the selector of detached passages escapes more than half the difficulty, and all the irksomeness which belongs to the department of translation; and has the advantage of chusing his ground, when he enters the list with him who has toiled through the uninteresting details and refractory obscurities of a volume. With this allowance, Mr. Elton stands tolerably fair in a comparative view of translators; and though he certainly does not equal Mr. Sotheby, who is not likely soon to have a rival, in his specimens from Virgil, he does perhaps as much justice to Horace and Tibullus as his predecessors. In his selections from the Satires and Epistles of the former, he has been judicious, we think, in sometimes employing blank verse, the only measure which can suggest to an English reader the easy and negligent style of the Roman moralist.Once indeed there is what appears to us a terrible failure, in consequence of a different metre. Mr. Elton has been deceived by the example of Pope into a notion, that the beautiful satire Hoc erat in votis, is a ludicrous poem, and that it requires a tone of vulgar doggrel in translation. Its real character, on the contrary, is moral and even melancholy sentiment, interspersed with the serious smile of philosophy at human follies. The story of the two mice is told with mock heroic gravity ; a style which, if it may be classed, in a general way, with the ridiculous, will certainly lose its proper humour by such translation as these lines of Pope :

This jelly's rich, this malmsey healing,

Pray dip your whiskers and your tail in.
Or these of Mr. Elton,

Served dish on dish in course complete,
With entremets prolong'd the treat ;

And played the taster with the meat. Such instances of mistaking the character of his author are however not common with this translator.

We were a little surprised at finding Gallus in the list of Augustan poets. The friend of Virgil, and the subject of that beautiful, though rather fantastic poem, the 10th Eclogue, (the prototype perhaps, or at least a sort of counterpart, of Milton's Lycidas,) did not deserve to have an unclassical scrap of voluptuous poetry, commonly published with the Basia of Secundus, gravely imputed to him. Mr. Elton indeed observes, that 'the Latinity of the delicate little Ode to Julia, however elegant, has something of a modern cast. This is moderate and cautious, as four lines of the original will shew.

Conde papillas, conde semi-pomas,
Compresso lacte quæ modo pullulant.
Sinus expansa profert cinnama,
Undique surgunt ex te deliciæ.

We

We can only presume, as Mr. Elton is much too good a scholar to entertain doubts about this bratof the 16th century, that he was anxious to shew his qualifications, on the demise of the present incumbent,

who, like Augustus, young

Was call’d to empire, and has governed long, to fill the throne of amatory poetry, as much, if that were possible, to the satisfaction of ladies of fashion.

The following description of the death of Archemorus from
Statius, is a favourable specimen of Mr. Elton's powers in rhyme.

Thus to the Grecian kings, in plaintive grief,
The Lemnian exile gives her woes relief :
Her absent nurseling now forgotten lies ;
Such the decree of adverse destinies.
Plunged in the crested grass, that round him rose,
His drooping eyes slid languid in repose;
Long wearied with the feats of childish play,
One hand still grasp'd the herbage as he lay.
When lo! a serpent, floating many a rood,
Uprose; the sacred horror of the wood,
Th’enormous snake dragg’d on each loosen'd fold;
Another self behind him lengthening rollid :
With torch-like glare his livid eyeballs glow'd,
And his green jaws with foaming venom flow'd.
In triple barb he fork'd his quivering tongue ;
In triple rows his jagged fangs were hung;
His towery crest a cruel glory shed,
And gilded radiance darted round his head.
The rustics deem'd him holy; for the grove
Was sacred held, the care of Argive Jove:
To whom turf altars rose amidst the shade,
And humble swains unwealthy honours paid :
Thus wreath'd in many an orb, with wandering traiu,
Glided the serpent round the sylvan fane;
With bruising folds the groaning woods were twined,
And the vast elms their mouldering bark resign'd;
Oft with continuous sweep he stretches o’er
The river-bed, and rolls on either shore :
Cut by his scales, the middle waters flow,
Cleave as he glides, and hiss and froth below.
But now, when Theban Bacchus gives command,
And pants at every pore the burning land;
Now, when the water-nymphs, with dust bespread,
Hide in the lowest sands their fainting head;
Fiercer he writhes, antwists each winding spire,
And deadly rages with envenom'd fire.
Through the scorch'd pools he floats on many rings,
And roams in vallies, dried of all their springs;

Now,

Now, roll'd supine, he lies in faint despair,
And gasps for life, and licks the liquid air :
Now, grovelling prone, he smites the groaning ground,
And sucks for dew the verdant herbs around.
His breath's hot blast the drooping herbage dries,
And at his hiss the verdure withering dies.
Vast as the starry serpent, that on high
Tracks the clear ether, and divides the sky,
And, southward winding from the northern wain,
Shoots to remoter spheres its glittering train;
Or vast as that, whose agonizing fold
On cleft Parnassus' trembling summits rolld;

As with drawn bow the Delian archer stood,
And writhed with hundred wounds he lash'd the reedy wood.'

