: Languidos mentis fluida calores Quid mihi æterno populum, fluentem Eximam stultos numero tuorum, Tu quoque fies."t The following ode is, with one or two transpositions, a literal version of the poet's beautiful English lines in the essay" on the Shortness of Life and Uncertainty of Riches," beginning "Why dost thou heap up wealth which thou must quit ?" "Quid relinquendos, moriture nummos,` Si relinquendos; dominum relinquunt "Whilst this hard truth I teach, methinks, I see The monster London laugh at me; I should at thee too, foolish city! If it were fit to laugh at misery; But thy estate I pity. Let but the wicked men from out thee go And all the fools that crowd thee so, A solitude almost.” Quiet Quid struis pulchros thalamos in altum Conserens hortos, sed in omne tempus Nam tuas te res agitare credis? Servus infœlix, aliena curas Ardelio ingens. Longa momento meditantur uno, Linex puncto brevis in supremo Acrius instant. Jure formica cumulant acervos Gloriæ mendax nitor atque honorum Posset excusare suos amantes, Si diem vitæ valuisset, uti sol, Pingere totum. At brevem post se sonitum relinquens Transit, illustri loca multa inaurans Non sine damno. O rudis pulchræ prope contuenti Iridis instar! Magna contemnens, miseranosque n:agnos, Vive Coulei; lege tuta parvâ Littora cymbâ. Hospitem cœlorum, imitare alaudam, Sis licet nubes super ire cantu Poctus, in terris humilem memento Ponere nidum." N⚫ No. XLV. The same subject continued. Having in my last paper given Cowley's Latin versions of his odes on Solitude and Riches, I now proceed to insert his version of his beautiful Hymn to Light, whence Warton has extracted stanzas, which furnish him with instances of our poet's inferiority to Milton in classical purity. But perhaps the ingenious critic's zeal for Milton has made him a little too severe on his rival. If he has made a bold and perhaps rash endeavour to clothe his metaphysical conceits in the Latin language, and has sometimes failed accordingly, he has surely sometimes succeeded beyond all hope; there are passages, in which his happiness appears to me really astonishing; and though Johnson went a little too far on the occasion, there is certainly great acuteness in his remarks; and there is, I think, more originality in the Latin poems of Cowley than of Milton. There are many passages in the following ode which affect me with exquisite pleasure. "Hymnus, in Lucem. "Pulchra de nigrâ sobole parente, Risus O terræ sacer et polorum! Gloria rivo! O salus O salas rerum, et decus omne, salve; Omnium mater bona cum calore Unde, momento, quibus e pharetris Carceres ipsos simul, atque metam Aureo lunæ bene læta curru Auream astrorum peragrare sylvam, et Vere nocturno reparata semper Visere prata, Regiam gaudens habitare solis More in æternum Scythico vagantem, et Ad tuos quondam Timor ipse vultus Inverecundi Dominator oris Te tamen testem metuit Cupido; Tu, Dea, Eoi simul atque cœli Aula gaudentis reserata mundi; Monstra Deorum. Te bibens arcus Jovis ebriosus Lumine caudam. In Rosâ pallam indueris rubentem, Fertilis Floræ sobolem tenellam Igne concreto fabricata Gemmas Floreum immisces solidumque fucum; Invidet pictus; fragilesque damnat Hortus honores. Parcior fulvis utinam fuisses Diva largiri pretium metallis! Parcior, quantis hominum allevasses Pectora curis ! Mi |