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Compare with this the descriptive passages in the Eclogues, for instance, or Georgics of Virgil. Among these Idyls is the too celebrated "Cento Nuptialis:" with regard to which, however, or rather with regard to the obnoxious passage with which it concludes, we may doubt whether it originated so much in a mere gloating love of impurity, as in the indulgence of a reckless ingenuity, glorying, with a kind of perverse triumph, in the dexterity with which the language and versification of Virgil had been forced into a combination with subjects so anti-Virgilian.

The "Epistles" are, on the whole, the most interesting of Ausonius's works. They are the natural effusions of his heart, his fancy, or his immediate humor, with little restraint except that produced by the consciousness of writing in verse. We may venture to diversify our monotonous criticism by one or two extracts. The following, from an epistle to his father on the birth of his (Ausonius's) son, strikes us as very pleasing:

(Ep. I.)

Credideram nil posse meis affectibus addi,
Quo, venerande pater, diligerere magis.
Accessit (grates superis, medioque nepoti,
Bina dedit nostris qui juga nominibus;
Ipse nepos te fecit avum: mihi filius idem,
Et tibi ego: hoc nato nos sumus ambo pares.)
Accessit titulus, tua quo reverentia crescat ;

Quo doceam natum, quid sit amare patrem.
Quippe tibi æquatus videor, quod parvulus isto
Nomine honoratum te quoque nobilitat;
Atque ætas quia nostra eadem: nam supparis ævi
Sum tibi ego, et possum fratris habere vicem.
Nec tantum nostris spatium interponitur annis,
Quanta solent alios tempora dividere.

Vidi ego natales fratrum distare tot annis,

Quot nostros: ævum nomina non onerant.
Pulchra juventa tibi senium sic jungit, ut ævum
Quod prius est, maneat; quod modo, ut incipiat.
Et placuisse reor geminis ætatibus, ut se
Non festinato tempore utraque1 daret;
Leniter hæc flueret, hæc non properata veniret,
Maturam frugem flore manente ferens.

The first epistle to Theon, though indulging too much in horseplay, is a good piece of sarcasm. The concluding lines of our extract almost rise to humor; a quality exceedingly rare among the later Latin wits.

1 Utraque for utrăque, and in like manner eadem, are among the many corruptions in quantity (as in other matters) in Ausonius, which mark an age of incipient barbarism. Perhaps this particular instance originated in the popular accentuation,

Quid geris, extremis positus telluris in oris,
Cultor arenarum vates? cui littus arandum,
Oceani finem juxta, Solemque cadentem;
Vilis arundineis cohibet quem pergula tectis,
Et tingit piceo lacrymosa colonica fumo.
Quid rerum Musæque gerunt, et cantor Apollo?
Musæ non Helicone satæ, nec fonte caballi,
Sed quæ fœcundo de pectore Clementini
Inspirant vacuos aliena mente poëtas.

Jure quidem; nam quis malit sua carmina dici,
Qui te securo possit proscindere risu?

Hæc quoque ne nostrum possint urgere pudorem,
Tu recita; et vere poterunt tua dicta videri.

Quam tamen exerces Medulorum in littore vitam?
Mercatusne agitas, leviore numismate captans,
Insanis quod mox pretiis gravis auctio vendat;
Albentis sevi globulos, et pinguia ceræ

Pondera, Naryciamque picem, scissamque papyrum,
Fumantesque olidum paganica lumina tædas?
An majora gerens, tota regione vagantes
Prosequeris fures? qui te, postrema timentes,
In partem prædamque vocant: tu mitis, et osor
Sanguinis humani, condonas crimina nummis,
Erroremque vocas, pretiumque imponis abactis
Bubus, et in partem sceleris de judice transis.

