soldiers in the shop of a charcoal-burner, who let him out at a back-door, and eventually had to throw himself into the river Mincio to escape their pursuit. Lycidas, in the Pastoral, is surprised to hear of his neighbour’s new trouble. “LYC.--I surely heard, that all from where yon hills Begin to rise, and gently slope again Down to the stream, where the old beech-trees throw Their ragged time-worn tops against the sky,[3] Your poet-master had redeemed by song. MŒR.--You heard, no doubt--and so the story went; But song, good Lycidas, avails as much, When swords are drawn, as might the trembling dove When on Dodona swoops the eagle down. Nay--had I not been warned of woes to come-- Warned by a raven’s croak on my left hand From out the hollow oak--why then, my friend, You had lost your Mœris and his master too.” Honest Lycidas expresses his horror at the narrow escape of the neighbourhood from such a catastrophe. What should they all have done for a poet, if they had lost Menalcas? who could compose such songs--and who could sing them? And he breaks out himself into fragmentary reminiscences which he has picked up by ear from his friend. Then Mœris too--who, being a poet’s farm-servant, has caught a little of the inspiration--repeats a few lines of his master’s. “As you hope for any blessings,” says Lycidas, “let me hear the rest of it.” “So may your bees avoid the poisonous yew-- So may your cows bring full-swoln udders home-- If canst remember aught, begin at once. I too, I am a poet, by the Muses’ grace: some songs I have, mine own composing; and the swains Call me their bard--but I were weak to heed them. I cannot vie with masters of the art Like Varius or like Cinna; my poor Muse Is but a goose among the tuneful swans.” Mœris can remember a scrap or two of his master’s verses. There was one in particular, which Lycidas had heard him singing one moonlight night, and would much like to hear again;--“I can remember the tune myself,” he says, “but I have forgotten the words.” Mœris will try. The compliment to Augustus with which the strain begins sufficiently marks the real poet who here figures as Menalcas. “Why, Daphnis, why dost watch the constellations Of the old order, now the new is born? Lo! a new star comes forth to glad the nations, Star of the Cæsars, filling full the corn.”[4] But Mœris cannot remember much more. They must both wait, he says, until his master comes home again. So the pair walk on together towards Rome, cheating the long journey with singing as they go; and thus closes this pretty pastoral dialogue, the graceful ease of which, with its subdued comedy, it would be impossible for any translator to render adequately.