stet nive candidum, of which a second example is hardly to be found."

We need not say that this is a mistake;' arising probably from hasty inspection or deficient recollection, or perhaps from an imperfect acquaintance with Horace's versification. We notice it merely because it gives us an opportunity of remarking on a peculiarity connected with this liberty as employed by Horace, viz. that it occurs more frequently in the first book than in the second, and in the second than in the third; there being indeed no instance of it in the latter after the fifth ode. This is the more remarkable, as the number of Alcaic stanzas in the respective books varies in an inverse proportion. We mention this, as otherwise the difference might appear to have been merely accidental. In the first book, containing 60 stanzas, the initial syllable is shortened eight times; in the second, containing 86 stanzas, 6 times; and in the third, containing 118 stanzas, only 4 times; so that the instances in the first book are, as nearly as possible, twice as numerous in proportion as those in the second, and those in the second twice as many as those in the third. We annex a catalogue of the in

stances.

Lib. 1. Od. ix. 1. xxvii. 17, 22. xxxi. 9, 17. xxxv. 37, 38 (two consecutive lines). xxxvii. 22.

Lib. 11. Od. i. 6. vii. 22. ix. 5. xiii. 29. xiv. 6. xvii. 21. Lib. 111. Od. i. 2, 26. iii. 34. iv. 78. v. 22.

Two of the above instances (Lib. 11. Od. xiii. 29. and xvii. 21.) are produced by the word utrumque:

Utrumque sacro digna silentio

Utrumque nostrum incredibili modo

It is obvious that according to the laws of prosody the initial syllable may be here either long or short; that it is short, however, may be inferred from the fact, that Horace, differing in

* Lib. 1. Od. xxxvii. 14, " Mentemque lymphatam Mareotico," if the reading is correct, would have been a case in point; there being no other instance of the fifth and sixth syllables forming part of the same word, the word concluding with the sixth; an irregularity which has been copied by some of the modern Latin poets. Since the above was written, we perceive that Hermann has anticipated us in the conjecture of a Mareotico, of the truth of which we have but little doubt.

We may take this opportunity of suggesting that in Lib. 1. Od. ii. 34, "Quam Jocus circumvolat, et Cupido," it would be better to write "circum volat," for the same reason as OUT TOT in Il. A. 106, is preferable to οὐ πώποτε. μάντι κακῶν, οὐ πώποτε μοι τὸ κρήγυον εἶπας.

this from the rest of the Latin poets,' avoids using the cases of uterque, or its cognate adverbs, except in situations where the u is necessarily long. This holds good with regard to the Epistles and Satires, as well as the Odes. The only exceptions are the two passages above quoted, and Epod. x. 3,

Ut horridis utrumque verberes latus.

The presumption is, therefore, that it is short in these instances likewise. In the first book of the Epistles, Ep. vi. 10,

pavor est utrobique molestus,

some copies read utrique; but there can be no doubt that utrobique is the true reading.

In the fourth book, which contains 53 Alcaic stanzas, there is no instance of the first syllable being short, unless Od. iv. 58, can be accounted as such:

Nigræ feraci frondis in Algido.

where however it seems impossible to determine what quantity the poet attached to nigra.

The same or nearly the same observation holds with regard to the initial syllable of the third line. The following are the only places in which it is made short.

Lib. 1. Od. xvi. 19. xvii. 7. xxix. 7. xxxvii. 15.

11. Od. iii. 3. xvii. 3. xx. 11.

111. Od. iii. 71. xxix. 11.

IV. No instance.2

Hence it would appear that Horace in his latter days disapproved of this practice. It is, indeed, less remarkable that he should have abandoned it, than that he should have adopted it in the first instance, having rejected so many of the other licenses of Alcæus.

Thus Virgil, Æn. vi. 685,

On the other hand, v. 460,

alacris palmas utrasque tetendit.

Creber utraque manu pulsat versatque Dareta.

So Ov. Met. v. 166, compared with ix. 90.

2 Hermann (Elem. Doct. Metr. p. 450-1) has given similar lists, but less complete.

CAMBRIDGE ENGLISH PRIZE POEM,

FOR 1823.

AUSTRALASIA.

THE Sun is high in Heaven: a favoring breeze
Fills the white sail, and sweeps the rippling seas,
And the tall vessel walks her destined way,
And rocks and glitters in the curling spray.
Among the shrouds, all happiness and hope,
The busy seaman coils the rattling rope,
And tells his jest, and carols out his song,
And laughs his laughter, vehement and long,
Or pauses on the deck, to dream awhile

Of his babes' prattle, and their mother's smile,
And nods the head, and waves the welcome hand,
To those who weep upon the lessening strand.

