[11] 'The passion which made Juvenal a poet.' The scholar needs no explanation; but the reader whose scholarship is yet amongst his futurities (which I conceive to be the civilest way of describing an ignoramus) must understand that Juvenal, the Roman satirist, who was in fact a predestined poet in virtue of his ebullient heart, that boiled over once or twice a day in anger that could not be expressed upon witnessing the enormities of domestic life in Rome, was willing to forego all pretensions to natural power and inspiration for the sake of obtaining such influence as would enable him to reprove Roman vices with effect.
XII. ANNA LOUISA.
SPECIMEN TRANSLATION FROM VOSS IN HEXAMETERS, WITH
LETTER TO PROFESSOR W. ('CHRISTOPHER NORTH').
Dr. North,
Doctor, I say, for I hear that the six Universities of England and Scotland have sent you a doctor's degree, or, if they have not, all the world knows they ought to have done; and the more shame for them if they keep no 'Remembrancer' to put them in mind of what they must allow to be amongst their most sacred duties. But that's all one. I once read in my childhood a pretty book, called 'Wilson's Account of the Pelew Islands,' at which islands, you know, H.M.S. Antelope was wrecked—just about the time, I fancy, when you, Doctor, and myself were in long petticoats and making some noise in the world; the book was not written by Captain Wilson, but by Keates, the sentimentalist. At the very end, however, is an epitaph, and that was written by the captain and ship's company:
'Stop, reader, stop, let nature claim a tear;
A prince of mine, Lee Boo, lies buried here.'
This epitaph used often to make me cry, and in commemoration of that effect, which (like that of all cathartics that I know of, no matter how drastic at first) has long been growing weaker and weaker, I propose (upon your allowing me an opportunity) to superscribe you in any churchyard you will appoint: