A CORRECTION.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I have read your critique on Mr. Ault's book, The Poet's Life of Christ. Are you not mistaken about Crashaw's poem on the marriage in Cana ? "The conscious water saw its God and blushed." Archbishop Trench, no mean authority and himself a poet of considerable standing, says of this epigram that it is graceful, and was written not in English but in Latin, which runs thus :—
" Unde rubor vestris et non sua purpura lymphis Quac rosa mirantes tam nova mutat aquas! Numen convivae praesens agnoseite numen, " Nymphs pudica Deum vidit et erubuit."
The English translation of this is by Aaron Hill and runs :—
"When Christ at Cana's feast by power divine Inspired cold -water with the warmth of wine ; See,' cried they, when in widening tide it gushed, 'The bashful stream hath seen its God and blushed.' 1.1 The word is " bashful " (pudica), not " conscious " as giva by your critic. After all, I think there is something to be
said for Crashaw. " Conscious " is not his, and therefore cannot be called a pretty conceit of his.—I am, Sir, &c.,
R. MADDEN, A.M., elk.
The Acacias, Portarlington, Queen's Co.
[Nostra culpa !—En. Spectator.]
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