THE TYRANT'S PLEA: A TRANSLATION.
[TO TRH EDITOR OP TRH "SPECTATOR:1
should not take the trouble to translate these lines (Spectator, September 19th), or ask you to be good enough to find room for the translation, were I not in sympathy with the feeling which caused Mr. Parnell to send them to you. There may be some in like sympathy who cannot follow every. word of the Latin. I make no apology for changing the illustrations of the first line, or for introducing the last line but one, because it is allowed that translation is to convey the same idea in readable English :—
" As fire from water or as day from night,
So stand apart the useful and the right.
The force of sceptres perishes at once If justice' scale be balanced by a dunce, And care for honour overturns a King; Power to do evil is the only thing A government that's hated can afford, And loss of any limit to the sword.
Nor can impunity serenely sit On savage act, but by completing it.
If one show conscience, bring him to his end:
Virtue and despotism do not blend.
And let there be no moderate endeavour, Assassination's influence is for ever."
Blenheim Club.
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