Jac. Bk. vii. Ep. 336.

HARASS'D by age and want, without a friend,
One helping hand, my need's support, to lend,
Hither I crept with tottering step and slow,
And in the grave at length found peace from woe;
Buried ere dead; for me's reversed the doom
Assign'd to men, whose death precedes the tomb.

Archdeacon Wrangham.

ON THALES.26

Jac. Bk. vii. Ep. 83.

MILETUS of Ionia, the birth of Thales nurst,
Wisest in knowledge, and of all Astrologers the first!
R. G. M.

26 Thales is generally allowed to have been the father of Greek philosophy, and stands first on the list of the seven wise men. He was a believer in a deity pervading the universe, made some inventions in geometry, and first observed the apparent diameter of the sun. He likewise observed the nature and course of eclipses. The illusory science of Astrology, which has captivated the philosophers of every age and nation, is said to have originated with the Chaldæans; and when Egypt was a Roman province "the poor Jews took to it as a trade." It was much in vogue during the middle ages, and in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was taught in the Italian universities. Its early history in England is very little known; but it is certain Roger Bacon and Bede were addicted to it.

Jac. Bk. vii. Ep. 357.

THOUGH here you laid my corpse when none were nigh, One saw thee, murderer, one all-seeing eye.

F. Hodgson.

ON TWINS.

Jac. Bk. vii. Ep. 329.

ONE grave these twins entombs: one day their breath They both received, and both one day their death.

Dr. Wellesley.

Lucian, Jac. Bk. vii. Ep. 308.

A CHILD of five short years, unknown to woe,

Callimachus my name, I rest below.

Mourn not my fate.

If few the joys of life,

Few were its ills, its conflicts; brief its strife.

T. Farley.

Gregory of Nazianzen, Jac. Bk. viii. Ep. 126.
EUPHEMIUS slumbers in this hallow'd ground,
Son of Amphilocus, by all renown'd:

He whom the Graces to the Muses gave,
Tuneful no more, lies mouldering in the grave.
The minstrels came to chaunt the bridal lay;
But swifter envy bore the prize away.

Hugh Boyd.

Asclepiades of Samos, Jac. Bk. vii. Ep. 284.

KEEP off, rude sea, if but eight cubits' length ;
And roar and rage, and swell with all thy strength.

The grave of Eumare's should'st thou take, thy gains Are but the bones and ashes it contains.

Dr. Wellesley.

ON TIMON.27

Hegesippus, Jac. Bk. vii. Ep. 320.

SHARP thorns and stakes beset this tomb all round: Stranger, approach it not, your feet you'll wound.

Timon the misanthrope dwells here.

And vent your curses as you pass.

Pass on,
Begone.
Dr. Wellesley.

ON THE HEROES OF THE ILIAD-HECTOR AND ACHILLES.

Jac. Bk. vii. Ep. 137.

O METE not Hector's greatness by his grave;
This single arm erewhile all Greece could brave.
The Iliad, Homer, Greece, and Greeks that fled,
These are my tomb; all these enshrine me dead.
Professor Goldwin Smith.

27 A native of Colyttas, in Attica. In consequence of being deceived in the friendships he had formed, he declared himself the enemy of the human race, and lived secluded from mankind. He formed a subject of ridicule in the comedies of Aristophanes, and his name has been rendered immortal by Shakespeare.

Jac. Bk. vii. Ep. 142.

THE tomb of brave Achilles this, which Greeks beside the sea

Rear'd up in ancient days to scare the Trojans yet to be.
The son of ocean-
—Thetis sleeps, where ocean's sleep-
less surge

May pour for him all lovingly an everlasting dirge.
Rev. 7. W. Burgon.

ON THE DEATH OF HIS DAUGHTER.

Paulus Sil. Jac. Bk. vii. Ep. 604.

SWEET maid, thy parents fondly thought
To strew thy bride-bed, not thy bier;
But thou hast left a being fraught

With wiles and toils and anxious fear.

For us remains a journey drear,

For thee a blest and calm repose,

Uniting in thy short career

The fruit of age, of youth the rose.

Bland.

Zenodotus or Rhianus, Jac. Bk. vii. Ep. 315.

TWIST round me, thou rough earth, the prickly thorn;

Let the crook'd savage bramble-branch adorn

My tomb, that birds of spring may shun the place,
And I may rest alone in perfect peace.
Unloved of all, the misanthrope am I,
Timon, of whom e'en Pluto's self is shy.

Hay.

Antip. Th. Jac. Bk. vii. Ep. 493.

HERE sleeps a daughter by her mother's side;
Nor slow disease nor war our fates allied.
When hostile banners over Corinth waved,
Preferring death, we left a land enslaved.
Pierced by a mother's steel in youth I bled;
She nobly join'd me in my gory bed.
In vain ye forge your fetters for the brave,
Who fly for sacred freedom to the grave.

Meleager, Jac. Bk. vii. Ep. 182.

THE morne which saw me made a bride,
That evening witnest that I died.
Those holy lights, wherewith they guide
Unto the bed the bashful bride,
Served but as tapers for to burne,
And light my reliques to their urne.
The epitaph which here your see,
Supplied the Epithalamie.28

Antip. Sid. Jac. Bk. vii. Ep. 353

THIS rudely sculptured porter pot
Denotes where sleeps a female sot;
Who pass'd her life, good easy soul,
In sweetly chirping o'er her bowl.

Bland.

Herrick.

28 This is rather a parallel, or a poem, based on Meleager, than a translation.