rian at Alexandria, and lived shortly be- | Dear son of Diocleides seaward sent ! fore the first Punic War. Meya Biẞhíov péya Now somewhere in deep seas thy corse is tost Kakóν, he said, "A big book is a big evil," Hither and thither- and for whom we lost and of all his eight hundred volumes only six hymns and less than a century of epigrams remain. These have been, many of them, quite beautifully translated, but I think this will be welcome under a new guise: Winter nor chills thee, nor summer burns, nor sickness makes sorry ; Thou nor hungerest more nor thirsteth, and robbed of its glory Seems to thee now this life of ours, for thou dwellest securely – -- We find thy name and empty monument. We pass on to this quaint one by Paulus Silentiarius, one of the latest writers, which Cowper translated strikingly but quite inadmissibly - for he puts all the lines into the mouth of the corpse, whereas the point of the epigram lies in the interruptions of the traveller. This was the weft of the Fates spun on the day they were born. Innocent, there where the rays of Olympus Ah! but from thee, my Dion, thy sacrifice enhallow thee purely ! This is Meleager's best, so earnest that I have changed the person in order to retain the "intimate" tone. Herrick, our Meleager, did this one too. Bridal none but death for bridegroom, dear, But this morning breaks no music glad Lamentation loud the flutes outpour, The next of Leonidas I need not give; it is very matter-of-fact and not very interesting as a record of daily life. The charm of an epitaph of this description is that it shows how similar was life all those years ago to what it is now. As soon as that epitaph is given as an English verse this charm is to a great extent gone. The next of Callimachus I cannot spare. Now would to God swift ships had ne'er been gratefully keeping, Wide was the hope that the gods, quenching thine honors, have torn. Thou, while thy citizens praise thee, in the glades of thy land liest sleeping, Dion, desire of whose love wilders my senses forlorn. Mr. Johnson's pretty and simple verses for this one of Callimachus deter one from trying it again, but the epitaph (upon Heracleitus) is in itself immortal and will shine through many renderings. It is no with as true and as restrained a note of mere exercise of verse making, but rings sorrow as "Lycidas" or "Thyrsis." One tells me, friend, that we are parted now. And I recall how often I and thou, In closest converse, sank the sun to sleep, And, so remembering, weep. Halicarnassian host! somewhere thou must Long, long ago be dust, Yet live thy nightingales-thine own-for them Death, that takes all, hath never requiem! This of Simmias is a little earlier (about 300 B.C.). The rendering " Wind, gentle evergreen," with which we are all familiar, does not seem to me to give at all the tone or the lilt of the verse. Tenderly, ivy, on Sophocles' grave-right | To feed thee serviceable herbs, beside tenderly twine Shepherds that on this mountain ridge abide, dewed When the lambs play about their mothers' feet. So shall you honor well the shades, from whom Are thanks-and from the dead is gratitude. I must interpolate one of Meleager's on a hare, which I am afraid Mr. Wright does not think grave enough for the "Golden Treasury" (vii. 207): — I was a fleet-foot, long-eared hare, Close to her couch she laid me dead: By spectre tombs beside her bed. Cowper should have done that instead of the other. The last in the fourth section is this very graceful one which bears no master's name. Kind earth, take old Amyntychus to thee corn. And of his hand were water runnels born Thine apple-bearing orchards fair and wide. Wherefore on his grey head, kind earth, lie light, And make with flowers his spring-tide pastures bright. 66 Nearly all the epigrams in Mr. Wright's fifth section are from the Anthology of Planudes," a monk of the fourteenth century who "Bowdlerized" the old collections and added others. Two or three only are from the "Palatine Anthology." This first is by Diotimus, almost a contemporary of Callimachus. It is a noble classic speech for a statue. Here am I, very Artemis, but thou, Seeing Zeus' true daughter here in bronze revealed, Gaze on my maiden boldness, and allow "For her were the whole earth mean hunting-field." Next is a piece of description by Plato: - And his bent bow, Hanging them from the leafy trees and high. And there he lay among the roses sleeping And, sleeping, smiled, while browny bees were keeping Court to his waxen lips for honey's flow Above where he did lie. The little one of Parmenio is not interesting in English, but this of Agathias is beautiful (perhaps we ought to call it Mrs. Browning's). It is for a waxen Faun. "All of its own accord, little faun, does thy flute go on ringing? Why, with ears to the reed, listenest the livelong day?" Smiling, he holds his peace: an answer maybe had come winging, Only he pays no heed, rapt in oblivion away. Nay, not the wax withholds him; his whole soul, charmed with the singing, Gives back silence for meed, silent rewarding the lay. This fine description of Niobe and her children is the only one of Meleager's which Mr. Wright gives in this group: Daughter of Tantalus! hearken my words-a message to mourn Mounted on stakes, and eke the stakes alone Ah God! ah God!