For soon, I ween, it answers to my care,
And every fruit and every flower is there:
Variety how rich!

Nothing can be more happily chosen, whether its sweetness or simplicity be considered, than the language of this translation, which steals in, like a dream of soothing moon-light, between the gloomy splendor of the preceding, and the still more terrific tinting of the following scene. The Gallic Virgil is asserting that it falls within the aim of the creator of the living landscape, provided he possess a correct taste, not only to smooth and to adorn the harsher aspects of Nature, but occasionally for the highest purposes of picturesque effect, to unveil her features in all their dread array, and to agitate the soul, in fact, with a grateful but a transient terror. With this view he says,

D'une simple cabane il

Au bord d'un précipice

pose l'édifice :

Le précipice encore en paroît agrandi.

Tantôt d'un roc à l'autre il jette un pont hardi.

A leur terrible aspect je tremble, et de leur cime L'imagination me suspend sur l'abime.

Je songe
à tous ces bruits du peuple répétés,
De voyageurs perdus, d'amans précipités;
Vieux récits, qui charmant la foule émerveillée,
Des crédules hameaux abrègent la veillée,
Et que l'effroi du lieu persuade un moment.

Chant 3.

The version of this extract opens with a couplet for which the translator has no exact prototype in the French lines, but it leads gracefully and emphatically to the subject, and the residue of the version is given not only with great fidelity, but with great strength, and power of impression.

The rude impending rock, the darken'd wood,
May" breathe a browner horror on the flood;"
On the cliff's edge the simple cot be seen,
And hang new terrors o'er the broken scene;
Or bold from rock to rock a bridge be cast;
Back from the deep abrupt I shrink aghast!
Or fancy hangs me o'er their frowning brow,
While my soul shudders at th' abyss below.
creeps into my mind each horrid tale
Of travellers headlong hurl'd, and lovers pale,

Then

By midnight murder dash'd the crags among ;
Tales that delight the wonder-loving throng,
And oft abridge the tedious village eve,
Which local dread impels me to believe.

It is seldom, however, that scenery of this terrific cast can be allowed to interrupt that flow of pleasurable emotion which should be the general result of the art of landscape gardening, and the author therefore hastens to conduct us from the crag, the mountain, and the cliff, to the vale which smiles below, and where, through verdure, shade, and flowers, the river pours along its exhilarating treasures. It is thus that the subject of water, one of the most important features both of the beautiful and picturesque, is introduced, and occupies, as it deserves to do, the greater part of the third book. The passage which opens on this delightful theme, is fortunately one of those to which due effect has been given by the magic colouring of the translator; praise of no mean moment when the merit and high finish of the original picture are duly considered:

O rochers! ouvrez-moi vos sources souterraines, Et vous, fleuves, ruisseaux, beaux lacs, claires fontaines,

Venez, portez par-tout la vie et la fraîcheur.
Ah! qui peut remplacer votre aspect enchanteur?
De près il nous amuse, et de loin nous invite;

C'est le premier qu'on cherche, et le dernier qu'on quitte.

Vous fécondez les champs; vous répétez les cieux;
Vous enchantez l'oreille et vous charmez les yeux.
Venez: puissent mes vers, en suivant votre course,
Couler plus abondans encor que votre source,
Plus légers que les vents qui courbent vos roseaux,
Doux comme votre bruit, et purs comme vos eaux!
Et vous qui dirigez ces ondes bienfaitrices,
Respectez leurs penchans et même leurs caprices.
Dans la facilité de ses libres detours,

Voyez l'eau de ses bords embrasser les contours.
De quel droit osez-vous, captivant sa souplesse,
De ses plis sinueux contraindre la mollesse ?
Que lui fait tout le marbre où vous l'emprisonnez?
Voyez-vous, les cheveux aux vents abandonnés ?
Sans gêne, sans apprêt, sans parure étrangère,
Marcher, courir, bondir la folâtre bergère?
Sa grâce est dans l'aisance et dans la liberté !
Mais au fond d'un sérail contemplez la beauté;

En vain elle éblouit, vainement elle étale
De ses atours captifs la pompe orientale;

Je ne sais quoi de triste, empreint dans tous ses

traits,

Décéle la contrainte et flétrit ses attraits.

Chant 3.

Ye rocks, unlock your subterranean cells;
Ye rivers, brooks, fair lakes, and limpid wells,
Give life, give verdure, as along you stray;
No other beauties could your loss repay.

When near you please, from far your charms invite,
With joy we seek, with sorrow quit your sight;
You fertilize the plains, reflect the skies,

Charm the rapt ear, and fix th' enchanted eyes.
Come, let my lay your warbling course pursue,
And flow in rich luxuriance like you;

Light as the gales that sport your banks along,
Clear as your stream, and gentle as your song.
You, then, who wish the fertile waves to guide,
Give, as it lists, their wild caprice to glide.
Behold yon stream the jutting shore embrace,
As round it wanders in a gentle maze.

Say, with what right you dare in bounds restrain
The winding softness of its gliding train?
See, unconfined, in simplest garb array'd,

Run, bound, exult along, the village maid!