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‘En! trajecit aves una sagitta duas.’

In the Greek translation of Parthenopaeus, there are as few faults as could reasonably be expected. But, first, one word as to the original Latin poem: to whom does it belong? It is traced first to Lord Grenville, who received it from his tutor (afterwards Bishop of London), who had taken it as an anonymous poem from the ‘Censor’s book;’ and with very little probability, it is doubtfully assigned to ‘Lewis of the War Office,’ meaning, no doubt, the father of Monk Lewis. By this anxiety in tracing its pedigree, the reader is led to exaggerate the pretensions of the little poem; these are inconsiderable: and there is a conspicuous fault, which it is worth while noticing, because it is one peculiarly besetting those who write modern verses with the help of a gradus, viz. that the Pentameter is often a mere reverberation of the preceding Hexameter. Thus, for instance–

‘Parthenios inter saltus non amplius erro,
Non repeto Dryadum pascua laeta choris;’

and so of others, where the second line is but a variation of the first. Even Ovid, with all his fertility, and partly in consequence of his fertility, too often commits this fault. Where indeed the thought is effectually varied, so that the second line acts as a musical minor, succeeding to the major, in the first, there may happen to arise a peculiar beauty. But I speak of the ordinary case, where the second is merely the rebound of the first, presenting the same thought in a diluted form. This is the commonest resource of feeble thinking, and is also a standing temptation or snare for feeble thinking. Lord Wellesley, however, is not answerable for these faults in the original, which indeed he notices slightly as ‘repetitions;’ and his own Greek version is spirited and good. There, are, however, some mistakes. The second line is altogether faulty;

[Greek: Choria Mainaliph pant erateina theph
Achnumenos leipon]

does not express the sense intended. Construed correctly, this clause of the sentence would mean–‘I, sorrowfully leaving all places gracious to the Maenalian god:’ but that is not what Lord Wellesley designed: ‘I leaving the woods of Cyllene, and the snowy summits of Pholoe, places that are all of them dear to Pan‘–that is what was meant: that is to say, not leaving all places dear to Pan, far from it; but leaving a few places, every one of which is dear to Pan. In the line beginning

[Greek: Kan eth uph aelikias]

where the meaning is–and if as yet, by reason of my immature age, there is a metrical error; and [Greek: aelikia] will not express immaturity of age. I doubt whether in the next line,

[Greek: Maed alkae thalloi gounasin aeitheos]

[Greek: gounasin] could convey the meaning without the preposition [Greek: eth]. And in

[Greek: Spherchomai ou kaleousi theoi.]

I hasten whither the gods summon me–[Greek: ou] is not the right word. It is, however, almost impossible to write Greek verses which shall be liable to no verbal objections; and the fluent movement of these verses sufficiently argues the off-hand ease with which Lord Wellesley must have read Greek, writing it so elegantly and with so little of apparent constraint.

Meantime the most interesting (from its circumstances) of Lord Wellesley’s verses, is one to which his own English interpretation of it has done less than justice. It is a Latin epitaph on the daughter (an only child) of Lord and Lady Brougham. She died, and (as was generally known at the time) of an organic affection disturbing the action of the heart, at the early age of eighteen. And the peculiar interest of the case lies in the suppression by this pious daughter (so far as it was possible) of her own bodily anguish, in order to beguile the mental anguish of her parents. The Latin epitaph is this: