A corre i frutti dai piegati rami

Da gli arboscelli, intrinseco divenni

De la piu vaga e cara virginella

Che mai spiegasse al vento chioma d'oro.

Of a similar character, and therefore alike difficult to be justly translated, is that beautiful description of the night, in the fourth book of the Eneid:

Nox erat, et placidum carpebant fessa soporem
Corpora per terras, sylvæque et sæva quiêrant
Æquora; cùm medio volvuntur sidera lapsu :
Cùm tacet omnis ager, pecudes, pictæque volucres,
Quæque lacus latè liquidos, quæque aspera dumis
Rura tenent, somno positæ sub nocte silenti

Lenibant curas, et corda oblita laborum.

Of the same character are the following beautiful passages from Chaulieu :

Fontenay, lieu délicieux,

Où je vis d'abord la lumiere,
Bientot au bout de ma carriere,

Chez toi je joindrai mes ayeux.
Muses, qui dans ce lieu champêtre
Avec soin me fites nourrir,

Of a similar character to that of the preceding examples, is that beautiful moral

But now experience shews the bliss

For which I fondly sought,

Not worth the long impatient wish
And ardour of the thought.

My youth met fortune fair array'd,
In all her pomp she shone,

And might, perhaps, have well essay'd
To make her gifts my own.

But when I saw the blessings show'r
On some unwilling mind,

I left the chace, and own'd the pow'r
Was justly painted blind.

I pass'd the glories which adorn

The splendid courts of kings,

And while the persons mov'd my scorn,

I rose to scorn the things.

In this translation, which has the merit of faithfully transfusing the sense of the original, with a great portion of its simplicity of expression, the following couplet is a very faulty deviation from that character of the style.

My errors cherish'd hope to smile

On newly-born desire.

thought in the Elegy on Bion, by Theocritus or Moschus, of which the simplicity of the expression is so consonant to the tenderness of the sentiment:

Αἴ, αἴ, ταὶ μαλάχαι μὲν, ἐπὰν καλα κᾶπον ὅλων]αι
Ἤ τὰ χλωρὰ σέλινα, τό τ' ἐυθαλὲς ὅλον ἄνηθον,
Ὕσερον αὖ ζωοντι, καὶ εἰς ἔτος αλλο φυονι
Αμμες δ' οι μεγαλοι καὶ καρτεροι ἢ σοφοί άνδρες,
Οππότε πρῶτα θάνωμες, ἀνάκοοὶ ἐν χθονὶ κοίλᾳ
Ενδομες εὖ μάλα μακρὸν ἀτέρμονα νήγρειον ὕπνον.

This fine passage, which draws a sympathetic accord from every human breast, has been translated and imitated, perhaps, more frequently than any other in the works of the ancients. I know not, if it has ever met with greater justice than in the following translation by Helius Eobanus, in his Latin version of the Idyllia of Theocritus :

Hei mihi, quod malvæ virides et adhuc redolentes
Atque apium viride, et quod totum floret anethum,
Sæpe reviviscunt, et in annum deinde reverso
Sole renascuntur: nos magni, nosque potentes

Quum semel occidimus, quàm primum fata subimus,
Condimur in terram, atque intra cava busta reclusi
Perpetuo durum dormimus tempore somnum®.

* The inspired writer of the book of Job has conveyed the same sentiment, in language which has added the sublime to the simply beautiful: Thus happily expressed in the Septuagint translation.

1. Βροϊὸς γὰρ γεννητὸς γυναικὸς, ὀλιγόβιος, καὶ πλήρης οργῆς.

2. Ἡ ὥσπερ ἄνθος ἄνθῆσαν ἐξέπεσεν, ἀπέδρα δὲ ὥσπερ σκιὰ, καὶ ὅτι μὴ τῇ.

7. Ἔσι γὰρ δένδρῳ ἐλπὶς, ἐὰν γὰρ ἐκκοπῇ, ἔτι ἐπανθησεν, καὶ ὁ ρά δαμνος αὐτῷ ὀν μὴ ἐκλείπῃ.

8. Ἐὰν γὰρ γηράσῃ ἐν γῇ ἡ ῥίζα αὐτε, ἐν δὲ πέτρᾳ τελευίησῃ τὸ τέλε Nos are

9. ̓Απὸ ὀσμῆς ὕδαλος ἀνθήσει, ποιήσει δὲ θερισμὸν, ὥσπερ νεόφυλον 10. ̓Ανὴς δὲ τελευτήσας ᾤχεῖο, πεσὼν δὲ βροῖος ἐκ ἔτι ἐστί.

1. Man that is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.

2. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he flieth also as a shadow, and continueth not.

7. For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not

cease.

8. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground:

9. Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and will bring forth boughs like a plant.

10. But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?

4. THE foregoing examples exhibit a species of composition, which uniting just and natural sentiments with simplicity of expression, preserves at the same time a considerable portion of elevation and dignity. But there is another species of composition, which, possessing the same union of natural sentiments with simplicity of expression, is essentially distinguished from the former, by its always partaking in a considerable degree of comic humour. This is that kind of writing which the French characterise by the term naïf, and for which we have no perfectly corresponding expression in English. "Le naïf," says Fontenelle, "est une 66 nuance du bas *.

Marmontel disputes this opinion, and holds that there may be a naïveté noble, of which he gives an example in the scene between Joas and Athalie: "Joas. Quel pere je quit"terois ! et pour....... Ath. Eh bien? Joas. Pour quelle "mere!" This may be termed a noble ingenuity; but it has too much grandeur to come under the description of naïveté. Voltaire likewise is of opinion that there may be a naiveté without any mixture of lowness; and gives an example from his own writings, which, perhaps, will not generally be thought a very happy one, In a letter to M. D'Ar