Son of Latona, grant the blessing, That, a cloudless mind possessing, And not infirm of frame, in soft decay,

Cheer'd by the breathing lyre, my life may pass away!

TO HIS

ATTENDANT.

BOOK THE FIRST, ODE THE THIRTY-EIGHTH.

Boy, not in these Autumnal bowers

Shalt thou the Persian vest dispose,
Of artful fold, and rich brocade;

Nor tie in gaudy knots the sprays and flowers.
Ah! search not where the latest rose

Yet lingers in the sunny glade;

Plain be the vest, and simple be the braid!

I charge thee, with the myrtle wreath
Not one resplendent bloom entwine;
We both become that modest band,

As stretch'd my vineyard's ample shade beneath,
Jocund I quaff the rosy
wine;

While near me thou shalt smiling stand,

And fill the sparkling cup with ready hand.

ΤΟ

SALLUST.

BOOK THE SECOND, ODE THE SECOND.

DARK in the Miser's chest in hoarded heaps,
Can gold, my SALLUST, one true joy bestow,
Where sullen, dim, and valueless it sleeps,

Whose worth, whose charms, from circulation flow?
Ah! then it shines attractive on the thought,
Rises, with such resistless influence fraught
As puts to flight pale Fear, and Scruple cold,

Till Life, e'en Life itself, becomes less dear than
Gold.

Rome, of this power aware, thy honour'd name
O Proculeius! ardently adores,

Since thou did❜st bid thy ruin'd brothers claim

A filial right in all thy well-earn'd stores.—

To make the good deed deathless as the great,
Yet fearing for her plumes Icarian fate,

1. 15. Icarian fate-Penna metuentę solvi must surely be allusive to the dissolving pinions of Icarus-and mean, that deeds

This record, Fame, of precious trust aware,
Shall long, on cautious wing, solicitously bear.

And thou, my SALLUST, more complete thy sway, Restraining the insatiate lust of gain,

Than should'st thou join, by Conquest's proud essay, Iberia's hills to Libya's sandy plain;

Than if the Carthage sultry Afric boasts,

With that which smiles on Europe's lovelier coasts, Before the Roman arms, led on by thee,

Should bow the yielding head, the tributary knee.

See bloated Dropsy added strength acquire
As the parch'd lip the frequent draught obtains;
Indulgence feeds the never-quench'd desire,
That loaths the viand, and the goblet drains.
Nor could exhausted floods the thirst subdue
Till that dire Cause, which spreads the livid hue
O'er the pale form, with watry languor swell'd,
From the polluted veins, by medicine, be expell❜d.

Virtue, whate'er the dazzled vulgar dream,
Denies Phraates, seated on thy throne,

of private generosity are apt to melt from the recollection of mankind; while those of what is called heroic exertion go down to Posterity. For this idea of the passage the translator was indebted to a learned friend.

Immortal Cyrus, Joy's internal gleam, And thus she checks the crowd's mistaken tone; "He, only he, who, calmly passing by, "Not once shall turn the pure, unwishing eye "On heaps of massy gold, that near him glare,

My amaranthine wreath, my diadem shall wear."