There is an unfortunate tameness in the passages rendered from Lucan, where Mr. Elton has lost the condensed and pointed sentiment of his original in the expansion of blank verse. Thus, in lines familiar to every scholar,

Nor Cæsar can to aught superior bow,
Nor Pompey bear an equal. But to know
Which in the juster quarrel drew the sword,
Exceeds our power. With either party sides
A mighty judge. Heaven owns the conquering cause,

Cato the vanquished.' This is veiy flat. In return, we may justly praise the specimens from Silius Italicus, Valerius Flaccus, and 'Oppian. Perhaps the chief merit of Mr. Elton's plan is the opportunity it gives of introducing to the poetical reader those authors of a late age and unequal merit, whose real beauties have been overwhelmed by a mass of defects, and by that sweeping criticism which is entirely founded upon defects. It has been justly remarked, that in some minor excellencies, and especially in natural description, the later and less eminent poets frequently surpass those to whom we pay the exclusive homage of admiration. The following passage from the Dionysiacs of Nonnus, which we select from several equally beautiful, has a soft and splendid colouring, and a sweetness of language, that reminds us of Mr. Southey's style in description. • With crcoked bow, a dweller of the woods

Was there ; a nymph who, nourish'd on the grape,
Bloom'd in the forest's leafy wilderness :
Fair shaped Nicæa, huntress of the swift,
A second Dian, strange to love: untaught
The rites of Venus, she with arrows chased
The beasts, and track'd the mountains. No soft bower
Of maidens cbamber'd her in green recess,
With fragrant foliage hid; but in a place

Of

In a cave,

Of rocks, a desert haunt, in gloomy glen
She dwelt. Her spindle was the bending bow;
Her threads the feather'd arrows; and, with poles
Of meshy nets, this mountain Pallas spread
The web: more pleased to weave the close-wrought lines
Of wonted chase on snare-set rocks, the whilst
Following the chaste and arrow-shooting queen,
Her comrade of the forest. Ne'er her dart
Had touch'd the feeble dappled fawn, nor struck
The fugitive scared deer, nor trembling. hare.
She harness'd lions to the yoke, and lash'd
Their shaggy backs with blood-discolour'd thong,
Blaming Diana, that she left the race
Of mottled panthers, and the lion kind,
And rein’d the silly deer. Nor lack'd the nymph
Th’anointing oil of fragrance; and her cups,
With honey-temper'd draught, she dip'd in streams,
Cold-gushing from the torrent.
Arch'd in the natural rock, her mansion was,
'Midst desert hill-crags inaccessible:
And oft, o'erwearied by the running chase,
She sate beside the panthers; or, beneath
The hollow rock, in mid-noon, lay at length,
Where the recumbent lioness had teem'd
With her young lion; but the gentle beast
Smooth'd its rough brows in blandishment, and lick'd
The maiden's limbs, and sheath'd its bending claws,
That mangled not her flesh: the dreadful mouth
E'en of the littering lioness, those jaws
Devouring, like a dog's, in querulous joy
Skimm’d, fondly moaning with forbearing lips,
And touch'd her without harm.

The lion's self,
Deeming her Dian, trail'd his head on earth,
Suppliant, and bowed his shaggy-ruffled mane

Low at her feet. Upon the whole, these specimens do considerable credit to Mr. Elton's expertness in versification, and Auency in speaking the language of poetry. To each author a sort of biographical and critical sketch is prefixed. The criticisms shew a scholar and a man of taste, but they are sometimes expressed in too peremptory a mayner. He is a little too fond of reversing established opinion as to the relative merit of poets. Dejicit superbos de sede, et exaltat humiles. It is strange enough to find an ingenious man preferring the Medea of Apollonius to Virgil's Dido; but, at all events, such critical heresies ought to be propounded with diffidence.

ART.

Art. VIII. The Physiognomical System of Doctors Gall and

Spurzheim, founded on an Anatomical and Physiological Examination of the Nervous System in general, and of the Brain in particular, and indicating the Dispositions and Manifestations of the Mind. By J. G. Spurzheim, M. D. London.

1815. Royal 8vo. pp. 571. THE 'HE writer of this volume, as its title-page imports, is a dis

ciple and coadjutor of the celebrated Dr. Gall of Vienna : and, like his master, is so very equivocal a sort of personage, considered as a literary man, that in some respects we hardly know in what manner he is to be treated. In saying this, we do not particularly allude to the doctrines which he professes ; although these savour not a little of empiricism; but rather to the mode in which they have hitherto been propagated. That a man should publish his opinions upon' whatever subject, is natural enough; at least there is nothing in such a circumstance, which in the present times need excite surprize; but why he should travel over Europe for the purpose of preaching them, it is by no means so easy to explain. We do not mean to deny, but that in doing ihis Dr. Spurzheim may have chosen an honest method of gaining a livelihood; although we believe that to be pretty nearly all that can be said for it; yet it is one, which a person of liberal education and of a liberal profession would not, we should suppose, prefer, and which a man with any feeling of personal dignity about him, would surely disdain. But Dr. Spurzheim is a German, and not an Englishman, and it is possible that the manners of the two countries may make all the difference.

Be this as it may, we are inclined to think, that whatever be the cause of Dr. Spurzheim's unsettled plan of life, whether the love of money, or the love of cranioscopy, or the love of fame, in no respect will the success of the publication before us gratify his views. Our author must not imagine that, because he has been able to find people in this country who would listen to him with patience, he will therefore be able to find readers equally good humoured. His doctrines may possibly have passed off with very good success at a lecture; for, as Dr. Spurzheim's own experience mụst have informed him, there is no sort of absurdity but may

be safely adıninistered in that shape; but the difficulties which a writer has to encounter, are more considerable To suppose that nonsense may be presented to a reader, as to a hearer, stark naked and without even the decent clothing of a little sophistry, is a great mistake. Dr. Spurzheim informs us, that he has been so long associated