which she describes the sufferings which she endured from bis long-continued absence, and gives utterance to those emotions of delight which she could so well feign, and which became the congratulations of the moment. There is much beauty and much conformity to truth and nature in such effusions as these. We should have been glad to avail ourselves of Mr. Symmons's version, in every case, with as much pleasure as we cite from it in this instance.

• Meantime,
The gushing fountains, whence so many tears
Chasing each other trickled on my cheeks,
Are quite run out, and left without a drop :
And these sad eyes, which so late took their rest,
Are stain'd with blemish by late watching huurs,
Weeping for thee by the pale midnight lamp,
That burnt unheeded by me. In

my

dreams
I lay, my couch beset with visions sad,
And saw thee oft in melancholy woe !
More than the waking Time could show, I saw
A thousand dreary congregated shapes,
And started oft, the short-lived slumber fled,
Scared by the night-fly's solitary buzz:
But now my soul, so late o'ercharged with woe,
Which hail all this to bear, is now the soul
Of one who has not known what mourning is,
And now would fain address him thus, e'en thus :
This is the dog who guards the wattled fold;
This is the mainsheet which the sails and yards
Of some tall ship bears bravely to the winds ;
This is the pillar whose long shaft from earth
Touches the architrave of some high house ;
A child who is the apple of the eye
To the fond father wlio has none but hiin;
Ken of the speck of some fair lying land,
Seen by pale seamen well nigh lost to hope :
A fair day sweetest after tempest showers ;
A fountain fresh, with chrystal running clear,
To the parch'd traveller who thirsts for drink:
So in each shift of sad necessity
'Tis sweet to be deliver'd hard beset.
Thus my fond heart, with speeches such as these,
Pays to bis worthiness what she thinks due.
Let no one grudge me the sweet pleasure now,
But think upon the sorrows I have borne.'

Symmons, pp. 81, 82.
Potter's version is more concise.

• At thy return
The gushing fountains of my tears are dried,
Save that my eyes are weak with midnight watchings,

Straining, thro' tears, if haply they might see
Thy signal fires, that claim'd my fix'd attention.
If they were clos'd in sleep, a silly fly

Wou'd, with its slightest murm'rings, make me start,
And wake me to more fears. For thy dear sake
All this I suffer'd: but my jocund heart
Forgets it all, whilst I behold my lord,

My guardian, the strong anchor of my hope,
The stately column that supports my house,
Dear as an only child to a fond parent;
Welcome as land, which the tost mariner
Beyond his hope descries; welcome as day
After a night of storms with fairer beams
Returning; welcome as the liquid lapse
Of fountain to the thirsty traveller :
So pleasant is it to escape the chain

Of hard constraint. Such greeting I esteem
Due to thy honour : let it not offend,

For I have suffer'd much.'

The variationWeeping for thee,' and, Straining, thro' • tears,' in the versions of Symmons and Potter, results from the different view which each of these translators takes of the original, and not from the error of either of them. Boyd reads with Potter and Heath, and this interpretation has the sanction of Dr. Blomfield in his note to the passage; but, in his glossary, he seems to favour the other, which Mr. Symmons has adopted,

The fine choral ode, beginning TíTTE μa Tód' iμTédos, (line 948, Blom. Ed.) will afford a fair specimen of Mr. Symmons's translation of the lyrical portions of the tragedy. Potter's version, though faulty in some particulars, will not be dishonoured by comparison with this rival translation; and we shall therefore subjoin it. The difficulties of the original are well known to scholars.

CHORUS.

Why do these portents flit before my eyes,

Sights which the ancient soothsayer saw ?

Why does the voice of prophecy arise,

And fill my soul with awe?

Why sudden chants within my soul

That song which ne'er is bought for gold,
Unorder'd, uncontroll'd,

And like a prophet speaks, so loud and clear within ?
Nor will Assurance mount his throne,

And make his sov’ran way,

Like the morn's sun the dreams of night

Scatters before his orient light,

When mystery's shadows fade in empty air.

Why is it so ? long time is past
Since on the sandy shore
The armed ships their cables cast,
Waiting to waft the soldiers o'er
From hence to Ilion's strand.
And now I see them safe at home,
Mine own eyes witness they are come;
My ill-presaging soul,
of its own free accord,
Not to the lyre or tuneful chord,
But to the notes of an Erinnys, sings
The dirge that round the dead man rings ;
Nor will my lab'ring heart find rest
In hope or sweet assurance blest.
'Tis not for nought my bowels yearn,
'Tis not for nought within me burn
Thoughts whose bodings will not fai),
Whilst my deep-eddying soul
Goes in a giddy whirlpool round.
For surely Health in the extreme
Lies on a dangerous boundary ground,
For her near neighbour stands Disease,
And both the party-walls against each other lean.
And many a time the gallant argosie,
That bears man's destiny with outspread sails
In full career before the prosp'rous gales,

