Son front qui reprend sa fierté, Pâle d'un long trépas, menace et se relève, Son bras s'allonge, et cherche une glaive; Elle vit, elle parle, elle a dit. Liberté!” We shall conclude our notice of M. Delavigne with his concluding stanzas to our lost poet: "Il n'est plus! il n'est plus! toi qui fut sa patrie, Tyrans, pleurez; vos nuits, qui vengent l'innocence, "Les Grecs le vengeront, ils l'ont juré; la gloire Qu'ils vont offrir à sa mémoire ; Qu'ils marchent, que son cœur repose au milieu d'eux, Alors avec le fer du croissant abattu Ils graveront sur son dernier asile: "O mort! que ne l'espargnais-tu ? Il chantait comme Homère, il fut mort comme Achille." BATRACHOMYOMACHIA, AND HYMN TO PAN. SOMEBODY blaming metrical translations, I believe Cowper, says that translating in verse is like dancing in fetters; and that therefore the looser the links are made, the more graceful is the motion. This was said to recommend blank verse translations. I differ altogether; if I must dance in fetters, let them jingle. But putting this pun out of the question, and a poor pun it is, it has always struck me that blank verse translations are apt, from the comparative easiness of their metre, to fall into something like plain prose; and that the necessity of rhyme makes the translation, when well done, so much more carefully done, as to resemble better an original poem, than otherwise. Moved by these considerations, and others which there is no need of mentioning, I have done into Spenserian (the most rhyme-demanding of all our stanzas,) the pleasant little mock Homeric poem of the Battle of the Frogs and Mice;' and with it the Homeric hymn to Pan, (it is not worth any body's while on this occasion to squabble about authenticity,) treated in a similar fashion. 6 In the Batrachomyomachia I have retained the Grecian names of the warriors, though I know Goldsmith's objection to it; viz., that we lose the burlesque effect arising from the significancy of their humble denominations. I think, however, that we gain another piece of burlesque comicality in the imposing grandeur of the sound applied to such tiny combatants. Potempter may be droller than Embasichytros, but the latter is more magnificent in sound; and the drollery of the former is, to our ears at least, more like that of Æsop's Fables, than of an epic poem. I agree with Southey's remark to the same effect in his preface to Amadis, where he assigns as a reason for retaining Beltenebros in his text untranslated, that nobody ever thinks of calling St. Peter, Stone the apostle, though the name was avowedly significant. Lord Thurlow, not the present, but the chancellor, has translated the names in his version of the Battle of the Frogs and Mice.' In giving the Greek names, I trust I have escaped the barbarous unprosodaical pronunciation of Parnell. 6 I do not recollect ever having seen any part of Homer in Spenserian verse, except a fragment of the fourteenth book of the Iliad in Blackwood's Magazine,' about four years ago; nor indeed in any other stanza, except the hymn to Mercury, so admirably translated by Shelley; and a few detached passages of the Iliad, by a youg writer, who has since realized all the mises of his boyhood, as a poet and a scholar. pro BATRACHOMYOMACHIA. I. my soul, INTO That mock'd the achievements of the giant brood:- II. A thirsty mouse, escaping from a cat, Dipp'd his soft whisker in a neighbouring lake; With its sweet stream his panting thirst to slake, A croaking native of the pool bespake, "Who art thou? what thy race? whence hast thou come, Reply with truth, no fraudful answer make, For I shall lead thee to my royal dome, If worthy of my love-and make my house thy home." III. "I am the king Physignathus, whose sway Is own'd through all these waters, high and low; Me, as their rightful lord, the frogs obey, And to my sceptre long have loved to bow. A sceptre-bearing chief, and warrior tried declare.” *Euov nrog. Lungs, I believe, would express what the poet meant ; but I am afraid that in these days we cannot ask the muses there. IV. So spake the frog. Psicharpax answered " Why Dost thou inquire my lofty lineage, known one ? To those who dwell in heaven-in earth-in sky— Who in a dark some cavern bore me to her spouse. V. "She nursed me up with fond maternal care, "To me no dainty morsel is unknown, Not thrice-baked bread in rounded platter laidNot wide spread cake with sesamé bestrown— Not livers rich in snow-white fat array'dNot slice from gammon cut with trenchant bladeNot pudding, food for gods immortal fitNor new-pressed cheese from milk delicious made, Nor aught sage cooks prepare, whose learned wit Lines the capacious pot with many a luscious bit. VII. "Nor from the slaughterous combat do I flee, And seize with nibbling tooth his heel or toe; VIII. "The hawk and cat my bosom overawe, "Stranger, thy paunch supplies thee with a theme On earth to gambol, and in lake to lave. These wouldst thou wish to view, thy course is plainAscend my back, I'll bear thee through the wave; But clasp me close, that o'er the fluid plain, In safety and in joy, we may my palace gain." X. He spoke and crouched; the mouse, devoid of fear, And oh how much he wish'd he ne'er had left the shore. In XI. agony of woe his paunch he smote With frequent foot, and rooted up his hair; |