III. (P. 177.)

Forem vecte oppilamus: at nemo interim
Adeo obseratam januam fecit faber,

Quæ non feli pateret atque adultero.

Clauduntur ædes pessulis, repagulis:

Sed januam faber haud ita unquam muniit,
Ut non pateret feli aditus et adultero.

IV. (P. 178.)

Lacæna.

Annos seniles ne, Philine, spreveris,
Ad quos pervenies et tu vivendo diu.

Sed unum est in quo a vobis patres vincimur:
Nam si qua in re minus indulgemus, illico
Audimus, Non fuisti juvenis tu quoque?
At contra genitor nato morigero minus
Haud est ut dicat, Non fuisti et tu senex?

V. (P. 178.)

Amici siquis fuerit ingressus domum,

Is si ex animo est amicus, signa, Nicophon,
Apparent. primum simulatque attigerit fores,
Vultu adstat hilari janitor: adulat canis
Caudam agitans: tum vero aliquis accurrit citus,
Sellamque ponit imperante nemine.

APOLLODORUS. ]

VERSIONES ANGLICE.

EPICHARMUS. (P.1.)

Good gossip, if you love me, prate no more:
What are your genealogies to me?

Away to those, who have more need of them!
Let the degenerate wretches, if they can,
Dig up dead honour from their fathers' tombs,
And boast it for their own-Vain empty boast!
When every common fellow, that they meet,
If accident hath not cut off the scroll,
Can shew a list of ancestry as long.

You call the Scythians barbarous, and despise them;
Yet Anacharsis was a Scythian born;
And every man of a like noble nature,

5

10

Tho' he were moulded from an Ethiop's loins,
Is nobler than your pedigrees can make him.

CUMBERLAND.

Cease, if you love me, mother, cease to trace
Our long extraction to an ancient race;
'Tis theirs alone, who boast no inbred worth,
To found their claim of honour on their birth,

And strive their want of virtue to supply
With glory borrow'd from old ancestry.
That all had ancestors the proof can give,
When you admit, that all have liv'd, or live:

If thousands find it difficult to trace

(Through lack of friends, or luckless change of place)
In whose pure veins their streams of kindred ran,
Are they less noble than the few that can?

5

10

EPICHARMUS.

FAWKES.

The poorest tenant of the Libyan wild,

Whose life is pure, whose thoughts are undefil'd,
In titled ranks may claim the first degree,
For Virtue only is Nobility'.

This birth will be my death. Don't, dearest mother,

Don't, as you love me, talk for aye of family,
When suitors woo. Who in himself owns nought

Of native good, mental or physical,

Flies straightway to his grandsire's monument,
And on his fingers counts his ancestry;

As if the man existed, who had not

15

5

His ancestry! How else, indeed, came he

Into this world? But if through change of place,

Or lack of friends, he cannot quote their names—
Why is he therefore more ignoble deem'd

10

Than the glib gentle? He, whose inward nature
Inclines him to all virtuous achievement,
He-he, although of Æthiop race, is noble.

Is he a Scythian? Scum! But Scythian too
Was Anacharsis.

CRATINUS. (P. 3.)

My statue's gone! By Dædalus 'twas made.
It is not stolen therefore; it has stray'd.

15

WRANGHAM.

CUMBERLAND.

EUPOLIS.

I. (P. 4.)

Of many things, which offer themselves to my consideration, I cannot find words to speak, so penetrated am I with affliction,

1 Jonson. Underwoods, To Kenelm, John, George: 'Tis Vertue alone, is true Nobility. Dryden's Juvenal VIII. 37. Virtue alone is true Nobility. EPICHARMUS—CRATINUS-EUPOLIS.]

when I turn my thoughts to the condition of the commonwealth ; for you must be conscious, O! citizens, it was not so administered in times past, when men of high birth, men, whose rank, fortune, and merit, gave them a consideration in the state, fill'd the first offices of government: To such we deferred, as to the deities themselves; for they merited our respect, and under their protection we enjoyed security: now we have no other guide in our election but blind ignoble chance; and on whatsoever head it falls, though he be the worst and meanest of mankind, he starts up a great man at once, and is installed with all proper solemnity a rogue in the state.

II. (P. 5.)

CUMBERLAND.

Mark now, and learn of me the thriving arts,
By which we parasites contrive to live:

Fine rogues we are, my friend, (of that be sure)
And daintily we gull mankind.-Observe!

First I provide myself a nimble thing
To be my page, a varlet of all crafts;

Next two new suits for feasts and gala-days,
Which I promote by turns, when I walk forth
To sun myself upon the public square:

There, if perchance I spy some rich dull knave,
Straight I accost him, do him reverence,
And, saunt'ring up and down, with idle chat
Hold him awhile in play; at every word,
Which his wise worship utters, I stop short
And bless myself for wonder; if he ventures
On some vile joke, I blow it to the skies,
And hold my sides for laughter-Then to supper,
With others of our brotherhood to mess
In some night-cellar on our barley-cakes,
And club invention for the next day's shift.

5

10

15

20

CUMBERLAND.

[EUPOLIS.

PLATO.

I. (P. 8.)

Hoa there! who art thou? Answer me-Art dumb?'
-Warm from the hand of Dædalus I come;
My name Mercurius, and, as you may prove,
A statue; but his statues speak and move.'

II. (P. 9.)

CUMBERLAND.

By the sea's margin, on the watery strand,
Thy monument, Themistocles, shall stand:
By this directed to thy native shore
The merchant shall convey his freighted store;
And when our fleets are summon'd to the fight,
Athens shall conquer with thy tomb in sight.

CUMBERLAND.

Thy grave is set and plac'd commodiously,
Where passengers and merchants that come by
May visit thee, and where it may regard
All such as seeke that port to be their ward.
Sometimes also, it may rejoice to see
The bloody fights upon the sea that be.

Oft, as the merchant speeds the passing sail,
Thy tomb, Themistocles, he stops to hail:
When hostile ships in martial combat meet,
Thy shade attending hovers o'er the fleet.

III. (P. 9.)

NORTH.

LANGHORNE.

FATHER. Thou hast destroy'd the morals of my son,
And turn'd his mind, not so dispos'd, to vice,
Unholy pedagogue! With morning drams,

A filthy custom, which he caught from thee,
Clean from his former practice, now he saps
PLATO.]

5

5

5