I what larger circle the elegant uses of LORD DERBY'S TRANSLATION OF THE Lord Derby's leisure hours; and as he ILIAD.* THE Chancellor of the University of Oxford not long ago established a peculiar claim to the highest academical dignity of the country by addressing the Heir Apparent in an oration of the purest Latinity; and he has now crowned a career of daring if not successful statesmanship, of splendid eloquence, and of the highest social distinction, by no mean conquest for English literature. So little were Lord Derby's literary powers known till very recently, beyond the circle of his immediate friends, that the world read with surprise, in Lord Ravensworth's translations of Horace, an Ode rendered with remarkable grace and spirit by the head of the Conservative party. Soon afterwards a volume privately printed revealed to a some The Iliad of Homer. Rendered into English Blank Verse. By EDWARD Earl of DERBY, Lon don: 1864. NEW SERIES-VOL. I., No. 4. has now himself alluded to this collection in the Preface to the work before us, we conceive that we may, without indiscretion, lay before our readers an exquisite version of the Ode of Catullus to the Sirmian promontory, which has certainly nothing to risk if it be transplanted from the parterre of society into the wider domain of criticism. "Sirmio, fair eye of all the laughing isles And jutting capes that rise from either main, Or crown our inland waters, with glad smiles Of heartfelt joy I greet thee once again, Scarce daring to believe mine eyes that see No more Bithynia's plains, but fondly rest on thee. "My own, my chosen Home! oh, what more blest Than that sweet pause of troubles, when the mind Flings off its burden, and when, long oppressed By cares abroad and foreign toil, we find Our native home again, and rest our head Once more upon our own, long-lost, longwished-for bed! 26 |