CURRENT LITERATURE.
Poems from Horace, Catulius, and Sappho, and other Pieces. By Edward George Harman. (J. M. Dent and Co.)—Scholars and lovers of belles lettres will welcome this pleasant little volume, in spite of the inequality of its workmanship. Mr. Harman does not follow a fixed principle throughout. Sometimes he trans- lates ; sometimes he paraphrases; sometimes, again, he gives the original an entirely modern turn or twist, as, for example, in this smart per-version of " Persicos odi " :- " Sir John to his valet :
I do not like your Jewish tastes, I hate your furs and astrachan, Melton and velvet's good enough Or was, to coat a gentleman.
You need not trouble to inquire What is the latest sort of hot, ehapinan and Moore have got my size And yours, and can attend to that."
On the whole, however, we prefer Mr. Harman as a serious trans- lator. The opening stanza of " Faune, Nympharum," is charm- ingly done
• Faunus, thou lover of the Nymphs that fly, If through my sunny fields thou chance to pass, Kind be thy coming and tby footing light Upon the grass."
The ode "Ad Melpomenen" is excellent throughout ; so, too, the "Diffugere fives." Occasionally a point is missed, as when "Gras ingens iterabimus aequor " is baldly translated "To- morrow we will roam the sea," and the " Donee gratus eram tibi" is disfigured by the false rhyme of " pleasing " and "wreathing" in the first verse. The versions from Catullus exhibit the inequality of Mr. Harman's work, for while his renderings of " Vivamus Ines Lesbia " and " Lugete Veneres" recall a good deal of the grace and tenderness of the originals, the poignant sincerity of the famous farewell, "Multas per gentes," tec., with its nobly pagan close, " in perpetuum frater ave atque vale," is impaired in Mr. Harman's paraphrase by the interpolation of a far-fetched image, "like sound of sea-rocked bell." The " burning " quality of Sappho's verse is somewhat tempered in Mr. Harman's renderings, but he is very happy in his treatment of an exquisite epitaph from the Anthology, Olin lOaves,11pdvrn. The first and final verses may form our last quotation from this pleasant little book :- " .111! tell us not that in the grave,
A bride of Death, our darling lies; Far out beyond the Western wave To fairer fields her spirit hies.
Of human love she needs no store, A better lot to her is given, Who without blame for evermore Dwells in the huly light of heaven."
Mr. Harman may be excused for the suggestion involved in the use of the last word—the original is airycas 4v Kagapaicriv '0Airi.orov —since the whole epitaph has a quasi-Christian tone, entirely alien from that of the lines of Catallus referred to above.
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