LUSUS PILE (AMATORIUS) EX NIVE СОАСТӔ.

PETRONII AFRANII EPIGRAMM A.

ME nive candenti petiit modo Julia; rebar

Με

Igne carere nivem, fed tamen ignis erat.

Quid nive frigidius ? noftrum tamen urere pectus

Nix potuit manibus, Julia, miffa tuis.

Quis locus infidiis dabitur mihi tutus amoris,
Frigore concretâ fi latet ignis aquâ ?
Julia, fola potes noftras extinguere flammas
Non nive, non glacie, fed potes igne pari.

* The only account that could be found, after a diligent fearch, of the author of this neat and elegant performance, is in Fabricius's Bibliotheca Latina; where Petronius Afranius is placed, amongst many others, as a writer of Epigrams, without any notice taken of what country he was, at what time he lived, without any one circumftance to mark who or what he was. This Epigram is inferted in the appendix to the 11th edition of Epigrammatum Delectus, in ufum Scholæ Etonenfis, printed at London 1740, accompanied by the following note: Elegans et acutum Epigramma! me judice, ut ut, in tenui materiâ, et affabre undequaque concinnatum et omnibus numeris abfolutum."

E.

THE

THE SNOW-BALL.

FROM PETRONIUS AFRANIUS.

W

WHITE as her hand fair JULIA threw

A ball of filver fnow;

The frozen globe fir'd as it flew,

My bofom felt it glow.

Strange pow'r of love! whose great command
Can thus a fnow-ball arm;

When fent, fair JULIA, from thine hand,
Ev'n ice itself can warm.

How should we then fecure our hearts ?
Love's pow'r we all must feel,

Who thus can, by ftrange magic arts,
In ice his flames conceal.

'Tis thou alone, fair JULIA, know,

Canft quench my fierce defire,

But not with water, ice, or fnow,

But with an equal fire.

M 2

Εἰς

ANACREON, ODE XX.

A Rock on Phrygian plains we fee

That once was beauteous NIOBE:

And PROGNE, too revengeful Fair!
Now flits a wand'ring bird in air:

Thus I a looking-glass wou'd be,
That you, dear maid, might gaze on me;
Be chang'd to stays, that straitly lac'd,
I might embrace thy flender waift;
A filver ftream I'd bathe thee, Fair,

Or fhine pomatum on thy hair;
In a foft fable's tippet's form
I'd kifs thy fnowy bofom warm ;
In fhape of pearl that bofom deck,
And hang for ever round thy neck:
Pleas'd, to be ought, that touches you,
Your glove, your garter, or your shoe.

A TRANSLATION

OF SOME

LATIN VERSES ON THE CAMERA OBSCURA.

T

HE various pow'rs of blended shade, and light, The skilful ZEUXIS of the dusky night; The lovely forms, that paint the fnowy plain Free from the pencil's violating ftain, In tuneful lines, harmonious PHOEBUS, fing, At once of light and verse celestial king.

Divine APOLLO! let thy facred fire
Thy youthful bard's unskilful breast inspire,
Like the fair empty fheet he hangs to view,
Void, and unfurnish'd, till infpir'd by you;
O let one beam, one kind enlightning ray
At once upon his mind and paper play!
Hence shall his breaft with bright ideas glow,

Hence num'rous forms the filver field fhall ftrew.

But now the mufe's useful precepts view, And with just care the pleafing work pursue.