But what has been has been, and I have had my hour.'
If we mistake not, Mr. Blackmore himself remarks somewhere, that the meaning of the New Testament comes out better in English than it possibly could in Greek; similarly, we prefer Blackmore's 'Georgics' to Virgil's. As we have here no space for anything like critical discussion, we prefer to quote the beautiful lines with which the translator apologises for his temerity.
'Indulgence have ye for a gardener's dream
(A man with native melody unblest)!
How patient toil and love that does its best,
Clouds though they be, may follow the sunbeam.
'And in this waning of poetic day,
With all so misty, moonlit, and grotesque,
'Tis sweet to quit that medley picturesque,
And chase the sunset of a clearer ray.