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Come, within a fragrant cloud,
Blushing with light, thy votary shroud;
And, on those wings that sparkling play,
Waft, oh! waft me hence away!
Love my soul is full of thee,
Alive to all thy luxury.

But she, the nymph for whom I glow,
The pretty Lesbian, mocks my woe;
Smiles at the hoar and silver'd hues
Which Time upon my forehead strews.
Alas! I fear she keeps her charms
In store for younger, happier arms!

ODE LXXVII.1

HITHER, gentle Muse of mine,
Come and teach thy votary old
Many a golden hymn divine,

For the nymph with vest of gold.

Pretty nymph, of tender age,

Fair thy silky locks unfold; Listen to a hoary sage,

Sweetest maid with vest of gold!

ODE LXXVIII.2

WOULD that I were a tuneful lyre,
Of burnish'd ivory fair,
Which in the Dionysian choir

Some blooming boy should bear!
Would that I were a golden vase,
And then some nymph should hold
My spotless frame with blushing grace,
Herself as pure as gold!

ODE LXXIX.3

WHEN Cupid sees my beard of snow,
Which blanching time has taught to flow,
Upon his wing of golden light
He passes with an eaglet's flight,
And, flitting on, he seems to say,
"Fare thee well, thou 'st had thy day!"
4 CUPID, whose lamp has lent the ray
Which lightens our meandering way-
Cupid, within my bosom stealing,
Excites a strange and mingled feeling,
Which pleases, though severely teasing,
And teases, though divinely pleasing!

1 This is formed of the 124th and 119th fragments in Barnes, both of which are to be found in Scaliger's Poetics. De Pauw thinks that those detached lines and couplets, which Scaliger has adduced as examples in his Poetics, are by no means authentic, but of his own fabrication.

2 This is generally inserted among the remains of Alcæus. Some, however, have attributed it to Anacreon. See our poet's twenty-second ode, and the notes.

3 See Barnes, 173d. This fragment, to which I have taken the liberty of adding a turn not to be found in the original, is cited by Lucian in his little essay on the Gallic

Hercules

4 Barnes 125th. This, if I remember right, is in Scaliger's Poetics. Gail has omitted it in his collection of fragments.

'LET me resign a wretched breath,
Since now remains to me
No other balm than kindly death,
To sooth my misery!

2 I KNOW thou lovest a brimming measure,
And art a kindly cordial host;
But let me fill and drink at pleasure,
Thus I enjoy the goblet most.

* I FEAR that love disturbs my rest,
Yet feel not love's impassion'd care;
I think there's madness in my breast,
Yet cannot find that madness there!

4 FROM dread Leucadia's frowning steep
I'll plunge into the whitening deep,
And there I'll float, to waves resign'd,
For love intoxicates my mind!

' Mix me, child, a cup divine,
Crystal water, ruby wine;
Weave the frontlet, richly flushing,
O'er my wintry temples blushing.
Mix the brimmer-love and I
Shall no more the gauntlet try,
Here-upon this holy bowl,
I surrender all my soul !

AMONG the Epigrams of the Anthologia, there are some panegyrics on Anacreon, which I had translated, and originally intended as a kind of Coronis to the work; but I found, upon consideration, that they wanted variety: a frequent recurrence of the same thought, within the limits of an epitaph, to which they are confined, would render a collection of them rather uninteresting. I shall take the liberty, however, of subjoining a few, that I may not appear to have totally neglected those elegant tributes to the reputation of Anacreon. The four Epigrams which

1 This fragment is extant in Arsenius and Hephaestion. See Barnes, (69th,) who has arranged the metre of it very elegantly.

2 Barnes, 72d. This fragment, which is quoted by Athenæus, is an excellent lesson for the votaries of Jupiter Hospitalis.

3 This fragment is in Hephaestion. See Barnes, 95th.
Catullus expresses something of this contrariety of feeling:
Odi et amo; quare id faciam fortasse requiris;
Nescio: sed fieri sentio, et excrucior. Carm. 53.

