THE ODES OF HORACE.
1To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] gIft,—In your review (August 3rd) of Mr. Morris's translation of the Odes you quote his rendering of the opening of " Justum et tenacem." May I quote another rendering, partly because I think it produces the sonorousness which your reviewer thinks lacking in Mr. Morris's version and partly in the hope that somebody will identify the author ? All I can say about it is that it appeared in a. West of England news- paper about forty years ago, and the person who quoted it. said he had come across it, I think, in manuscript at an inn in Connemara many years before. It is only a fragment :— " The man whose nerve stern virtue strings Firm by his lofty purpose clings, Quails not before the scowl of kings, And braves the rude democracy.
His lordly soul nor sees with dread The gale lash Adria's billowy bed, Nor, flashing from his right hand red, The bolt of heaven's high Thunderer.
Be earth from its foundations riven, Crash, too, the azure vault of heaven, Down on his head the wreck be driven, 'Twill smite him, smiling, panicless.
Upborne by virtue, Leda's son- Alcides—each their honours won; Each trod the empyrean on, And stormed the starry citadel." —I am, Sir, &c.,
J. C. F.
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