Although it is not very relevant to the subject, still the following morceau of the above-mentioned Bion is so exquisite in its sentiment, and so touchingly alludes to the heathen dread of annihilation, that the reader will not be sorry to meet with it. The beauty of the original in its plaintive sounds is not to be reached: the following attempt is in the same metre as the Greek.

Woe to us!-even the mallows, when blighted they die in the garden,

Even the pale-leav'd parsleys, and green anet crowding the

meadow,

Afterward live once more, and bloom for another bright sum

mer:

But, all we that are men, tho' mightiest, greatest, and

wisest,

When that we perish, we lie in the cold hollow earth forgotten, Sleeping a destin'd sleep, unawakable, dreamless, eternal.

Strange, that the continuous resurrection of nature so tenderly alluded to above, should not have hinted to so sensitive an observer the probability of his own after existence strange, that a mind which could envy perennial weeds, should entertain no hope of its own immortality!-St. Paul in 1 Cor. xv. 36 deduces future being from a similar analogy.

HORACE.

LYRIST of every age, of every clime,

Whose eye prophetic saw thy strong-built fame

Stand a perennial monument sublime,
Not all of thee shall perish: in thy name

Live memories embalmed of richest thought,
Far flashing wit, and satire's wholesome smart,
Fine speech with feeling delicately fraught,
And patriot songs that with their generous glow
Warm to the love of home the wanderer's heart:
How varied is the chaplet on thy brow,
How wreath'd of many praises; the bright bay,
With laughing rose, and ebrious ivy twin'd,
And myrtles of staid hue, and wild flowers gay,
Shadow the changeful phases of thy mind.

99.66

"Exegi monumentum ære perennius,' non omnis moriar," in all the fervour of poetic frenzy, exclaimed “Romanæ fidicen lyræ." And verily his boast is true. These sublime confidences indicate the master minds, whose memory dieth not: witness Pindar and Thucydides, Mahomet, and CHRIST.

The poems of Horace are surprisingly fresh and young he is the most modern-looking of the ancients; but is it not that we have copied from him?—he will never be obsolete; his variety forbids it: the moralist and the reveller, the kind-eyed friend and the cutting satirist, the composer of ludicrous squibs, and of majestic hymns, now laughing with Democritus yɛdaσivos, and now weeping with Heraclitus of mournful memory, Horace is such an eternal type of superior humanity, that he can never die: so long as Man is man enough to own all the feelings and frailties of humanity, he will acknowledge to a thousand sympathies with the prince of lyrists.

Shall we be pardoned for venturing here on a task which savours so much of the scholastic, as that of presenting a few thoughts from Horace in an English garb? at any rate we look for the approving suffrages of that fairer class of readers, to whom the

Odes are sealed mysteries. The fifth of the first

book may be rendered thus;

TO PYRRHA.

What slender youth on bed of roses,

Pyrrha, by thy side reposes,

With odours pérfum'd sweet
In shady grot reclin'd?

And when her waving auburn tresses
With neat simplicity she dresses,
Oh, whom is it to greet?

For whom art thou so kind?
Alas, how oft will that fond boy
Who now so blindly can enjoy
Thy venal beauties, weep

Thy broken vows of love,
When all thy perjury he finds;
And wondering at the roughening winds,
That brush the darkling deep,

Will woman's folly prove:

Hapless, he knoweth not thy wiles,

But hopes to bask in all thy smiles,
And have thee his alone ;-

Still, those are more unblest,
Who all in vain thy charms approve;
For me half-drown'd in Pyrrha's love
Before old Neptune's throne

I hang my votive vest.

By way of contrast take a nautical ode, (i. 14,) certainly too freely rendered to be called a translation: many will be offended at its having been made applicable to England, in reference to these days of revolutionary movement, but honest men think fit to speak their mind.

Our poor old ship,—what, being launched again
Into blue water?-tempt not thou the main,
Hold fast aport, or all our hopes are vain;

Look you, you cannot bring a gun to bear,
The rough sou'-westers all your canvas tear,
Mizen and mainmast-both are springing there;

The well-tarred sail your leaky bottom patches,
Or 'twould be nine feet water under hatches;
And as for Providence, which o'er you watches,

Your skipper and his crew have sneered and scoff'd, About the little cherub up aloft;"

No prayermongers, say they, we're not so soft.

Well, though you boast you're built of British oak,
And trust a sheet that never bent nor broke,
Avast, look out,—the breakers make us croak,—

Just have a care, nor give rude Boreas sport;
Your figurehead so fine might go to court,
But as for you,—don't budge an inch from port: