are sure that scholars will thank him for this labor, and the pieces are, with few exceptions, worthy of the chaste style of art in which the work is produced. We are not prepared to say that no word might be found of questionable authority, or that there is no phrase to which a Latin of the purest age might object. Some people deny that it is possible now to write the dead languages correctly, or with any certain precision, unless we can refer to an exact authority for the meaning of every word. On the contrary, there are not wanting those who are so puffed-up and vain-glorious as to say that the moderns can write better Latin than did the ancients. Much learning has made them mad! But of the specimens before us, we will say, without making any pretension to be severely critical, that on a general perusal, to the eye, ear, and judgment of an aducated person, they seem to be correct, while many will doubtless bear, on the score of Latinity, a somewhat close scrutiny, and others might be singled out for a chaste elegance which approaches very nearly to the old Roman muse. At any rate, they give evidence of efficient training, and could be the work of none other than scholars, working by correct rules, who understand the philosophy of the tongue, and apprehend the nice shades and distinctions of words; and who, if they are sometimes compelled by sheer necessity to invent phrases which ancient usage does not sanction, because it did not need, do it with a just regard for the genius of the language, and become themselves respectable authority for what might otherwise be deemed barbarous. This ingenuity has in some cases to struggle to a hard triumph, where the power of resistance is strong, and some purely original genius resolutely refuses to be put into a new dress. Here we are willing to smile in good-nature at efforts which, if they amount to a failure, are at least crowned with as much success as the nature of the case admits; nor can we turn with offended dignity from those comical portions of the work to which we chiefly allude, which might relax the brows of the most severe student, even while he should censure them as labor lost. Indeed, we sometimes admire most, where we have the most to pardon, but observe the greater ingenuity and skill. We shall not pass by these without farther mention, but first will allude to some others. We have said that many of the master-pieces of the English poets are conceived in the full spirit of the ancients, so that they may be readily turned into the Latin or Greek idiom, and have a very natural grace in their new dress. Thus the Etonians, proud of Gray, have made numerous versions of his Elegy. One in Greek, (not included in this collection,) of uncommon elegance, and bearing upon it the seal of the highest critical authority, is printed at the end of an edition of Aristotle on Poetry, edited by W. Cooke. Cantab. 1785. The beautiful stanza, 'The boast of heraldry,' etc., is thus given: Α χάρις ευγενέων, χάρις ἢ βασιλήιδος ἄρχας, Matthias ventures to assert that neither Bion nor Moschus ever exceeded this; he thinks they never equalled it. Perhaps not; but while it is the highest testimony which could be bestowed, that the learned, deprecating the exclusive possession of so great a gem, have attempted to 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 :' En quâcunque jacet lumina, Gratiæ Sublatis manibus Diva per æthera Pulcher purpuream vibrat Amor facem, Martis perque genas 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 aery shell, By slow Meander's margent green, And in the violet-embroidered vale, Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well: That likest thy NARCISSUS are? Oh! if thou have Hid them in some flowery cave, Tell me but where, Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere! So may'st thou be translated to the skies, And give resounding grace to all heaven's harmonies." DULCIS ECHO. "NYMPHA, quam leni refluentis amne Sive te valles potius morantur Ecqua, NARCISSI referens figuram Dic mihi qua nunc, male te secuti, Filia cæli. Sic et in sedem redens paternam 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 might 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: 'Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice; To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, The weariest and most loathed worldly life To what we fear of death." ATTAMEN; heu! quam triste mori! nec quo sit eundum In luteam solvi molem quam triste! capacem Suspensumve dari ventis, noctesque diesque Anxia mens hominum, mirum et miserabile! finxit, 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. 'Sic mihi de teneris spes infeliciter annis Et vota et cupidæ et præteriere preces! Jam me surpuerat cara capella mihi, The beautiful fragment of Simonides, λαρνακι ἐν δαιδαλίᾳ ἀνεμος, κ. το 2 is thus translated: QUANDO insonaret sub trabe dædala Quantum capillis immineant aquæ, How can any translation do justice to the original? and we fear that the following, attempted for the English reader, is unworthy both of the Latin and Greek. Beside, several excellent English versions already exist : DANAE. THE winds were shrill, the waters mountain high, The fragile barque was lifted on the wave, And DANAE poured her bitter, bitter cry, And gazed on PERSEUS and the yawning grave. "My child,' she said, 'while billows toss our chest, The gentle moon, with a voluptuous light, Enwrapt within thy purple mantle warm, Thou dost not hear the billows booming wild, "Ah! couldst thou half thy mother's anguish know, "Yet, darling, sleep! ye billows cease to roll! When shall that soul be lulled to peace again?'' Not to proceed any farther with extracts like the above, we now come to the Nuga, 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: HEI DIDULUM. 'HE didulum atque iterum didulum, Vacca super Lunæ cornua prosiluit: A few more trifles of this sort may not be rejected with disdain by the learned: |