Strikes on a hidden rock,
And founders with a hideous shock.
The wealthy house on shipwreck's brim
With measured sling may overboard
Some of its precious burden fling,
But sinks not down itself brimful of woe;
For then the gift of Jove two-handed fills
The yearly furrows, and drives famine off;
Nature and Jove still walk the eternal round,
And call new riches from the teeming ground.
But O! upon the earth when once is shed
Black deadly blood of man,
Who will call up the black blood from the ground
With moving incantation's charm?
Check'd not Jove himself the man,
The mighty leech, who knew so well the art
To raise the silent dead.'
• I pause! some Fate from heaven forbids
The Fate within me utter more,
Else had my heart outrun my tongue,
And pour'd the torrent o'er.
Silence and darkness close upon my soul,
She roars within, immured,

And in the melancholy gloom

Of dying embers fades away.'

'CHORUS.

Symmons, pp. 91-5.

STRO. 1. What may this mean? Along the skies
Why do these dreadful portents roll?

Visions of terror, spare my aching eyes,

Nor shake my sad presaging soul!
In accents dread, not tun'd in vain,
Why bursts the free, unbidden strain ?
These are no phantoms of the night,
That vanish at the faithful light

Of steadfast confidence. Thou sober pow'r,
Whither, ah, whither art thou gone?
For since the long-pass'd hour,
When first for Troy the naval band
Unmoor'd their vessels from the strand,

Thou hast not in my bosom fix'd thy throne.
ANTIS. 1. At length they come these faithful eyes
See them returned to Greece again :
Yet, while the sullen lyre in silence lies,

Erinnys wakes the mournful strain:
Her dreadful pow'rs possess my soul,
And bid the untaught measures roll;
Swell in rude notes the dismal lay,
And fright enchanting Hope away;
Whilst, ominous of ill, grim-visag'd Care
Incessant whirls my tortur❜d heart.
Vain be each anxious fear!
Return, fair Hope, thy seat resume,
Dispel this melancholy gloom,

And to my soul thy gladsome light impart!
STRO. 2. Ah me, what hope! This mortal state
Nothing but cruel change can know.
Shou'd cheerful Health our vig'rous steps await,
Enkindling all her roseate glow;

Disease creeps on with silent pace,
And withers every blooming grace.
Proud sails the bark; the fresh gales breathe,
And dash her on the rocks beneath.

In the rich house her treasure Plenty pours;
Comes Sloth, and from her well-pois'à sling
Scatters the piled up stores.

Yet Disease makes not all her prey:
Nor sinks the bark beneath the sea:

And Famine sees the heav'n-sent harvest spring. 'ANTIS. 2. But when forth-welling from the wound The purple-streaming blood shall fall,

And the warm tide distain the reeking ground,
Who shall the vanish'd life recal?

Nor verse, nor music's magic pow'r,
Nor the fam'd leech's boasted lore;
Not that his art restor'd the dead,

Jove's thunder burst upon his head.-
But that the Fates forbid, and chain my tongue,

My heart, at Inspiration's call,

Wou'd the rapt strain prolong:
Now all is dark; it raves in vain,

:
And, as it pants with trembling pain,
Desponding feels its fiery transports fall.'

Potter.
The length to which this article has extended, forbids our
inserting any additional remarks on the criticisms which occur
in the notes to these translations; and for the same reason, we
must abstain from noticing the poetical versions which Mr.
Boyd has appended to his publication of the Agamemnon.
They comprise, a translation of the first choral ode of the Edi-
pus Colonæus in verse, executed with much taste and meri-
torious fidelity, Meleager's Idyl on the Spring, and transla-
tions from Gregory Nazianzen.

H

Art. IV. 1. The Saxon Chronicle, with an English Translation, and

Notes, Critical and Explanatory. By the Rev. J. Ingram, B.D.

4to. pp. 495. London. 1823.
2. The History of the Kings of England, and the Modern History of

William of Malmesbury. Translated from the Latin, by the Rev.
John Sharpe, B.A. 4to. pp. 643. London.
OW are we to account for the peculiar charm which ac-

companies the perusal of our ancient chronicles,-of such among them, at least, as were written by men of fair ability ? That there is such a charm, none will deny. It might almost seem that, so far from having attained to any improvement in this kind of composition, we have retrograded, and that the historians of modern times have sacrificed simplicity and effect to formal correctness and systematic arrangement. To a certain extent, this is perhaps true. The models of classical antiquity may have been too exclusively admired, and there may

, have prevailed too great an insensibility to the beauty and attractiveness of our domestic annalists. There is, however, another question that must be determined, before we can arrive at a satisfactory conclusion on this point ;-- is this attractive quality any thing more than the simple effect of novelty? The mind sated with the elaborate periods, subtle disquisitions, and dishonest partialities of later narrators, turns delightedly to the men of antique times, with their undisguised attachments, their