I love thee and hate thee, but if I can tell
The cause of my love and my hate, may I die!
I can feel it, alas! I can feel it too well,

That I love thee and hate thee, but cannot tell why.

of some poem, in which Anacreon had commemorated 4 This also is in Hephaston, and perhaps is a fragment the fate of Sappho. It is in the 123d of Barnes.

Phalareus, and Eustathius, and is subjoined in his edition 5 This fragment is collected by Barnes from Demetrius to the epigrams attributed to our poet. And here is the last of those little scattered flowers which I thought I might venture with any grace to transplant. I wish it could be said of the garland which they form, To S'w(' Avaxpsovτos

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ει δε τις φθιμενοις χρίμπτεται ευφρόσυνα, ω το φιλον σέρξας, φιγε, βαρβιτον, ω συν αοιδα παντα διαπλωσας και συν ερωτι βιον. 'AROUND the tomb, oh bard divine!

Where soft thy hallow'd brow reposes, Long may the deathless ivy twine,

And Summer pour her waste of roses! And many a fount shall there distil,

And many a rill refresh the flowers; But wine shall gush in every rill,

And every fount be milky showers.

Thus, shade of him whom Nature taught
To tune his lyre and soul to pleasure,
Who gave to love his warmest thought,

Who gave to love his fondest measure!

Thus, after death, if spirits feel,

Thou may'st, from odours round thee streaming,

A pulse of past enjoyment steal,

And live again in blissful dreaming!

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1 Antipater Sidonius, the author of this epigram, lived, according to Vossius, de Poetis Græcis, in the second year of the 169th Olympiad. He appears, from what Cicero and Quintilian have said of him, to have been a kind of improvisatore. See Institut. Orat. lib. x. cap. 7. There is nothing more known respecting this poet, except some particulars about his illness and death, which are mentioned as curious by Pliny and others; and there remain of his works but a few epigrams in the Anthologia, among which are those I have selected, upon Anacreon Those remains have been sometimes imputed to another poet (a) of the same name, of whom Vossius gives us the following account: Antipater Thessalonicensis vixit tempore Augusti Cæsaris, ut qui saltantem viderit Pyladem, sicut constat ex quodam ejus epigrammate Ανθολογίας, lib. 4. tit. εις Ορχηστρίδος. At eum ac Bathyllum primos fuisse pantomimos, ac sub Augusto claruisse, satis notum ex Dione,” etc. The reader, who thinks it worth observing, may find a strange oversight in Hoffroen's quotation of this article from Vossius, Lexic. Univers. By the omission of a sentence he has made Vossius assert that the poet Antipater was one of the first pantomime dancers in Rome.

Barnes, upon the epigram before us, mentions a version ofit by Brodaeus, which is not to be found in that commenta tor; but he more than once confounds Brodeus with another annotator on the Anthologia, Vincentius Obsopous, who has given a translation of the epigram.

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Ουδ' Αίδης σοι ερωτας απέσβεσεν εν δ' Αχεροντος
Ων, όλος ωδινεις Κυπριδι θερμοτερ

HERE sleeps Anacreon, in this ivied shade;
Here, mute in death, the Teian swan is laid.
Cold, cold the heart, which lived but to respire
All the voluptuous frenzy of desire!

And yet, oh bard! thou art not mute in death,
Still, still we catch thy lyre's delicious breath;
And still thy songs of soft Bathylla bloom,
Green as the ivy round the mouldering tomb!
Nor yet has death obscured thy fire of love,
Still, still it lights thee through the Elysian grove:
And dreams are thine that bless the elect alone,
And Venus calls thee, even in death, her own!

Του αυτού, εις τον αυτον.

ΞΕΙΝΕ, τάφον παρα λιτον Ανακρείοντος αμείβων
Ετ τι τοι εκ βιβλων ηλθεν έμων οφελος,
Σπεισον εμη σποδιῇ, σπεισον γανος, οφρα κεν οινῳ
Οξεα γήθησε ταμα νοτιζομενα,

Ως ὁ Διονύσου μεμελημένος ουασε κωμος

Ως ὁ φιλάκρητου συντροφος ἁρμονίης,
Μηδε καταφθιμενος Βακχου διχα τουτον ὑποισω
Τον γενεῃ μερόπων χωρον οφειλομενον.

