"Chaste Delia, grant our suit! oh, shun the wood,
Nor stain this sacred lawn with savage blood.
Venus, O Delia, if she could persuade,
Would ask thy presence, might she ask a maid."
Here cheerful choirs for three auspicious nights
With songs prolong the pleasurable rites:
Here crowds in measures lightly decent move;
Or seek by pairs the covert of the grove,
Where meeting greens for arbors arch above,
And mingling flowerets strew the scenes of love.
Here dancing Ceres shakes her golden sheaves;
Here Bacchus revels, decked with viny leaves;
Here wit's enchanting god [Apollo], in laurel crowned,
Wakes all the ravished Hours with silver sound.

Ye fields, ye forests, own Dione's reign,
And Delia, huntress Delia, shun the plain.

Let those love now, who never loved before;

And those who always loved, now love the more.

Gay with the bloom of all her opening year,
The Queen at Hybla bids her throne appear,
And there presides; and there the fav'rite
band,

Her smiling Graces, share the great command.
Now, beauteous Hybla! dress thy flowery
beds

With all the pride the lavish season sheds;
Now all thy colors, all thy fragrance yield,
And rival Enna's aromatic fieid.

To fill the presence of the gentle court
From every quarter rural nymphs resort,
From woods, from mountains, from these
humble vales,

From waters curling with the wanton gales.

Pleased with the joyful train, the laughing Queen
In circles seats them round the bank of green;
And, "Lovely girls," she whispers, "guard your hearts;
My boy, though stripped of arms, abounds in arts."

Let those love now, who never loved before,
And those who always loved, now love the more.

Let tender grass in shaded alleys spread;
Let early flowers erect their painted head;
To-morrow's glory be to-morrow seen;
That day old Æther wedded Earth in green.
The vernal father bade the spring appear,
In clouds he coupled to produce the year;
The sap descending o'er her bosom ran,
And all the various sorts of soul began
By wheels unknown to sight, by secret veins
Distilling life; the fruitful goddess reigns
Through all the lovely realms of native day,
Through all the circled land and circling sea;
With fertile seed she filled the pervious earth,
And ever fixed the mystic ways of birth.

Let those love now, who never loved before;
And those who always loved, now love the more.

"Twas she, the parent, to the Latin shore
Through various dangers Troy's remainder bore.
She won Lavinia for her warlike son [Æneas],
And winning her, the Latian empire won.
She gave to Mars the maid whose honored womb
Swelled with the founder of immortal Rome.
Decoyed by shows, the Sabine dames she led,
And taught our vigorous youth the means to wed.
Hence sprang the Romans, hence the race divine
Through which great Cæsar draws his Julian line.

Let those love now, who never loved before;
And those who always loved, now love the more

In rural seats the soul of pleasure reigns;
The love of Beauty fills the rural scenes;
F'en Love (if fame the truth of Love declare)
Drew first the breathings of a rural air,
Some pleasing meadow pregnant Beauty pressed,
She laid her infant on its bowery breast;
From nature's sweets he supped the fragrant dew,
He smiled, he kissed them, and by kissing grew.

Let those love now, who never loved before;
And those who always loved, now love the more.

And now the goddess bids the birds appear,
Raise all their music, and salute the year;

Then deep the swan begins, and deep the song
Runs o'er the water where he sails along;
While Philomela tunes a treble strain,

And from the poplar charms the list'ning plain.
We fancy love expressed at every note;
It melts, it warbles in her liquid throat.
Of barbarous Tereus she complains no more,
But sings for pleasure, as for grief before.
And still her graces rise, her airs extend,
And all is silence till the siren end.

How long in coming is my lovely spring?
And when shall I, and when the swallow sing?
Sweet Philomela, cease;-or here I sit,
And silent loose my rapturous hour of wit.
'Tis gone; the fit retires, the flames decay;
My tuneful Phoebus flies averse away.

Let those love now, who never loved before;
And those who always loved, now love the more.

