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XLIII.

Albeit "when unadorned adorned the most,"
The goddess could not brook to be outwitted
How could she bear her rival's bitter boast,
If to this taunt she quietly submitted!
OLYMPUS (robeless as she was) she quitted,
Fully determined to bring back as fine a

Dress as was ever woven, spun, or knitted;
Europe she searched, consulted the CZARINA,

And, taking good advice, cross'd o'er "the wall" to CHINA
XLIV.

Long before Europeans, the Chinese

Possess'd the compass, silkworms, and gunpowder,

And types, and tea, and other rarities.

China (with gifts since Nature hath endowed her) Is proud; what land hath reason to be prouder? Her let the dull "Barbarian Eye" respect,

And be her privileges all allowed her;
She is the WIDOW (please to recollect)

Of ONE the Deluge drown'd, PRIMORDIAL INTELLECT!
XLV.

The good inhabitants of PEKIN, when

They saw the dame in downright dishabille,
Were shock'd. Such sight was far beyond the ken
Of their CONFUCIAN notions. Full of zeal
To guard the morals of the commonweal,
They straight deputed SYLK, a mandarin,
Humbly before the visitant to kneel

With downcast eye, and offer Beauty's queen
A rich resplendent robe of gorgeous bombazin.
XLVI.

Venus received the vesture nothing loath,
And much its gloss, its softness much admired,
And praised that specimen of foreign growth,
So splendid, and so cheaply too acquired!
Quick in the robe her graceful limbs attired,
She seeks a mirror-there delighted dallies;
So rich a dress was all could be desired.
How she rejoiced to disappoint the malice
Of her unfeeling foe, the vile, vindictive PALLAS !*
XLVII.

But while she praised the gift and thank'd the giver
Of spinner-worms she sued for a supply.
Forthwith the good Chinese fill'd Cupid's quiver
With the cocoons in which each worm doth lie
Snug, until changed into a butterfly.

The light cocoons wild Cupid shower'd o'er Greece,
And o'er the isles, and over Italy,

Into the lap of industry and peace;

And the glad nations hail'd the long-sought "Golden Fleece.". Rettulit insignes tunicas, nihil indiga lanæ.

+ Gratiam opus Ausoniis dum volvunt fila puellis.

MODERN LATIN POETS.

CHAP. II.—CASIMIR SARBIEWSKI, S. SANNAZAR, Jerome FRACASTOR.

"In omnibus requiem quæsivi et non inveni nisi in nookíns et in bookins," (quod Teutonicè sonat in angulis et libellis).-THOMAS A KEMPIS. See Elzevir edition of Imitat. Xti., p. 247, in vitâ.

"I beg to lay particular emphasis

On this remark of Thomas à Kempis's."-PROUT.

Surely so gifted a man as the late incumbent of Watergrasshill must have felt himself miserably misplaced in that dull and dreary district. We are informed by Archdeacon Paley, in his Natural Theology, that to meet with a stone on a barren heath is a common incident, whereas to find a chronometer in such an out-of-the-way place would immediately suggest a bright chain of argument, and lots of conjectural cogitation. What would Paley have said, had he stumbled on the curiously wrought pericranium of Prout in his rambles over the bogs and potato-fields of the parish, met him on bottle hill," or found him on the brink of the "brook that flows fast by the" castle of Blarney? There would seem to be something chronologically wrong in the disposal of so much antique wisdom on a flimsy and a frivolous age. Properly speaking, Prout should have lived at another epoch of the world for his own sake, not for ours. With a mind habitually recurring to standard models of everlasting elegance, he must have had the disagreeable consciousness of being here on earth an incarnate anachronism, an Etruscan vase surrounded by vulgar crockery.

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In "happier hours" and a happier climate, Prout would have developed in a grander form. Had he flourished with VIDA at the court of the Medici, like him he would have worn a mitre, and like him would have shed lustre on "his order," instead of deriving from it, as some do, importance in society. Had he lived at Madrid in the days of Ferdinand and Isabella, he would have been (under Cardinal Ximenes) chief editor of the great Complutensian Polyglott; and we can fancy him at the court of Louis XIV., indulging at once his literary and piscatorial propensities by coediting the classics in usum Delphini.