'OH stranger! if Anacreon's shell
Has ever taught thy heart to swell

the Teian swan is laid.] Thus Horace of Pindar
Multa Dircæum levat aura cycnum.

A swan was the hieroglyphical emblem of a poet. Anacreon has been called the swan of Teos by another of his eulogists.

Εν τοις μελιχροις Ιμεροισι συντροφον
Λυαίος Ανακρέοντα, Τήιον κυηνού,
Έσφηλας υγρη νεκταρος μεληδονή.

Ευγενους, Ανθολογ.

God of the grape! thou hast betray'd,
In wine's bewildering dream,
The fairest swan that ever play'd

Along the Muse's stream!

The Teian, nursed with all those honied boys,
The young Desires, light Loves, and rose-lipp'd Joys!
Still, still we catch thy lyre's delicious breath.] Thus
Simonides, speaking of our poet :

Μολπης δ' ου λήθη μελιτερπεος, αλλ' ετι κεινο
Βαρβιτον ουδε θανων εύνασεν ειν αίδη.
Σιμωνίδου, Ανθολογο

Nor yet are all his numbers mute,
Though dark within the tomb he lies;
But living still, his amorous lute

With sleepless animation sighs!

This is the famous Simonides, whom Plato styled "divine," though Le Fevre, in his Poétes Grecs, supposes that the epigrams under his name are all falsely imputed. The most considerable of his remains is a satirical poem upon women, preserved by Stobæus, ψόγος γυναικών.

We may judge from the lines I have just quoted, and the import of the epigram before us, that the works of Anacreon were perfect in the times of Simonides and Antipater. Obsopmus, the commentator, here appears to exult in their destruction, and telling us they were burned by the bishops and patriarchs, he adds, "nec sane id necquicquam fecerunt," attributing to this outrage an effect which it could never produce.

1 The spirit of Anacreon utters these verses from the tomb, somewhat “ mutatus ab illo,” at least in simplicity of

expression.

If Anacreon's shell

Has ever taught thy heart to swell, etc.] We may guess from the words εκ βίβλων εμων, that Anacreon was not (a) Pleraque tamen Thessalonicensi tribuenda videntur. merely a writer of billets-doux, as some French critics have Brunck. Lectiones et Emendat. I called him. Amongst these, M. Le Ferre, with all his pro

With passion's throb or pleasure's sigh,
In pity turn, as wandering nigh,
And drop thy goblet's richest tear,
In exquisite libation here!

So shall my sleeping ashes thrill
With visions of enjoyment still.
I cannot even in death resign

The festal joys that once were mine,
When Harmony pursued my ways,
And Bacchus wanton'd to my lays.
Oh! if delight could charm no more,
If all the goblet's bliss were o'er,
When Fate had once our doom decreed,
Then dying would be death indeed!
Nor could I think, unblest by wine,
Divinity itself divine!

Του αυτού, εις τον αυτου.

ΕΥΔΕΙΣ εν φθιμενοισιν, Ανακρεον, εσθλα πονήσας,
είδει δ ̓ ἡ γλυκερη νυκτίλαλος κιθαρα,
εύδει και Σκέρδις, το Ποθών εαρ, ῳ συ μελισδων
βαρβιτ', ανεκρούου νεκταρ εναρμόνιον.
ηΐθεου γαρ Ερωτος έφυς σκοπος" ες δε σε μουνον
τοξα τε και σκολιας ειχεν ἑκηβολίας.

AT length thy golden hours have wing'd their flight,
And drowsy death that eyelid steepeth;

fessed admiration, has given our poet a character by no means of an elevated cast:

Aussi c'est pour cela que la postérité

L'a toujours justement d'âge en âge chanté
Comme un franc goguenard, ami de goinfrerie,
Ami de billets-doux et de badinerie.

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Long may the nymph around thee play,
Eurypyle, thy soul's desire!

Basking her beauties in the ray

That lights thine eyes' dissolving fire!

Sing of her smile's bewitching power,

Her every grace that warms and blesses,
Sing of her brow's luxuriant flower,
The beaming glory of her tresses.

