Mævia hunts the boar

(Her sex's grand distinction priz'd no more,')

do not explain in what degree this lady had thrown aside the modesty of her sex. Mr. G. was more faithful, but he occupied three lines in delineating the picture which Juvenal sketched in less than one and a half;

"When Mævia, all the woman laid aside,

Enters the lists, and to the middle bare,

Hurls at the Tuscan boar the quivering spear."

We shall not pursue a comparison of these two translations, but shall confine our attention solely to the work before us. The passage in the first Satire, beginning ith aude aliquid, and ending with farrago libelli, is thus given by Mr. Marsh:

Dare boldly then, if riches thou wouldst raise,
Heap crime on crime! for Virtue pines on praise.
"Tis vice alone supplies the wealth of most,
Their mansions, gardens, and their plate imbost.
O! who can taste the tranquil bliss of life,
When the sire keeps the son's corrupted wife?
When curst espousals mark th' excess of sin,
And vice buds forth upon the callow chin?
Indignant wrath shall nature's wants supply,
And lash to action such a bard as I.

• From that far distant period, when the main
Rush'd o'er its bounds, and delug'd all the plain;
When first Deucalion to an anchor brought,
On some high cliff, his bark, and anxious sought
Propitious oracles; when stones were hurl'd
Warm with new life, replenishing the world;
What pleases, vexes, agitates mankind,
Shall, from my wand'ring muse, attention find."

Such a line as

And lash to action such a bard as I'

we cannot approve; and we are still less satisfied with the manner in which the very rich and full period contained in the last two lines of the original

Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas,

Gaudia, discursus, nostri est farrago libelli,

is weakened in this new version.

A few lines below, in the same page, a couplet will be found which is not English; though this defect may be remedied by simply changing but into the.-Again:

While Peace, Faith, Virtue, Victory, tower on high,

And Concord, whence the storks salute the sky,'

is a literal translation: but, without a note, what will the English reader understand by the words in italics?

• Whole boars are dress'd, that amply would provide
For numerous guests :'-

these lines do not convey the idea of Juvenal's

Animal propter convivia natum,

viz. an animal created for the purpose of furnishing a feast. The concluding couplet of the first Satire in Mr. Marsh's version is made obscure by the omission of the word cinis:

Check my first wishes, and securely stray,

Along the Latin and Flamminian way.'

We recommend him to adopt something like the following alteration :

Check my first rage, and 'mid their ashes stray,
Who skirt the Latin or Flamminian way.

In the 2d Satire, Mr. M. by rendering

Qui Curios simulant et Bacchanalia vivunt

• Sages in speech and Bacchanals in deeds,'

has succeeded better than Mr. Gifford but we cannot pay him this compliment for the couplet in the third Satire, which corresponds with the line

Quid Rome faciam? mentiri nescio

since, though he has not fallen into the exact redundancy of his predecessor, he has been guilty of one equally exceptionableWhy should I stay at Rome? I scorn deceit,

And nonsense ever my contempt must meet.'

The beginning of the sixth Satire, which is pointedly di rected against the female sex, is not unhappily executed by Mr. M. Let the reader judge:

• When Saturn rul'd as universal lord,

I can believe was Chastity ador'd;

When rude-built huts receiv'd, without parade,

Gods, men, and herds, beneath one common shade;
While rustic house-wives, on bleak mountains bred,
With leaves and skins adorn'd the nuptial bed.
O how unlike to Cynthia, prais'd of late!
Or Lesbia weeping at her sparrow's fate.
Babes strong and vig'rous claim'd parental care;
Alike unpolish'd liv'd the simple pair.
Diff'rent were men while Nature yet was young,
When from cleft oaks, or clay, at first they sprung:

Much,

{

Much, or at least some modesty appear'd,
When Jove, but beardless Jove, the sceptre rear'd
When yet unperjur'd were the sons of Greece;
When unsuspecting Innocence in peace

Repos'd her head; ere guards or bolts were known,
None seiz'd another's right, or fear'd to lose his own.
At length Astræa, of celestial birth,

Withdrew, by slow degrees, her smiles from earth;
Shock'd at our crimes, she sought her ancient reign,
sister follow'd in her train.'

And her pure Of all the pieces of Juvenal, his tenth Satire possesses the greatest merit; and we never peruse it without admiration of the strong good sense of the writer, and of the admirable moral lesson with which it concludes. It is impossible to do full justice to this part of the original, but Mr. Marsh has tolerably expressed the sense. With this passage our extracts

must conclude:

Must we then wish for nothing?-My advice
Would leave the Gods to judge what best suffice
Our num'rous wants, for they alone can know
From what pure fount life's real blessings flow.
For transient joys substantial good is giv'n:
Dearer than to himself is man to heav'n.
We, urg'd by passion, by blind impulse led,
Implore the Gods to bless the nuptial bed:
They must determine whether babes or wife
Will prove the comfort, or the bane of life.

