He mention'd to me in conversation, and since by Letter, a passage very closely resembling one in the IDYLLIA of AUSONIUS. It is this in _Spring_. Like the torn flower the fair assemblage fly. Ah, fallen _Rose_! sad emblem of their doom; Frail as thyself, _they perish while they bloom_! I.v. 388-40. The passage to which Mr. Smith referr'd me is this. (It is not in my Edition of _Ausonius_; but he sent me a Copy.) "Conquerimur, Natura, brevis quod Gratia florum est; Ostentara oculis illico dona rapis. Quam longa una dies aetas tarn longa rosarum, Ques _pubescentes juncta senecta pressit_." ID. xiv. I am favor'd with a Translation made by Mr. SMITH in his very early days. And hope that as a brother _Etonian_ he allows me to quote it. Nature, we grieve that thou giv'st flowers so gay, Then snatchest Gifts thou shew'st so swift away. A Day's a Rose's Life.--_How quickly meet_, Sweet Flower, _thy Blossom and thy Winding sheet_! In the _Procession_ of SPRING there is a fine series of allegorical Images. Advancing SPRING profusely spreads abroad _Flowers of kinds, with sweetest fragrance stor'd_: Where she treads LOVE gladdens every plain; _Delight_ on tip-toe beats her lucid train; Sweet _Hope_ with conscious brow _before_ her flies, Anticipating wealth from summer skies. I. v. 271--6. Compare now this of LUCRETIUS. It VER et VENUS et Veneris _praenuntius ante_ Prunatus _graditur_ Zephyrus vestigia propter. FLORA quibus mater praespergens, ante viai Cuncta coloribus egregiis et odoribus opplet. DE NAT. RES. L. V. v. 736-9. Ed. Brindley 1749. There SPRING, and VENUS, and her Harbinger, Near to her moves the winged Zephyrus, For whom maternal FLORA strews the way _With Flowers of every charming scent and hue_. Or in the very words of BLOOMFIELD, Flowers of all hues with sweetest fragrance stor'd. _Hope_ here occupies the place of _Zephyrus_. DELIGHT on tip-toe supporting the _lucid_ train of _Spring_,--the image and attitude so full of life and beauty,--is our Poet's own. And what Poet, what _Painter_, would not have been proud of it? In another passage, The splendid raiment of the Spring peeps forth Her universal Green-- This of Lucretius will be found to have much similitude: Camposque per omnes Florida fulserunt viridami prata colore. 782, 3. _O'er every plain The flowery meadows beam with verdant hue._ And that exceedingly fine verse, _All Nature feels her venorating sway_, calls to mind the ever-memorable exordium of the _Roman_ Poet. If we admire the imitative force of this line in the epic majesty of Virgilian numbers, Quadrupedante putrem sonitu qualit ungula campum: _Shakes the resounding hoof the trembling plain:_ shall we not admire the imitative harmony of this; attun'd certainly with not less felicity to the sweetness of the pastoral reed, _The green turf trembling as they bound along._