The expression here, av Sos xons, "the flower of the hair," is borrowed from Anacreon himself, as appears by a fragment

See the verses prefixed to his Poètes Grecs. This is un- of the poet preserved in Stobæus: AжExε pas d'a like the language of Theocritus, to whom Anacreon is in-μov avtos. debted for the following simple eulogium:

Εις Ανακρέοντος ανδριάντα.

Θάσαι τον ανδριαντα τουτον, ω ξενε,
σπουδα, και λεγ', επαν ες οικον ελθης
Ανακρέοντος εικον, είδον εν Τέω.

των προσόν ει τι περίσσον ωδοποίων.
προσθείς δε χωτι τοις νέοισιν άδετο,
ερεις ατρεκέως ολον τον ανδρα.

Upon the Statue of Anacreon.

Stranger! who near this statue chance to roam,
Let it awhile your studious eyes engage:
And you may say, returning to your home,
"I've seen the image of the Teian sage,
Best of the bards who deck the Muse's page."
Then, if you add, "That striplings loved him well,"
You tell them all he was, and aptly tell.

The simplicity of this inscription has always delighted me; I have given it, I believe, as literally as a verse translation will allow.

And drop thy goblet's richest tear, etc.] Thus Simonides, in another of his epitaphs on our poet:

Και μιν αει τεγγοι νοτερη δρόσος, ης ο γεραιός
Λαρότερον μαλακών έπνεεν εκ στομάτων.
Let vines, in clustering beauty wreathed,
Drop all their treasures on his head,
Whose lips a dew of sweetness breathed,
Richer than vine hath ever shed!

And Bacchus wanton'd to my lays, etc.] The original here is corrupted; the line ws Asovurou, is unintelligible. Brunck's emendation improves the sense, but I doubt if it can be commended for elegance. He reads the line thus:

ως ο Διωνύσοιο λελασμένος ούποτε κώμων. See Brunck, Analecta Veter. Poet Græc. vol. ii. Thy harp, that whisper'd through each lingering night, etc.] In another of these poems, "the nightly-speaking

The purest nectar of its numbers, etc.] Thus, says Brunck, in the prologue to the Satires of Persius:

Cantare credas Pegaseium nectar.

"Melos" is the usual reading in this line, and Casaubon has defended it; but "nectar," I think, is much more spirited.

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Farewell! thou hadst a pulse for every dart, etc.] εv σκοπος, scopus eras natura," not "speculator," as Barnes very falsely interprets it.

Vincentius Obsopeus, upon this passage, contrives to indulge us with a little astrological wisdom, and talks in a style of learned scandal about Venus, "male posita cum Marte in domo Saturni."

And every woman found in thee a heart, etc.] This couplet is not otherwise warranted by the original, than as it dilates the thought which Antipater has figuratively expressed.

Τον δε γυνακείων μελέων πλέξαντα ποτ' ώδας,
Ηδον Ανακρείοντα, (6) Τέως εις Ελλάδ' ανηγεν,
Συμποσιων ερεθισμα, γυναικών ηπεροπευμα.

Critias, of Athens, pays a tribute to the legitimate gallantry of Anacreon, calling him, with elegant conciseness, γυναικων ήπεροπευμα.

Teos gave to Greece her treasure,
Sage Anacreon, sage in loving;
Fondly weaving lays of pleasure

For the maids who blush'd approving!
Oh! in nightly banquets sporting,
Where's the guest could ever fly him?
Oh! with love's seduction courting,

Where's the nymph could e'er deny him?

(a) Brunck has xpovwv; but xpovos, the common reading, better suits a detached quotation.

(b) Thus Scaliger, in his dedicatory verses to Ronsard: Blandus, suaviloquus, dulcis Anacreon.

LITTLE'S POEMS.

LUSISSE PUDET.-Hor.

Ταδ' εστ’ ονειρων νεότερων φαντασματα, οιον ληρος.

Metroc. ap. Diog. Laert. lib. vi. cap. 6.

