For what avails the pile of massive gold?
What the rich glebe by thousand oxen plough'd?
Roofs, that the Phrygian pillars vast uphold,
Tænarian shafts, Carystian columns proud?
Mansions, whose groves might seem some tem-
ple's wood;

The gilded cornice, or the marble floor? Pearls glean'd from sands of Persia's ruddy flood, Sidon's red fleece, and all the crowd adore? For envy clings to these: the crowd still gaze, Charm'd with false shows, and love with little skill:

Not wealth the cares of human souls allays,
Since Fortune shifts their happiness at will.
With thee, oh sweet Neæra! want were bliss;
Without thee I the gifts of kings disdain:
Oh clear the light! bless'd day, that brings me this;
Thrice bless'd, that yields thee to my arms again!
If to my vows for this thy sweet return,

Love's God kind listen, nor avert his ear; Then Lydia's river, rolling gold, I'll spurn: Kingdoms and wealth of worlds shall poor appear.

Seek these who may: a frugal fare be mine:
With my dear consort let me safely dwell:
Come, Juno! to my timid prayers incline!
Come, Venus! wafted on thy scallop'd shell!
But if the Sister Fates refuse my boon,

Who draw the future day with swift-spun thread, Hell to its gulfy rivers call me soon,

To sluggish lurid lakes, where haunt the dead.

C. A. ELTON.

THE PRAISE OF A COUNTRY LIFE.

FROM THE LATIN OF VIRGIL.

AH! happy swain! ah! race beloved of heaven! If known thy bliss, how great the blessing given ! For thee just Earth from her prolific beds

Far from wild war spontaneous nurture sheds. Though nor high domes through all their portals

wide

Each morn disgorge the flatterer's refluent tide;
Though nor thy gaze on gem-wrought columns rest,
The brazen bust, and gold-embroider'd vest;
Nor poisoning Tyre thy snowy fleeces soil,
Nor casia taint thy uncorrupted oil;

Yet peace is thine, and life that knows no change,
And various wealth in Nature's boundless range,
The grot, the living fount, the' umbrageous glade,
And sleep on banks of moss beneath the shade;
Thine, all of tame and wild, in lawn and field,
That pastured plains or savage woodlands yield:
Content and patience youth's long toils assuage,
Repose and reverence tend declining age:
There gods yet dwell, and, as she fled mankind,
There Justice left her last lone trace behind.

Me first, ye Muses! at whose hallow'd fane
Led by pure love I consecrate my strain,
Me deign accept! and to my search unfold
Heaven and her host in beauteous order roll'd:
The' eclipse that dims the golden orb of day,
And changeful labours of the lunar ray; [main
Whence rocks the earth, by what vast force the
Now bursts its barriers, now subsides again;

Why wintry suns in ocean swiftly fade,

Or what delay retards night's lingering shade.
But if chill blood restrain the' ambitious flight,
And Nature veil her wonders from my sight,
Oh, may I yet, by fame forgotten, dwell
By gushing fount, wild wood, and shadowy dell!
Oh loved Sperchean plains, Taygetian heights,
That ring to virgin choirs in Bacchic rites!
Hide me some god, where Hæmus' vales extend,
And boundless shade and solitude defend!

How bless'd the sage! whose soul can pierce each cause

Of changeful Nature, and her wondrous laws: Who tramples fear beneath his foot, and braves Fate and stern death and hell's resounding waves. Bless'd too, who knows each god that guards the swain,

Pan, old Sylvanus, and the Dryad train.

Not the proud fasces, nor the pomp of kings,
Discord that bathes in kindred blood her wings;
Not arming Istrians that on Dacia call,
Triumphant Rome, and kingdoms doom'd to fall,
Envy's wan gaze, or pity's bleeding tear,
Disturb the tenor of his calm career.

From fruitful orchards and spontaneous fields
He culls the wealth that willing Nature yields,
Far from the tumult of the maddening bar,
And iron justice, and forensic war.

Some vex with restless oar wild seas unknown, Some rush on death, or cringe around the throne; Stern warriors here beneath their footstep tread The realm that rear'd them, and the hearth that fed, To quaff from gems, and lull to transient rest The wound that bleeds beneath the Tyrian vest.

These brood with sleepless gaze o'er buried gold,
The rostrum these with raptured trance behold,
Or wonder when repeated plaudits raise
'Mid peopled theatres the shout of praise:
These with grim joy, by civil discord led,
And stain'd in battles where a brother bled,
From their sweet household hearth in exile roam,
And seek beneath new suns a foreign home.
The peasant yearly ploughs his native soil;
The lands that bless'd his fathers bound his toil,
Sustain his herd, his country's wealth increase,
And see his children's children sport in peace.
Each change of seasons leads new plenty round;
Now lambs and kids along the meadow bound,
Now every furrow loads with corn the plain,
Fruits bend the bough, and garners burst with
grain;

Or where with purple hues the upland glows,
Autumnal suns on mellowing grapes repose.
His swine return at winter's evening hours,
Gorged with the mast that every forest showers:
For him the arbute reddens on the wood,

And mills press forth the olive's gushing flood; Chaste love his household guards, and round his knees

Fond infants climb the foremost kiss to seize;
Kine from their gushing udders nectar shed,
And wanton kids high toss their butting head.
He too, at times, where flames the rustic shrine,
And, ranged around, his gay compeers recline,
In grateful leisure on some festive day
Stretch'd on the turf delights his limbs to lay,
To loose from care his disencumber'd soul,
And hail thee, Bacchus! o'er the circling bowl:

Or on the elm the javelin's mark suspend, Where for the prize his hardy hinds contend, Bare their huge bodies, and, untaught to yield, To wrestling toils provoke the challenged field.

SOTHEBY.

THE CORCYRIAN SWAIN.

FROM THE LATIN OF VIRGIL.

YES, I remember where Galæsus leads

His flood dark-winding through the golden meads,
Where proud balia's towers o'erlook the plain,
Once I beheld an old Corcyrian swain;
Lord of a little spot, by all disdain'd,

Where never labouring yoke subsistence gain'd,
Where never shepherd gave his flock to feed,
Nor Bacchus dared to trust the' ungrateful mead;
He there with scanty herbs the bushes crown'd,
And planted lilies, vervain, poppies round;
Nor envied kings, when late, at twilight close,
Beneath his peaceful shed he sought repose,
And cull'd from earth, with changeful plenty stored,
The' unpurchased feasts that piled his varied board.
At springtide first he pluck'd the full-blown rose,
From autumn first the ripen'd apple chose;
And e'en when winter split the rocks with cold,
And chain'd the' o'erhanging torrent as it roll'd,
His blooming hyacinths, ne'er known to fail,
Shed sweets unborrow'd of the vernal gale,
As mid their rifled beds he wound his way,
Chid the slow sun and zephyr's long delay,
Hence first his bees new swarms unnumber'd gave,
And press'd from richest combs the golden wave: