presented with a kid, whose forehead, pouting with new horns, determines upon both love and war in vain; for this offspring of the wanton flock shall tinge your cooling streams with scarlet blood. The severe season of the burning dogstar cannot reach thee; you afford a refreshing coolness to the oxen fatigued with the ploughshare, and to the ranging flock. You also shall become one of the famous fountains, through my celebrating the oak that covers the hollow rocks from whence thy prattling rills bounding descend.

ODE XIV.

TO THE ROMANS.

He celebrates Augustus's return from Spain.

AUGUSTUS CÆSAR, O ye Roman people, who was lately said, like another Hercules, to have explored the laurel purchasable by death, revisits his domestic Gods, victorious from the Spanish shore. Let the matron Livia, to whom her husband alone is dear, come forth in public proces sion, having first performed her duty to the just Gods, and Octavia, the sister of our glorious general, the mothers also of the maidens and of the youths just preserved from danger, becoiningly adorned with supplicatory fillets. Ye, O young men, and young women lately married, abstain from ominous expressions. This day, to me a real festival, shall expel gloomy cares: 1 will neither dread commotions, nor violent death, while Cæsar is in possession of the earth. Away,

slave, and seek for perfume and chaplets, and a cask that remembers the Marsian* war, if any vessel could elude the vagabond Spartacus.† And bid the tuneful Neæra make haste to collect into a knot her essenced hair; but, if any delay should happen from the surly porter, come away. Hoary hair mollifies minds that are fond of strife and wrangling petulency. I would not have endured this treatment, warm with youth, in the consulship of Plancus.

ODE XV.

UPON CHLORIS.

That at least, now she is become an old woman, she ought to set some bounds to her debauchery and lewd

ness.

THOU wife of the indigent Ibycus, at length put an end to your wickedness, and your infamous practices. Cease to sport amongst the damsels, and to intermix a cloud with bright constellations, being now on the verge of a timely death. If any thing well becomes Pholoe, it does not you, Chloris, likewise. Your daughter, with more propriety, attacks the young men's apartments, like a Bacchanalian roused up by the rattling timbrel. The love of Nothus makes her frisk about like to the wanton she-goat. The wool shorn near the famous Luceria becomes you,

*Dated at the time of the Marsian or Italic war.

+ Spartacus the gladiator, the leader of the malcontents in that war.

now antiquated,* not musical instruments, neither the damask flower of the rose; nor hogsheads drunk down to the lees.

ODE XVI.

TO MECENAS.

That riches are the fountain of all evils, and that the greatest happiness of life consists in a mean.

A BRAZEN tower, and doors of oak, and the melancholy watch of wakeful dogs, had sufficiently defended the imprisoned Danaë from midnight gallants, had not Jupiter and Venus laughed at Acrisius the anxious keeper of the immured maiden; for they well knew that the way would be safe and open, after the God had transformed himself into a bribe. Gold delights to penetrate through the midst of guards, and to break through stone walls, more potent than the thunderbolt. The family of the Grecian augurt perished, immersed in destruction on the account of lucre. The man of Macedonia cleft the gates of cities, and subverted rival monarchs, by bribery. Bribes enthrall even fierce captains of ships. Care, and a thirst for more, is the consequence of increasing wealth. Therefore, O Mæcenas, thou glory of the Roman knights, I have justly dreaded to raise the far conspicuous head. As much more as any man shall deny himself, so much more shall he receive from the Gods. Naked as I am, I

*That is, she had better spin than intrigue.

† Amphiaraus, who for a bribe was betrayed by his wife Eryphile.

Philip, the father of Alexander the Great.

seek the camps of those that covet nothing; and, as a deserter, rejoice to quit the side of the wealthy. a more illustrious possessor of a contemptible fortune, than if I could be said to treasure up in my granaries all that the industrious Appulian cultivates, poor amidst abundance of wealth. A rivulet of clear water, and a wood of a few acres, and a certain prospect of my good crop, are blessings unknown to him who glitters in the proconsulship of fertile Africa: I am more happily circumstanced. Though neither the Calabrian bees produce honey, nor wine ripens to age for me in a Formian cask, nor rich fleeces increase in Gallie pastures; yet distressful poverty is remote, nor, if I desired more, would you refuse to grant I shall be better able to extend my small revenues by contracting my desires, than if I could join the kingdom* of Halyatticus to the Phrygian plains. Much is wanting to those who covet much. "Tis well with him, to whom God hath given what is necessary with a sparing hand.

it me.

ODE XVII.

TO ELIUS LAMIA.

He exhorts him to spend the morrow, which threatened to be dark and cloudy, in a liberal indulgence.

O ELIUS, who art nobly descended from the ancient Lamias, (†for they report, according to faithful records, that both the first of the Lamian

* Lydia.

This parenthesis is judiciously omitted by Sanadon.

family, and all the race of the descendants, received their name from the founder from whom you derive your origin,) who is said to have possessed, as prince, the Formian walls, and Liris, gliding to the shores of Marica-an extensive potentate: To-morrow, a tempest, sent forth from the east, shall strew the grove with many leaves, and the shore with useless sea-weed, unless that old prophetess of rain, the raven, deceives me. Pile up the dry wood while you may; to-morrow, you shall indulge your genius with wine, and with a pig of two months old, with your slaves dismissed from their labours.

ODE XVIII.

TO FAUNUS.

A HYMN.

That he would be propitious to him.

O FAUNUS, thou lover of the flying nymphs, nignly traverse my borders and sunny fields, and depart propitious to my little nursery; if a tender kid falls a victim to you at the completion of the year, nor plenty of wines be wanting to the goblet, the companion of Venus, and the ancient altar smokes with liberal perfume. All the cattle sport in the grassy plain, when the Nones of December return to you for the celebration of your festival; the village, keeping holiday, enjoys leisure in the fields, together with the oxen, free from toil. The wolf wanders amongst the fearless lambs; the wood scatters its rural leaves