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PREFACE

preferred him to the pathetic Tibullus; but I believe

the defects which a common reader condemns have BY THE EDITOR.

been looked upon rather as beauties by those erudite

men, the commentators, who find a field for their TAE Poems which I take the liberty of publishing ingenuity and research in his Grecian learning and were never intended by the Author to pass beyond quaint obscurities. the circle of his friends. He thought, with some Tibullus abounds with touches of fine and natural justice, that what are called Occasional Poems must feeling. The idea of his unexpected return to Delia, be always insipid and uninteresting to the greater" Tunc veniam subito,"! etc. is imagined with all the part of their readers. The particular situations in delicate ardour of a lover; and the sentiment of which they were written; the character of the author" nec te posse carere velim,” however colloquial the and of his associates; all these peculiarities must be expression may have been, is natural and from the known and felt before we can enter into the spirit of heart. But, in my opinion, the poet of Verona possuch compositions. This consideration would have sessed more genuine feeling than any of them. His always, I believe, prevented Mr. LittLE from sub- life was, I believe, unfortunate; his associates were mitting these trifles of the moment to the eye of dis- wild and abandoned; and the warmth of his nature passionate criticism ; and, if their posthumous intro- took too much advantage of the latitude which the duction to the world be injustice to his memory, or morals of those times so criminally allowed to the intrusion on the public, the error must be imputed to passions. All this depraved his imagination, and the injudicious partiality of friendship.

made it the slave of his senses : but still a native Mr. Little died in his one-and-twentieth year; sensibility is often very warmly perceptible; and and most of these Poems were written at so early a when he touches on pathos, he reaches the heart imperiod, that their errors may claim some indulgence mediately. They who have felt the sweets of return from the critic : their author, as unambitious as indo-to a home, from which they have long been absent, lent, scarce ever looked beyond the moment of com- will confess the beauty of those simple unaffected position; he wrote as he pleased, careless whether lines : he pleased as he wrote. It may likewise be remem

O quid solutis est beatius curis ? bered, that they were all the productions of an age Cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino when the passions very often give a colouring too Labore fessi venimus Larem ad nostrum warm to the imagination; and this may palliate, if it Desideratoque acquiescimus lecto.

CARM. xxxii. cannot excuse, that air of levity which pervades so many of them. The “aurea legge, s' ei piace ei lice,” His sorrows on the death of his brother are the he too much pursued, and too much inculcates. Few very tears of poesy; and when he complains of the can regret this more sincerely than myself; and if my ingratitude of mankind, even the inexperienced canfriend had lived, the judgment of riper years would not but sympathize with him. I wish I were

poet ; have chastened his mind, and tempered the luxuriance I should endeavour to catch, by translation, the spirit of his fancy.

of those beauties which I admire” so warmly. Mr. LITTLE gave much of his time to the study of It seems to have been peculiarly the fate of Catulthe amatory writers. If ever he expected to find in lus, that the better and more valuable part of his the ancients that delicacy of sentiment and variety of poetry has not reached us; for there is confessedly fancy which are so necessary to refine and animate nothing in his extant works to authorize the epithet the poetry of love, he was much disappointed. 1 “doctus,” so universally bestowed upon him by the know not any one of them who can be regarded as ancients. If time had suffered the rest to escape, we a model in that style; Ovid made love like a rake, perhaps should have found among them some more and Propertius like a schoolmaster. The mytholo- purely amatory; but of those we possess, can there gical allusions of the latter are called erudition by his commentators; but such ostentatious display, upon a 1 Lib. i. eleg. 3. subject so simple as love, would be now esteemed 2 In the following Poems, there is a translation of one of vague and puerile, and was, even in his own times, essay, and deserves to be praised for little more than the

his finest Carmina: but I fancy it is only a school-boy's pedantic. It is astonishing that so many critics have l attempt.

