Translations and Original Pieces. By the late Charles Gipps Prowett,
M.A. Edited by C. H. Monro, M.A. (Deighton, Bell, and Co., Cambridge.)—This volume is naturally intended, in the first place, for the many friends whom Mr. Prowett had attracted to himself ; but it is not without a general value and interest. The author was an accomplished scholar, and loved literature, and the Classics especially, with a genuine affection not too common in these days ; and it is well that his life should not be allowed to pass away without some memorial of his work. The chief translations in the volume are a rendering of the Georgics (into blank verse), and of the Eumenides. Here the choral odes are in rhyme. We may compare
a specimen of the former with the parallel passage in the excellent translation published last year by Mr. J. Rhoades (" Felix qui potait reram cognoscere causal; ") :-
" 0 happy, happy, he who hath attained Such skill in N attire's laws as may have might To plant his foot upon all dread of doom Inexorable, and maw of roaring Hell ! Nor yet noblest his lot to whom are known The guardian powers of the country, Pan, And old Silvanns, and the sister Nymphs ; He holds his quiet way, all undisturbed For rods and axes of the Commonwealth, Or purple pride of kings, or faOLions zeal That sets mistrustful feud 'twist brethren born." Mr. Rhoades has it thas " Happy was he, who, skilled to understand Nature's hid causes, and beneath his feet All terrors east, and Death's relentless doom, And the loud roar of greedy Acheron ! Blest, too is he who knows the rural gods, Pan, old Silvans, and the sister Nymphs ! • Him nor the rods of public power can bend, Nor kingly purple, nor fierce feud that drives Brother to turn on brother."
We notice that " Actias Orithyia," in Georgic I., is rendered by " And Orithyia on the Attic coast," an obvious error, the allusion being to the legend which made the Thracian Boreas " the son-in-law of the Athenians," as the Pytbia called him. The translation of the Eumenides seems effective. Mr. Prowett belonged to the old-fashioned race of scholars, and speaks of Athena as " Minerva." Of the original verses, we may mention " The Young Squire at Home" as evidently a picture drawn from life, and the verses addressed to Miss Biddulph, which are full of strong feeling.
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