- for all are only stone! At twenty years thou sleep'st death's sleep profound, And undisturbed by beasts that prowl around. I shall not do the next one of Leonidas about a drunken Anacreon. Here are two pretty ones of Meleager instead about a cup and a picture (v. 171): — Bright laughs the cup-for "I have kissed," it saith, "Thy lady's laughing mouth." Too happy cup! Oh! that, her lips to my lips, at a breath And (v. 149): — Ah! who hath shown my lady unto me, Full surely brings he me a joyful thing, But I must not give Meleager the lion's share again in this group- that is almost the last of his I shall be able to put in. These two of Plato's with which Mr. Wright finishes the section are admirably contrasted in tone, and both quite perfect. This is for a ring: See! five oxen graven on a jasper gem! Of this golden circlet our little herd shall hold. It is as fanciful as a nursery rhyme. The other is as joyous and stately as Milton. Silent shaggy scaur that Dryads keep. Silent! rills adown the crags that run. Silent mingled bleating of the sheepl'an himself the piping has begun. | To his tuneful lip the reed sets he, Mr. Wright's last section contains what I might call the epigrams of thought. The first is Palladas'-(I had almost written Shakespeare's). He was a late writer. All life's a stage and farce. Or learn to play, Naked to earth was I brought-naked to earth "Yea, all the rest is pain and grief," saith he, Not such your burden, happy youths, as ours But woe betide us if we stir from home - The next, by Agathias too, is true nowadays and always. At this smooth marble table let us sit Grumble and growl, "It's all that beastly die;" But in no dance of man. High on my head a crown of flowers I raise And strike my sounding lyre in Phœbus' praise, For this is life's best plan, And the whole firmament were wrong Had it no crown, no song. This crown, this song, this "order" of life was what made Greek humanity divine. There is no more concise expression of the intimacy between daily life and ritual than that little verse contains in the heart of it. It is the most Greek but, per Show me some path of life! The market-haps Mr. Wright thought, not the most place Foolish is youth, and old age listless quite. Or straight to die, having but just seen the light. For this next - Ptolemy's, who lived about two centuries and a half on in the Christian era — I shall borrow a turn of rhyme from Robert Browning. I know that I am mortal and the creature of a day. But when I see the stars, like sand in orbits turn alway, As that divinest sight I heed, I spurn the earth and say, "Now am I even as Zeus, and feed on his ambrosia." This is more familiar. The author is unknown, but the text is as old as Solomon. Drink and be merry! for what is the future and what is the morrow? No man answereth thee. Labor not thou, neither run; Feast as thou may'st, and do good and distribute but let not life borrow Any false worth, for "to be," "not to be " lo! 'tis all one! Yea, what is life? an thou take it, thy thrall. 'Tis the turn of the scale. But, an thou lose it, another's is all-but thee nought can avail. The last but one is a poem of Marcus Argentarius, also late, full of a beautiful hedonism. The golden stars are quiring in the west, philosophic strain to end with, and he brings us to a full stop with Philodemus' resolutions. I loved and you. I played — who hath not been Steeped in such play? If I was mad, I ween 'Twas for a god and for no earthly queen. Hence with it all! Then dark my youthful head, Where now scant locks of whitening hair, instead, Reminders of a grave old age, are shed. I gathered roses while the roses blew. Playtime is past, my play is ended too. Awake, my heart! and worthier aims pursue. We found one of Philodemus" love-songs There is a note of Herrick again in that. in the third group, and noticed its sigh of sadness, "Poor lovers I and thou." We saw that he too came from Gadara and was a contemporary of Meleager. It is strange to catch the selfsame notes ringing from the midst of that Syrian culture, which we hear echo our own longings of to-day in the poets of the golden age of Elizabeth. WILLIAM M. HARDINGE. The allusion in the poem is to the constellations of Orpheus and Ariadne -lute and crown. From The Academy. A CHINESE IN PHILADELPHIA.