Page:Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius.djvu/142

130 clear, simple language, as well as thought, distinguish him equally from the learning and imagination of Catullus, and the artificial phraseology and constantly-involved constructions of Propertius. He deserves the meed of natural grace and unrestrained simplicity, and ranks amongst his elegiac contemporaries as par excellence the poet of nature. In some respects his genius might compare with that of Burns, though in others the likeness fails; and perhaps it is owing to his limited range of subjects that he has not been more translated into English. Dart's translation, as well as that of Grainger, is almost forgotten; the partial translations of Major Packe and Mr Hopkins quite so. A few neat versions of Tibullus which occur in 'Specimens of the Classic Poets,' are due to Charles Abraham Elton, the scholarly translator of Hesiod; but it is to Mr James Cranstoun that the English reader who wishes to know more of this poet than can be learned in a comparatively brief memoir and estimate, must incur a debt such as we have incurred in the foregoing pages.