This is a translation from a verse of Sappho found in the Schol. on Soph. El. 147. It is given by Brunck, Ηρος άγγελος, ἱμερόφωνος ἀηδών. Bentley, in his Ms. Notes on Hephaestion, preserved in the Library of Trin. Coll. Cam., has altered it to *Προς ἄγγελο, ἱμερόφων ἀηδοῖ.” R. Walpole's Specimens of Scarce Translations of the 17th Century from the Latin Poets, to which are added Miscellaneous Translations from the Greek, Spanish, Italian, etc. London, 1805. p. 86. Ovid. Fast. 2, an veris prænuntia venit hirundo ? "Expressit Sapphonis sententiam, "Hpos ayyeλos, etc." H. Ciofanii Obss. p. 28. In the Royal Poem entitled the King's Quair James represents himself as "rising at day-break, according to custom, to escape from the dreary meditations of a sleepless pillow :And on the small grene twistis set The lytel swete Nightingales, and sung Geoffrey Crayon's Sketch Book 1, 142. Ed. 12o. Thetford, March 1824. E. H. BARKER. 3. NUGE. collecting toys And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge; Paradise Regained, iv. 325. No. IX. [Continued from No. LVII.] Parallel Passages. (Continued.) I never saw a fool lean; the chub-faced fop 4. From wizards' cheeks, who making curious search Marston ap. Retrosp. xi. 131. Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides, Correct old Time, and regulate the Sun : * * Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule- Scared at thy frown terrific, fly Wild laughter, noise, and thoughtless joy, Gray, Ode to Adversity. 5. Let fumbling age be grave and wise, And Virtue's poor contemn'd idea prize, Who never knew, or now are past the sweets of vice; With lusty youth and vigorous heat, Can all their bards and morals too despise. While my plump veins are fill'd with lust and blood, Or dare approach my breast, But know I have not yet the leisure to be good. Satire against Virtue. quot in æquore verso Invenies aliquos astrorum arcana professos The little wick of life's poor shallow lamp True; I am no proficient, I confess, The parallax of yonder luminous point, That seems half quench'd in the immense abyss. Cowper's Tusk, iii. 6. The river that runs slow and creeps by the banks, and begs leave of every turf to let it pass, is drawn into little hollownesses, and spends itself in smaller portions, and dies with diversion; but when it runs with vigorousness and a full stream, and breaks down every obstacle, making it even as its own brow, it stays not to be tempted by little avocations, and to creep into holes, but runs into the sea through full and useful channels: so is a man's prayer; if it moves upon the feet of an abated appetite, it wanders into the society of every trifling accident, and stays at the corners of the fancy, and talks with every object it meets, and cannot arrive at Heaven, &c. Jeremy Taylor, Sermon of Lukewarmness and Zeal, p. 125. Ed. 1668. An Italian poet, P. Salandri, in a sonnet translated by Mont Cf. Thomas à Kempis de Imit. Christi, Lib. i. cap. 2. gomery, uses a similar image to illustrate the danger of giving way to every small temptation. Fresh from the bosom of an Alpine hill It ebbs, and languishes, and dies away. 7. He that is no fool, but can consider wisely, if he is in love with this world, we need not despair but that a witty man might reconcile him with tortures, and make him think charitably of the rack, and be brought to dwell with vipers and dragons; or to admire the harmony that is made by a herd of evening wolves when they miss their draught of blood in their midnight revels. The groans of a man in a fit of the stone are worse than all these; and the distractions of a troubled conscience are worse than those groans; and yet a careless merry sinner is worse than all that. But if we could from one of the battlements of Heaven espy, how many men and women at this time lie fainting and dying for want of bread, how many young men are hewn down by the sword of war, how many poor orphans are now weeping over the graves of their father, by whose life they were enabled to eat; if we could but hear how many mariners and passengers are at this present in a storm, and shriek out because their keel dashes against a rock, or bulges under them; how many people there are that weep with want, and are mad with oppression, or are desperate by too quick a sense of a constant infelicity; in all reason we should be glad to be out of the noise and participation of so many evils. This is a place of sorrows and tears, of great evils and a constant calamity; let us remove hence, at least in affections and preparation of mind. Taylor's Holy Dying, Chap. i. Sect. 3. fin. The first of the extracts, which we shall quote as apposite to the above noble passage, is a striking instance of the manner in which a great poetical mind gives back the conceptions of others modified to its own character; the second, of the difference between the same thoughts as illustrated by a greater or less powerful genius: a difference which will be further illustrated by a comparison of the simile of the Rock (Sermon on the Miracles of the Divine Mercy, p. 261. ed. 1668.) and that of the Rainbow (Sermon on the Faith and Patience of the Saints, p. 83. and again on the Opening of Parliament, p. 92.) with the rifaciamentos of the same images by later writers. *8. οἱ δὲ, λύκοι ὡς II. xvi. 156. Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround, &c. Ask the crowd Which flies impatient from the village-walk While ev'ry mother closer to her breast Catches her child, and pointing where the waves Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination, Book ii. E il nocchier, che m' alletta, e il mar, che giace |