D'une pierre moins brute honorez son tombeau;
Tracez-y ses vertus et les pleurs du hameau :
Qu'on y lise Ci git le bon fils, le bon pere,
Le bon époux. Souvent un charme involontaire
Vers ses enclos sacrés appellera vos yeux.
Et toi qui vins chanter sous ces arbres pieux,
Avant de les quitter, Muse, que ta guirlande
Demeure à leurs rameaux suspendue en offrande.
Que d'autres dans leurs vers célèbrent la beauté ;
Que leur muse, toujours ivre de volupté,
Ne se montre jamais qu'un myrte sur la tête,
Qu'avec ses chants de joie et ses habits de fête;
Toi, tu dis au tombeau des chants consolateurs,
Et ta main la première y jeta quelques fleurs.

Chant 4.

With early morn, what time the cock first crows,
The simple patient labourer arose ;

Till late at eve, around the crackling hearth,
His little children soothed him with their mirth :
In toil unwearied roll'd his peaceful day,

Nor wars nor treaties mark'd his "noiseless way:" "For to be born, to suffer, and to die,"

The poor man cried, " is all my history."

Nor yet disdains his soul the voice of fame,
The rude memorial of an honest name.

Who unconcern'd his being e'er resign'd,

Nor" cast one longing ling'ring look behind ?"
Who has not hoped a friend's regret to share,

Nor wish'd to claim "the tributary tear ?" O! let the toils, 'neath which in life they groan'd, Be by the honours of their graves atoned! Oh! let a stone less rugged grace his tomb, Whose noble virtues shamed his humble doom! Who serv'd his God, his family with zeal, Obey'd his king, and lov'd his country's weal; With modesty who stamp'd his daughter's brow, There trace his virtues, and the hamlet's woe. There let us read, "Beneath this humble stone "Lies the good sire, good husband, and good son." And thou, O Muse! who 'neath this solemn gloom, That loves to shroud the ever-silent tomb, Has tried to sooth "the dull cold ear of death," Upon their boughs suspend thy votive wreath. Let others woo bright beauty to their arms, And, drunk with pleasure, celebrate her charms, In festive robes adorn'd, their lays resound, Their brows for ay with verdant myrtle crown'd : Thou to the grave consoling strains hast sung, And earliest blossoms on the tomb hast flung.

Turning from subjects of this mournful complexion, the poet calls us to a consideration

of the beauties which may be engrafted on landscape gardening by a judicious introduction of architectural objects. He reprobates, however, in the most emphatic manner, a wild and lavish profusion of buildings, culled from every age and nation,

Kiosk, pagoda, obelisk, and dome,

Drawn from Arabia, China, Greece, and Rome,

correctly and tastefully declaring that no ornament of this kind should find its place in the garden aiming at the highest province of the art, to which the epithets idle or inappropriate can possibly attach. The remark leads him to a warmly-expressed encomium on the pleasing effects to be derived, in a picturesque point of view, from the simple farm, and its rural occupations:

La ferme! A ce nom seul, les moissons, les vergers,
Le règne pastoral, les doux soins des bergers,
Ces biens de l'age d'or, dont l'image chérie
Plut tant à mon enfance, âge d'or de la vie,
Réveillent dans mon cœur mille regrets touchans.
Venez de vos oiseaux j'entends déjà les chants;

J'entends rouler les chars qui traînent l'abondance, Et le bruit des fléaux qui tombent en cadence.

Chant 4.

The farm! what joys that single word can give!
What warm emotions in my breast revive!
The golden age again resumes the year!
The harvests, orchards, past'ral joys appear!
Those scenes adored in youth, life's golden age!
Hark! how the birds my list'ning ears engage!
I hear the cars that roll abundance round,
And flails in cadence falling on the ground!

To give such a degree of chaste and simple elegance to the scenery of the farm as shall adapt it to become one of the most delightful constituents of embellished landscape, demands no common union of simplicity in design, and judgment in execution; but the object once attained, it is then, to adopt a line of our author, that

La ferme est aux jardins ce qu'aux vers est l'idylle.

Nor are the implements of farming, nor many of its operations, to be hidden from our

view; and more especially is the animation of the farm-yard, and particularly that of the feathered tribes, their sports, their manners, and their polity, to be deemed essential to the variety we are in search of. On these topics of rural economy, as accommodated to the purposes of the picturesque in gardening, the French poet has dwelt at considerable length; but as I do not think his translator has been eminently successful in transfusing the colouring which has given them their grace and spirit, I forbear to quote from this part of the work, reserving my next specimen of the version for a subject which, from the superior vigour and elevation of its tone, appears to have again called forth his best exertions. M. De Lille has passed from the description of domestic birds to indulge in a slight sketch of those of foreign climes,

Birds whom the sun in radiant plumes attires,
And bids them glow with all their parents' fires,

and who are condemned to be lodged in the splendid aviary. Yet, whilst he yields to the