His is the roving step and humor dry,
His the light laugh, and his the jocund eye;
And his the feeling, which, in guilt or grief,
Makes the sin venial, and the sorrow brief.
But there are hearts, that merry deck below,
Of darker error, and of deeper woe,

Children of wrath and wretchedness, who grieve
Not for the country, but the crimes they leave,
Who, while for them on many a sleepless bed
The prayer is murmured, and the tear is shed,
In exile and in misery, lock within

Their dread despair, their unrepented sin,-
And in their madness dare to gaze on Heaven,
Sullen and cold, unawed and unforgiven!

There the gaunt robber, stern in sin and shame,
Shows his dull features and his iron frame;
And tenderer pilferers creep in silence by,
With quivering lip, flushed brow, and vacant eye.
And some there are who, in their close of day,
With dropping jaw, weak step, and temples gray,
Go tottering forth, to find, across the wave,
A short sad sojourn, and a foreign grave;

And some, who look their long and last adieu
To the white cliffs that vanish from the view,
While youth still blooms, and vigor nerves the arm,
The blood flows freely, and the pulse beats warm.
The hapless female stands in silence there,
So weak, so wan, and yet so sadly fair,
That those who gaze, a rude untutor❜d tribe,
Check the coarse question, and the wounding gibe,
And look, and long to strike the fetter off,
And stay to pity, though they seem to scoff.
Then o'er her cheek there runs a burning blush,
And the hot tears of shame begin to rush
Forth from their swelling orbs ;-she turns away,
And her white fingers o'er her eye-lids stray,
And still the tears through those white fingers glide,
Which strive to check them, or at least to hide.
And there the stripling, led to Plunder's school,
Ere Passion slept, or Reason learned to rule,
Clasps his young hands, and beats his throbbing brain,
And looks with marvel on his galling chain.
Oh! you may guess from that unconscious gaze
His soul hath dreamed of those far fading days,
When, rudely nurtured on the mountain's brow,
He tended day by day his father's plough;
Blest in his day of toil, his night of ease,
His life of purity, his soul of peace.
Oh yes! to-day his soul hath backward been
To many a tender face, and beauteous scene;
The verdant valley, and the dark-brown hill,
The small fair garden, and its tinkling rill,
His grandame's tale, believed at twilight hour,
His sister singing in her myrtle bower,
And she, the maid, of every hope bereft,
So fondly loved, alas! so falsely left,

The winding path, the dwelling in the grove,
The look of welcome, and the kiss of love-

These are his dreams;-but these are dreams of bliss!
Why do they blend with such a lot as his?

And is there naught for him but grief and gloom, A lone existence, and an early tomb?

Is there no hope of comfort and of rest

To the seared conscience, and the troubled breast?
Oh say not so! In some far distant clime,
Where lives no witness of his early crime,

Benignant Penitence may haply muse
On purer pleasures, and on brighter views,
And slumbering Virtue wake at last to claim
Another Being, and a fairer Fame.

Beautiful Land! within whose quiet shore
Lost spirits may forget the stain they bore:
Beautiful Land! with all thy blended shades
Of waste and wood, rude rocks, and level glades,
On thee, on thee I gaze, as Moslems look
To the blest Islands of their Prophet's Book,
And oft I deem that, linked by magic spell,
Pardon and Peace upon thy valleys dwell,
Like two sweet Houris beckoning o'er the deep,
The souls that tremble, and the eyes that weep.
Therefore on thee undying sunbeams throw
Their clearest radiance, and their warmest glow,
And tranquil nights, cool gales, and gentle showers,
Make bloom eternal in thy sinless bowers.
Green is thy turf; stern Winter doth not dare
To breathe his blast, and leave a ruin there;
And the charmed Ocean roams thy rocks around,
With softer motion, and with sweeter sound:
Among thy blooming flowers and blushing fruit
The whispering of young birds is never mute,
And never doth the streamlet cease to well
Through its old channel in the hidden dell.
Ob! if the Muse of Greece had ever strayed,
In solemn twilight, through thy forest shade,
And swept her lyre, and waked thy meads along
The liquid echo of her ancient song,
Her fabling Fancy in that hour had found
Voices of music, shapes of grace, around;
Among thy trees, with merry step and glance,
The Dryad then had wound her wayward dance,
And the cold Naiad in thy waters fair

Bathed her white breast, and wrung her dripping hair.
Beautiful Land! upon so pure a plain

Shall Superstition hold her hated reign?
Must Bigotry build up her cheerless shrine
In such an air, on such an Earth as thine?
Alas! Religion from thy placid Isles

Veils the warm splendor of her heavenly smiles,
And the wrapt gazer in the beauteous plan
Sees nothing dark except the soul of man.