-

Sudabant etiam fauces, intrinsecus atræ,
Sanguine, et ulceribus vocis via septa coibat;
Atque animi interpres manabat lingua cruore,
Debilitata malis, motu gravis, aspera tactu.

Nec requies erat ulla mali, defessa jacebant
Corpora, mussabat tacito Medecina timore,
Quippe patentia quom totiens, ardentia morbis,
Lumina versarent oculorum expertia somno,
Multaque præterea mortis tum signa dabantur,
Perturbata animi mens in mærore, metuque,
Triste supercilium, furiosus voltus, et acer,
Sollicitæ porro plenæque sonoribus aures,
Creber spiritus, aut ingens, raroque coortus,
Sudorisque madens per collum, splendidus humos,
Tenuia sputa, minuta, croci contineta colore,
Salsaque per sauceis rauca vix edita tusse:
In manibus vero nervi trahier, tremere artus:
A pedibusque minutatim succedere frigus

Non dubitabat, item ad supremum denique tempus
Compressæ nares, nasi primoris acumen

Tenue, cavati oculi, cava tempora, frigida pellis,
Duraque, inhorrebat rictum, frons tenta meabat
Nec nimio rigidâ post artus morte jacebant:
Octavoque ferè candenti lumine solis,

Aut etiam nona reddebant lampade vitam.

Lib. vi. 1136.

A plague like this, a tempest big with fate
Once, ravaged Athens, and her sad domains;
Unpeopled all her city, and her paths

Swept with destruction. For amid the realms

Begot of Egypt, many a mighty tract
Of ether travers'd, many a flood o'erpast,
At length here fixt it; o'er the hapless house
Of Pandion hovering, and th' astonish'd race
Dooming by thousands to disease and death.

The head first flam'd with inward heat, the eyes
Redden'd with fire suffus'd; the purple jaws
Sweated with bloody ichor; ulcers foul
Crept o'er the vocal path, obstructing close;
And the prompt tongue, expounder of the mind,
O'erflowed with gore, enfeebled in its post,
Hoarse in its accent, harsh beneath the touch.-

Nor e'er relax'd the sickness; the rack'd frame Lay all-exhausted, and, in silence dread, Appall'd, and doubtful mus'd the Healing Art. For the broad eye-balls, burning with disease, Roll'd in full stare, for ever void of sleep, And told the pressing danger; nor alone Told it, for many a kindred symptom throng'd. The mind's pure spirit, all-despondent, rav'd; The brow severe; the visage fierce and wild; The ears distracted, fill'd with ceaseless sounds; Frequent the breath; or ponderous oft and rare; The neck with pearls bedew'd of glistening sweat; Scanty the spittle, thin, of saffron dye,

Salt, with hoarse cough scarce labour'd from the throat.

The limbs each trembled; every tendon twitch'd Spread o'er the hands; and from the feet extreme O'er all the frame a gradual coldness crept.

Then, towards the last, the nostrils close-collaps'd;
The nose acute; eyes hollow; temples scoop'd;
Frigid the skin, retracted; o'er the mouth
A ghastly grin; the shrivell'd forehead tense;
The limbs outstretch'd, for instant death prepar'd
Till with the eighth descending sun, for few
Reach'd his ninth lustre, life for ever ceas'd.

Were it not that the description of the plague by Thucydides would occupy too much room, its insertion here, as an object of comparison with the Roman Bard, might gratify the curious; the concluding lines, however, of this last quotation from Lucretius will equally prove the poet's faithful attention to nature and his models; they are a transcript from the celebrated passage in Hippocrates, who has admirably thrown into one picture the various symptoms of dissolution, symptoms "well known to those that tend the dying." Ρὶς όξεῖα, ὀφθαλμοι κοιλοι, κροταφοι ζυμπεπλωκότες, ώτα ψυχρά και ξυνεσαλμένα, και ὁ λόβοι τῶν ὠτῶν ἀπεςραμμένοι, και τὸ δέρμα τὸ περι το μέτωπον, σκληρὸν τε και περιζέζαμένον και καρφαλέον ἐον και τὸ χρώμα τῶ ξύμπαλος πρόσωπε χλωρον τε ή και μέλαν ἐὼν και πελιὸν ἢ μολιβδῶδες.

1

From the extracts now given the reader will be able to appreciate the merits both of the original and translation. It is with peculiar propriety that blank verse has been chosen as the medium of the latter; for though the controversy still exist with regard to the superior aptitude of blank or rhymed verse for the Epopee, there can be little doubt that in a philosophic poem, where much depends upon the fidelity of the representation, this species of metre, freed as it is from the shackles of similar termination, and possessing a dignity and variety unknown to the couplet, has very powerful claims to preference. It is impossible on a subject so multiform and intricate as that of this poem to employ rhyme, though even in the hands of a master, without great redundancy, and circumlocution, and imparting rather the air of a feeble paraphrase than of a spirited and faithful version. In the translation by Creech the couplet has led, in almost every page, to the most ridiculous redundancies; a want of taste, however, in the selection of language, is as conspicuous in Creech as a deficiency of skill and address in the management of his versification. One pleonasm out of a thousand will be adequate to shew the absurdities

into which he has fallen from the dire necessity of providing a rhyme. In the sixth book, Lucretius has observed that "when an ardent fever pervades the frame, the odour of wine • becomes so intolerable as to occasion, for a time, the deprivation of sense."

———Cúm membra hominis percepit fervida febris, Tum fit odor vini plagæ mactabilis instar.

Lib. vi. 804.

which Creech has thus elegantly versified:
To those whom fevers burn, the smell
Of vigorous wine is grievous, Death and Hell.

In the construction of Blank Verse, however, the utmost attention is required, and the nicest ear must be exercised, in forming and arranging the style, in varying and adjusting the pauses. The mechanism of rhyme, however polished, may be acquired by practice, whereas the harmony demanded from the poet who rhymes not, is usually the result of a combination of very many lines, and not only more difficult as being more complicated, but must necessarily be accompanied with a beauty of diction and a vigour of thought which, in the couplet, are but too often compensated for, in

H