Word for Word from Horace: the Odes Literally Versified. By

W. T. Thornton, C.B. (Macmillan.)—This is a very praiseworthy effort. We cannot say that these translations are likely to live as standard versions of Horace. The thing that Mr. Thornton attempts cannot be done. Horace is as impossible as any poet for literal translation. Yet Mr. Thornton has been sometimes oven surprisingly successful. It is true that we have not found a whole ode which could be called a success, but there are many stanzas and even successions of stanzas which aro very good. The translator, too, shows a lively appreciation of Horace's metre. Some of his approximations are very satisfactory. Here are the four last stanzas of "Voles amcenum saape Lucretilem," beginning, "Di me tuentur ":— " The gods are my patrons; the gods have regard To my Muse and my piety. Here will you see A rich cornucopia of gifts for the bard

Outpouring its rural abundance for thee.

Here shunning Canicular heat, and reclining In valley secluded, you'll sing to the lyre That in Tees was strung, how with Circe the shining,

Penelope strove in one tore-Lindled fire.

Here goblets of innocent Lesbian quaffing,

You'll fear not, while chatting with me in the shade, That Bacchus and Mars may mix battling with laughing, Nor be of that passionate Cyrus afraid,

Lest, mad with suspicion, in conflict uneven, He tear from your ringlets their coronal crest ; Or lay—as though it, too, offence could have given— Unmerited violent hands on your vest."

That we take to ho as spirited, musical, and withal as literal a version as one could hope to see. The rendering of "Dices laborantos in uno Penelopen vitreamque Cireen " is not satisfactory. One could hardly gather from it the meaning of the original, though it is possible to reconcile the two. Mr. Thornton's exegesis is not indeed equal to his versifying power. He has not kept up to the progress of Horatian criti- cism, thinking Mr. Macleane's edition to be "truly admirable," and not even seeming to be aware of that gentleman's decease. We have noticed three or four strange renderings. "Heaving upward-borne sighs" is put for " sublimi mollis anholita"; in " dum mihi Fias recantatis arnica Opprobriis, animumque reddas," the sense is wholly missed, when wo have,— " so that thou,

Grown friendly as before,

Past gibes recant, and former love restore."

The " gibes " were Horace's, not the lady's. In i, 35, " Injuries° no pede promas," &c., does not mean," Do not with harmful foot," &c.; the

ne depends upon the metuunt, in the preceding line,—" the tyrants fear lest thou overturn," &c. " Quidlibet impotena sperare " is scarcely rendered by "weak, yet not doubting of success ;" and in the same ode, the phrase " rude Liburnians" seems to show a forgetfulness of the fact that the poet is speaking of a particular kind of ship-of- war.—The Odes of Hm.ace, in English Verse, by W. C. H. Forsyth, B.A. (Longmans), do not differ from a hundred other such versions. They contain, " quaedare mediocria, mala plura," and here and there, but sadly uncommon, a felicitous phrase. The reader shall judge of the quality, by comparing Mr. Forsyth's version of the same passage that wo have already given :— " The gods protect me, they who mind My piety and songs.

Here, Tyndaris, all the wealth you'll find That to my farm belongs.

Here in a lowly vale you'll flee The dog-star's heat, and tell us Of Circe and Penelope, Both for one lover jealous.

Here cups of Lesbian wine you'll draix Beneath a shady tree:

Bacchus and Mars shall rage restrain, Nor break our harmony.

Nor need you wanton Cyrus fear, Ho shall his spite repress.

Nor garlands from your tresses tear, Nor rend your harmless dress."