When I drink, the bliss is mine,

There's bliss in every drop of wine!
All other joys that I have known,
I've scarcely dared to call my own;
But this the Fates can ne'er destroy,
Till Death o'ershadows all my joy!

ODE LI.*

FLY not thus my brow of snow,
Lovely wanton! fly not so.

edition of Anacreon, there are some curious letters upon the Olavo of the ancients, which appeared in the French Journals. At the opening of the Odeon, in Paris, the managers of the spectacle requested Professor Gail to give them some uncommon name for the fêtes of this institution. He suggested the word "Thiase," which was adopted; but the literati of Paris questioned the propriety of it, and addressed their criticisms to Gail, through the medium of the public prints. Two or three of the letters he has inserted in his edition, and they have elicited from him some learned research on the subject.

* Alberti has imitated this ode; and Capilupus, in the following epigram, has given a version of it:

Cur, Lalage, mea vita, meos contemnis amores?

Cur fugis e nostro pulchra puella sinu?
Ne fugias, sint sparsa licet mea tempora canis,

Though the wane of age is mine,
Though the brilliant flush is thine,
Still I'm doom'd to sigh for thee,
Blest, if thou couldst sigh for me!
See, in yonder flowery braid,
Cull'd for thee, my blushing maid,

How the rose,

of orient glow,

Mingles with the lily's snow;

Mark, how sweet their tints agree,
Just, my girl, like thee and me!

Inque tuo roseus fulgeat ore color.
Aspice ut intextas deceant quoque flore corollas
Candida purpureis lilia mista rosis.

Oh! why repel my soul's impassion'd vow,
And fly, beloved maid, these longing arms?
Is it, that wintry time has strew'd my brow,
And thine are all the summer's roseate charms?
See the rich garland, cull'd in vernal weather,
Where the young rosebud with the lily glows;
In wreaths of love we thus may twine together,
And I will be the lily, thou the rose!

See, in yonder flowery braid,

"In the same man

Cull'd for thee, my blushing maid!] ner that Anacreon pleads for the whiteness of his locks, from the beauty of the colour in garlands, a shepherd, in Theocritus, endeavours to recommend his black hair :

Και το τον μελαν εξί, και γραπτα ύακινθος
Αλλ' έμπας εν τοις ςεφάνοις τα πρωτα λεγονται.”

Longepierre, Barnes, etc.

ODE LII.*

AWAY, away, you men of rules,

What have I to do with schools?

They'd make me learn, they'd make me think,
But would they make me love and drink?
Teach me this, and let me swim

My soul upon the goblet's brim;
Teach me this, and let me twine

My arms around the nymph divine!

"This is doubtless the work of a more modern poet than Anacreon; for at the period when he lived rhetoricians were not known." Degen.

Though the antiquity of this ode is confirmed by the Vatican manuscript, I am very much inclined to agree in this argument against its authenticity; for, though the dawnings of rhetoric might already have appeared, the first who gave it any celebrity was Corax of Syracuse, and he flourished in the century after Anacreon.

Our poet anticipated the ideas of Epicurus, in his aversion to the labours of learning, as well as his devotion to voluptuousness. Πασαν παιδείαν μακαριοι φευγετε, said the philosopher of the garden in a letter to Pythocles.

Teach me this, and let me twine

My arms around the nymph divine!] By xpuons AQporys here, I understand some beautiful girl; in the same manner that Avalos is often used for wine. "Golden" is frequently an epithet of beauty. Thus in Virgil, "Venus

Age begins to blanch my brow,

I've time for nought but pleasure now.
Fly, and cool my goblet's glow

At yonder fountain's gelid flow;
I'll quaff, my boy, and calmly sink
This soul to slumber as I drink!
Soon, too soon, my jocund slave,
You'll deck your master's grassy grave;

And there's an end-for ah! you know
They drink but little wine below!

aurea;" and in Propertius, " Cynthia aurea." Tibullus, however, calls an old woman golden."

The translation d'Autori Anonimi, as usual, wantons on this passage of Anacreon:

E m' insegni con piu rare
Forme accorte d' involare
Ad amabile beltade

Il bel cinto d' onestade.

And there's an end-for ah! you know

They drink but little wine below!] Thus the witty Mainard:

La Mort nous guette; et quand ses lois
Nous ont enfermés une fois

Au sein d'une fosse profonde,
Adieu bons vins et bon repas,

Ma science ne trouve pas

Des cabarets en l'autre monde.

From Mainard, Gombauld, and De Cailly, old French poets, some of the best epigrams of the English language are borrowed.

ODE LIII.

WHEN I behold the festive train

Of dancing youth, I'm young again!
Memory wakes her magic trance

And wings me lightly through the dance.
Come, Cybeba, smiling maid!

Cull the flower and twine the braid;
Bid the blush of summer's rose

Burn upon my brow of snows;
And let me, while the wild and
Trip the mazy dance along,

Bid the blush of summer's rose

young

Burn upon my brow of snows; etc.] Licetus, in his Hieroglyphica, quoting two of our poet's odes, where he calls for garlands, remarks, "Constat igitur floreas coronas poetis et potantibus in symposio convenire, non autem sapientibus et philosophiam affectantibus."--" It appears that wreaths of flowers were adapted for poets and revellers at banquets, but by no means became those who had pretensions to wisdom and philosophy." On this principle, in his 152d chapter, he discovers a refinement in Virgil, describing the garland of the poet Silenus as fallen off; which distinguishes, he thinks, the divine intoxication of Silenus from that of common drunkards, who always wear their crowns while they drink. This, indeed, is the " labor ineptiarum" of

commentators.