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as we still pressed forwards. The irregular vegetation of the district we had traversed changed into the pleasant alternation of corn fields and pasture-land, of vineyards and orchards. Oxen and sheep were to be seen on both sides of our path, browsing in silent happiness; whilst the mulberry, peeping out frequently from the patches of corn-land and orchards, told of the silk-worm and industry. A pleasanter change than that we experienced in issuing from the desert waste of a large portion of our road, and finding ourselves suddenly transferred into a district rich with the bounty of nature, and bearing evidence of human tending, can hardly be conceived. Our horses seemed as elate at the transformation as we were, and tripped snortingly along, as if they already snuffed up the savoury odour of their evening meal from some still distant stables in Nicosia. Even the very mules pricked up their long ears and quickened their paces, at the aspect of the town, and the luxuriant vegetation, and the evidences of human culture all around.

New life was inspired into our whole party by the distant prospect of the town. We simultaneously put spurs to our horses, or touched them gently with our riding whips-for they wanted little incitement to put forth their strength and exhibit their speed. The muleteers shouted lustily to the laden animals as we did so, and they, too, broke into a brisk trot, without any unreasonable amount of flogging as willingly, indeed, as mules under any circumstances could be expected to do. All was life and gladness and joyful expectation, where, a quarter of an hour previously, all had been taciturnity and grim endurance.

There are certain characteristics by which the vicinity of all towns under Turkish domination may be known. One of these is, an abundance of ruined houses; another, numerous consequent heaps of rubbish; a third, prowling, yellowish, hungry-looking dogs, roaming about as if condemned for sins, in a previous existence, to perpetual motion in this life; and a fourth, most melancholy of all, beggars of all ages and both sexes.

Not

one of these characteristics was wanting as we drew near Nicosia. The

ruins, the rubbish heaps, the dogs, the beggars, were all opened up to view in due time as we approached nearer to the fortifications. Heated by our rapid advance, we now walked our horses, to the great satisfaction, doubtless, of the mules who were labouring on far behind.

The entrance to the town did not greatly differ from that which usually conducts the traveller into extensive fortifications. There was the same covered-way-in, as I believe it is technically called, under the ramparts--the draw bridge-the gradual emerging into the light, and then plunging into darkness again, until finally, the interior of the town was exposed to our eager gaze. Turkish soldiers were on guard, but we were allowed free entrance, not being even challenged as we rode forward-except by the vendors of sherbet and coffee, of rackey and camandria, who kept their little stalls at the entrance of the fortress.

And now that I have got over the twenty-five miles that separated us from Larnacca, let me do an act of justice to the Turk, in recording the perfect safety with which we accomplished this and other journeys in Cyprus, and how totally unnecessary our arms were, as implements of defence. Nor was this accidental. We travelled northwards and westwards, through the cultivated and uncultivated districts, in all more than two hundred miles, and a large portion of those two hundred over rugged mountain passes, and at the bases of uninhabited ranges of hills clothed with forests; but, whether journeying over the beaten highroads, or making our way into the recesses of the mountain range in search of ruins, we still found ourselves perfectly safe from violence; safer than we should have been in many parts of Western Europe, which are regarded as much further advanced in the race of civilization than Cyprus. I do not mean to take up the cudgels against any man in defence of the Turk. I believe his tax. ation is irregular and arbitrary-his governorships of provinces and islands given away to incompetent or rapacious men his distant provinces comparatively uncared for; but of some of the evils usually regarded as inseparable from his rule there is litt or nothing to be seen in Cymruš.

There is, I verily believe, security for life and property in the island, whatever people may say about the danger of men allowing it to appear that they are rich. There is, too, security enough in travelling about, at least for Europeans, without taking with them troops of horse or armed men of any kind as a protection.

That there has been gross misman

agement, the ruined lines of houses, the diminished population, and the troops of beggars are sufficient to drove. That the resources of the island are vast, that these resources are undeveloped, there cannot be a doubt. Let the Turk be blamed for this as much as you will, and he deserves great blame for it, but let him not be blamed for evils which do not exist.

MODERN ENGLISH LATIN VERSE.*

THE palmy days of Latin verse writing are now, it must be confessed, over. No man any longer expects to be made a bishop, a judge, or Secretary of State from his familiarity with Virgil or Statius. A false quantity is no longer the mark of the beast, denoting a miserable outsider, innocent of the mysteries enacted on the banks of the Isis and Cam. Latin quotations in the House of Commons are getting rarer and rarer, and more and more limited in their range. People are altogether beginning to look upon scholarship as a thing of the past-a superfluous accomplishment not to be weighed in the balance against an acquaintance with the rule of three. Immediate productiveness is now the sole test of ability. What is a man the worse for calling tympanum, tympanum? What is he better for knowing that the fifth foot of an hexameter must be a dactyl? These are the questions a man will hear asked in the same sort of society in which, some years ago, it was the

proudest boast to say, "et nos ergo

manum ferulæ subduximus."

But

far be it from us to combat the "spirit of the age." We are not just now going forth to do battle with that brazen coated Goliath. The reed and not the sling is our weapon on the present occasion; and we seek no more than to offer half an hour's amusement to those in whom the old superstition is still alive; and who are yet fresh enough to take delight in the reminiscences of their early days, when the prize for Latin verse

was worth more than an emperor's crown, and a good copy of "longs and shorts" was a patent of nobility.

And, indeed, we have a kind of secret conviction that, after all, but little apology is required for offering this kind of entertainment to our readers. A large class of society, though doubtless a small minority of the whole, is still so thoroughly impregnated with the classical tradition, still feels so strongly that scholarship is a kind of freemasonry, a sort of qualification belonging to a peculiar class-in fact, like Sir Walter Scott's Toryism, so much the attribute of a gentleman that the editor of such works as the Musa Etonenses may feel pretty sure of his labours being generally approved, without taking into account that class of readers to whom they may be an object of special interest. Let us see then without further delay who were the first scholars that initiated the gentle art of Latin poesy in these islands.

Scotland was early celebrated for her Latinity. The "Delicia Poetarum Scotorum," published by Arthur Jonston about 1630, contain a variety of poems written with considerable elegance and idiomatic knowledge. Those of Jonston himself and of John Scot of Sc starvet, are, perhaps, the best in the collection. The former was also the author of a translation of the Psalms, which has long disputed the palm with Buchanan. Hallam thinks him little, if at all inferior, though

he admits that Buchanan has excelled him in his version of the 137th. We

Mnsæ Etonenses-sive carminum Etonæ conditorum delectus. Scries nova. Fasciculus 1. Edidit Richardus Okes, S.V.P.

Tom. 14

do not ourselves go so far even as this; we think Jonston in every way Buchanan's equal; and we think that in those two Psalms which have been usually considered Buchanan's masterpieces, Jonston has on the whole excelled him. In the 104th Psalm we prefer Jonston's elegiacs to Buchanan's hexameters. And in the conclusion of the 137th, we think the same superiority is visible. We quote the three last couplets from each :

BUCHANAN.

Tu quoque crudeles, Babylon, dabis impia pœnas,

Et rerum instabiles experiêre vices; Felix qui nostris accedet cladibus ultor, Reddet ad exemplum qui tibi damna tuum, Felix qui tenero consperget saxa cerebro, Eripiens gremio pignora cara tuo.

JONSTON.

Felicem qui clade pari data damna rependet, Et feret ultrices in tua tecta faces, Felicem quisquis scopulis illidet acutis, Dulcia materno pignora rapta sinu.

We do not share the admiration which has been generally_felt for Buchanan's Latin verses. Even in his last poem, De Sphæra, there is a monotonous jingle which reminds us painfully of the workshop. He does not seem to be aware of the offensive effect produced by rhymes. And the repetitions which are meant to be Virgilian are in our opinion clumsy and inopportune.

Buchanan died in the year 1582; and in 1584 was born Phineas Fletcher, author of the Purple Island, and also of a Latin poem, entitled the Locusta, written at Cambridge in the year 1627. Certain passages in this poem are said to have furnished Milton with his idea of Satan in Paradise Lost-a tradition warmly combated by Todd, but apparently not without some foundation. The Locust was directed against the Jesuits, and the spirit of the following lines is certainly thoroughly Mil

tonic.

Nos contra immeinori per tuta silentia somno Sterniinur interea, et media jam luce supini Stertentes fessam trahimus pia turba quietem. Quod si animos sine honore acti sine fine laboris

Pænitet, et proni imperii regnique labantis Nil miseret, positis flagris odiisque remissis,

Oramus veniam, et dextras præbemus inermes. Fors ille audacis facti, et justæ immemor iræ Placatus facilisque manus et fœdera junget; Fors solito lapsos, peccati oblitus, honori Restituet, cælum nobis soliumque relinquet: At me nulla dies animi cæptique prioris Dissimilem arguerit; quin nunc rescindere

cælum

Et conjurato victricem milite pacem Rumpere, ferventique juvat miscere tumultu.

Equemus meritis pœnas, atque ultima passis Plura tamen magnis exactor debeat ausis. Tartareis mala speluncis, vindictaque cælo Deficiat; nunquam, nunquam crudelis inul

tos

Immeritosve Erebus capiet; meruisse nefandum

Supplicium medios inter solabitur ignes.

This last sentiment is sublimely Satanic and the whole poem is truly classical both in diction and rhythm; but it has been strangely overlooked by most of the writers on modern Latin

verse.

Milton is of course the great luminary in the Latin poetry of England. His verses possess all the fluency and vigour that might be expected from a great poet writing in what was still almost a living language. They are redolent, as Hallam says, of the same spirit that produced Comus and L'Allegro before the sour spirit of Puritanism had infected his genius.

