make common to many languages this really inimitable composition, it i something which can be bequeathed to those alone who read the English tongue. It is inimitable for its entire harmony; by which we refer not so much to musical effect, as to the elements of it; the nice fitting and correspondence of every part of its structure; that just combination, that preserved equality, which forbears as much to rise above the proper level as to sink below, and makes up a whole, perfect work, which, however inferior in dimensions, perfectly satisfies the taste, delights the soul, and leaves it nothing to desire. Such is Gray's Elegy, and imbued as it is with the calm, tearful melancholy of the time and place, will fill up a soothing hour in millions of hearts which have not yet begun to beat. It was a generous and convincing vindication of the value of letters over arms, pronounced by one on the eve of a splendid morrow, and when his own path of glory' had even then arrived at the grave.' As he (the gallant Wolfe) dropped down the river on that critical night, and having just received a copy from England, mused over its morality, and felt his heart affected by its solemn numbers, he said that all the trophies arms could win were not worthy to compare with the laurels of its author. It was a humane sentiment, and will be remembered as long as his last sublime words. The Latin version here given is not so good as the Greek to which we have alluded; it is however creditable, and will bear a favorable comparison with others; for numerous writers have contended for the honor of turning it into the Latin tongue, and we have before us an illustrated edition of the Elegy, containing versions in Latin, Greek, French, German, and Italian — the French, we will just observe, barely tolerable. But here is something of Gray's which has a very classical air, and seems to invite translation, and we annex the version of it found in the · Arundines :' TO POESY. On CYTHEREA's day, In gliding state she wins ber easy way: AD POESIN. Et quum Diva potens Cypri Tum vittis roseis Amor, Ludis juncta decentibus ; Audax Lætitiæ cohors; Turmave orbibus invicem Concordesve pedes micant. Lenti significant soni; En ! quâcunque jacet lumina, Gratiæ Reginam obsequio colunt. Molli tendit iter via; Læti et flamma Cupidinis Martis perque genus perque sinum movet.' In company with this, we will place Milton's beautiful apostrophe to Echo: SWEET Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen Within thy aēry shell, Where the love-lorn nightingale Oh! if thou have Tell me but where, So may'st thou be translated to the skies, DULCIS ECHO. Marginis herba: Carmine luget; Furta recondis, Filia cæli. Gaudia Divis.' Beside the above, we find translations from Shakspeare, Cowper, Pope, Goldsmith, Byron, Moore, Tennyson, and some of the minor poets. Perhaps in the range of English poetry, pieces better adapted to translalation inight be found than some which are here given, but the selection was to be made from materials already prepared. Here, in measured hexameters, is the great bard's awful contemplation of death : 6 Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; "ATTAMEN; heu! quam triste mori! nec quo sit eundum Scire prius - positum clausa putrescere in arca ; Suspensumve dari ventis, noctesque diesque Spectanti mortem prope, venturamque timenti.' Moore's verses about a “tree or flower,' which seem so exquisitely beautiful on a first reading, but which have been so bequoted and whined over by boarding-school misses and melancholic persons, that, like some popular airs of the operas, we have got weary of them, we willingly peruse in the Latin version, by Mr. Drury, the Editor; although in truth they present an instance where language and sentiment are so happily married, that, so to speak, they cannot exist except in an eternal union. You cannot bear away the beautiful spirit, and enshrine it in another form, for the one it occupies is already moulded by its plastic art, and there it finds its calm and fitting repose. The sorrowful and dejected, suddenly meeting with the verses of Moore, would pore over them with a heart-felt, tearful delight, loving them for a sympathy and mournful passion, for a true and natural utterance of griefs which might seem exceedingly mawkish in the best prose. But with us their frequent quotation, (which, however, is the surest mark of an intrinsic beauty,) and self-application by persons of good appetite and fancied wrongs, have brought about a distaste, if that were possible, and made us less sensible of their great beauty, and we present them in their new dress, whether it well fits or not: SIC SEMPER. Et vota et cupidæ et præteriere preces! Sub manibus pereunt omnia pulchra meis, Jam me surpuerat cara capella mihi, Luderet; ad certam mittitur illa necem.' The beautiful fragment of Simonides, aápraxi ¿v daldanía åvɛuos, x. 7.7., is thus translated : "QUANDO insonaret sub trabe dædala Quantum capillis immineant aquæ, Quantumque venti vis crepet, unico Securus: ut pulcher nitensque Purpureo recubas in ostro! Quod si timeres quæ inihi sunt metu, Et lene consilium imbiberes meum, Dormi juberem ; dormiunto Dura fugæ mala, dura ponti. Sic et benignus consilium pater Mutet refingens in melius, neque Hæc nolit ulcisci, precando Ni fuerim nimium molesta.' DANAE. The fragile barque was lifted on the wave, And gazed on PERSEUS and the yawning grave. "My child,' she said, 'while billows toss our chest, And chilly night-winds rush across the deep, Thy coral lips are smiling through thy sleep. "The gentle moon, with a voluptuous light, Is up, and quivers on the heaving sea, Is doubly drear to me. 6 Enwrapt within thy purple mantle warm, Thou dost not hear the billows booming wild, Beautiful child ! " Ab! couldst thou half thy mother's anguish know, Thy lips, as yet "unsullied with a tear, Thy tranquil bosom palpitate with fear. 6. Yet, darling, sleep! ye billows cease to roll! And ye wild winds that battle with the main; When shall that soul be lulled to peace again ?" Not to proceed any farther with extracts like the above, we now come to the Nugæ, if they may be so called, or literary trifles and curiosities, interspersed throughout the book in such large plenty as to give it a character of mirth very winning to those who shrink from the too severe brows of scholastic learning. Here is ample relief, and nuts to crack for the most sportive person who delights in fun: "Quem jocus circumvolat.? We had scarcely deemed that English scholars — and among them we refer to some of the most learned, grave, and reverend seniors of the land — had expended their talents so liberally on this field, and that the fruits of their classical studies would include a class of compositions which are the charm of the nursery, and have been most thoroughly learned by the national heart. It is here that tact and ingenuity have to work around difficulties which cannot be surmounted ; idioms and forms of expression of their own, which can hardly be turned into corresponding idioms and forms of expression, or in any other than a literal way, as witness the following little gem, which the reader will easily recognize: BEI DIDULUM. Felisque, Fidisque! Abstulit et turpi lanx cochleare fuga." A few more trifles of this sort may not be rejected with disdain by the learned : LITTLE BOPEEP. PARVA BOPÆPIA. . LITTLE BOPEEP has lost her sheep, PARVA Vagabundos BOPÆPIA perdidit agnos, And does not know where to find them; Nescia secreti quo latuere loci; Let them alone, and they 'll soon come home, Bellula, eant, abeant; ad pascua nota redibiunt, And bring their tails behind them." Et, reduces, caudas post sua terga gerent.' THE MAN OF THESSALY. VIR THESSALICUS • THERE was a man of Thessaly, THESSALUS acer erat sapiens præ civibus And he was wondrous wise : unus, He jumped into a quickset hedge, Qui mediam insiluit spineta per horrida And scratched out both his eyes. sepem, Effoditque oculos sibi crudelissimus amAnd when he saw his eyes were out, bos; With all his might and main Cum vero efrossos orbes sine lumine vidit, Viribus enisum totis illum altera sepes Accipit, et raptos oculos cito reddit egenti.' But in trifles of the above sort, the great Porson outstrips all competitors, and they serve, as much as his more serious labors in criticism, to illustrate his profound learning. The following is admirable in all its expressions, and is found in the present collection, although already familiar to many : "Three children sliding on the ice, Χρυσταλλοπηκτους τρίπτυχοι κόροι ροές, All on a summer's day, "Ωρα θέρους ψαίροντες ευτάρσοις ποσί, It so fell out they all fell in, Διναις επιπτον, διαδη πίπτειν φιλεί, 'Atravtes : eit' epevyov öt dedecupévoi. •Now had these children been at school, «"Αλλ' έιπερ ήσαν εγκεκλεισμένοι μοχλοις, Or sliding on dry ground, "Η ποσίν ολισθάνοντες έν ξηρω πεδω, Ten thousand pounds to one penny, Χρυσών άν ηθέλησα περιδόσθαι σταθμών, They had not all been drowned, Ει μη μέρος τι των νέων έσωζετο. «You parents that have children dear. • Αλλ' ώ τοκεϊς, όσοις μεν όντα τυγχάνει, And eke you that have none, 'Orois 8è un, Baagtuat' éUTÉKVOV Otropas, If you will have them sale abroad, "Ην ευτυχούς εύχησθε τας θυρας" οδούς Pray keep them safe at home.' Τοις παισιν, ευ σφάς εν δόμοις φυλάσσετε. We might draw farther from this treasury, and are strongly tempted to introduce the history of the prolific old woman who lived in a shoe. But ohe, jam satis! We are contented, in adducing the above tragic lines, to have borne our testimony to the superior genius of R:CHARD Porson, who stands first as a Hellenist, not even excepting Bentley, by whose side he sleeps in Trinity. What a natural aspect have these verses to any one accustomed to the Greek Drama. Many persons of considerable learning make awkward attempts at composition, and for the want of training, with as poor success as those who enter into the palestra with unelastic limbs. They are as stiff and unnatural, sometimes as ridiculous, as those who, with no inbred sense of the propriety of things, adjust their outward manners to a set of fixed and unyielding rules. No doubt their prefaces and learned theses are unexceptionable in minutiæ, and betray even an intense scholarship which leaves little room for verbal criticism. Their mode of proceeding is to bring together from all quarters a great number of detached and idiomatic phrases, and having shaken them together, as the old hero did the lots in the bottom of the helmet, to draw them forth into an artificial patchwork of learned sentences. It is not that they sit down to write from the fulness of their minds, and with a native ease; but they are like those who have the squares and pieces of the ivory puzzle before them, and fit them together as they best can, so as to have the appearance of some regular figure. They have certain peculiar terms which must be lugged in at all hazards. Ilere non dubito quin, or quæ cum ita sint, herald in some sentence of more than Ciceronian elegance; then you recognize the omnis homines, the |