With what a tail and breast salutes his With foulest mud and the rank ordure fed. lord! With what expense and art how richly dressed! Garnished with 'sparagus, himself a feast. Thou art to one small dismal dish confinedA crab ill-dressed and of the vilest kind. He on his own fish pours the noblest oil, Well rubbed with this, when Boccar comes to town He makes the theatres and baths his own: All round from him as from th' infected run; The pois'nous stink even their own serpents shun. Behold a mullet even from Corfu brought, Discharged by common sewers from all the town, No secret passage was to him unknown; One word to Virro now, if he can bear, To all their titles, all that height of power alone adore. When your poor client is condemned t' at tend 'Tis all we ask-receive him like a friend; Near him is placed the liver of a goose- Would any god, or godlike man below, In fruitful showers and desired thunders rend My brother? Who carves to my best of The vernal air. "No more plough up the ground friends?" O sesterces, this honor's done to you: Of Lybia, where such mushrooms can be You are his friends, and you his brethren found," Aledius cries, "but furnish us with store. more." Meanwhile, thy indignation yet to raise, veys With flying knife, and as his art directs too. Wouldst thou become his patron and his lord, Wouldst thou be, in thy turn, by him adored, He viler friends with doubtful mushrooms treats; Secure for you, himself champignons eats: Such Claudius loved, of the same sort and taste, If thou dare murmur, if thou dare com- Till Agrippina kindly gave the last. plain With freedom like a Roman gentleman, And dragged like Cacus by Herculean hands To him are ordered, and those happy few Whom Fate has raised above contempt and you, Most fragrant fruits. Such in Pheacian gar- Where a perpetual autumn ever smiled Descend to take a glass once touched by By such swift Atalanta was betrayed : Thou takst all this as done to save expense? | On thy shaved slavish head. Meanwhile, attend, Worthy of such a treat and such a friend. JUVE Translation of REV. WILLIAM BOWLES. JUVENAL. UVENALIS (Decius Junius) was a famous Roman satirist-perhaps the most distinguished satirist in the world's literature. In English he has been imitated, or even reproduced, by Dryden, Pope, Dr. Johnson and Byron. He was born, probably, at Aquinum, although of the place there are doubts, and, as he died in the year 80, at a good old age, he lived during the reigns of several emperors, among whom were Caligula, Domitian and Hadrian. Although of obscure ori Would twice support the scorn and proud gin, he was from his boyhood an enthusiastic disdain student, and early disclosed his poetical pow With which those idols you adore, the ers. Very soon, too, he turned his attention great, Their wretched vassals and dependants treat? Oh, slaves most abject, you still gaping sit, Devouring with your eyes each pleasing bit, each pleasing bit, Now sure we parasites at last shall share That boar, and now that wildfowl or that hare. Thus you expecting gaze with your teeth set, With your bread ready and your knives well whet, Demure and silent; but, alas! in vain : He mocks your hunger and derides your pain. to satire, for which the vile condition of Roman society gave him full argument and illustration. Honest himself, and inculcating apurity which he displayed in his own life, he lashed Roman vices with the severest rigor. He always handles vice with angry contempt and hatred. To the taste of the present age he is somewhat offensive, because he descends into the vile details of vicious living; he describes too exactly and curiously the sins he rebukes. He has left sixteen satires. One of them, launched against a pantomime-dancer-Paris, who had been a favorite of Do If you can bear all this and think him mitian-offended Hadrian, who was under a similar influence, and who therefore sent the kind, You well deserve the treatment which you poet into honorable exile, into Egypt or Libya. find. The works of Juvenal present a remarkable delineation of the private life of the Romans in his age. At last thou wilt beneath the burden bow, And, glad, receive the manumitting blow THE MAID OF THE RHONE. WAS in that lovely land | Oh, many an eye had marked it well, But none that warrior's tale could tell, Save that he bore the Red Cross shield And fought in some far Syrian field. that lies Where Alpine shadows fall On scenes that to the pil That early spring whose blossoms That, now from Leman free, To meet the classic sea, An ancient and a stately hall, And battlements whose bannered pride Had many a hostile host defied. And she, the lady of the tower, Though last of all her line, Of beauty-at whose shrine And proved their vows by song and sword. A warrior's portrait, pale, gaze But there the maiden's earliest glance The Eastern maiden loved so long So loved the lady of the tower; Though past his manhood's prime; His steps in many a clime; But, ah! what thoughts that wooer's name The idol of her youth was now "Go! find some fairer, happier bride Who hath not loved in vain : The light that in thy presence died. May never shine again; The passion that survived in truth The roses and the smiles of youth Hath perished like the pilgrim knight Who died with Salem in his sight." There is a cross on Sidon's shore That marks a Templar's rest, And cloister arches darken o'er A fairer, gentler guest; So sleep the loving hearts whom Fate FRANCES BROWN. THE WIDOW'S FAREWELL. BURN no incense, hang no wreath, Such cannot cheer the place of death, But only mock its gloom. Here odorous smoke and breathing flower No grateful influence shed; They lose their perfume and their power When offered to the dead. And if, as is the Afghaun's creed, On fragrance, near its urn, EDWARD C. PINKNEY. |