Of the Epistles to Paullinus we have already spoken. The Panegyric on Gratian will not detain us long. Its characteristics are fluency, spirit (or rather perhaps vivacity), and somewhat of artificial smartness. We are reminded here of the professional rhetorician, as in some other places of the schoolmaster. One unpleasing feature, although too common in Roman writers to excite particular disgust here, is the extravagant strain of eulogy in which he indulges. Yet something may be said in extenuation of such offences. The feeling which prompts them is not necessarily unmixed servility: there is a spell in things present, a fascination which operates in some degree unavoidably on all except the strongest eyes; there is a charm also in rank, in authority, in hereditary institution; and where both these adventitious influences concur, the merits of the individual invested with them are sure to be over-rated by the bulk of mankind. But we must not run out into crude speculation. In Ausonius's case it should be observed, that a long friendship, and great benefits conferred on him by Gratian, might excuse some warmth of panegyric on his part. We can afford only one short quotation; it is not the best that might have been selected, but we prefer it as containing a lively description of a somewhat extraordinary ceremony.

Vel illud unum cujusmodi est, de condonatis residuis tributorum? Quod tu quam cumulata bonitate fecisti! Quis unquam imperatorum

hoc provinciis suis aut uberiore indulgentia dedit, aut certiore securitate prospexit, aut prudentia consultiore munivit ? Fecerat et Trajanus olim ; sed, partibus retentis, non habebat tantam oblectationem concessi debiti portio, quanta suberat amaritudo servati. Et Antoninus indulserat; sed imperii, non beneficii successor invidit, qui ex documentis tabulisque populi condonata repetivit. Tu argumenta omnia flagitandi publicitus ardere jussisti. Videre in suis quæque foris omnes civitates conflagrationem salubris incendii. Ardebant stirpes fraudum veterum, ardebant seminaria futurarum. Jam se cum pulvere favilla miscuerat, jam nubibus fumus involverat; et adhuc obnoxii in paginis concrematis ductus apicum, et sententiarum notas cum titubantia et trepidatione cernebant; quod meminerant lectum, legi posse etiam tunc verentes.

We have omitted mention of one or two unimportant fasciculi of verse; neither have we noticed his prefaces, which are frequently better than the poems they usher in. On the whole, Ausonius appears to be fully entitled to the rank which he holds among the minor poets of Rome; and if we were to describe in one sentence the impression which the perusal of his collective works left on our minds, we should say that they contain so much good poetry, and so much beauty of sentiment, as to make us regret that the proportion of good to bad, in both instances, was not greater.

NOTICE OF

"TRAVELS IN ARABIA; comprehending an Account of those Territories in Hedjáz which the Mohammedans regard as sacred." By the late JOHN LEWIS BURCKHARDT. 4to. London, 1829. Pr. 21. 2s. Colburn.

THE high reputation of Burckhardt as an intrepid and accomplished traveller has for some years been established throughout Europe by the accounts of his expeditions to Nubia and to Syria, published in two quarto volumes. The celebrity so justly acquired by those publications (a celebrity which we regret to designate posthumous, for the author died at Cairo in 1817,) will not, if our judgment be correct, suffer any diminution from the appearance of his Arabian Travels. Respecting this work, the editor, Sir William Ouseley, having observed in his preface, that to the former portions of Burckhardt's writings success was insured not only by intrinsic merit, but by the fame of their editor (Colonel Leake), as a scholar and antiquary, a traveller and a geographer, adds→

VOL. XXXIX. Cl. Jl. NO. LXXVII. H

"It must not, however, be inferred from any delay in publishing the present volume, that its contents are less worthy of notice than those parts which have already proved so interesting and instructive to a multitude of readers. It was always intended that this journal and other writings of the same lamented author should issue successively from the press."-"There still remains," says Colonel Leake in his Preface to the Syrian Journal, (p. ii.) "manuscripts sufficient to fill two volumes: one of these will consist of his Travels in Arabia, which were confined to the Hedjáz or Holy Land of the Muselmáns, the part least accessible to Christians: the fourth volume will contain very copious remarks on the Arabs of the Desert, and particularly the Wahabys."

