Some love to mangle turf: I see Them drive their balls from sandy tee, And think their day's delight begins When they are up among the whins. Some elders, full of godly zeal, Turn crazy about rod and reel; And ministers, reputed wise, Take service with the Lord of Flies (Beelzebub), and like the work Better than prosing in a kirk. _Conjugis immemor._ Sir Samuel Crœsus (noble wight! Who paid so dear to be a knight) Forsakes his lady for the hills, And aims at birds he never kills. Too late in life he shouldered gun, Breathless he toils beneath the sun, Sips whisky every other minute, Until his flask has nothing in it; Then, at the end of strength and tether, Falls tipsy in the blooming heather. _Praemia frontium._ But as for me, my wants are few: £3,000 a year would do; A villa built upon a height, With ample view to left and right; A garden with a sunny seat, A grassy lawn with borders neat. Inside, a study furnished well (Like a true scholar's citadel) With books and pipes and easy chairs; Here, in despite of worldly cares, If I should write a verse or two-- A lyric that a _judge_ like you Could read, without once yawning, through-- I'd be as proud as any man That scribbled since the world began. Horace is thus fit for all times and conjunctures, and is the most modern of all the Latin writers-- "Horace still charms with pleasing negligence, And without method talks us into sense." The translation of Horace's Odes into modern speech is generally admitted to be one of the most difficult tasks to which a versifier can apply himself. And yet there is no task so often essayed. It is a common saying in France that, when a lawyer quits the bar and retires, he is certain to publish a new translation of Horace after a year or two's studious ease. M. Loubet, we know, is a zealous devotee of the Sabine bard. Not the least droll of Mr. Gladstone's many feats was the publication, shortly before his death, of a translation of Horace's Odes, a translation wholly worthless indeed, in spite of the writer's immense scholarship, but valuable as showing the fascination exercised by Horace over the most austere and ecclesiastical of minds. It seemed strange indeed to see the great statesman turn aside from his study of Butler and the Fathers of the Church, in order to put into English verse the gay, and often scandalous odes, of an old Pagan epicure. Mr. Morley, who revised the translation, must have smiled as he read the old man's rendering of-- "_Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa._"