"Hæc mihi quæ colitur violis pictura rosisque," &c.-Martial, x. 32.
On a picture of Marcus Antonius Primus.

Whose picture this, my friend, you seek to know,
Round which the roses and the violets glow.
Antonius, such when life was in its prime;
In this, now old, he traces bygone time.
Might art but feigu the mind's own purity,
No fairer picture here on earth could be.

"Quisquis Flaminiam teris viator," &c.-Martial, xi. 13.
Epitaph of Paris, the pantomimist.

Who treadest the Flaminian way,
Before this costly marble stay:
The town's delight, the wit of Nile,
Art, pleasure, elegance, each smile,
Joy, sorrow of the stage of Rome,
Each Cupid, and each Venus' bloom,
With Paris lie within the tomb.

The ballad which follows is taken from the beautiful collection of Spanish ballads which have been published at Leipsig by Depping. Any one who has taste and elegance of mind sufficient to appreciate our own beautiful English ballads, or Spenser, or Scott, or him who

sang

"Le donne, i cavalier, l'arme, gli amori,
Le cortesie, l'audaci imprese,"

will in this collection meet with a never-failing source of delight. This one may possess some interest from our old associations with the Knight of La Mancha, and his descent into the cavern of Montesínos: he is conducted by the venerable guide to " una sala baja, fresquísima sobre modo y toda de alabastro, donde estaba un sepul cro de mármol con gran maestría fabricado, sobre el cual vi á un caballero tendido de largo á largo, no de bronce, ni de mármol, ni de jaspe hecho, como los suele haber en otros sepulcros; sino de pura carne, y de puros huesos." This cavalier is the miserable Durandarte, held in a state of living death by the enchantments of Merlin. Like the unfortunate father in the monastery, he is possessed by a singing devil; but, instead of "Good luck to your fishing," the burden of his song runs, "O mi primo Montesinos," &c. There is nothing here attempted beyond a simple version from the Spanish.

O Belerma! O Belerma!

Thou wert born my bane to be;
Seven years I served thee truly,
Nothing did I gain from thee.

In battle, ere I felt thy pity,

A dying man, alas ! I lay;
Thought of death could never move me,
Though I fell before my day.

But I grieve no more to see thee,
Never more to be thy slave;

O, my cousin Montesinos,

Grant the last boon I shall crave!

As soon as I in death shall slumber,
And my soul and body part,
To the place where is Belerma
That thou wouldst convey my heart.

As from you I have expected,
Keep it well, for sake of me,
Every week but two times only
Call it to your memory.

Bid her call to her remembrance
How very dear she was to me;
All my manors give, and make her
Ladye of my signiory.

And since I, alas! have lost her,
All is gone that I held dear;
Montesinos, Montesinos,

O, the torture of that spear!

Now I feel my arm is wearied,

I no more may wield the sword;
And my wounds are gaping widely,
And my blood in streams outpoured.

With dismay my heart is fainting,
And my hands are very cold;

Who saw us both from France departing,
In France no more shall both behold.

Kiss, O kiss me, Montesinos!
Now my soul ascends on high,
And my words are uttered thickly,
Mist surrounds my glazed eye.

Take thou to thee all my armour,
In the which I here have died;

The Lord in whom you trust doth hear you,
If you to your word abide.

Durandarte gave the ghost up
At a lofty mountain's base;
Loud lamented Montesinos

To be present in the place.

Straight he took his armour off him,
From his side ungirt his blade;
And then, with a little poniard,

For his friend a grave he made.

His heart from out his side he took it,
To his plighted honour true,

To convey it to Belerma,

As he ordered him to do.

And the words which there he uttered

Sprang from out his very soul,

O my cousin Durandarte!

O thou kinsman of my soul!

O thou gallant blade unconquered!
Most chivalrous of chivalry!
Whoso slew thee, O my kinsman,

Let him guard himself from me!

We come to a few short specimens of a different class--the Greek epigrams, the sonnets of Greece. They may perhaps not unaptly be termed so, as mostly embodying one thought, developed in a few lines. The grace and loveliness of youth, beauty, the joys of drinking, the deformities of old age, the biting sarcasm pointed against the coward, the impostor, the false pretender to learning, all these formed the subject of these exquisite fragments of antiquity. One prevailing idea runs through the liveliest of them, the deep bass accompanying their merriest moods, that of "eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die," and thus separates them by a great gulf from all poetry of modern times. It is to be traced in these lines of Rufinus on his mistress Melite, although remotely. Petrarch would have spoken of a happy meeting in heaven with his Laura; Boccaccio, with his Fiammetta. Rufinus wishes to bestow on his mistress (let the expression pass) the perishable immortality of sculpture.

