Ponderibus librata suis; nec brachia longo
Margine terrarum porrexerat Amphitrite.
Quaque fuit tellus, illic et pontus, et aër:
Sic erat instabilis tellus, innabilis unda,
Lucis egens aër, nulli sua forma manebat,
Obstabatque aliis aliud: quia corpore in uno
Frigida pugnabant calidis, humentia siccis,
Mollia cum duris, sine pondere habentia pondus.
Hanc Deus et melior litem Natura diremit :
Nam cœlo terras, et terris abscidit undas,
Et liquidum spisso secrevit ab aëre cœlum.
Quæ postquam evolvit, cæcoque exemit acervo,
Dissociata locis concordi pace ligavit.
Ignea convexi vis et sine pondere cœli
Emicuit, summaque locum sibi legit in arce.
Proximus est aër illi levitate, locoque :

Densior his tellus, elementaque grandia traxit;
Et pressa est gravitate sui.

Circumfluus humor

Ultima possedit, solidumque coercuit orbem.

TRANSLATION.

Chaos and the Creation of the World.

Ere sea or earth, or heaven that covers all,
Nature on every side one aspect wore ;
Chaos its name; a crude unfashioned mass;
Nought but a sluggish lump, where, rudely joined,
Discordant elements were heaped in one.
No Titan hitherto gave light to earth;

Nor Phoebe yet her horns by growth renewed;
Nor did the world, balanced by its own weight,
Hang in the circumambient air; nor yet
Had Amphitrite stretched her arms around
Earth's lengthy shores.

Where'er was land, there too were sea and air.
Thus was the land unfixed; nor could the wave
Be swum; the air was destitute of light.
Nought its own form retained. Each in its turn
Obstructed each; for, in the same substance,
Cold did with hot contend, and moist with dry,
And soft with hard, the heavy with the light.

been furious enough to tear an oak up by the roots? "Why," says the reed, "I secure myself by putting on a behaviour quite contrary to what you do; instead of being stubborn and stiff, and confiding in my strength, I yield and bend to the blast, and let it go over me, knowing how vain and fruitless it would be to resist."

IV.-The Wind and the Sun.

A dispute once arose between the north wind and the sun about the superiority of their power, and they agreed to try their strength upon a traveller by endeavouring who should be able to get his cloak off first. The north wind began, and blew a very cold blast, accompanied by a very sharp driving shower; but this, and whatever else he could do, instead of making the man quit his cloak, obliged him to gird it about his body as close as possible. Next came the sun, who, breaking out from a thick watery cloud, drove away the cold vapours from the sky, and darted his sultry beams upon the head of the poor weather-beaten traveller. The man growing faint with the heat, and unable to endure it any longer, first throws off his heavy cloak, and then flees for protection to the shade of a neighbouring grove.

V.-The Wolf and the Lamb.

One hot sultry day, a wolf and a lamb happened to come just at the same time to quench their thirst in the stream of a clear silver brook that ran tumbling down the side of a rocky mountain. The wolf stood upon the higher ground, and the lamb at some distance from him down the current. However, the wolf having a mind to pick a quarrel with him, asked him what he meant by disturbing the water, and making it so muddy that he could not drink? and at the same time demanded satisfaction. The lamb, frightened at this threatening charge, told him, in a tone as mild as possible, that with humble submission he could not conceive how that could be, since the water that he drank ran down from the wolf to him, and therefore could not be dis

up

the stream.

"Be that as it may," re

turbed so far plies the wolf, "you are a rascal; and I have been told that you treated me with ill language behind my back about half a year ago." "Upon my word," says the lamb, "the time you mention was before I was born." The wolf finding it to no purpose to argue any longer against the truth, fell into a great passion, snarling and foaming at the mouth, as if he had been mad; and drawing nearer to the lamb, "Sirrah," says he, "if it was not you, it was your father, and that's all one." So he seized the poor innocent helpless thing, tore it to pieces, and made a meal of it.

VI.-The Fox without a Tail.

A fox being caught by the tail in a steel trap, was glad to compound for his escape with the loss of it; but upon coming abroad into the world, he began to be so sensible of the disgrace such a defect would bring upon him, that he almost wished he had died rather than left it behind him. However, to make the best of a bad matter, he formed a project in his head, to call an assembly of the rest of the foxes, and propose it for their imitation, as a fashion which would be very agreeable and becoming. He did so; and made a long harangue upon the unprofitableness of tails in general, and endeavoured chiefly to show the awkwardness and inconvenience of a fox's tail in particular; adding, that it would be both more graceful and more expeditious to be altogether without them; and that, for his part, what he had only imagined and conjectured before, he now found by experience; for that he never enjoyed himself so well, and found himself so easy, as he had done since he cut off his tail. He said no more, but looked about him with a brisk air to see what proselytes he had gained, when a sly old thief in the company, who understood trap, answered him with a leer, “I believe you may have found a conveniency in parting with your tail; and when we are in the same circumstances, perhaps we may do so too."

And earth from sky divided, sea from earth;
And the pure ether of the upper heaven
From grosser air beneath. These, when evolved,
And from the dark heap freed, in peace were bound,
Each in its sep'rate place. And first the pow'r,
Fiery and subtle, of the vaulted heav'n,

Leapt forth and chose the loftiest sphere its seat.
The air is next in lightness and in place.
Denser than these the earth, that with it draws
The heavier particles, and by its weight
Is downward pressed. The sea circumfluent
Is latest fixed, and girds the solid globe.

Another Version.

Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
And heaven's high canopy that covers all,
One was the face of nature, if a face ;
Rather a rude and undigested mass,
A lifeless lump, unfashion'd and unframed,
Of jarring seeds, and justly Chaos named.
No sun was lighted up, the world to view;
No moon did yet her blunted horns renew:
Nor yet was earth suspended in the sky;
Nor, poised, did on her own foundations lie:
Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown;
But earth, and air, and water were in one.
Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable,
And water's dark abyss unnavigable.

No certain form on any was imprest;

All were confused, and each disturbed the rest.
For hot and cold were in one body fixt,
And soft with hard, and light with heavy mixt.

But God, or Nature, while they thus contend,
To these intestine discords put an end.

Then earth from air, and seas from earth were driven, And grosser air sunk from ethereal heaven:

Thus disembroil'd they take their proper place;

The next of kin contiguously embrace;
And foes are sundered by a larger space.
The force of fire ascended first on high,
And took its dwelling in the vaulted sky.
Then air succeeds, in likeness next to fire;
Whose atoms from inactive earth retire.

Earth sinks beneath, and draws a numerous throng Of ponderous, thick, unwieldy seeds along.

About her coasts unruly waters roar,

And, rising on a ridge, insult the shore.

II. HORAT. CARMIN. LIB. II. CARM. X.
Ad Licinium.

Rectius vives, Licinî, neque altum
Semper urguendo, neque, dum procellas
Cautus horrescis, nimium premendo
Littus iniquum.

Auream quisquis mediocritatem
Diligit, tutus caret obsoleti
Sordibus tecti, caret invidenda
Sobrius aula.

Saepius ventis agitatur ingens
Pinus; et celsae graviore casu
Decidunt turres; feriuntque summos
Fulgura montes.

Sperat infestis, metuit secundis,
Alteram sortem bene praeparatum
Pectus. Informes hiemes reducit
Jupiter; idem

Submovet. Non, si male nunc, et olim
Sic erit: quondam cithara tacentem
Suscitat musam, neque semper arcum
Tendit Apollo.

Rebus angustis animosus atque
Fortis appare: sapienter idem
Contrahes vento nimium secundo
Turgida vela.

TRANSLATION.

To Licinius.

Licinius, would you live with ease,
Tempt not too far the faithless seas;
And when you hear the tempest roar,
Press not too near the unequal shore.