Note 303 — No. XXXV.
Reading edition
[A quite literal translation of this poem would be out of the question. The fact is, the sentiment is superior to the execution. Canning could write much better if he chose. He might wish to fabricate an ultra-patriotic schoolboy, and so wrote like one; but it is certain that as a schoolboy he has written far better things. Either he wrote in a hurry, or cooked up a school exercise; the introduction looks like it, and the Latin Prose is as prosy as the verse is common-place.—A. F. W.]