Ποῦ νῦν Πραξιτέλης ποῦ δ ̓ αἱ χέρες αἱ Πολυκλείτου ; κ. τ. λ.

Praxiteles and Polycleitus, where,

Beneath whose hands their works, yea, soulèd were?

These fragrant locks of Melite, who may,

With eye of fire and glowing neck, portray?

Ye founders, sculptors, come! a shrine should be
To hold such beauty for a deity!

a

Here is a shorter one, a compliment to a physician, Magnus rare thing with the Greeks; for the epigrams abound with sarcasms against the learned faculty. What would they have said to St. John Long, and Mesmerism, and homœopathy?

Μάγνος ὅτ ̓ εἰς ̓Αΐδην κατέβην, κ. τ. λ.

When Magnus came to Hades, Pluto said,
Shaking the while-" He 's come to raise the dead!

Paul the Silentiary to his mistress.

Εἰμὶ μὲν οὐ φιλόοινος, κ. τ. λ.

No drunkard I; but only taste the cup,
If thou wouldst have me drunk,-I drink it up.
Let thy lips touch it, no such easy thing
Sober to 'scape that cup's sweet offering;
For then the goblet wafts to me thy kiss,
And so imparts its late received bliss.

The same to his mistress.

Εἰ καὶ τηλοτέρω Μερόης, κ. τ. λ.

Further than Meroë should thy footsteps bend,
Winged Love to bear me there his wings can lend.
Go to the East, where like thee glows the sun;
I, too, on foot the unmeasured course will run.
I send a small sea-gift, propitious be;
The sea-born Paphian goddess brings it thee.
Thy lovely form eclipses all her charms,
And, for she owns it, all her boasts disarms.

Marianus.

Η καλὸν ἄλσος Ερωτος όπου καλὰ δένδρεα ταυτα.
Sacred to love this grove! Through these fair trees
With soft breath whispers on all sides the breeze.
Sparkling with flowers is the dewy ground;
Her gems the violet cups, that here abound.
Here, from three rows of pipes, the Naiads' fount
Is shot aloft; each jet doth higher mount.
See, too, along the banks old Iris come,
Girding the long-haired Hamadryads' home.
In these glad fields the olives' rich fruit twines
Throughout the sunny plain with clustering vines.
Here warble nightingales; in harmony
Chirrups some grasshopper a shrill reply.
My gate is open. Stranger, pass not by ;
Take some small gift of hospitality.

SONG OF THE MOUNTAIN ASH.

It is not vanity in me,-but all

The wanton zephyrs come and do declare
That when I'm leaning o'er a waterfall,

I am of sylvan beauties the most fair!*
Think not I bend to see my mirror'd form
In deep and glassy stream beneath my feet.
Graceful or not, it was the mountain storm

That shaped me thus, and not my own conceit.

For I by nature have been tall and straight.—
The warrior's wind-nursed spear of old was I,†
And breathed my sweets by fanes now desolate,
E'en where my sacred brother oak was nigh!
Though here, with scatter'd memories, I sink
Wherever chance may fix my love for earth :§
But, might I choose, sweet crystal river's brink ||
Is where I'd rock the cradle of my birth!

* Virgil, too, amongst the poets, describes the Ash as the fairest tree of the forest:

Fraxinus in sylvis pulcherrima.

+ Et fraxinus utilis hastis (Ovid); and Homer, describing the spear of Agamemnon, has, “ ἔχων ἀνεμοτρεφὲς ἔγχος.”Π. λ. Seneca observes that woods most exposed to the winds are the strongest and most solid; and that therefore Chiron made Achilles's spear of a mountain-tree.

The sweet-smelling mountain-ash, or roan-tree, was held in great veneration by the Druids.

§ Tantus amor terræ (Virg.); and Evelyn of the ash says, it is an obstinate and deep rooter.

By the banks of sweet and crystal rivers, I have observed them to thrive infinitely.-EVELYN.