COWLEY'S VERSE.
Poems Selected from the Writings of Mr. Abraham Cowley. (A. C. Curtis, Guildford. 5s. net.)—This is a pretty little volume, and does credit to the Press from which it issues. (We are glad to see the country-town Presses beginning again to bring out good work as they did in former times.) The editor has selected between forty and fifty specimens of Cowley's verse, not always printing thorn complete ; and it really is a little pedantic to insist on keeping some pedantry or conceit—and these were Cowley's weaknesses—when everything else pleases. Perhaps his transla- tions are his best work, at least to modern ears, for there he was governed by finer tastes than his own. Here is a specimen from the version of Horace, Epod. II., the description of the country wife :—
" Saida as the ancient suninwrit Sabina were Such as Apulia, frugal still, does bear, Who makes her children and her house her care, And joyfully the work of Life does abate, Nor thinks herself too noble or too fine To pin the sheepfold or to milk the kine, Who waits at door against her husband come From rural duties, late, and wearied home, Where she receives him with a kind embrace, A cheerful fire and yet more cheerful face ; And fills the Bowl up to her homely Lord. And with domestic plenty loads the Board."
It is more a paraphrase than a translation, but it is good.
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