H

a

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be a sweeter specimen of warm, yet chastened de-fonce revised them for that purpose; but, I know not scription, than his loves of Acme and Septimius ? why, I distrusted either my heart or my judgment; and the few little songs of dalliance to Lesbia are and the consequence is, you have them in their oridistinguished by such an exquisite playfulness, that ginal form: they have always been assumed as models by the Non possunt nostros multæ, Faustine, lituræ most elegant modern Latinists. Still, I must confess, Emendare jocos; una litura potest. in the midst of these beauties,

I am convinced, however, that though not quite a -Medio de fonte leporum

casuiste relache, you have charity enough to forgive Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat.! such inoffensive follies : you know the pious Beza It has often been remarked, that the ancients knew was not the less revered for those sportive juvenilia nothing of gallantry; and we are told there was too

which he published under a fictitious name; nor much sincerity in their love to allow them to trifle did the levity of Bembo's poems prevent him from with the semblance of passion. But I cannot per- making a very good cardinal. ceive that they were any thing more constant than

Believe me, my dear friend,

With the truest esteem, the moderns: they felt all the same dissipation of the heart, though they knew not those seductive graces

Yours,

T. M. by which gallantry almost teaches it to be amiable.

April 19, 1802. Watton, the learned advocate for the moderns, deserts them in considering this point of comparison, and praises the ancients for their ignorance of such

POEMS, ETC. a refinement ; but he seems to have collected his notions of gallantry from the insipid fadeurs of the French romances, which are very unlike the senti

TO JULIA. mental levity, the “grata protervitas," of a Rochester

IN ALLUSION TO SOME ILLIBERAL CRITICISMS. or a Sedley.

Why, let the stingless critic chide From what I have had an opportunity of observing,

With all that fume of vacant pride the early poets of our own language were the models

Which mantles o'er the pedant fool, which Mr. LITTLE selected for imitation. To attain

Like vapour on a stagnant pool ! their simplicity (ævo rarissima nostro simplicitas) was

Oh! if the song, to feeling true, his fondest ambition. He could not have aimed at a

Can please the elect, the sacred few, grace more difficult of attainment ;' and his life was

Whose souls, by Taste and Nature taught, of too short a date to allow him to perfect such a

Thrill with the genuine pulse of thoughttaste ; but how far he was likely to have succeeded,

If some fond feeling maid like thee, the critic may judge from his productions.

The warm-eyed child of Sympathy, I have found among his papers a novel, in rather

Shall say, while o'er my simple theme an imperfect state, which, as soon as I have arranged

She languishes in Passion's dream, and collected it, shall be submitted to the public eye.

“He was, indeed, a tender soulWhere Mr. LITTLE was born, or what is the gene

No critic law, no chill controul, alogy of his parents, are points in which very few

Should ever freeze, by timid art, readers can be interested. His life was one of those

The flowings of so fond a heart !" humble streams which have scarcely a name in the

Yes ! soul of Nature ! soul of Love! map of life, and the traveller may pass it by without

That, hovering like a snow-wing'd dove, inquiring its source or direction. His character was

Breathed o'er my cradle warblings wild, well known to all who were acquainted with him; for

And hail'd me Passion's warmest child ! he had too much vanity to hide its virtues, and not

Grant me the tear from Beauty's eye, enough of art to conceal its defects. The lighter traits

From Feeling's breast the votive sigh; of his mind may be traced perhaps in his writings;

Oh ! let my song, my memory, find but the few for which he was valued live only in the

A shrine within the tender mind; remembrance of his friends.

T. M.

And I will scorn the critic's chide,
And I will scorn the fume of pride

Which mantles o'er the pedant fool,
TO J. ATK-NS-N, ESQ.

Like vapour on a stagnant pool !
MY DEAR SIR,

I FEEL a very sincere pleasure in dedicating to you the Second Edition of our friend Little's Poems.

TO A LADY, I am not unconscious that there are many in the col

WITH SOME MANUSCRIPT POEMS. lection which perhaps it would be prudent to have altered or omitted ; and, to say the truth, I more than

ON LEAVING THE COUNTRY.

WHEN, casting many a look behind, 1 Lucretius. 2 It is a curious illustration of the labour which simplicity

I leave the friends I cherish hererequires, that the Ramblers of Johnson, elaborate as they Perchance some other friends to find, appear, were written with fluency, and seldom required

But surely finding none so dearrevision; while the simple language of Rousseau, which seems to come flowing from the heart, was the slow production of painful labour, pausing on every word, and

Haply the little simple page, balancing every sentence.

Which votive thus I've traced for thee,

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