222 MONTHLY BKVIKW OF LITEJIATUUE AND AIIT. 



costly collection. Several of these plates are given with each volume. 

 The work is much to our taste, and it affords us much pleasure to 

 commend it. 



TRANSLATIONS OP THE OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE LATIN PRIZE 



POEMS. SECOND SERIES. LONGMAN, 1883. 



Prize poems are proverbially but indifferent efforts ; that is, as 

 poems. The language may be appropriate enough, and sometimes 

 vigorous ; the verse smooth, and sometimes sonorous ; the subject in- 

 teresting, and sometimes inspiriting yet we cannot account for it, 

 we know of nothing so dull and heavy in the bulk as a collection of 

 prize poems. To be sure, it is expected of the young aspirant for 

 university honours, that he will display to as much advantage as pos- 

 sible whatever learning it may have pleased providence to put in his 

 way in compositions of this nature ; and that to a degree prohibitory, 

 altogether, of natural feeling and simplicity of expression. We can 

 imagine the shrugs, raised hands and eyes, that would be brought 

 into active play at a conclave of doctors, if a young poet, in the true 

 sense of the word, were on the occasion of his contending for the prize, 

 to violate so far the rules of prize writing as to warm into something 

 like an outburst of human passion. Oh, the scandal ! Oh, the shame- 

 ful libertine ! and Professor Coldasice would draw his robes about 

 him, link his hands, and cushion them on his good round belly, fetch 

 a long breath, and fast incontinently into a reverie, chiefly concerning 

 the depravity of human creatures, and the unprecedented infamy of 

 the youth before him ; diverging from the strict line, however, now 

 and then, into a pleasing retrospect of by-gone years, with himself in 

 the distance, and full in perspective the incomparable charms of Dolly 

 Mayflower. No, no, Doctor, not a word of that ; don't be alarmed 



we are as mum as the dead ; but you know well, well, there is an 



end of it. 



Speaking generally, if you have read one of these poems, you have 

 read them all ; they are all alike the same verse, the same style, the 

 same character of thoughts, the same mythological allusions, the same 

 apostrophes to the fallen greatness of Rome, Greece, or Carthage 

 in fact, without any particular stretch of a man's organ of credulity, 

 he might very well believe them all to have been written by one and 

 the same man. They are all paraphrases of things we have read a 

 thousand times, penned a thousand years ago ; yet not, in themselves, 

 without merit either of what particular order that merit may be, is 

 left to be considered. 



There can be no doubt that it is not every man who could write 

 after the fashion of these poems ; of course we speak of every man of 

 education. There can be no doubt, likewise, that the amount of talent 

 required to accomplish writings of this character, is so largely shared 

 in an equal degree by a minority, bearing no inconsiderable propor- 

 tion to the whole body of gentlemen brought up either at our univer- 

 sities, or elsewhere, where the same proficiency is to be attained, that 

 such powers can never be considered to be of a very high order, or 

 deserving of high approbation ; though, undoubtedly, very estimable, 

 very honourable, and very interesting. Moreover, these productions 