AULUS GELLIUS.

A DILIGENT compiler, and yet not without originality, was Aulus Gellius, who has preserved in his miscellany fragments of older authors, both Greek and Latin, which would otherwise have been lost. He lived at Rome in the second century, but the dates of his birth and death are unknown, though he has left some autobiographic information. The names of his teachers and friends are recorded, and we learn that he had studied rhetoric and philosophy and held a judicial office. His literary work is called "Noctes Attica" (Attic Nights), because, as he states, it was gathered "during many long winter nights which I spent in Attica." The extracts were set down, without arrangement, from whatever book happened to come to hand. It is evident from the occasional repetitions, aud even contradictions, that some of these books were compilations. The collection was intended merely for the amusement and relaxation of his children, as well as himself. It is divided into twenty books.

THE PHILOSOPHER IN THE STORM.

During the whole of the first night of our voyage a very stormy side-wind filled our vessel with water. At length, after much complaining, and sufficient employment at the pump, daylight appeared, but brought no diminution of our danger, nor cessation of the storm; but the whirlwinds seemed increasing, and the black sky, and the balls of fire, and the clouds, forming themselves into frightful shapes (which they called Typhons), appeared hanging over us ready to overwhelm the ship. In the company was a celebrated philosopher of the Stoic school, whom I had known at Athens, a man of some consequence, and rather distinguished for the good order in which he kept his pupils. Amidst all these dangers, and this tumult of sea and sky, I watched this man attentively, anxious to know the state of his mind, whether he was dauntless and unalarmed. I observed that he expressed no fear nor apprehensions, uttered no complaints like the rest, nor joined in their way of exclaiming, but in paleness and terror of countenance he differed but little from his neighbors.

When the sky grew clear, and the sea became calm, a certain rich Greek from Asia approached the Stoic; his wealth was proved from his expensive appearance, his quantity of baggage, and his train of attendants. "What is the reason," said he, in a bantering tone, "that, when we were in danger, you, who are a philosopher, were afraid, and looked pale, while I was neither afraid nor pale?" The philosopher doubted a little whether it was worth while to make any answer. "If," said he, "in so violent a storm I did discover a little fear, you are not worthy of being told the reason; but that follower of Aristippus shall give you an answer for me, who, upon a similar occasion, being asked by a man much like yourself why, as a philosopher, he was afraid, while he feared nothing, replied that there was not the same cause for fear in one as in the other, for the preservation of a worthless coxcomb was not an object worthy of much anxiety, but that he was concerned for the safety of an Aristippus." With this reply the Stoic got rid of the rich Asiatic.

ITALIAN LITERATURE.

PERIOD IV. 1600-1700 A.D.

ETRARCH, by the polished perfection of his sonnets, and Boccaccio, by the light-hearted gayety of his merry tales, set to their ingenious pleasure-loving countrymen examples which they have never been weary in imitating. Every gentleman of any pretensions to wit or learning must become a Petrarchist or a Boccaccist. At times the fashion of composing sonnets has been carried to ridiculous excess. For more ambitious spirits there were also longer canzoni and odes. Giambattista Marini (1569-1625) with his extravagant poetic "conceits" outdid Petrarch and had numerous followers, known as Marinists. His chief work, "Adone," a kind of epic on Adonis, won him a pension and the title of "cavaliere" from the king of France. An example of his exaggerated antithesis is found in his description of Love, which is thus translated: "Lynx reft of light, a blindfold Argus, suckling old man and aged little boy, ignorant yet learned, naked yet armed."

Equally artificial and fantastic was the school of the Arcadians, which, however, is justly said to have "made Italian literature languid and tame." During the last decade of the seventeenth century various scholars living at Rome became accustomed to repair to one of the pleasant hills of the neighborhood, and there read canzonets, elegies, sonnets and epigrams. One day, an exultant member of the brotherhood exclaimed: "Ecco per noi risorta Arcadia!" (See for us Arca