* A CHINESE visitor to the Philadelphia Exhibition has written a book with notes of his journey and a description of the exhibition. He was sent by Mr. Hart, inspector general of Chinese customs, and the book, which is in four volumes, has been printed at the Customs Press at Shanghai, by order of Mr. Hart. The author also visited Japan on his way to America, and * Havan yeu ti chieu sin lu. (New Account of Travels round the Globe.) spent a few days in England and France | lands where strange languages are used on his return to China. The work is a full are as familiar to us as our own family statement of his thoughts and experiences, door." It is well for the State and people and contains a mass of information new to of China to have a careful record of what his countrymen. He has not the scholarly is to be seen and heard in the West by a and elevated tastes of Kwo Sung-tau, the scholar from among themselves. While ambassador to England, or the poetic the viceroy talks in this way he has shown spirit of Pin Chun, the first in time of the neither courage nor energy in stemming Chinese envoys to Europe. But his mind the tide of opposition to railways and teleis open to impressions, and he has an eye graphs in China. But his feelings are for machinery and the products of West- military. He wishes ardently that China ern civilization. He is a sincere admirer may be strong, and should public opinion of the railway and the telegraph. He ap- become a little liberalized by the circulapreciates the cleanliness of Western habits tion of such books as this, he will still be of living. He enjoys the luxuries of hotel able to assist after a few years in starting life, and the comfort of a carriage and pair. his countrymen on a new career. If he He was active with his pen, and has drawn will dismiss his fear of indignant censors a long succession of accurate pictures of and the loss of court favor, the country will foreign objects and foreign life. The book follow his lead more willingly than that of betokens great industry on the part of the any other man. Li Kwei defends internaauthor, and his possession of an aptitude tional exhibitions. He says he at first for close observation. His spirit toward thought the Philadelphia Exhibition a great foreign nations is friendly and unpreju- waste of money. By saying this he intendiced. Li Kwei had, before this eight tionally places himself at the standpoint of months' journey round the world, been em- a multitude of his countrymen. But he ployed in the Ningpo custom-house as a now knows that it has tended to promote despatch-writer for more than ten years. friendly intercourse among nations. Such Here he had become acquainted with for- exhibitions stimulate to invention, extend eigners, his superiors in office, and was the knowledge of the productions of the thus better prepared to understand with-earth, and aid in their equable distribuout prejudice what he saw as a traveller. Besides, he has not forgotten for a moment that the object of his mission was that he might write a book on the exhibition and on the incidents of his travels for the information of his conntrymen. Without sacrificing his independence he writes as a custom-house employé, under foreign control. When Li Hung-chang was asked to contribute a preface he consented. He writes in the tone that might be expected from the most able and influential of the living viceroys of China. He alludes to the intelligence and inventive genius of Western nations. He regards railways and the telegraph, iron-plated ships of war and improved rifles, as means to an end. That end is the increased wealth and power of Western countries. He sees the Western men, not only trying each to surpass the other in these advantages, but applying themselves with pertinacious zeal to the expansion of their commerce. He adds that all this is caused by the spirit of the modern age. To describe Western civilization is to confer a real benefit on China the more so as China has now sent her high officials as ambassadors to the West, and is educating some of her select youth in foreign countries. China and Western kingdoms are become almost one family. "The five continents and tion. So far from being wasteful they are highly beneficial to a country. He tells his readers that he is convinced that the Centenary Exhibition was of very high utility to each of the thirty-seven kingdoms which took part in it. The wide view he has been able to take of foreign ways and inventions has made the author progressive. For example, he strongly advocates female education. When he mentions that women desire to enter Parliament and discuss public affairs, he perhaps feels satirical, but he does not say a word in disparagement of women's claims to education, and their intellectual equality with men. He adopts the principle that female ability is equal to that of the male sex, and urges on his countrymen a return to the education of women, which, he says, has been neglected since the Cheu dynasty. On this subject he writes with the feeling of one who sympathizes with the female sex, and believes in its great capability of progress through education. There are in America three or four millions of female teachers and scholars, and this, he says, is why the country daily grows in prosperity. The nation knows how to use its native talent. Parents in those countries value daughters as much as sons. But, he adds, in China it is different. Daughters are despised by some and drowned by others. |