If round my

farm off well I must,

Or fill my coffers with the dust,
Or master Hebrew, science, history,-
I make my task to drink the sea.
One spirit's projects to fulfil,

Four bodies would require; and still
The work would stop half done ;
The lives of four Methuselahs,
Placed end to end for use, alas!

Would not suffice the wants of one.

XXVI.-DEMOCRITUS AND THE PEOPLE OF
ABDERA.

How do I hate the tide of vulgar thought!
Profane, unjust, with childish folly fraught;
It breaks and bends the rays of truth divine,
And by its own conceptions measures mine.
Famed Epicurus' master' tried

The power of this unstable tide.
His country said the sage was mad—
The simpletons! But why?

No prophet ever honour had

Beneath his native sky.

Democritus, in truth, was wise;

The mass were mad, with faith in lies.

So far this error went,

That all Abdera sent
To old Hippocrates

To cure the sad disease.

'Our townsman,' said the messengers,

Appropriately shedding tears,

'Hath lost his wits! Democritus,

By study spoil'd, is lost to us.

Were he but fill'd with ignorance,

1 Epicurus' master.--Democritus and Epicurus lived about a century apart. The latter was disciple to the former only because in early life he adopted some of Democritus's philosophy. Later Epicurus rejected more than he accepted of what his "master" taught.

We should esteem him less a dunce.
He saith that worlds like this exist,
An absolutely endless list,-
And peopled, even, it may be,

With countless hosts as wise as we!
But, not contented with such dreams,
His brain with viewless "atoms" teems,
Instinct with deathless life, it seems.
And, never stirring from the sod below,
He weighs and measures all the stars;
And, while he knows the universe,
Himself he doth not know.

Though now his lips he strictly bars,
He once delighted to converse.
Come, godlike mortal, try thy art divine
Where traits of worst insanity combine!'
Small faith the great physician lent,
But still, perhaps more readily, he went.
And mark what meetings strange
Chance causes in this world of change!
Hippocrates arrived in season,

Just as his his patient (void of reason!)
Was searching whether reason's home,
In talking animals and dumb,
Be in the head, or in the heart,
Or in some other local part.
All calmly seated in the shade,

Where brooks their softest music made,
He traced, with study most insane,
The convolutions of a brain;
And at his feet lay many a scroll-
The works of sages on the soul.
Indeed, so much absorb'd was he,
His friend, at first, he did not sec.
A pair so admirably match'd,
Their compliments erelong despatch'd.
In time and talk, as well as dress,
The wise are frugal, I confess.
Dismissing trifles, they began
At once with eagerness to scan
The life, and soul, and laws of man;

Nor stopp'd till they had travell'd o'er all
The ground, from physical to moral.
My time and space would fail
To give the full detail.

But I have said enough to show
How little 'tis the people know.
How true, then, goes the saw abroad-
Their voice is but the voice of God?

THOU lust of gain,-foul fiend, whose evil eyes
Regard as nought the blessings of the skies,
Must I for ever battle thee in vain ?

How long demandest thou to gain
The meaning of my lessons plain?
Will constant getting never cloy?
Will man ne'er slacken to enjoy ?

Haste, friend; thou hast not long to live:
Let me the precious word repeat,
And listen to it, I entreat;

A richer lesson none can give—

The sovereign antidote for sorrow—

ENJOY! 'I will.'-But when ?-To-morrow.-
Ah! death may take you on the way,
Why not enjoy, I ask, to-day?

Lest envious fate your hopes ingulf,
As once it served the hunter and the wolf.

The former, with his fatal bow,

A noble deer had laid full low:
A fawn approach'd, and quickly lay
Companion of the dead,

For side by side they bled.

Could one have wished a richer prey?
Such luck had been enough to sate

A hunter wise and moderate.

Meantime a boar, as big as e'er was taken,

Our archer tempted, proud, and fond of bacon.

Bidpaii; and the Hitopadesa. See extract from Sir William Jones's translation of the latter in Translator's Preface.

Another candidate for Styx,

Struck by his arrow, foams and kicks.
But strangely do the shears of Fate
To cut his cable hesitate.

Alive, yet dying, there he lies,
A glorious and a dangerous prize.
And was not this enough? Not quite,
To fill a conqueror's appetite;
For, ere the boar was dead, he spied
A partridge by a furrow's side-
A trifle to his other game.

Once more his bow he drew;
The desperate boar upon him came,
And in his dying vengeance slew:
The partridge thank'd him as she flew.
Thus much is to the covetous address'd;
The miserly shall have the rest.

A wolf, in passing, saw that woeful sight. 'O Fortune,' cried the savage, with delight, 'A fane to thee I'll build outright! Four carcasses! how rich! But spareI'll make them last-such luck is rare,' (The miser's everlasting plea.)

'They'll last a month, for—let me see—
One, two, three, four-the weeks are four,
If I can count-and some days more.
Well, two days hence
And I'll commence.

Meantime, the string upon this bow
I'll stint myself to eat;

For by its mutton-smell I know

'Tis made of entrails sweet.' His entrails rued the fatal weapon, Which, while he heedlessly did step on, The arrow pierced his bowels deep, And laid him lifeless on the heap. Hark, stingy souls! insatiate leeches ! Our text this solemn duty teaches,— Enjoy the present; do not wait

To share the wolf's or hunter's fate.

BOOK IX.

I. THE FAITHLESS DEPOSITARY.'

THANKS to Memory's daughters nine,
Animals have graced my line:

Higher heroes in my story

Might have won me less of glory. Wolves, in language of the sky,

Talk with dogs throughout my verse; Beasts with others shrewdly vie, Representing characters;

Fools in furs not second-hand,
Sages, hoof'd or feather'd, stand:
Fewer truly are the latter,
More the former-ay, and fatter.
Flourish also in my scene
Tyrants, villains, mountebanks,
Beasts incapable of thanks,
Beasts of rash and reckless pranks,
Beasts of sly and flattering mien
Troops of liars, too, I ween.

As to men, of every age,
All are liars, saith the sage.
Had he writ but of the low,
One could hardly think it so;
But that human mortals, all,
Lie like serpents, great and small,
Had another certified it,

I, for one, should have denied it.
He who lies in Esop's way,
Or like Homer, minstrel gray,
Is no liar, sooth to say.

1 Bidpaii.