ings, yet none of them ever fell to such disgrace, often as she shrank from the thought of the yoke on her neck, and felt for horns on her smooth woman's brow. Unhappy girl! yes, thou art wandering over the hills, while he, with that snowy side pillowed on soft hyacinths, is chewing the yellow green grass under the dark holm oak, or going after some heifer in the populous herd. Close, ye nymphs, ye nymphs of Dicte, haste and close the glades of the forest, if by any chance my eyes may fall on the bull's truant footsteps; perhaps he may have been attracted by a patch of green herbage, or may have gone after the herd, and some of the cows may bring him home to the stalls of Gortyna.

Then he sings of the maiden who stopped to admire the apples of the Hesperides; next he clothes the sisters of Phaethon with a mossy bark of bitter taste, and bids them rise from the ground as tall alders. Next he sings how, as Gallus was wandering by the waters of Permessus, one of the sisters took him up to the Aonian hills, and how the whole choir of Phoebus stood up to receive their noble visitant; how Linus, shepherd and heavenly poet in one, his locks wreathed with flowers and bitter parsley leaves, bespoke him thus:-These reeds the Muses present to thee, here they are. The same which they gave the old bard of Ascra before thee. The same with which he, as he sang to them, used to bring stately unbending ashes down from the mountain-side. With these do thou tell the story of the planting of the Grynean forest, and tell it so that there may be no grove on which Apollo prides himself more.'

What need to repeat how he told of Scylla, Nisus' daughter, her to whom the story clings, that, with a girdle of howling monsters round her beauteous form, she made havoc of the Dulichian vessels, and in the depths of the eddying waters gave the poor trembling sailors to be torn limb from limb by

the dogs of the sea; or how he told of Tereus' transformed shape, of the food and the present which Philomela got ready for him, of the strange speed with which she made for the desert, and of the wings on which the unhappy queen hovered over the palace once her own?

All the themes, in short, to which, as once sung by Phoebus, Eurotas listened in ecstasy, and bade his bays get them by heart, Silenus sings: the valleys feel the shock of song and pass it on to the stars, till Vesper gave the word to fold the flocks and report the number, and began his unwelcome march over Olympus.

ECLOGUE VIL

MELIBEUS.

Daphnis happened just to have seated himself under a holm oak that gave tongue to the wind, and Corydon and Thyrsis had driven their flocks to the same spot-Thyrsis' sheep, Corydon's goats swelling with milk-both in the bloom. of life, Arcadians both, ready to sing first or second in a match. Just then, as I was busy sheltering some myrtles from the cold, my he-goat, the lord and master of the herd, had strayed to where they were, and I catch sight of Daphnis. As soon as he meets my eye-'Quick,' he says, 'come here, Melibœus, your goat and kids are all safe, and if you can afford to be idle à little, rest under the shade. Where we are, your bullocks will come over the meadows of themselves to drink; here is Mincius fringing his green banks with a border of soft waving reeds, and there is a swarm humming from Jupiter's favourite oak.' What was I to do? On the one hand I had no Alcippe or Phyllis, to shut up my new-weaned lambs at home, and the match coming off, Corydon against Thyrsis, was sure to be great. However, I let their play take precedence of my work.

So in alternate songs they began to compete. Alternate songs were what the Muses within them chose to recall. These were repeated by Corydon, those by Thyrsis in regular order.

C. Nymphs of Libethra, my heart's delight, either vouchsafe me a strain such as you gave my Codrus-the songs he makes come next to Phoebus' own-or, if such power is not for all of us, see, my tuneful pipe shall be hung up here on your consecrated pine.

T. Shepherds, deck your rising poet with a crown of ivy; ye of Arcadia, that Codrus' sides may burst with envy; or should he try the power of extravagant praise, bind foxglove on my brows, that the ill tongue may do no harm to the bard that is to be.

