Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/97

 us. iv. JULY 29,i9ii.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

91

H. A. J. Munro. To this should

Privately printed 1874. be added that it was

included in his privately printed ' Transla- tions into Greek and Latin Verse ' (1884), a book which has been reprinted and pub- lished with a prefatory note by J. D. Duff (1906). Any one interested in the subject of Latin verse renderings from English poets will be amply repaid for the trouble of turning to Munro 's characteristic and vigorous article ' Recent Latin Verse ' in Macmillari's Magazine, vol. xxxi., con- taining his reply to some criticism of Mr. T. E. Kebbel.

Henry T. Liddell, Earl of Ravensworth. I can say from inspection that there is no version of the ' Elegy ' in his ' Carmina Latina ' (London, 1865).

H. Sewell, 1875. The title of this edition is " Gray's Elegy. Translated by Henry Sewell, late Attorney - General of New Zealand. (Amici recensuerunt)." 1875, s.l. (unless the place of publication was printed on a wrapper). The version is in elegiacs, and begins

Campana insonuit ; pratis armenta relictis. P. B. Shelley. The date of Medwin's ' Life of Shelley,' in which the poet's Latin rendering of the Epitaph was printed, is 1847.

"That he had certainly arrived at great skill in the art of versification, I think I shall be able to prove hy the following specimens I kept among my treasures, which he gave me in 1808 or 9. The first is the Epitaph in Gray's ' Elegy in a Country Church- yard,' probably a school task." Vol. i pp. 48, 49.

The fact should not be overlooked that this version shows in several places a very close resemblance to Wakefield's (first published in 1776). I am not aware that the editors of Shelley who have included the lines in his works have noticed this. The first stanza in both pieces ends :

popularis ille

Nescius aurse.

The second stanza in Wakefield's ends :

Et suum tristis voluit vocari

Sollicitudo. Shelley has :

Et suum tristis puerum notavit

Sollicitudo.

For the third stanza Wakefield has : Indoles illi generosa ; sedem Veritas istam sibi yindicavit; Et pari tantis meritis beavit Munere Ccelum.

Shelley :

Indoles illi bene larga, pectus Veritas sedem sibi yindicavit, Et pari tantis meritis beavit Munere Coelum.

The last two stanzas in Wakefield rim : Cseteris sed tu fuge curioso Velle Virtutes oculo retectas A sua Culpas fuge velle tractas Sede tremenda :

Sede Virtutes paritesque Culpae Spe tremiscentes recubant in ilia ; In sui Patris gremio (tremenda

Sede !) Deique. Shelley has :

Longius sed tu fuge curiosus Ceeteras laudes fuge suspicari, Cseteras culpas fuge velle tractas

Sede tremenda.

Spe tremescentes recubant in ilia Sede virtu tes pariterque culpse, In sui Patris gremio, tremenda Sede Deique.

In view of the fact that the lines attributed by Medwin to his cousin are included in editions of Shelley's poems, it seems worth while pointing out their obvious indebted- ness.

Canon Sheringham, 1901. This version in elegiacs by J. W. Sheringham, Archdeacon and Canon of Gloucester, was printed by H. Osborne, Gloucester, and sold at the price of one shilling for Tewkesbury Abbey Restoration, n.d. The opening line is

Murmure iam lento pecudes per prata vagantur.

Gilbert Wakefield : Cambridge, Arch- deacon, 1776. The only copy of this date that I have seen is anonymous (" Auctore J. Nicholson in Cambridge, and by C. Crowder and J. Rivington in London. Wakefield's translation is printed with Guedon de Berchere's French translation (Croydon, 1788), where it is described as
 * Coll: Cant: Alumno "), and sold by

par un membre de 1'universite de Cam- bridge." There is some drastic criticism on it in H. A. J. Munro' s article referred to above.

C. A. Wheelwright. The first edition of his Poems Original and Translated ' appeared in 1810. The 'Elegy' is in elegiacs, the Epitaph in alcaics.

The following Latin versions do not appear in MB. NOBTHTJP'S list :

Poematia, auctore Nelson Kerr, LL.B. Coll. Johan. Bapt. Oxon." (London, 1802.) In this book is an elegiac version begin- ning (p. 19)

JEdibus e sacris lapses sonat hora diei.

' Nugse,' by Thomas Medwin (Heidelberg, 1856). On pp. 1-6 is a Latin translation of the ' Elegy,' the body of the poem in elegiacs, the Epitaph in sapphics. The irst four stanzas of the Epitaph are virtually the same as in Shelley's. The last two bear