So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, | ringford, where so many able penmen, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. Americans and others, have described Here is the "O venusta Sirmio," quoted by Tennyson, and the justly celebrated passage O quid solutis est beatius curis ? "What is happier than release from Catullus is sometimes called the most original of the Latin poets. But he borrowed much from the Greeks, and several of his poems are mere translations. The originals have almost wholly perished, except the famous Ode of Sappho, and there Catullus has risen nobly to the sublime height of that passionate outburst. Catullus's powers of satire and invective were so great that even Cæsar was afraid of them. But some of his shorter pieces are on a level with those graffiti at Pompeii which are judiciously concealed from the eyes of Mr. Cook's young friends. the knocker off the door. No poem As "landscape-lover" and "lord of language," some affinity may be discerned between Tennyson and Horace, as well as between Tennyson and Virgil. Take, for instance, the description of Tivoli in the Seventh Ode of the first book: Me nec tam patiens Lacedæmon Quam domus Albuneæ resonantis Tennyson need not fear comparison with the scholarly poets who preceded In this ode, as in the celebrated dehim. Jonson and Milton were very scription of Soracte under its mantle of learned men. Dryden was a good snow, specimens of what may be called scholar, and may be thought to have Horace's vignettes, the art is to call up achieved, at least once, when he transa picture by a single phrase, or even a lated the Twenty-ninth Ode of the third single epithet. Horace had it as well as book of Horace, the feat of surpassing Virgil, and though Tennyson was more his own author. Samuel Johnson, a indebted to Nature than to either of real poet at his best, knew Juvenal as them, I think he was indebted to both, well as Tennyson knew Lucretius. to "old popular Horace," as well as to But not one of them, not even rare the other "old poet fostered under Ben himself, was more thoroughly imfriendlier skies." bued with the spirit of classical antiquity than the author of the "Lotos Eaters." Milton is sometimes the servant rather than the master of his learning. He was not unfrequently, if one may say so without irreverence, the worse for Latin. Tennyson was the better for everything he read. We all know his invitation to Frederick Maurice, if only because it describes Far It is a commonplace and a platitude to lament that we have not more of Tennyson's Homeric translation. Only two short fragments have ever been given to the world. The first is the 1 "Neither stern Sparta nor the rich Pelasgian fields ever struck me like the echoing temple of the Sibyl, and the rush of the Anio, and the grove of Tibur's founder, and the moist orchards with their rippling streams." comparison of the watch-fires kindled | The episode of Achilles fighting under by the Greeks with the stars shining in the immediate protection of Athene, the heavens, from the eighth book of and vanquishing the Trojans with the the Iliad. It is a test passage. The assistance of supernatural fire on his man who could translate that could head, pertains to the perishable form translate anything, and Tennyson prob- rather than to the imperishable essence ably selected it to show what he could of the Homeric epic. The god from do. The triumph was complete. It the machine does not appeal to us as it may be said of these lines, as Tennyson must have appealed to the audience of himself said of his friend Fitzgerald's the Homeric rhapsodist. The knot "Omar Khayam," that there is "no never seems worthy of the champion. version done in English so divinely Oddly enough there is almost the same well." Perhaps the best lines both in simile here also, except that the watchthe Greek and in the English are those fires are this time the standard, not the which introduce the simile, subject of comparison. Achilles's private halo is compared with them. And sheer-astounded were the charioteers As when in Heaven the stars above the moon Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid, And every height comes out, and jutting peak And valley, and the immeasurable heavens Break open to their highest, and all the stars Shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart. The effect of the monosyllabic verb in the last line, followed by a break, recalls the famous Shook, but delayed to strike of the "Paradise Lost." Tennyson firmly believed in blank verse as the proper vehicle of Homeric translation. Perhaps the most successful of modern translators is Worsley, who adopted the Spenserian stanza. In this particular instance he has achieved one effect which deserves to be compared, and not unfavorably compared, with Tennyson's. The last line in the original describes the horses, who Εσταότες παρ' όχεσφιν ἐνθρονον ἠῶ μίμνον. Fixt by their cars, waited the golden dawn, is Tennyson's rendering. Hard by their chariots stood, waiting the dawn divine, which is Worsley's, sounds more imposing, and seems to close the description with greater force. Homer, however, calls the dawn neither golden nor divine, but "well-throned," which may be likened to Shakespeare's "vestal throned in the west," meaning first the moon, and secondly Queen Elizabeth. Tennyson's second attempt, "Achilles over the Trench," is less interesting. To see the dread unweariable fire burn. Homer knew nothing about the supposed invulnerability of Achilles who met his fate at the hands of Paris, as Hector told him he would. But the Trojans could not be expected to make provision against the influence of miracles upon the common trooper. Tennyson, as is well known, detested English hexameters and pentameters. He thought them unsuited to the genius of the language. He laughed at them. In the emphatic words of Scripture, he could not away with them. He liked the metre no better in German. He himself wrote English hendecasyllables, English galliambics, and English alcaics in his noble ode to Milton. He must, one would think, have admired he could not help admiring-Mr. Swinburne's Sapphics. But hexameters, especially in rendering Homer, were his soul's abhorrence. These lame hexameters, the strong-wing'd music of Homer! No-but a most burlesque barbarous ex Children's children sat on his knee and heard his great watch tick, I am not qualified to take up the "Evangeline " such a barbarous expericudgels for Voss. But Tennyson, when ment as he burst out in this ferocious diatribe, can hardly have meant to include Dr. Hawtrey's beautiful translation of Helen's speech on the walls of Troy, beginning Tennyson is, of course, substantially right. The metre is not English, and cannot be made so. Hawtrey knew better than to try it on a large scale. He carefully chose the scene of his experiment and succeeded accordingly. Clough wrote English hexameters and sometimes even pentameters, with amazing fluency and cleverness. Sometimes, as in his lines on the Pantheon, he managed them with dignity and splendor. But as a rule he used them when he meant to be slipshod and dropped them when he meant to be serious. English pentameters are utterly hopeless. As Tennyson once said, (6 All men detest slops, particularly gruel," is a fair specimen of the article. whose But his own published instances may be almost equalled from "Catullus, dead songster never dies." Schoolboys and professors are accustomed to imitate the smooth, mechanical elegiacs of Ovid. But these did not begin with that amorous versifier. Corneli, et factum me esse puta Hippocratem, is not a pretty line, but it is pure Catullus. Take another case. Catullus made fun of a certain Arrius, or, as we might say, 'Arry, for his habitual employment of superfluous aitches. He mentions a horrible rumor that since Arrius went to Syria, the Ionian Sea had become the Hionian, as it was said of the late Baron Channell that "the Helen became the Ellen in passing through the chops of the Channell." Jam non Ionios esse, sed Hionios is surely as bad as Barbarous experiment, barbarous hexam eters. English hexameters have not always been failures. If Longfellow wrote in he also wrote, Chanting the Hundredth Psalm, that grand menagerie and circus was advertised | ceeded to pitch the small tent wherein in a somewhat voyant manner on the the two men were to sleep. It was a town walls, and a fancied resemblance singular tent, with a vast number of to the aristocratic manager thereof ac-pendent ropes which became entangled credited us with an honorable connec- at the outset. We began with zeal, but tion in the enterprise. presently left the ropes and turned our attention to the pegs. These required driving in with a wooden mallet and a correct eye. Persons unaccustomed to such work strike the peg on one side the mallet goes off at a tangent and strikes the striker with force upon the shin-bone. "When do you open?" inquired an intelligent spectator-anxious to show savoir faire. “See small handbills," replied the host-in-himself, with equal courtesy. "'Oo are yer, at any rate ?" inquired an enlightened voter. "Who are you?" we replied with spirit; and, passing through the gate, we closed it to keep out the draught. Then we paid a domiciliary visit, and were duly shown Parker's apartments. In outward appearance the caravan suggested an overgrown bathing-machine. The interior resembled the cabin of a yacht. The walls were gaily decorated with painting on the panels; flowers bloomed in vases fixed upon the wall; two prettily curtained windows one a bay, the other flat- - gave a view of the surrounding country. At the forward end, against the bulkhead, so to speak, was a small but enterprising chest of drawers, and above it a large looking-glass which folded down, developed legs, and owned to the soft impeachment of being a bed. Beneath the starboard window a low and capacious sofa, combining the capacity of a locker. Under the port window was fixed a table against the bulkhead, where four people could and did dine sumptuously. When en voyage and between meals, charts, maps, and literature littered this table pleasantly. A ship's clock hung over it, and a corner cupboard did its duty in the port quarter. A heavy plush curtain closed off the kitchen and pantry, which were roomy and of