But can you prove that this in fact is
Agreeable to life and practice?

Then hear what in his simple way
Old Æsop told me t' other day.
In days of yore, but (which is very odd)
Our author mentions not the period,
We mortal mien, less given to speeches,
Allow'd the beasts sometimes to teach us,
But now we all are prattlers grown,
And suffer no voice but our own;
With us no beast has leave to speak,
Although his honest heart should break
"Tis true, your asses and your apes,
And other brutes in human shapes,
And that thing made of sound and show
Which mortals have misnamed a beau,
(But in the language of the sky
Is call'd a two legg'd butterfly)

Will make your very heartstrings ache
With loud and everlasting clack,

And beat your auditory drum,

Till you grow deaf, and they grow dumb.
But to our story we return:

'Twas early on a summer morn
A wolf forsook the mountain-den,
And issued hungry on the plain.

Full many a stream and lawn he pass'd,
And reach'd a winding vale at last;
Where from a hollow rock he spied
The shepherds drest in flowery pride.
Garlands were strew'd, and all was gay,
To celebrate an holiday,

The merry tabor's gamesome sound
Provoked the sprightly dance around.
Hard by a rural bod was rear'd,
On which in fair array appear'd

The peach, the apple, and the raisin,
And all the fruitage of the season.
But, more distinguished than the rest,
Was seen a wether ready drest,
That smoking, recent from the flame,
Diffused a stomach-rousing steam.
Our wolf could not endure the sight,
Courageous grew his appetite :
His entrails groan'd with tenfold pain,
He lick'd his lips, and lick'd again;
At last, with lightning in his eyes,
He bounces forth, and fiercely cries,
Shepherds, I am not given to scolding,
But now my spleen I cannot hold in.
By Jove! such scandalous oppression
Would put an elephant in passion.
You, who your flocks (as you pretend)
By wholesome laws from harm defend,
Which make it death for any beast,
How much soe'er by hunger press'd,
To seize a sheep by force or stealth,
For sheep have right to life and health;
Can you commit, uncheck'd by shame,
What in a beast so much you blame?
What is a law, if those who make it
Become the forwardest to break it?
The case is plain: you would reserve
All to yourselves, while others starve.
Such laws from base self-interest spring,
Not from the reason of the thing-'

He was proceeding, when a swain
Burst out:- And dares a wolf arraign
His betters, and condemn their measures,
And contradict their wills and pleasures?
We have establish'd laws, 'tis true,
But laws are made for such as you.

Know, sirrah, in its very nature
A law can't reach the legislature.
For laws, without a sanction join'd,

As all men know, can never bind :

But sanctions reach not us the makers,

For who dares punish us, though breakers? 'Tis therefore plain beyond denial,

That laws were ne'er design'd to tie all,
But those, whom sanctions reach alone;
We stand accountable to none.

Besides, 'tis evident, that seeing
Laws from the great derive their being,
They as in duty bound should love
The great, in whom they live and move,
And humbly yield to their desires:
"Tis just, what gratitude requires.
What suckling dandled on the lap
Would tear away its mother's pap?
But hold-Why deign I to dispute
With such a scoundrel of a brute?
Logic is lost upon a knave,
Let action prove the law our slave.'

An angry nod his will declared,
To his gruff yeomen of the guard;
The full-fed mongrels, train'd to ravage,
Fly to devour the shaggy savage.

The beast had now no time to lose
In chopping logic with his foes;
This argument,' quoth he, has force,
And swiftness is my sole resource.'

He said, and left the swains their prey, And to the mountains scower'd away.

TRANSLATIONS.

ANACREON. ODE XXII.

Παρὰ τὴν σκίην, βάθυλλε,
Κάθισον

BATHYLI US, in yonder lone grove
All carelessly let us recline:

To shade us the branches above

Their leaf waving tendrils combine;
While a streamlet, inviting repose,

Soft-murmuring, wanders away,

And gales warble wild through the boughs:
Who there would not pass the sweet day?

THE BEGINNING OF THE

FIRST BOOK OF LUCRETIUS.

Eneadum Genetrix

-V. 1–45.

MOTHER of mighty Rome's imperial line,

Delight of man, and of the powers divine,

Venus, all bounteous queen! whose genial power

Diffuses beauty in unbounded store

Through seas, and fertile plains, and all that lies Beneath the starr'd expansion of the skies.

Prepared by thee, the embryo springs to day,

And opes its eyelids on the golden ray.
At thy approach, the clouds tumultuous fly,
And the hush'd storms in gentle breezes die
Flowers instantaneous spring; the billows sleep;
A wavy radiance smiles along the deep:

At thy approach, th' untroubled sky refines,
And all serene Heaven's lofty concave shines.
Soon as her blooming form the Spring reveals,
And Zephyr breathes his warm prolific gales,
The feather'd tribes first catch the genial flame,
And to the groves thy glad return proclaim.
Thence to the beasts the soft infection spreads;
The raging cattle spurn the grassy meads,
Burst o'er the plains, and frantic in their course
Cleave the wild torrents with resistless force.
Won by thy charms, thy dictates all obey,
And eager follow where thon lead'st the way.
Whatever haunts the mountains, or the main,
The rapid river, or the verdant plain,

Or forms its leafy mansion in the shades,
All, all thy universal power pervades,
Each panting bosom melts to soft desires,
And with the love of propagation fires.

And since thy sovereign influence guides the reins

Of nature, and the universe sustains;

Since nought without thee bursts the bonds of night,
To hail the happy realms of heavenly light;
Since love, and joy, and harmony are thine,
Guide me,
O goddess, by thy power divine,
And to my rising lays thy succour bring,
While I the universe attempt to sing.
O may my verse deserved applause obtain
Of him, for whom I try the daring strain,
My Memmius, him, whom thou profusely kind
Adorn'st with every excellence refined.
And that immortal charms my song may grace,
Let war, with all its cruel labours, cease;

O hush the dismal din of arms once more,
And calm the jarring world from shore to shore.
By thee alone the race of man foregoes

The rage

of blood, and sinks in soft repose: