times with the view of justifying or illustrating a single word or form of expression, but much oftener to bring before the reader the way in which English writers have treated the same idea that is found in Virgil. These consist, occasionally, of mere imitations of him; but more frequently they represent wholly independent lines of thought on the same subject. Many, very many more, might have been brought together, but it was found necessary to pause before the volume should become too costly, and too bulky for its purpose. It would be of great service to the young scholar if some of these, or others selected by the tutor more to his own taste, were brought before him, and the longer quotations learnt by heart. In this way he might commence an acquaintance with the style, feeling, imagery, and general beauties of the greatest of the elder poets of the three kingdoms. They might also, on his becoming more advanced, serve as exercises to be turned into Latin verse.

It has also been thought desirable to add some notes with a different object;-that of explaining a view or a reading adopted, where choice was absolutely unavoidable. The text of Weise is the one that has been generally followed, unless some reason seemed to render a deviation from it imperative. When this is done, the grounds will readily be discovered either in the notes, or in the commentators. Such criticisms are but few, and so short, that they can hardly weary any one who may think it worth his while to read them.

Such, then, are the main views upon which the following translation is based. How far a due regard to them all can be made to consist with a suitable version of such a poet as Virgil, time alone can tell; but as I have not a shadow of doubt that it can be done, so I venture to hope that the present effort may help to smooth the way to its

accomplishment. To be a pioneer, or even a drudge, in such a cause, can be no dishonour to any man; to fail even in that can be no disgrace. I can but now leave it in the tutor's hands, with the hope that some considerations may present themselves, which may lead him,-not to pass over its deficiencies and mistakes,*—but to pardon them; and, if I may without impertinence, as I may with some truth, will conclude in the words of a great man: "I shall only say thus much of what I have done: I have desired to benefit, and I have spared no pains; I have walked in paths very rugged and very untrodden; if I have stumbled or erred, it is no wonder,-the way full of difficulty, and I of human frailty." (Dr. Lightfoot, Temple Service: Address to the Reader.)

* "There are a sort of blundering, half-witted people, who make a great deal of noise about a verbal slip; though Horace would instruct them better in true criticism:

'Non ego paucis

Offendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit

Aut humana parum cavit natura.””

Dryden, Preface to Translations.

THE ECLOGUES.

ECLOGUE I. TITYRUS.

MELIBUS. TITYRUS.

MELIBUS.

THOU, Tityrus, lolling 'neath the canopy
Of a wide-spreading beech, thy woodland muse
Art practising upon the slender straw:
We're leaving our patrimony's bourns

And charming tilths; we our native land

Line 3-5. The complaint of Melibus somewhat resembles that of Colin in Spenser's Shepheards Calender, June 13-16:

"Thy lovely layes here maist thou freely boste;

But I, unhappie man! whom cruell Fate

And angrie gods pursue from coste to coste,

Can no where finde to shroude my luckless pate."

Elsewhere Colin follows the example of Tityrus, but surpasses his prototype; Colin Clout, 636:

"The speaking woods, and murmuring waters fall,

Her name I'll teach in knowen termes to frame;
And eke my lambs, when for their dams they call,
I'll teach to call for Cynthia by name."

Are flying: thou, O Tityrus, at ease
Within the shade, art lessoning the woods
To echo back the lovely Amaryllis.

TITYRUS.

O Melibœus, 'tis a god for us

These leisure hours hath gained: for he shall be
Unto me aye a god; his altar oft

A tender lambkin from our folds shall steep.
He hath allowed my kine to range abroad,
As you perceive, and e'en myself to play
What [airs] I list upon my rural reed.

MELIBEUS.

In sooth I envy not; I marvel more:
Through all the country round to such extent
Is [all] turmoiled. Lo! these she-goats do I
Myself before me heart-sick drive; this eke
With effort, Tityrus, do I lead. For here,
Among the clustering hazels, only now

She, yeaning twins, the promise of my flock,
Alas! hath left them on the naked flint.

Oft this calamity to us, (if wit

Had not been stupid,) do I recollect

That, struck from out of heaven, the oaks foretold;

Shakspeare, with great beauty:

"Holla your name to the reverberate hills,

And make the babbling gossip of the air

6

Cry out, Olivia !'"

Elsewhere, somewhat differently:

Twelfth Night, i. 5.

"Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud;

Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,

And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine,
With repetition of my Romeo's name."

Romeo and Juliet, ii. 2.

Line 25. "My piteous plight in yonder naked tree,
Which bears the thunder-scar, too plain I see ;

Oft did th' ill-boding crow from hollow holm
Foretell it. But still, who that god of thine
May be, do thou, O Tityrus, vouchsafe

To us.

TITYRUS.

The city which they title "Rome,"

O Melibœus, I, a simpleton,

Deemed like to this of ours, whither oft

We shepherds are accustomed to drive down
The tender offspring of the ewes. So whelps,
I knew, were like to dogs, so kids to dams;
So used I to compare great things to small.
But this among the other cities hath
Her head as high upraised, as cypresses
Are wont among the lithe wayfaring trees.

MELIBUS.

And what to thee proved such a weighty cause
For seeing Rome?

TITYRUS.

'Twas freedom, which, [though] late,

Yet cast a look upon an idle man,
After my beard more silvery 'gan to fall
Before me shaving; still a look she cast,
And in a long while after came, since us
Doth Amaryllis hold, hath Galatea left.

Quite destitute it stands of shelter kind,

The mark of storms, and sport of every wind."

A. Philips, Past. 2.

30

40

Line 43. Tondenti, the "barber," should the reader prefer it: but it may be supposed that a slave would shave his own beard when cash was scarce. A barber would find some difficulty in giving such a spendthrift as Tityrus any credit.

45. Tityrus seems to have been somewhat in the condition of Cowley, if we may judge from his ballad of infinite playfulness, the Chronicle; e.g.: