soul and Tsar! It was necessary for Thy righteousness That the gulf of mortality should be spanned By my immortal existence-That my spirit should be wrapped in mortalityAnd that through death I should return Father, to Thy immortality.

XI

Incomprehensible, ineffable I know that my soul's imagination is helpless To paint even Thy shadow; But if it is necessary to sing Thy praise - Then is it impossible for feeble mortals-To reverence Thee in any other way-Than by yearning toward Thee By loosing one's self in Thy measureless variety-And by shedding tears of gratitude.

was

One of the stock pieces in nearly every "Fifth Reader formerly, and is now occasionally, Sir John Bowring's majestic translation of "Derzhavin's Ode to Deity," or "God," as it is entitled in the original. The foregoing is the first literal translation of it into English prose. Probably no modern poem has ever been so widely known. It has been published in German, English, Polish, Bohemian, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Latin, and French, there being at least fifteen versions of the last beside the one in prose made by the Russian poet Zhukovsky while a pupil at Moscow University.

Sir John Bowring has the following concerning the ode and the author:

"Of all the poets of Russia, Derzhavin is, in my conception, entitled to the very first place. His composition breathe a high and sublime spirit; they are full of inspiration. His versification is sonorous, original and characteristic; his subjects generally such as allowed him to give full scope to his ardent imagination and lofty conception. Of modern poets he mostly resem. bles Klopstock. His Oda Boga' (Ode to God), with the exception of some of the wonderful passages of the Old Testament, 'written with a pen of fire,' and glowing with the brightness of heaven, passages of which Derzhavin has frequently availed himself, is one of the most impressive and sublime addresses I am acquainted with, on a subject so pre-eminently impressive and sublime."

The foregoing prose translation is claimed to be scrupulously literal as possible to make it, with nothing added or taken away. It shows Bowring's variations from the original, which he con

fesses to have made because it did "not accord with his views of the perfections of the Deity." Nothing, however, can quite show the splendid swing and movement of the Russian verse with it mingled strength of vocalization. The first stanza here transcribed may give some idea of the original:

O Tui, prastranstvom bezkonétchnui,
Zhivui v dvizhenyi veshchestvá
Techenyem vremeni prevétchnui
Bez lits, v triokh litsakh Bozhestvá
Dukh vsiudu sushchii i yedínui
Komunyet myesta i prichinui

Kovo nikto postitch nyc mog,
Kto vsyo soboyu napolnyáet
Obyomlet, zizhdet, sokhranyáet,

Kovo mui nazuivaem - Bog!

Gávriil Románovitch Derzhávin was born at Kazan on July 3 (14), 1743, and died at Zyanko, on July 9 (21), 1816. He wrote the poem on "God" in 1784. His poems were published in 1776, 1798, 1804, 1808, 1831, 1833, and in 1864-1872 in seven volumes.

MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. Pythagoras was the first to suggest the idea, later expressed by Shakespeare in "The Merchant of Venice":

"There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st,

But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim."

Plato said that a siren sits on each planet, who carols a most sweet song, agreeing to the motion of her own particular planet, but harmonizing with the other seven; and according to Maximus Tyrius the mere proper motion of the planets must create sounds, and as the planets move at regular intervals the sounds must harmonize. Milton wrote of the "celestial sirens' harmony, that sit upon the nine enfolded spheres."

"I was created out of the light of His essence.

"The substance of substances created the Name out of the light of His unity.

"And He made him a light extracted from the essence of His Meaning."-The Asian Mystery.

The Bacchic Feast.

THE DREAM OF A REINCARNATIONIST.

BY ST. GEORGE BEST.

Oft in my dreams I think I see
Some ocean; dashed eternally

some skies that I have seen before; on some well-loved familiar shore.

Hard by some quaint and olden town,
Who, clad in antique robe and gown,

whose jostling crowds I seem to knew.
bestrew my pathway as they go.

I seem to be some priest revered, with ivy garlands on my brow;
Alike of men and women feared, who seem to quail, to shrink, to bow.
I lead them to a temple vast, whose sculptured walls and towering dome
I almost think, in ages past gave me a shelter and a home.

Some dim-remembered music shakes the vaulted roof above my head;
A wild and rythmic chant awakes, in those who hear, a sense of dread.

I grasp the sacrifical bowl, the sparkling juice I seem to quaff;
It fires my brain, it lifts my soul

A thousand goblets gleam around
A thousand eager lips are drowned

I know not if I weep or laugh.

the torch-lit temple's mystic shrine ;
a moment in the holy wine.