marvellous capacity. Then the back door-in halves-and the back steps, brass-bound, treacherous. Finally Parker said he would put up the tent "by'n-by." There was a Bedlington terrier Parker's dog-attached (literally) to the caravan. He was tied to one of' the bamboo columns on the forecastle, . and when Parker absented himself for long he usually leaped off the platform and sought death by strangulation this we discovered later. abandoned the tent we thought we would cheer up the dog. When we "Don't touch him, sir; he'll bite you," said Parker. Of course we touched him; no man who respects himself at all is ready to admit that a dog bites him. It was wonderful how that dog and Parker understood each other. But the bite. was not serious. At last dinner was ready, and we are prepared to take any horrid oath required that no professional cook could set before a king potatoes more mealy. This only, of all the items in the menu, is mentioned, because where potatoes are good the experienced know that other things will never be amiss. We waited on ourselves, and placed the dirty dishes, plates, and forks upon the back step, where Parker replaced them in a few minutes, clean. "Oh!" exclaimed the hostess-in-herself, about ten P.M., when we were smoking the beatific pipe. "By the In front there was a little verandah | way - Parker's dinner!" with supporting columns of bamboo. Here we usually sat when travellingParker in the right-hand corner handling the ribbons of the tandem carthorses with skill and discretion. As dinner was not ready, we pro In response to united shouts Parker appeared, and learned with apparent surprise that he had omitted to dine. He looked pale and worn, and told us that he had been blowing out the airbeds. At eleven o'clock we two men un left the ladies and went out into the cold moonlight, where our tent looked remarkably picturesque. Of course we fell over a tent-peg each, and the host lost his watch-key. Parker came forward-dining- to explain where the ropes were, and fell over one himself, losing a piece of cold boiled beef in the grass. We hunted for it with a lucifer match. Its value was enhanced by the knowledge that when the bed was shut down and had developed its legs the larder was inaccessible. After some time Parker discovered that the dog had been let loose and had found the beef some moments before. He explained that it was a singular dog and a gallon of oil, and carried a can of preferred to live by dishonesty. Unstolen victuals had for him no zest. He added that the loss was of no consequence, as he never had been very keen on that piece of beef. We finally retired into the tent, and left Parker still at work completing several contracts he had undertaken to carry through "by'n-by." He said he preferred doing them over-night, as it was no good getting up before five on these dark autumnal mornings. clothes one could turn round easily, but the least movement throws the tucked blanket incontinently into space, while the instability of the bed precludes tucking in. Except for these and a few other drawbacks, the air-bed may safely be recommended. The next morning showed a white frost on the grass, and washing in the open, in water that had stood all night in a bucket, was, to say the least of it, invigorating. Parker browned our boots, put a special edge of his own upon our razors, attended to the horses, oiled the wheels, fetched the milk, filled the lamps of the paraffin stove, bought water from a neighboring farm before breakfast, just by way-he explained of getting ready to start his day's work. An early start had been projected, but owing to the fact that after breakfast Parker had to beat the carpet, wash the dishes, plates, cups and saucers, knives and forks, and his own face, strike the tent, let the air out of the airbeds, roll up the water-proof sheets, clean the saucepans, groom the horses, ship the shafts, send off a parcel from the station, buy two loaves of bread, and thank the owner of the stackyard owing, I say, to the fact that Parker had these things to accomplish while we "did the rest," it was eleven o'clock before all hands were summoned to get "her" out of the narrow gateway. This was safely accomplished, by Parker, while we walked round, looked knowingly at the wheels, sternly at the gate-posts, and covertly at the spectators. Then we clambered up, the host-inhimself cracked the whip, Parker gathered up his reins. Come up, "Come up, Squire ! Nancy! And the joy of the caravaneer was ours. It was nearly midnight before we made our first acquaintance with au air-bed, and it took us until seven o'clock the next morning to get on to speaking terms with it. The air-bed, like the Bedlington terrier, must be approached with caution. Its manner This joy is not like the joy of other is, to say the least of it, repellent. men. For the highroad, the hedgeUnless the sleeper (save the mark !) lies rows, the birds, the changing sky, the geometrically in the centre, the air ever-varying landscape, belong to the rushes to one side and the ignorant roll caravaneer. He sits in his moving off the other. If there were no bed-home and is saturated with the freedom |