[Greek: Kan eth uph aelikias]
where the meaning is—and if as yet, by reason of my immature age, there is a metrical error; and [Greek: aelikia] will not express immaturity of age. I doubt whether in the next line,
[Greek: Maed alkae thalloi gounasin aeitheos]
[Greek: gounasin] could convey the meaning without the preposition
[Greek: eth]. And in
[Greek: Spherchomai ou kaleousi theoi.]
I hasten whither the gods summon me—[Greek: ou] is not the right word. It is, however, almost impossible to write Greek verses which shall be liable to no verbal objections; and the fluent movement of these verses sufficiently argues the off-hand ease with which Lord Wellesley must have read Greek, writing it so elegantly and with so little of apparent constraint.
Meantime the most interesting (from its circumstances) of Lord Wellesley's verses, is one to which his own English interpretation of it has done less than justice. It is a Latin epitaph on the daughter (an only child) of Lord and Lady Brougham. She died, and (as was generally known at the time) of an organic affection disturbing the action of the heart, at the early age of eighteen. And the peculiar interest of the case lies in the suppression by this pious daughter (so far as it was possible) of her own bodily anguish, in order to beguile the mental anguish of her parents. The Latin epitaph is this:
'Blanda anima, e cunis heu! longo exercita morbo,
Inter maternas heu lachrymasque patris,
Quas risu lenire tuo jucunda solebas,
Et levis, et proprii vix memor ipsa mali;
I, pete calestes, ubi nulla est cura, recessus:
Et tibi sit nullo mista dolore quies!'
The English version is this:
'Doom'd to long suffering from earliest years,
Amidst your parents' grief and pain alone
Cheerful and gay, you smiled to soothe their tears;
And in their agonies forgot your own.
Go, gentle spirit; and among the blest
From grief and pain eternal be thy rest!'