I caught him by his downy wing,,
And whelm'd him in the racy spring.
Oh! then I drank the poison'd bowl,
And Love now nestles in my soul !

Yes, yes, my soul is Cupid's nest,

I feel him fluttering in my breast.

This epigram of Naugerius is imitated by Lodovico Dolce in a poem, beginning

Mentre raccoglie hor uno, hor altro fiore

Vicina a un rio di chiare et lucid' onde,
Lidia, &c. &c.

VOL. I.

E

ODE

THE

ODE VII.

HE women tell me every day That all my bloom has past away. "Behold," the pretty wantons cry,

"Behold this mirror with a sigh;

"The locks upon thy brow are few,

"And, like the rest, they're withering too!" Whether decline has thinn'd my hair,

I'm sure I neither know nor care;

But

Alberti has imitated this ode in a poem, beginning

Nisa mi dice e Clori

Tirsi, tu se' pur veglio.

Whether decline has thinn'd my hair,

I'm sure I neither know nor care ;] Henry Stephen very justly remarks the elegant negligence of expression in the original

But this I know, and this I feel,
As onward to the tomb I steal,
That still as death approaches nearer,
The joys of life are sweeter, dearer;

And

Εγω δε τας κόμας μεν

Ειτ' εισιν, ειτ' απηλθον

Ουκ οίδα.

And Longepierre has adduced from Catullus, what he thinks a similar instance of this simplicity of manner:

Ipse quis sit, utrum sit, an non sit, id quoque nescit. Longepierre was a good critic; but perhaps the line which he has selected is a specimen of a carelessness not very elegant; at the same time I confess, that none of the Latin poets has ever appeared to me so capable of imitating the graces of Anacreon as Catullus, if he had not allowed a depraved imagination to hurry him so often into vulgar licen tiousness.

That still as death approaches nearer,

The joys of life are sweeter, dearer ;] Pontanus has a very delicate thought upon the subject of old age:

Quid rides, Matrona? senem quid temnis amantem ?

Quisquis amat, nullâ est conditione, senex.

And had I but an hour to live,
That little hour to bliss I'd give!

Why do you scorn my want of youth,
And with a smile my brow behold?
Lady dear! believe this truth,

That he who loves cannot be old.

ODE

I

ODE VIII.

CARE not for the idle state

Of Persia's king, the rich, the great!
I envy not the monarch's throne,
Nor wish the treasur'd gold my own.

"The German poet Lessing has imitated this ode. Vol. i. P. 24." Degen. Gail de Editionibus.

Baxter conjectures that this was written upon the occasion of our poet's returning the money to Polycrates, according to the anecdote in Stobæus.

I care not for the idle state

Of Persia's king, &c.] "There is a fragment of Archilo-` chus in Plutarch, De tranquillitate animi,' which our poet has very closely imitated here; it begins,

Ου μοι τα Γύγεω τε πολυχρυσα μελει.” Barnes.

In one of the monkish imitators of Anacreon we find the same thought:

Ψυχην εμην ερωτω,
Τι σοι θελεις γενεσθαι ;

Θέλεις Γύγεω, τα και τα

E 3

But