similar in sentiment to the epigram by Paulus. It is entitled, "Unfading Beauty." The first two stanzas are given:

Hee that loves a rosie cheek,

Or a coral lip admires,

Or from star-like eyes doth seeko
Fuell to maintaine his fires.
As old Time makes these decay
So his flames must waste away.

But a smooth and stedfast mind,
Gentle thoughts and calm desires,
Hearts with equal love combined,
Kindle never-dying fires;
Where these are real, I despise
Lovely cheekes, or lips, or eyes.

CUPID AT REST (Jacobs IV. 47, xx.).
Translated by Goldwin Smith.

Fear no more Love's shafts, for he
Hath all his quiver spent on me.
Fear not his wings; since on this breast
His scornful foot the victor prest,

Here sits he fast, and here must stay,
For he hath shorn his wings away.

Eubulus, a native of Atarna in Lesbos, who flourished B.C. 375, expresses the same thought in an epigram addressed to a painter. The translation is by Cumberland in the "Observer," No. 104:

Why, foolish painter, give those wings to Love?

Love is not light, as my sad heart can prove:
Love hath no wings, or none that I can see;
If he can fly-oh! bid him fly from me!

GARDEN DECORATION (Jacobs IV. 61, lxii.),
Translated by Bland.

Here strive for empire, o'er the happy scene,
The nymphs of fountain. sea, and woodland green;
The power of grace and beauty holds the prize
Suspended even to her votaries,

And finds amazed, where'er she casts her

eye, Their contest forms the matchless harmony.

This is supposed to be descriptive of the gardens of Justinian at Heræum, on the Asiatic shore of the Propontis, of which Gibbon says ("Decline and Fall,” ed. 1846, III. 524, chap. 40): "The poets of the age have celebrated the rare alliance of nature and art, the harmony of the nymphs of the groves, the fountains and the waves."

There is a Latin poem by Charles Dryden (son of the great poet) on the gardens of the Earl of Arlington, near the Green Park, where Arlington Street now stands, which has been translated by Samuel Boyse. The following passage bears much resemblance to the epigram of Paulus (Nichols' "Collection of Poems," II. 164, 1780): .

Thy beauteous gardens charm the ravish'd sight,
And surfeit every sense with soft delight;
Where'er we turn our still transported eyes,
New scenes of art with nature join'd arise;
We dwell indulgent on the lovely scene,
The lengthen'd vista or the carpet green;
A thousand graces bless th' enchanted ground
And throw promiscuous beauties all around.