C. This for thee, Delia, the head of a bristly boar, from young Micon, and the branchy horns of a long-lived stag. Should such luck be secured to him by right, thou shalt be set up full length in polished marble, with purple buskins tied round thy legs.

T. A bowl of milk and these cakes, Priapus, are enough for thee to look for year by year; the orchard thou guardest is but a poor one, so we have had to make thee marble with our present means; but if this year's births fill up our herds, then be of gold.

C. Galatea, child of Nereus, sweeter to me than Hybla's thyme, whiter than the swan, more delicate than the palest ivy, soon as the bullocks return home from pasture to their stalls, if thou hast any regard for thy Corydon, come, O come!

T. Nay, rather think me bitterer than Sardinian herbage, rougher than gorse, more worthless than the weed that rots on the shore, if I do not find this day longer already than a whole year. Home with you from your pasture; for shame, home with you, lazy bullocks!

C. Mossy springs, and grass more downy-soft than sleep,

and the arbute that embowers you greenly with its straggling shade, keep the solstice heat from my flock; already summer is coming on in its fierceness, already buds are swelling on the vine's luxuriant tendrils.

T. Here we have a good hearth, and pinewood with plenty of pitch, and a large fire always blazing, and the posts of our door black with continual soot; here as we sit we care for north winds and cold weather about as much as the wolf for the size of the flock, or torrents for their banks.

C. Here stand junipers and prickly chestnuts-there lie the fruits of summer scattered each under its parent treejust now all nature is smiling; but if our lovely Alexis were to go away from these hills of ours, you would see even the rivers dried up.

T. The country is parched up; the grass is dying for thirst from the sickly air; the wine-god grudges the hills the shade of the vine they love; but when my own Phyllis arrives, all the woodland shall be green again, and Jupiter shall come down plenteously in fertilising showers.

C. The poplar is the favourite of Alcides, the vine of Bacchus, the myrtle of Venus, beauty's queen, the bay of Phoebus: Phyllis' passion is for the hazel-while Phyllis' passion lasts, the myrtle shall not take rank above the hazel, nor yet the bay of Phoebus.

T. The ash is the fairest in the woods, the pine in the gardens, the poplar on the river banks, the fir on the mountain heights; but if thou, Lycidas, beauty's king, shouldst visit me often and often, the ash would soon bow to thee in the woods, the pine in the gardens.

M. So much I remember, and how Thyrsis failed in the match. From that day forward it is all Corydon, Corydon with us.

ECLOGUE VIII.

PHARMACEUTRIA.

The pastoral muse that inspired Damon and Alphesibous, at whose contention the heifer stood wondering and forgot to graze, whose strains held lynxes spell-bound, and made rivers suffer change, and arrest their flow-the Muse that inspired Damon and Alphesibous shall be our song.

But thou, whether my heart is with thee as thou art surmounting the rocks of mighty Timavus or coasting the shore of the Illyrian sea, will that day ever come that will find me free to tell of thy deeds? Shall I ever be free to publish the whole world through those strains of thine, alone worthy of Sophocles' tragic march? From thee is my beginning, for thee shall be the end. Accept these strains commenced at thy bidding, and suffer this ivy to wind itself round thy brows among thy triumphal bays.

Scarce had night's cold shade parted from the sky, just at the time that the dew on the tender grass is sweetest to the cattle, when leaning on his smooth olive wand Damon thus began:

Rise, Lucifer, and usher in the day, the genial day, while I, deluded by a bridegroom's unworthy passion for my Nisa, make my complaint, and turning myself to the gods, little as their witness has stood me in stead, address them nevertheless, a dying man, at this very last hour. Take up with me, my pipe, the song of Mænalus.

Mænalus it is whose forests are ever tuneful, and his pines ever vocal; he is ever listening to the loves of shepherds, and to Pan, the first who would not have the reeds left unemployed. Take up with me, my pipe, the song of Mænalus.

Mopsus has Nisa given him: what may not we lovers