to earth, endowed with all manner of goddess-like perfections?

To the beauty of inanimate nature, the poet has added even in a still more plain and indisputable manner. He has filled the landscape with beauties in fact invisible, save to the mind, but which have become inseparably blended with the visible object. The lake, the wood, the stream, are not only beautiful in form, and colour, and motion, they have been invested by the poet with whatever is gentle, or solemn, or attractive in human affections. Scarcely can we say it is an inanimate creation we gaze upon, so much has he infused of the life, of the soul of man-so much of peace and reposeso much of passion and dignity, and of boundless aspiration. Nature and the poet now halve the work between them. Nor is it only what is extolled as exquisite scenery which echoes back to us the sentiments of the human being-nor is any voyage necessary in search of the picturesque or the

gigantic, in order to experience this power which the material world has acquired from its imaginative inhabitants. This influence is felt in the simplest landscape in the tree, the meadow, the stream-wherever, beneath an open sky, nature shoots her green or pours her rivers. The bland and elevating influence which rural scenes exert, is a common topic of remark. They do exert this influence, but it is after the poet has been there. The rustic who, if having open eyes and living in the open air were enough, communes perpetually with nature, knows nothing of an influence which, to the educated man, seems to flow so directly from the scene.

Let such considerations as these conciliate those who do not intend, whatever we or others may say, to open again their books of poetry: though resolute not to read, they may at least be not unwilling that such a species of literature should be written and read by others.

THE fables of Yriarte are held in high estimation by his own countrymen, and have been successfully translated into most of the languages of Europe. Their reputation is well merited; for they possess, in an eminent degree, the essential qualities that characterise this class of compositions, and are scarcely inferior even to those of La Fontaine himself in sprightliness of narrative, justness of moral, and natural grace and facility of expression. But they differ from every other collection of fables in the singularity of their application, which is wholly confined to literary matters; and their interest is greatly enhanced by the variety of their versificationa circumstance to which Yriarte refers with much complacency in his preface, where he mentions that the sixty-seven fables of which his volume consists, comprise " forty different kinds of metre." In this respect I have, to a certain extent, followed his example;

for, without attempting to imitate the peculiar measures of Spanish poesy, I have studiously adopted various forms of verse, instead of restricting myself, after the common fashion of English fabulists, to the monotony of the octosyllabic.

The reader who may be acquainted with the Spanish text, will find that, with few exceptions, the following translations have been executed with perhaps as much fidelity as was compatible with the endeavour to render them poetically. In some half dozen instances, where the originals possessed little interest in their subject, and were only remarkable for elegance of style or harmony of numbers, I felt compelled to take a greater license. To translate them literally, was, literally, to traduce them. Their native delicacy seemed necessarily to evaporate in the process; and, like the pure wines of their own country, which will not bear to be exported until they have been strongly brandied, they appeared to require that a translator should infuse a spirit of his own into them, in order to adapt them for the English palate. The critic, I fear, will decide that, in seeking to improve, I have only adulterated them.

Yriarte was a voluminous author, and attempted almost every kind of poetical composition; but his writings seldom rise above mediocrity, and are distinguished rather by judgment and good taste than by force and originality. Next to his Literary Fables, a didactic poem on Music, which, I be. lieve, has been translated into English, enjoys the highest celebrity.

Liverpool.

R. R.

I. THE ELEPHANT AND THE BEASTS.

An elephant, in ages far-gone,

:

A meeting, and reform them all.
They met; when, having duly bow'd
His trunk to greet the gaping crowd,
He spouted forth, with mighty strength
Of lungs, a speech of mighty length,
A speech which, like a practised
orator,

He had composed and got memoriter,
For speakers of the greatest note
At times extemporize-by rote.
Each fault and folly, which of late
Had sapp'd the morals of the state,
Pert ignorance, destructive sloth,
Malignant envy, worse than both,
Hypocrisy and affectation,
And pride, that oversteps its station-
All these, and more than I have time
To recapitulate in rhyme,
He stigmatized with all the fire
And freedom of a preaching friar.
-The virtuous portion of the crew
(But these, alas, were very few!)
Received with open acclamation
The honest elephant's oration.
The gentle lambkin skipt with glee,
And blithely humm'd the busy bee;
The faithful dog, the patient steer,
The dove, the emmet, and the deer,
By different tokens of applause
Evinced their zeal in virtue's cause;
The meek ass, with a joyous bray,
Approved the speech, and, strange to
The horse assented by a nay.

But high above the jarring host
The elephant maintain'd his post,
As unconcern'd as if the brutes
Had been a company of mutes;
And thus, with unabated force,
At length concluded his discourse :
"My observations, I protest,
However pointedly express'd,
Were universally address'd-
Address'd alike to every one,
But personally aimed at none.
The few whose consciences are clear,
Have nothing to resent or fear;
While such as choose to take offence
By misinterpreting my sense,
Convict themselves, and merely show
How well they merited the blow."

My fables, in their application
Refer to every age and nation;
For authors, just as dull and vain
As any who abound in Spain,
Have perpetrated prose and rhyme
In every land, in every time.
But, though I solemnly disclaim
All personality of aim,
If any scribbler, conscience-smitten,
Should wince at aught that I have

written-
Should find, in short, the cap to fit,
The fool is welcome unto it.

II. THE SILKWORM AND THE SPIDER.

One day, as a silkworm slowly spun Its delicate threads in the noon-tide

3

5

VI. THE PARROTS AND THE MONKEY.

:

Two parrots fresh from St Domingo,
Where each had learn'd a different
lingo-
For half that isle of sugar-cane
Belongs to France, and half to Spain -
A captain's gift to his Amanda,
Were caged within the same veranda;
And, though unable for a while
To understand each other's style,
They soon contrived (for what can
balk

A parrot's or a woman's talk?)
To find, despite their education,
A medium of conversation.

For blending, as they gabbled on,
Their French and Spanish into one,
They form'd a dialect betwixt
The two, in which the two weremixt-
A dialect that served to tell

Their parrot-news in, just as well
As if it had consisted wholly
Of French or Spanish phrases solely.
But when their mistress one whose
hue

Of intellect inclined to blue;
And ah! unto a true blue-stocking
All licenses of speech are shocking-

O'erheard her brace of birds harangue
In such an incoherent slang,
A mess of words whose misalliance
Sets sense and syntax at defiance,
And might be (for they sounded oddly)
Indecent, or at least ungodly,

She parted them, in hopes that each,
When caged beyond the other's reach,
Would soon resume his own verna-
cular,

And utter nonsense less oracular.

But though the Gallic bird at once
Reform'd, and banish'd from his sconce
The Spanish tongue as incommode,
Because elle n'était pas du mode,
An idiom too precise and prim
For fashionable fowls like him;
The Spanish bird would not retrench
A single syllable of French,

But still continued, though alone,
To jabber it, as if its tone
Enrich'd the old Castilian tongue,
As gardens are enrich'd by dung.
One day, instead of olla, he
Called for un gratin de bouillie,
When, with a face of much amazement,
A monkey, from a neighbouring case-