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and in the first place, to cite the original, that those who are acquainted with the French language, may have an opportunity of judging not only of the merits of the extracts as English poetry, but of their fidelity as translations.

No. V.

Here strive for empire, o'er the happy scene,
The nymphs of fountain, sea, and woodland green;
The power of grace and beauty holds the prize
Suspended even to her votaries,

And finds amazed, where'er she casts her eye,
Their contest forms the matchless harmony.

PAULUS SILENTARIUS, apud Bland.

THE first book of the Gardens of De Lille is principally occupied in teaching how to borrow and combine with the happiest skill and effect, the richest materials of picturesque beauty; how best, in fact, to convert the scene to be embellished into a perfect and appropriate and harmonious whole; by consulting beyond all things the genius of the place, and so adapting the operations of art to the peculiarities of the site, as to hide its defects, and call forth all its advantages; a subject which naturally leads to a consideration of the different species of landscapes and of gardens.

After a few preliminary lines, in which the

author commemorates the return of Spring, and speaks with well-founded rapture of the happy subject he had chosen, he thus proceeds to invoke the assistance of the Didactic Muse.

Toi donc, qui, mariant la grâce à la vigueur,
Sais du chant didactique animer la langueur,
O Muse! si jadis, dans les vers de Lucrèce,
Des austères leçons tu polis la rudesse ;
Si par toi, sans flétrir, le langage des dieux,
Son rival a chanté le soc laborieux;

Viens orner un sujet plus riche, plus fertile,
Dont le charme autrefois avoit tenté Virgile.
N'empruntons point ici d'ornement étranger;
Viens, de mes propres fleurs mon front va s'om-
brager;

Et, comme un rayon par colore un beau nuage,
Des couleurs du sujet je tiendrai mon langage.

L'art innocent et doux que célèbrent mes vers,
Remonte aux premiers jours de l'antique univers.
Dès que l'homme eut soumis les champs à la culture,
D'un heureux coin de terre il soigna la parure;
Et plus près de ses yeux il rangea sous ses loix
Des arbres favoris et des fleurs de son choix.
Des simple Alcinoüs le luxe encore rustique
Décoroit un verger. D'un art plus magnifique
Babylone éleva des jardins dans les airs.

Chant i.

Beautiful as these lines certainly are, the following version of them, especially that part of it which is distinguished by italics, must, if I am not greatly mistaken, be pronounced equal in point of melody, and superior in point of poetic expression.

Come then, O Muse! that oft in union sweet,
Bid'st gentle grace and warmest vigour meet,
To animate the lesson's languid lore;
If e'er Lucretius bless'd thy aid of yore,
If, fir'd by thee, in high celestial lays,
His rival sung the ploughshare's useful praise:
A richer subject now invites thy voice,

A theme once bless'd by Virgil's happy choice..
Here let no foreign ornament be found,
With my own garland let my brow be crown'd.
Lo! where the lustre-beaming star of day
Gilds yonder evening cloud with purest ray;
So shall my verse reflect a brighter gleam,
Tinged with the colours of my lovely theme.

The gentle art, that now adorns my lays,
Was dear to infant Nature's golden days.
When lab'ring man first tam'd the stubborn soil,
One little happy corner bless'd his toil.
Where by his hands arranged, in order grew
His chosen trees, his fav'rite flow'rets blew.

Hence in Alcinoüs' blooming orchard shone
The simple lux'ry of a rustic throne;
Hence with stupendous art, upraised on high,
Thy gardens, Babylon, assail'd the sky.

A garden, which Bacon has justly termed the purest of all human pleasures, appears to have been also the most ancient. The garden of Alcinous is certainly, as De Lille has remarked, in a note to his introductory lines, a precious monument of the antiquity and history of gardens, and clearly one of the earliest productions of infant art; but we possess one yet anterior, and, if tradition be correct in pointing out its site, one that, from its very situation, must have included much of picturesque as well as of regular beauty. I allude to the garden of King Solomon, slightly mentioned in Ecclesiastes, and delineated more at length, through the medium of comparison, in the Song of Songs, of which latter description the following is an admirable version by my friend Dr. Good:

My bride! my love! in thee perfection meets ;
A garden art thou, fill'd with matchless sweets:
A garden wall'd, those matchless sweets to shield;
A spring inclosed, a fountain fresh and seal'd;

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