With lofty faith I seem to do some priestly rite of sacrifice;

A filmy cloud obstructs my view and screens me from the initiate's eye.

From some strange book methinks I read some doctrines I remember not; I rend my purple gown, I plead in tongues our race has long forgot.

I feel again the music sway the columns of the ancient pile.
Just as my last note dies away

A thousand voices seem to meet
What time my service I complete

Evohe, Baccha!" is the cry
Evohe, Bacchæ !" I reply,

64

"THE BACCHIC FEAST."

adown the many-pillared aisle.

my own, in one tumultuous roar,
and veil the sacred tripod o'er.

that closes on my listening ear;
Evohe, Bacchoe! health and cheer!"
STAR OF THE MAGI.

By an oversight of the compositor

the last two stanzas of this poem were omitted last month. It is now printed complete. EDITOR.

Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.-Goethe.

SEVEN CATHOLIC EPISTLES. (Vol. XIX, p. 186.) The Catholic portion of the Protestant Bihle is the seven epistles," namely, James, First and Second Peter, First, Second and Third John, and Jude. Why these epistle are so called is not

known.

PAUL AND THECLA. (Vol. XIX, p. 186.) Paul and Thecla is the name of one of the Books of the Apocryphal New Testament. This collection can be obtained at or ordered through the bookstores, for about $1.50. The introduction has the fol

lowing with other remarks:

Tertullian says that this piece was forged by a Presbyter of Asia, who being convicted," confessed that he did it out of respect of Paul," and Pope Gelasius, in his decree against apocryphal works, inserted it among them. Notwithstanding this, a large part of the history was credited, and looked upon as genuine among the early Christians. Cardinal Baronius, Locrinus, Archbishop Wake and others, and also the learned Grabe, who edited the Septuagint, consider them (the Acts of Paul and Thecla) as having been written in the apostolic age; as containing nothing superstitious, or disagreeing from the opinions and beliefs of those times. It is publishsd from the Greek MS. in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford, which Dr. Mills copied and transmitted to Dr. Grabe.

Lullaby.

BY FRIIDI HEDMAN, TAVASTEHUS, FINLAND.

She's standing on the cliff, by Lough, and weary looks her eye;
The waves are rolling 'gainst the rock, and sing her lullaby.

She's dreaming of the days of old, and happiness gone by;
The trees around, in suuny gold, do hum her lullaby.

The brighter days that tasted she away from her did fly;
So sad, forgotten, she must be, and sob her lullaby.

She glances down the frowning steep, the life did her belie;
A plunge and in the soothing deep plays Nix her lullaby.

There is not anything in the mind to which something in the body does not correspond. E. A. Hitchcock.

The Prayer of Humanitarians.

All-merciful God of Nature! in Whom all beings are, Thou accepteth and rewardeth my sincere thanks for Thy goodness. Thou hast given all to all, and I acknowledge that but for human stupidity, selfishness, ignorance, wickedness and indifference, all mankind would live in a real paradise.

Both Father and Mother of all beings! Thou accepteth and rewardeth my sincere vows to love myself by enlightening and sweetening my character, to love my own body by living virtu ously, so as to render my present life long and happy.

I therefore vow to love all the members of the human family, by setting them a good example, by assisting them in their bodily sufferings, and by enlightening their minds in order to render them, especially children, happier then myself, since this alone is the true preparation for my own progressive bliss after death.

To fulfil my vows, I solemnly promise to Thee and mankind to keep the Twelve Principal Duties and the Constitution of Humanitarians, and to try with all means to promote the spread of the Religion of God.

AMERICAN FABIUS. (Vol. XIX, p. 207.) In answer to "L. J." we will say that the sobriquet "Ameriean Fabius" was applied to Washington because his military policy resembled that of the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucous, who conducted operations against Hannibal by declining to risk a battle in the open field, harrassing him by marches, countermarches, and ambuscades.

(Vol. I, pp. 122, 186; II, p.

MILES STANDISH A CATHOLIC. 553). The query, "Was Miles Standish a Catholic?" appeared in the first volume of N. AND Q., to which I replied “Hardly.” Prof. N. B. Webster responded "Yes." I presumed he knew better than I did; and an account in a later volume of the Atlantic Monthly corroborated the view. It seemed strange to me that a Catholic should be found in the group of Pilgrims; but his religion evidently set light on him as compared with love of adventures. But it seems incongruous that he should seek to wed Priscilla Manlines, a maiden of Huguenot parentage, to whom a Romanist must have been especially repugnant. A. Wilder, M. D.