given to the magic influence of motion, without which, whatever may be the effect aimed at, all will be monotonous and insipid. The translator has here again most happily succeeded in sustaining the spirit of the Gallic bard, and he imperatively calls upon me, therefore, for the transference of the passage to these pages.

Surtout du mouvement:

Des grands peintres encor faut-il attester l'art?
Voyez-les prodiguer, de leur pinceau fertile,
De mobiles objets sur la toile immobile,
L'onde qui fuit, le vent qui courbe les rameaux,
Les globes de fumée, exalés des hameaux,

Les troupeaux, les pasteurs, et leurs jeux et leur danse;

Saisissez leur secret, plantez en abondance

Ces souples arbrisseaux, et ces arbres mouvans,
Dont la-tête obéit à l'haleine des vents:

Là du sommet lointain des voches buissoneuses,
Je vois la chèvre pendre; ici, de mille agneaux
L'echo porte les cris de coteaux en coteaux,
Dans ces prés abreuvés des eaux de la colline,
Couché sur ses genoux, le bœuf pesant rumine;
Tandis qu'impétueux, fier, inquiet, ardent,
Cet animal guerrier qu'enfanta le trident,

Déploie, en se jouant, dans un gras pâturage,
Sa vigueur indomptée et sa grâce sauvage.
Que j'aime et sa souplesse et son port animé;
Soit que dans le courant du fleuve accoutumé
En frissonnant il plonge, et luttant contre l'onde,
Batte du pied le flot qui blanchit et qui gronde;
Soit qu'à travers les prés il s'echappe par bonds;
Soit que, livrant aux vents ses longs crins vagabonds,
Superbe, l'œil en feu, les narines fumantes,
Beau d'orgueil et d'amour, il vole à ses amantes ;
Quand je ne le vois plus, mon œil le suit encor.

Be motion first your care: —

Chant i.

Lo! living graces from the pencil flow!
See the stiff canvass warm with motion glow!
Swift flies the flood, the waving branches bend,
And from the cot the wreaths of smoke ascend,
Wide roam the herds, the shepherds dance and play,
And all the finish'd piece with life is gay!
This secret seize, and 'mid each verdant vale,
Plant shrubs, plant trees, that bow to ev'ry gale, -
And fling a fluctuating gloom around :-
There on the distant crag o'erhung with wood,
The trembling goat may browse his scanty food;
Or here a thousand lambs with bleating shrill,
The babbling echoes wake from hill to hill;

Or cumbrous oxen ruminate, beside

The mountain-streams that thro' the meadows glide.
While proudly restive, in the fertile vale,
The trident's warrior offspring snuffs the gale;
What savage grace his vig'rous limbs display,
When fierce, impetuous, wild he bounds away!
I love his courage, when, in frantic mood,
He plunges deep amid the flashing flood,
And struggling spurns the torrent's headlong course,
That roars and foams around with thund'ring force.
And when each sinew trembles with desire,
His nostrils smoke, his eye-balls blaze with fire,
When to the wind loose streams his flowing mane,
And love and pride swell high in ev'ry vein,
And to his joys he flies, my eyes pursue,
Ev'n when his lightning speed no more I view.

With an equal degree of felicity has our translator transfused another kindred, and immediately subsequent, injunction of his original, which, after dwelling for some time on the infinite and ever-changing beauties to be derived to landscape gardening from the mere principle of motion, adds, that the eye delights no less in an air of perfect liberty, and that in the embellishment of grounds, all appearance of narrow confine or limit should be sedulously avoided,

illustrating the position by a well-drawn picture of the disgusting effect of the contrary practice, as yet occasionally to be seen in the dull and obtrusively circumscribed domains of our feudal

ancestors :

Quand toujours guerroyant vos gothiques ancêtres Transformoient en champ clos leurs asiles cham

pêtres,

Chacun dans son donjon, de murs environné.
Pour vivre sûrement, vivoit emprisonné,

Mais que fait aujourd'hui cette ennuyeuse enceinte
Que conserve l'orgueil et qu'inventa la crainte?
A ces murs qui gênoient, attristoient les regards,
Le goût préféroit ces verdoyants ramparts,
Ces murs tissus d'épine, où votre main tremblante
Cueille ou la rose inculte, on la mûre sanglante.

Chant i.

Our Gothic sires, by wars unceasing storm'd,
Their rural mansions into camps transform'd;
Each chief, secure from rude alarms to dwell,
Lurk'd in a dreary dungeon's gloomy cell.
But say what end each dull entrenchment serves,
That fear erected, and that pride preserves?
To walls that frown o'erhung with dismal gloom,
True taste prefers those mounds of various bloom,
Where the fringed thorn its purple fruit bestows,
And the hand trembles as it plucks the rose.

One of the most decisive proofs of taste and skill in the creation of scenery, is shown in the happiness and facility with which the accidental features of art or nature are made to blend with the landscape you are about to form; and, accordingly, the French poet insists upon this as among the first accomplishments of him who aims at picturesque effect; pointing out at the same time how best he may avail himself of the neighbouring bridge or cottage, town or spire; or of the windings of the adjacent stream, or the vicinity of the magnificent ocean. In doing this, however, he cannot but regret how seldom nature, time, and art, and man, combine to bring the richest accidents of landscape, and with their happiest result, before us; a sentiment which naturally carries the imagination of the bard to regions more fortunate in these respects than our own, and he apostrophises the classic realms of Greece and Rome in strains, which have been naturalised in the pages of our anonymous version, with a taste, a feeling, and enthusiasm, which may vie with the tone and execution of the original.