We entered the building, and found ourselves in a rude barrack-like room, around which were the "guardians of the night," as they are poetically termed, sitting, standing, and lying—eating, drinking, and smoking. They were nearly all Canadians; and in their blue and grey capots with the addition of slouched hats, they might have been taken for a gang of banditti in their cavern.
When the door closed upon us, and not 'till then, Timothy Crop loosened his hold upon my raiment. I turned to look at him, and saw sufficient proof that my blows, although aimed in the dark, had not been made in vain. His visage exhibited various contusions, and streams of claret were trickling from his nostrils. But Timothy, to do him justice, was true game; and he returned the smile which his pickle brought into my face, with a triumphant expression that raised him much in my estimation.
While we were eyeing each other an inner door opened, and the captain of the watch made his appearance. Timothy gave me in charge, and the man of authority conducted me with all due ceremony into his innermost den, where he invited me to take a seat by the stove, and pointing to a dirty straw pallet in a corner of the room, gave me to understand that upon it I was to spend my first night in a watch-house.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
The following translations pretend to no other merit than fidelity. The only aim of the translator has been to give as literal a version as the genius of the languages would permit. He has not presumed to blend his own with the pure conception of his author, or to obscure with ornament the inimitable beauty of his chaste, unaffected expression; he regrets that the necessity of a measure has obliged him more than once perhaps, to expand a thought whose concentration he admired:—the sin, however, was involuntary.
Lib. 1. Ode v. AD PYRRHAM.
| Quis multâ gracilis te puer in rosâ Perfusus liquidis urget odoribus Grato, Pyrrha, sub antro? Cui flavam religas comam, Simplex munditiis? heu! quoties fidem, Mutatosque Deos flebit, et aspera Nigris æquora ventis Emirabitur insolens, Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aureâ: Qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem Sperat, nescius auræ Fallacis! miseri, quibus Intenta nites. Me tabulâ sacer Votivâ paries indicat uvida Suspendisse potenti Vestimenta maris Deo. |