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TRANSLATIONS.

THE FIFTH ODE OF HORACE, LIB. I.

WHAT slender youth, bedew'd with liquid odours,
Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave,
Pyrrha? For whom bind'st thou

In wreaths thy golden hair,

Plain in thy neatness? O how oft shall he
On faith and changed Gods complain, and seas
Rough with black winds, and storms
Unwonted shall admire !

Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold,
Who always vacant, always amiabl

Hopes thee, of flattering gales

Unmindful. Hapless they

T' whom thou untried seem'st fair. Me, in my vow'd Picture, the sacred wall declares to have hung

My dank and dropping weeds

To the stern God of sea.

FROM GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH.'

Brutus thus addresses Diana in the country of Leogecia:

GODDESS of shades, and huntress, who at will
Walk'st on the rolling spheres, and through the deep;
On thy third reign, the earth, look now, and tell
What land, what seat of rest, thou bidd'st me seek,
What certain seat, where I may worship thes
For aye, with temples vow'd, and virgin quires.

An ancient British historian and writer. He died 1154.

To whom, sleeping before the altar, Diana answers in a vision the same night

BRUTUS, far to the west, in th' ocean wide,
Beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies,
Sea-girt it lies, where giants dwelt of old,
Now void, it fits thy people: thither bend
Thy course, there shalt thou find a lasting seat;
There to thy sons another Troy shall rise,

And kings be born of thee, whose dreadful might
Shall awe the world, and conquer nations bold.

FROM DANTE.

Aя, Constantine, of how much ill was cause,
Not thy conversion, but those rich domains
That the first wealthy pope received of thee.

FROM DANTE.

FOUNDED in chaste and humble poverty,

'Gainst them that raised thee dost thou lift thy horn,
Impudent whore, where nast thou placed thy hope?
In thy adulterers, or thy ill-got wealth?
Another Constantine comes not in haste.

FROM ARIOSTO.

THEN past he to a flow'ry mountain green,
Which once smelt sweet, now stinks as odiously:
This was the gift, if you the truth will have,
That Constantine to good Sylvester gave.

FROM HORACE.

WHOM do we count a good man? Whom but he
Who keeps the laws and statutes of the senate,
Who judges in great suits and controversies.
Whose witness and opinion wins the cause?
But his own house, and the whole neighbourhood,
Sees his foul inside through his whited skin.

FROM HORACE.

ALL barbarous people and their princes too,
All purple tyrants honour you,

The very wandering Scythians do.
Support the pillar of the Roman state,
Lest all men be involved in one man's fate,
Continue us in wealth and state,

Let wars and tumults ever cease.

FROM HORACE.

THE power that did create can change the scene
Of things, make mean of great, and great of mean:
The brightest glory can eclipse with might,
And place the most obscure in dazzling light.

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THIS is true liberty, when freeborn men
Having to advise the public may speak free;
Which he who can, and will, deserves high praise:
Who neither can nor will, may hold his peace,
What can be juster in a state than this?

FROM HORACE.

LAUGHING, to teach the truth,

What hinders? As some teachers give to boys
Junkets and knacks, that they may learn apace.

FROM HORACE.

JOKING decides great things. Stronger and better oft than earnest can.

*TIS

FROM SOPHOCLES.

you that say it, not I. You do the deeds, And your ungodly deeds find me the words.

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FROM HOMER.

GLAUCUS, in Lycia we're adored as gods,
What makes 'twixt us and others so great odds?

FROM SENECA.

THERE can be slain

No sacrifice to God more acceptable
Than an unjust and wicked king.

Psalms.

PSALM I DONE INTO VERSE, 1653.

BLESS'D is the man who hath not walk'd astray
In counsel of the wicked, and i' th' way

Of sinners hath not stood, and in the seat
Of scorners hath not sat. But in the great
Jehovah's law is ever his delight,

And in his law he studies day and night.
He shall be as a tree which planted grows
By watery streams, and in his season knows
To yield his fruit, and his leaf shall not fall,
And what he takes in hand shall prosper all.
Not so the wicked, but as chaff which fann'd
The wind drives, so the wicked shall not stand
In judgment, or abide their trial then,
Nor sinners in th' assembly of just men.
For the Lord knows th' upright way of the just,
And the way of bad men to ruin must.

PSALM IL DONE AUG. 8, 1653. TERZETTE.
WHY do the Gentiles tumult, and the nations
Muse a vain thing, the kings of th' earth upstand
With pow'r, and princes in their congregations
Lay deep their plots together through each land

1 Milton's father composed Psalm tunes; and metrical Psalmody was very popula in Milton's time.

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