Through dark and dearth, through fire and frost, And how sometimes in an idle mood With emptied arms and treasure lost And, having in thy life-depth thrown We loitered by the way; And stopped in the woods to gather flowers, And in the fields to play; Till warned by the deep'ning shadow's fall, That told of the coming night, We climbed to the top of the last, long hill, And, brothers and sisters, older now Alas, for the changing things of time; And we have come to life's last hill, Can almost look on that home that shines So, brothers and sisters, as we go, Till the march of life is done: For that mother, who waited for us here, Now waits on the hills of paradise -Chambers's Journal. PHOEBE CART. CROWN AND CROSS. Ir seemed a crown of cruel thorn, I might have cast away the crown, I might have shunned the cross to bear, As on my weary way I passed, And blossoms for the thorns had place, POETRY.-Sky Pictures in Sicily, 738. On Guard, 738. The Children's Timepiece, 738. The Passing Cloud, 776. Our Brother, 776. The Comet of 1861, 776. The Rising of the North, 776. SHORT ARTICLES.-New Invention for Beehives, 762. The Dying Highlander, 773. A Coincidence, 774. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL, SON, & CO., BOSTON. For Six Dollars a year, in advance, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded free of postage. Complete sets of the First Series, in thirty-six volumes, and of the Second Series, in twenty volumes, handsomely bound, packed in neat boxes, and delivered in all the principal cities, free of expense of freight, are for sale at two dollars a volume. ANY VOLUME may be had separately, at two dollars, bound, or a dollar and a half in numbers. ANY NUMBER may be had for 13 cents; and it is well worth while for subscribers or purchasers to complete any broken volumes they may have, and thus greatly enhance their value. SKY PICTURES IN SICILY. I. THE COMET. PALE phantom, on the blue October night, Like a dropped plume from fallen angel's wing Floating astray, a shunned, mysterious thing, Alike unclaimed by darkness or by light;Old superstitions quicken at thy sight, Of storm and earthquake,-of tyrannic King Sudden struck mad,-of Death volcanoes fling Down hills alive with autumn's vintage bright. To me a strange companion thou hast been For many a lonely hour beside the sea, Bringing back firelights when I used to lean, A wondering child, against my father's knee, Who told us tales of others like to thee, Ghosts of the air, with fright by simple mortals seen. II. DAY COLORS. The spirits of Palermo's thousand flowers ers A rain of violets falleth from on high. Yes, this was Enna's land; and here, I swear, Was the famed grove of the Hesperides. So bright the wreaths for Hours to choose and wear, So teeming ripe the bounty of the trees ;Color and changing perfume fill the air, Which faints not 'neath the freight, but laughs like heart at ease. III. THE MOON TAKES UP THE TALE. Yet, with her soft and rich and mystic light, The moon doth challenge this variety; "Leave to the day its gaudy shows," saith she, "Mine be the calmer holiness of Night. After the feast, the prayer-after delight, Thoughtful repose-after the rainbow sea Heaving with glittering turbulence, for me One changeless amethyst, as mirror bright. Mine are the hours when Memory softly roves (Hope would the mysteries of the sun explore), When all the best aspirings, purest loves, And sweetest friendships man enjoyed of yore, Come back-when even the mournful dirge 'No more!' Like soothing distant chime, in mellowed cadence moves." IV. RAIN. Hark! how the rain that rings upon the spears Of the sharp reeds, makes answer-or with tone Saddens the breeze, like the low streamy moan Of captive Naiad, sobbing out her fears. Saying, "Your shows are brighter for my tears; I can hang grief so solemn, that a thrill ON GUARD. Ar midnight, on my lonely beat, Her form is not a lover's dream- A patient smile is on her face, Till, though the leagues lie far between, So guarding thus my lonely beat, By shadowy wood and haunted lea, That vision seems my view to greet Of her at home who prays for me. CAMP CAMERON. -Harper's Weekly. THE CHILDREN'S TIMEPIECE. Now Summer dons her golden robe; Its gray and half-transparent globe The dandelion rears again From the green meadow's rolling main. Now when the brown and purple grass Is yellowed by the king-cup's flowers, The children pluck the rank green tubes, And blow the down to count the hours. When birds their lulling spring-song cease, And Summer 'gins her reign of peace; When meadows turn a sunny brown, And mowers leave the dusty town; When now the sorrel plumes turn red, And brave the hot flushed summer wind; When brawny laborers rest from toil. And grateful hedgerow shelter find; Then children pluck the cobweb flowers, And blow the down to count the hours. -Chambers's Journal. W. T. From The Quarterly Review. 1. The Works of Virgil. Translated by the Rev. Rann Kennedy and Charles Rann Kennedy. 2 Vols. 1849. passages of rampant extravagance and undisguised absurdity. A very few words are all that need be spent on the first translation of Virgil into English by Caxton. The title, or rather tailpiece, runs as follows: "Here fynyssheth the boke of Eneydos, compyled by Vyrgyle, whiche hathe be translated oute of latyne in to frenshe, And oute of frenshe reduced in to Englysshe by me Wyllm Caxton the xxii. daye of Iuyn, the yeare of our lorde m.iiii clxxxx. The fythe yeare of the Regne of Kynge Henry the seuenth." Some account of the original work (by Guillaume de Roy) may be found in Warton's "History of English Poetry," Section xxiv. It seems, in fact, 2. My Book. By James Henry. 1853. 3. The Works of Virgil: closely rendered into English Rhythm. By Rev. Robert Corbet Singleton. Vol. I. 1855. 