But that our pray'rs may still to something tend
That we may supplicate, and not offend,
To this alone be our requests confin'd:
"Vouchsafe us health of body, peace of mind;
A dauntless soul that looks without dismay
On death, that sees existence glide away,
Grateful to nature; can endure, refrain,
Placid, nor too solicitous of gain;

The toils of Hercules would rather court,
Than such love-banquets and unmanly sport,
As pleas'd th' Assyrian king." I thus advise-
The path to happiness thro' virtue lies.
Did Prudence o'er our erring race preside,
Blest might we live, and need no other guide;
But thee, O Fortune! to the skies we raise,
Extol thy pow'r, and celebrate thy praise.'

Though Mr. M. deems no apology necessary for the omission of notes and illustrations, we cannot be of his opinion; since the expressions of a classical writer are often unintelli gible without explanation.

ART.

Mo-y.

ART VIII. Mémoires du Comte Joseph de Puisaye, &e.; i. e. Me. moirs of Count Joseph de Puisaye, Lieutenant-General, &c., forming a History of the French Royalist Party during the late Revolution. Vols. I. and II. 8vo. 14s. Boards. Budd, &c. London.

Thas been sometimes said that no delinquent ever published an account of his life without convicting himself; and whe ther the position be universally true or not, it must be granted that it has been verified in a great many instances. Grave suspicions, it is well known, have been entertained respecting the author and subject of these memoirs; and the existence of them is not only admitted in the work itself, but its professed object is to remove them by the plain exposure of the transac tions in which M. de. Puisaye was concerned. He explicitly avows that he is out of favour with Louis XVIII. and his family, and obnoxious to his council; and he even goes so far as to say that, in the case of that Prince's restoration, (which he thinks is by no means an improbable event, as a revolution of twenty-four hours may effect it,) he should not return to his native country, but remain still a subject of his Britannic Majesty.

Assuming the principle above laid down, the reader may be curious to learn what is the judgment which we have formed of this suitor at the bar of the public. If such a wish exists in any breast, we are not able at present satisfactorily to gratify it, because the subject is not fully before us; these volumes form ing only a part of the writer's memoirs, leaving him at the moment of his escape to England, and at an instant short of that period to which the most serious of the accusations preferred against him belong. As far as the account of his conduct extends, however, we see no ground for impeaching it. If we do not subscribe to all his principles, nor coincide in all his views, we are not prepared to condemn nor even to censure them. He represents himself as warmly attached to his sovereign, and firmly devoted to the welfare and interests of his country; and we do not see in his public acts, at least such of them as are stated here, aught that is inconsistent with these respectable claims. In our judgment, he might be faithful to his king without being guilty of extremes, without being a bigot to the former system, and without partaking in the puerile and sottish delusions of Coblentz. We do not regard his loyalty as questionable because he did not hastily fly from his natal soil, nor attempt to incite foreign powers to coerce and cashier his countrymen; and we are certainly little inclined to class him with the rebellious because he thought that reforms consistent with the nature of the French monarchy were

were eligible, and because in other circumstances he conceived that great concessions on the part of the king were become expedient, as being unavoidable. Neither should we represent him as tinctured with Jacobinism, because he may think that the royal return should be a matter of compromise, that the monarch should not hesitate to signify his readiness to adopt an improved plan of government, to abandon antient prejudices, and to be influenced by actual circumstances; nor do we regard him as impious, disloyal, and unworthy of confidence, because he may think that there were men of ability and good intentions in all the parties. If we cannot approve of insurrection at the early period in which he states that he was digesting plans for setting it on foot, it is but justice to him to add that we do not find him in arms till a monster had griped the sceptre, against whom it surely could be no civil nor moral offence to rebel.

Having thus frankly stated our sentiments with regard to M. de Puisaye, on the above points we shall take leave to observe that we should have preferred the narrative, and have viewed the author with more confidence, if it had been less frequently interrupted by professions of candour, and by diatribes in favour of liberality; if it had been more brief and direct; and if it had been submitted at once complete to the world. Why all this preliminary parrying? Why is the pulse of Europe, as it were, to be previously felt? Why does the tale stop short at the part which is most interesting, and which chiefly affects the character of the author? All this raises in the mind suspicions of management which a strait-forward line of conduct does not require. Yet far be it from us to infer a bad heart, where perhaps only the head has been inju dicious. If the matter be ever laid fully before us, we shall honestly report our final sentiments with regard to it, without fear or bias; and in the mean time, we shall proceed to discuss the present volumes, in the point of view in which they are chiefly interesting to the English reader; namely, as they throw light on a period of as high import as any that is to be found in history. In this respect, they have very considerable claims to attention, since they abound in facts and observations made by a person of attainments and talents, who was a leading actor in the scenes which he delineates.

M. de Puisaye ascribes the failure of the royalist cause to the emigration, to the weak councils of the Princes, to their error in placing reliance on foreign potentates, to the prema ture commencement of the war, and to the selfish and narrow policy on which it was conducted.-We agree with him in regarding the emigration as a most unfortunate and impolitic

measure;