As some important literary occupations prevented Col. Leake from superintending the progress of this volume through the press, Sir Wm. Ouseley undertook the task, adopting almost invariably the Colonel's plan in his edition of the former works: 66 particularly," says Sir William, "in expressing with scrupulous fidelity the author's sentiments on all occasions, and in retaining, without any regard to mere elegance of style or selection of terms, his original language wherever an alteration was not absolutely necessary, to reconcile with our system of phraseology and grammatical construction certain foreign idioms which had crept into his English writings," (Pref. p. vi.)

It must here be recollected that Burckhardt was a Swiss, born at Lausanne, and descended from an eminent family of Basle. But it is not merely the author's name that recommends this volume; the country which it describes is most particularly interesting.

In p. ix. the editor quotes a passage from Sir Wm. Jones, who says,

"the manners of the Hejazi Arabs have continued from the time of Solomon to the present age;"

and another from Gibbon, who observes, that

66 our notions of Mecca must be drawn from the Arabians. As no unbeliever is permitted to enter the city, our travellers are silent; and the short hints of Thevenot are taken from the suspicious mouth of an African renegado."

But in Burckhardt's narrative we find an authentic and interesting account of the most solemn ceremonies which he witnessed at Mekka and Medina, and of the extraordinary people among whom he lived in the character of a Muselmán.

Supposing the reader to know (as related at the close of his Nubian Travels) that he had crossed the Red Sea from Africa to Arabia, our author abruptly begins this volume with the following words:

"My arrival in the Hedjáz was attended with some unfavorable circumstances. On entering the town of Djidda in the morning of the 18th July, 1814, I went to the house of a person on whom I had a letter of credit, delivered to me at my departure from Cairo in January

1813, when I had not yet fully resolved to extend my travels into Arabia. From this person I met with a very cold reception: the letter was thought to be of too old a date to deserve notice: indeed, my ragged appearance might have rendered any one cautious," &c.

Here the immediate want of a sum sufficient to defray his daily expenses obliged him, though very reluctantly, to sell a faithful and affectionate slave, for whom he entertained a regard. This slave had cost him sixteen dollars at Shendy, and was sold in the market at Djidda for forty-eight dollars.

"Thus," says he, "the profits of sale on one slave defrayed almost the whole expense of the four months' journey through Nubia which I had performed in the spring." (p. 8.)

From a physician named Yahya Effendi, who had heard a favorable report of our traveller at Cairo, he received three thousand piastres (about 100%.) for a bill on his friends in that city; and he was soon after invited by the Pasha to visit him at Tayf. As the invitation of a Turkish ruler is a polite command, he found it expedient to comply; and having minutely described Djidda, its commerce, the various commodities sold in its shops, the manners of its inhabitants and other matters, he set out for Tayf (five days distant from Djidda); and on his arrival there alighted at the house of Bosari, the Pasha's physician, whom he had known at Cairo. Under the name of Sheikh Ibrahim, Burckhardt declared himself to have been for some years a proselyte to the Mohammedan faith: yet he had reason to apprehend that Bosari watched him as a spy; and the Pasha had jocosely observed, "it is not the beard alone which proves a man to be a true Moslem." The Kadhy of Mekka (who happened then to be at Tayf,) remarked, that as none but a Moslem could be permitted to see the holy cities (Mekka and Medina), a circumstance of which our author could not be ignorant, he was inclined to suppose him a true believer, as he professed himself. Some difficulties on this subject being removed, Burckhardt had several interviews with the Pasha, and some extraordinary conversation of which he relates the particulars, (p. 77 et seq.). After some questions and answers the Pasha said,

"How did you pass your time among the blacks? I related some laughable stories, with which he seemed greatly amused. And now, Sheikh Ibrahim, where do you mean to go? I wish to perform the Hadj (or pilgrimage to Mekka), return to Cairo, and then proceed to visit Persia. (I did not think it advisable to mention my design of returning into the interior of Africa.) May God render smooth the way before you! but I think it folly and madness to travel so much. What, let me ask, is the result of your last journey? Men's lives are predestined: we all obey our fate. For myself, I enjoy great pleasure in exploring new

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