Note 211 — BOOK IX.

Compare the following pretty lines of Quintus Calaber (Dyce’s Select Translations, p 88).— “Many gifts he gave, and o’er Dolopia bade me rule; thee in his arms He brought an infant, on my bosom laid The precious charge, and anxiously enjoin’d That I should rear thee as my own with all A parent’s love. I fail’d not in my trust And oft, while round my neck thy hands were lock’d, From thy sweet lips the half articulate sound Of Father came; and oft, as children use, Mewling and puking didst thou drench my tunic.” “This description,” observes my learned friend (notes, p. 121) “is taken from the passage of Homer, II ix, in translating which, Pope, with that squeamish, artificial taste, which distinguished the age of Anne, omits the natural (and, let me add, affecting) circumstance.” “And the wine Held to thy lips, and many a time in fits Of infant frowardness the purple juice Rejecting thou hast deluged all my vest, And fill’d my bosom.” —Cowper.