Lyrics and Bucolics. Translated by T. Herbert Noyes. (London: J.
C. Hotten.)—Like Mr. Conington, Mr. Noyes thinks that the English heroic line of ten syllables can be seldom made to comprise all that may be said in a hexameter containing on an average fifteen syllables. He has, therefore, treated the Eclogues of Virgil much after the way in which Mr. Conington has treated the tEneid, and so far as the Eclogue.% can be mentioned in the same breath with the epic poems, his version of Virgil's pastorals may fairly take its place by the side of Mr. Coning- ton's translation of the dEneid. Mr. Noyes has not restricted himself to one metre. The variety adds to the interest of these Bucolics in their English dress, and the lovers of each poetry have here as pleasant a banquet as can well be set before them. Mr. Noyes fears that such readers must be reckoned by units ; but it would have been more pru- dent not to give expression to his misgivings. The charge of neglecting good poetry is one which cannot be.urged with justice against readers of the present day, but the comparative unpopularity of pastoral poems, if the fact be granted, is no sort of proof that the nation has given up, or is going to give up, poetry in general. After all that can be said for the Eclogues of Virgil, they must still retain their unreal and merely fanciful character, and Mr. Noyes has done as much as can be expected from him if in his hands these poems do not become even more fanciful and unreal in English. In the translations from a few of the Odes of Horace which follow the Eclogues, Mr. Noyes has to compete with formidable rivals, and his success is here more questionable. His legend of the Sibyl serves to show that he may work to bettor purpose as an original writer than as a translator, but he will gain nothing by proclaiming war against reviewers generally. We may hope that he has felt already the unfair- ness of the parting challenge in his epilogue :—
When the cry of critics scent my book, They will rim it down, once they are on the Mack."
Mr. Noyes is not justified in leading any one into temptation.
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