At the same time, we think it is a question whether Milton really deserves the preeminence in this department which is usually assigned to him. His verses have a sonorous swing that carry us away as we read them, but they often deviate from classical simplicity-and are characterized by an effort at point which not unfrequently turns out to be purely verbal. On the whole, we are inclined to think that Fletcher, Cowley, and May, are all on the whole equal to the author of Paradise Lost, and that each of them has in turns surpassed him by a longer interval than he has surpassed them. Of Fletcher we have already spoken. May and Cowley were contemporaries. The former, however, though more than twenty years older than Cowley, did not publish his Supplementum Lucanitill some time after Cowley was known as a Latin poet. May was born in 1595, was educated at Sidney Sussex, Cambridge, and afterwards entered at Gray's Inn, 1615. Later in life he

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66

His

But May is very unequal. versification is disfigured by the use of such terminations as et sceleratâ," "inveniebat," and the like, a license which Lucan never permits himselfBy the constant use of the short final 0, in which the Roman poet very sparingly indulges, and by a constant disregard of the laws of quantity in respect of the vowel before two consonants, such as spero and sciens. It is very remarkable that so obvious a solecism as this should have maintained its ground so long. Yet up to the middle of the last century we find it practised by all the eminent Latin writers. A parallel case is that of the fifth foot of the Greek Iambic, which, according to the universal practice of the tragedians, must be an iambic where the last word in the line is a trisyllable. Yet this simple rule was overlooked by all the great critics down to the days of Por

son.

May is also very often prosy in the extreme. His description of the honours paid to Cæsar is ludicrously so, and reminds one irresistibly of the "He laid his knife and fork across his plate," style, which Johnson hit off so happily.

The other two principal Latin verse writers of this period are Cowley and his friend Crashaw. The former Johnson thought superior to Milton, an opinion we do not share

on the whole; though, as above stated, we think Milton has written nothing equal to Cowley's Epitaphium Vivi Auctoris. This little ode, though well known, our readers will, we are sure, pardon us for recalling to their attention.

Hic, oh viator, sub lare parvulo
Couleius hic est conditus, hic jacet,
Defunctus humani laboris
Sorte, supervacuâque vitâ.

Non indecorâ pauperie nitens,
Et non inerti nobilis otio:
Vanoque dilectis popello

Divitiis animosus hostis.

Possis ut illum dicere mortuum,
En terra jam nunc quantula sufficit.
Exempta sit curæ, viator,

Terra sit illa levis, precare.

Hic sparge flores, sparge breves rosas, Nam vita gaudet mortua floribus; Herbisque odoratis corona

Vatis adhuc cinerem calentem.

In spite of many faults, this ode goes to the heart, and we always recur to it with pleasure. Crashaw's verses are elegant, but he is best known by his admirable epigram on the Miracle of Cana of Galilee.

Vidit, et erubuit, Lympha pudica Deum.

About this period commences the first series of the Muse Anglicanæ. The verses in this collection are all very much upon a par. A copy by Mr. Bathurst on the marriage of Charles the Second contains the following pretty lines:

Aspice ut obscurè nemorum per devia reptet Virginitas ignava hederæ, necdum illa sub

auras

Emicat, aut humili squalens caput exerit umbrâ;

Tandem inopis pertæsa tori, si fortè vel

arcem.

Ætherei Jovis, aut procera robora quercûs Strinxerit amplexu, et sensim insinuârit

amores,

Protinus ad superas gaudet simul ardua sedes Scandere, seque unà mirantibus induit astris.

These lines are truly Virgilian. A poem in two books on Tobacco, and a short piece entitled Cursus Glacialis, Anglice, skating, will also well repay

Clarendon.

the attention of all lovers of the art

of Latin verse.

The second volume of the Muse Anglicans opens with a great subject, and a still greater name. The Peace of Ryswick by Joseph Addison, A.M. Coll. Mag. Soc. If not the first, Addison is certainly in the very first rank of English Latin poets. The superiority of his composition to those by which they are surrounded is marked and shining. They display

a union of elegance and simplicity, and a nice appreciation of the genius of Latin poetry, which has been rarely equalled. It has been said that too much of his attention was devoted to the poets of the silver age, and that Claudian was his model rather than Virgil. There is little evidence of this, however, in his own verses. His cadences are Virgilian. We find in him none of the cloying harmony of Claudian, who has frequently as many as two hundred lines together without single elision, nor any of the sententious morality and obscure terseness of Lucan. Even the fluent and spirited versification of Statius has hardly attracted him.

The

Georgics seem to be his model; and he is almost always easy, graceful, and natural. He has the art of making us think that what he says in Latin could not have been said so well in English; and of pleasing no less by the ingenuity of his thoughts than by the correctness of his language. The battle of the Cranes and Pygmies will always remain a monument of his skill in this respect. Did our space permit us, we would willingly quote it entire; as it is, we must content ourselves with the concluding lines.

Elysii valles nunc agmine lustrat inani,

Et veterum Heroum miscetur grandibus umbris

Plebs parva: aut si quid fidei mereatur anilis

Fabula, Pastores per noctis opaca pusillas Sæpe vident umbras, Pygmæos corpore cassos. Dum secura Gruum, et veteres oblita labores, Lætitiæ penitus vacat, indulgetque choreis, Angustosque terit calles, viridesque per orbes Turba levis salit, et Lemurum cognomine gaudet.

The whole poem is pervaded by that

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Spectator, No. 412.

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