CLVIII.

TO SIR RODERICK MURCHISON.

What see I through the mist of years? a friend,
If the most ignorant of mortal men

In every science, may pronounce his name
Whom every science raises above all.
Murchison! thou art he.

Upon the bank
Of Loir thou camest to me, brought by Hare
The witty and warm-hearted, passing through
That shady garden whose broad tower ascends
From chamber over chamber; there I dwelt,
The flowers my guests, the birds my pensioners,
Books my companions, and but few beside.
After two years the world's devastor
Was driven forth, yet only to return
And stamp again upon a fallen race.
Back to old England flew my countrymen;
Even brave Bentham, whose inventive skill
Baffled at Chesmè and submerged the fleet
Of Ottoman,* urged me to flight with him
Ere the infuriate enemy arrived.

I wrote to Carnot, I am here at Tours,
And will remain.

He praised my confidence
In the French honour; it was placed in his.
No house but mine was left unoccupied
In the whole city by the routed troops.
Ere winter came 'twas time to cross the Alps;
Como invited me; nor long ere came
Southey, a sorrowing guest, who lately lost
His only boy. We walkt aside the lake,

And mounted to the level downs above,

Where if we thought of Skiddaw, named it not.
I led him to Bellaggio, of earth's gems

The brightest.

We in England have as bright,

Said he, and turned his face toward the west.

I fancied in his eyes there was a tear,

I know there was in mine: we both stood still.
Gone is he now to join the son in bliss,
Innocent each alike, one longest spared

To show that all men have not lived in vain.

Potemkin had the credit and the reward. The ships were built by Bentham on his own model, and he directed the attack,

Gone too is Hare: afar from us he lies,

In sad Palermo, where the most accurst
Cover his bones with bones of free men slain.
Again I turn to thee, O Murchison!

Why hast thou lookt so deep into the earth
To find her treasures? Gold we thought had done
Its worst before: now fields are left untill'd,
And cheerful songs speed not the tardy woof.
How dare I blame thee? 'twas not thy offence,
And good from evil springs, as day from night!
The covetous and vicious delve the mine
And sieve the dross that industry may work
For nobler uses: soon shall crops arise

More plenteous from it, soon the poor shall dwell
In their own houses, and their children throw
Unstinted fuel on the Christmas blaze

With shouts that shake the holly-branch above.

CRITICISMS

ON

THEOCRITUS, CATULLUS, AND PETRARCH.

CRITICISMS.

THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS.

WITHIN the last half-century the Germans have given us several good editions of Theocritus. That of Augustus Meinekius, to which the very inferior and very different poems of Bion and Moschus are appended, is among the best and the least presuming. No version is added; the notes are few and pertinent, never pugnacious, never prolix. In no age, since the time of Aristarchus, or before, has the Greek language been so profoundly studied, or its poetry in its nature and metre so perfectly understood, as in ours. Neither Athens nor Alexandria saw so numerous or so intelligent a race of grammarians as Germany has recently seen contemporary. Nor is the society. diminisht, nor are its labours relaxt, at this day. Valckenaer, Schrieber, Schaeffer, Kiesling, Wuesteman, are not the only critics. and editors who, before the present one, have bestowed their care and learning on Theocritus.

Doubts have long been entertained upon the genuineness of several among his Idyls. But latterly a vast number, even of those which had never been disputed, have been called in question by Ernest Reinhold, in a treatise printed at Jena in 1819. He acknowledges the eleven first, the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and eighteenth. Against the arbitrary ejection of the remainder rose Augustus Wissowa in 1828. In his Theocritus Theocritæus, vindicating them from suspicion, he subjoins to his elaborate criticism a compendious index of ancient quotations, in none of which is any doubt entertained of their authenticity. But surely it requires no