In the wilderness of Watergrasshill he was a mere own Egn, and the exemplary old pastor's resemblance to the Baptist was further visible in his peculiarity of diet; for small do we deem the difference between a dried locust and a red herring.

When we say he was unappreciated in Ireland during his lifetime, we make one exception in favour of a citizen of Cork, the Roscoe of that seaport, James Roche. It was said of Roscoe by Washington Irving, that, like Pompey's pillar on the shore of Alexandria, he rose above the commercial vulgarities of Liverpool, and stood forth to the eye of the stranger a conspicuous but solitary specimen of antique and classic grandeur. Such is the eminent scholar to whom we allude, and of whom Cork may be justly proud.

He detected the merits of the Padre, and urged them on folks until the aged Chryses, chaplain of Apollo, was not more popular in the camp before Troy than Father Prout among the reading public.

Ενθ' αλλοι μεν παντες επευφημησαν Αχαιοι.

ΑΙΔΕΙΣΘΑΙ Θ' ΙΕΡΗΑ και ΑΓΛΑΑ ΔΕΧΘΑΙ ΑΠΟΙΝΑ. Α' 23.

OLIVER YORKE.

Watergrasshill, Sept. 1826.

St. Gregory of Tours, in his tract De Gloria Martyrum, lib. i. cap. 95, talks of seven youths, who, flying to a mountain-cave from the persecution that raged in Ephesus, fell there into a miraculous slumber; whence awaking, after two centuries of balmy rest, they walked abroad, and were startled at the sight of a cross triumphantly emblazoned over the gates of the city. Still greater was their surprise when a baker, to whom they tendered what they considered the current coin of the empire, eyed them suspiciously, asking where they had dug up that old medal of the pagan persecutor Decius, and hinting, that in the new Theodosian code there were certain laws relative to treasure trove, which might possibly concern them. I fear that my appearance in the literary market with specimens of antiquated and exploded composition, a coinage of the human brain long since gone out of circulation, may subject me to the incon

veniences experienced by the seven sleepers, and to a similar rebuke from the critical fraternity. But, unprovided with the specie that forms the present circulating medium, I must needs obtrude on the monetary system of the day some rusty old denarii and sestertia.

I trust, however, that comparing my operations in this matter to the proceedings recorded in the legend of those "sleepers," the snatches of Latin poetry I produce may not receive the equivocal compliment of the eclogue-viz :

"Tale tuum carmen nobis, divine poeta,

Quale sopor !"

it being my assiduous care to keep my readers awake during the progress of each paper, preferring to wear occasionally the cap and bells of innocent Folly, rather than the cotton nightcap of solemn Dulness.

Casimir Sarbiewski, in his day hailed by all Europe as the Horace of Poland (which I learn from the Cambridge pocket edition of his poems now before me), belonged to one of the noblest houses of the kingdom, and was born in 1596. Initiated among the Jesuits at their college of Wilna, he rose to eminence in that fraternity, and was subsequently induced by Count Nicolai to accompany him on a tour of classic enjoyment to Italy. They were waylaid and robbed in the mountains of the Tyrol; for, alas! our Latin poet, not having written in a vulgar tongue, could not, like Ariosto, overawe the brigands by revealing his name, and claiming the safeguard of the Muse. Nicolai never recovered from the effects of the adventure, and died on his arrival at Rome; but Sarbiewski had within him that which consoled the shipwrecked Simonides, and being enabled to exclaim "Omnia mea mecum porto,' was but little affected by his disaster. We find him at Rome, studying archeology and numismatics under the illustrious Donato, and soon attracting, by the sweetness of his poetic talent, the notice of a brother bard, Pope Urban VIII. (Barberini). By orders of the pontiff, he undertook the revision of the hymns of the Roman breviary; and to him may be attributed some of the pathetic and classic touches occasionally perceptible among the rude canticles of our liturgy.

Sarbiewski made friends among the dignitaries of the

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