its furious
heats.

"The Spaniard has been my least enemy;--more cruel
than arms, a pestilence has risen among us; no funeral is
without another; the dying never perish by a single death.

"Fortune! why do'st thou hesitate? By what reward
do'st thou detain the manes mingled in blood?

"Who, dying, will, after the destruction of the enemy,
occupy these tombs?--This is enquired.--
The contest is only for sterile dust."

With the following poetical translation of these verses, the writer has
been favoured by Mr. Sotheby, the elegant translator of "Oberon."

Scant battle-field of Chiefs, thro' earth renown'd,
Opprest, I loftier tow'r;--and, now, while Fate
Dreads to destroy, in foreign soil I stand.
Thrice chang'd the year, thrice have we chang'd the Foe.
Fierce Winter chafes the Deep, the Summer burns
With fell disease: less fell th' Iberian sword.
Dire Pestilence spreads;--on funerals funerals swell:
Nor does one death at once extirpate all.
Why, Fortune! linger? why our souls detain
With blood immingled? Who, the Foe extinct,
Who, dying, shall these sepulchres possess,
And in this sterile dust the conflict close?

W.S.
March 28,1826.

[Sidenote: CHAP. III. 1597-1610.]

These verses produced a great sensation in the literary world: they were
ascribed by many to Scaliger, as the best Latin poet of the age; the
only person considered to be capable of writing them. The celebrated
Peyresck hinted this to that learned man: Scaliger answered, that "he
was too old not to be the aversion of the virgins of Helicon," and
announced that the verses were written by Grotius. They were translated
into French by Du Vair, afterwards the keeper of the seals; by Rapin,
grand-provost of the Constabulary of France; by Stephen Pasquier, and by
Malherbes: Casaubon translated them into Greek.[013]

[Sidenote: The Poems of Grotius.]

Three Generals had successively been entrusted with the siege of Ostend;
nine commanders had successively been entrusted with its defence: the
siege had cost the besiegers and besieged 100,000 lives: all the
historians of the times agree, that few important consequences were
derived to either side by the success of the Spaniards. The Archduke and
Infanta, had the curiosity to view the city, after it was taken. They
found in it nothing b