Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/225



And each man's lips are at his neighbour's ear. Perhaps a recollection of Pope's line (Satires of Dr. Donne), "When half his nose is in his prince's ear."

Of studying truths that rick and poor concern, Which young and old are lost unless they learn. This may seem borrowed from Cowper's "Tirocinium," truths on which depend our main concern, That 'tis our shame and misery not to learn; but I believe the resemblance to be purely accidental. It may serve however to show that the more serious passages in Horace, as well as the lighter ones, are not unlike Cowper.

That makes Atrides and Achilles foes. Almost verbatim from a line in Pope's "Odyssey," which is itself probably from one in Maynwaring's First Book of the "Iliad."

Not to admire, Numicius, is the best, The only way, to make and keep men blest. Slightly altered from the later editions of Francis: Not to admire is of all means the best, The only means, to make and keep us blest. Ten lines lower down I have a couplet nearly coincident with one in Howes, but not intentionally so.

But what are Rhodes and Lesbos, and the rest. This and the nine following lines are a considerable expansion of the Latin: but I was apprehensive of not bringing out the connexion, if I translated more closely.