4. Virgil: literally translated into English Prose. By Henry Owgan, LL.D. 1857. NOT long ago we invited the attention of the public to Horace and his translators. From Horace to Virgil is a natural and easy transition, and we are now accordingly going to offer some remarks on the English translators of Virgil, though we cannot plead the excuse of the appearance of any recent versions by eminent hands, by noble lords to be a romance made out of the Eneid by or accomplished statesmen. Our intention is to furnish some answer to two distinct though connected questions: How has Virgil been translated? and how may he be translated ? numerous excisions and some additions, the bulk of the whole being comparatively small. We have only glanced at the translation, the printing as well as the language of which is calculated to repel all but black-letter students; but its chief characteristic seems to be excessive amplification of the Latin. This is apparently the version of Virgil's two lines (Æn. IV. 9, 10) :— "Anna soror, quæ me suspensam insomnia terrent! Quis novus hic nostris successit sedibus hospes!" "Anne my suster and frende I am in ryghte To attempt an exhaustive account of all the translations of the whole or parts of Virgil which have been made in English is a task which would exceed our own opportunities, as it probably would the wishes of our readers. Many of these productions are doubtless unknown to us: with others we are acquainted by name or by character, but they do not happen to be within our reach. It is obvious, too, that there must be a consid-gret thoughte strongely troubled and incyted, erable number which do not deserve even the by dremes admonested whiche excyte my slender honor of a passing commemoration. courage tenquire the maners & lygnage of this man thus valyaunt, strong, & puyssaunt, Here, as elsewhere, something will depend whiche deliteth hym strongely to speke, in on the date and consequent rarity of the deuysing the hie fayttes of armes and perbook. A worthless translation of the nine-illys daungerous whiche he sayth to haue teenth century calls for no mention at all; the work can be procured without difficulty, or the reader, if he pleases, can himself produce something of the same character. A worthless translation of the sixteenth century has an adventitious value: it is probably rare, and at any rate the power of producing any thing similar is gone forever. While, therefore, we do not cater for professed antiquaries, we may perhaps hope to interest those who care to see how Virgil has fared at the hands of writers, great and small, belonging to the various schools of English poetry-who for the sake of a few instances of beauty and ingenuity will pardon a good deal of quaintness and even some dulness, and are not too severe to smile at occasional *No. ccviii. Art. 2. passed, neweli hither comyn to soiourne in our countreys. I am so persuaded of grete obfusked, endullyd and rauysshed." admonestments that all my entendement is It was not long before Caxton was to meet with one who proved himself both a severe critic and a successful rival. This was "the Reverend Father in God, Mayster Gawin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkel, and unkil to the Erle of Angus," whose "xiii Bukes of Eneados of the famose Poete Virgill translatet out of Latyne verses into Scottish metir," though not published till 1553, was written forty years earlier. In the poetical preface to this work-a composition of some five hundred lines-there is a long paragraph, entitled in the margin, "Caxtoun's faultes," which passes in review the various delin quencies of the father of printing: his omis- | specimen of English blank verse. As might sion of the greater part of the "thre first be expected, the versification is not entitled bukis," his assertion that the storm in Book to any very high positive praise. It is lanI. was sent forth by Eolus and Neptune, the guid and monotonous, and sometimes un"prolixt and tedious fassyoun" in which he metrical and inharmonious; but the advance deals with the story of Dido, his total sup- upon Gawin Douglas is very perceptible. pression of the fifth Book, his ridiculous re- The language is chiefly remarkable for its jection of the descent into the shades as fab- purity and simplicity; occasionally there is ulous, his confusion of the Tiber with the a forcible expression, but in general a uniTover, his substitution of Crispina for Dei- form medium is kept, and a modern reader phobe as the name of the Sibyl, the whole will still complain a little of prolixity, though being summed up by the assurance that, he will acknowledge that the fault is being "His buk is na mare like Virgil, dar I lay, gradually corrected. Dr. Nott has remarked' Than the nyght oule resemblis the papingay." that some parts of the translation are more The bishop's own version has been highly draws attention to the fact that Surrey has highly wrought than others; and while he praised by competent judges, and we think deservedly. One specimen we will give, have been known to him in MS., he notes frequently copied Douglas, whose work must that these obligations are much more frequent in the Second Book than in the Fourth. The following extract (we quote from Dr. Nott's edition) will perhaps give an adequate notion of Surrey's manner (Æn. II. 228, "Tumvero tremefacta," etc.) :: and it shall be from the exordium of Book "The battellis and the man I will discriue, The reader of these lines will not fail to remark their general closeness to the original, at the same time that he will be struck with a certain diffuseness, such as seems to be an inseparable adjunct of all early poetry. To expect that such rude and primitive workmanship should represent adequately Virgil's peculiar graces would of course be absurd; but the effort was a great one for the time when it was made, and our northern neighbors may well be proud of it. Not less marked, though not altogether of the same character, is the interest attaching to the next translation, or rather fragment of translation. The Earl of Surrey may or may not have died too soon for the political well-being of England, but his fate was undoubtedly an untimely one for her literature, and the historian who denies his claim to our sympathy expressly acknowledges his "brilliant genius." His version, which embraces the Second and Fourth Books of the Æneid, deserves attention not only for its own sake, but as the first known *Froude's Hist. of England, vol. iv. p. 509. Children and maids, that holy carols sang; And well were they whose hands might touch the cords." The next translator, like Surrey, only lived to accomplish a portion of the Æneid: but it was a much larger portion, and it had the good fortune to be completed by another hand. Thomas Phaer, at one time "sollicitour to the king and quene's majesties, attending their honourable counsaile in the marchies of Wales," afterwards "doctour of physike," published seven Books of the Æneid in 1558. At his death, two years afterwards, he left a version of the Eighth and Ninth Books and a part of the Tenth; and in 1573 the residue " was " supplied and the whole worke together newly set forth by Thomas Twyne, gentleman." This translation is in the long fourteen-syllable or ballad metre, |