fortify the strength, till thou dost bright And noble fires beget. XI. Whilst this hard truth I teach, methinks, I see The monster London laugh at me; I should at thee too, foolish city, If it were fit to laugh at misery. But thy estate, I pity. XII. Let but thy wicked men from out thee go, And the fools that crowd thee so,— Even thou, who dost thy millions boast, A village less than Islington wilt grow, A solitude almost. p. 56OF OBSCURITY. p. 56 Nam neque divitibus contingunt gaudia solis, Nec vixit male, qui natus moriensque fefellit. God made not pleasures only for the rich, Nor have those men without their share too lived, Who both in life and death the world deceived. This seems a strange sentence thus literally translated, and looks as if it were in vindication of the men of business (for who else can deceive the world?) whereas it is in commendation of those who live and die so obscurely, that the world takes no notice of them. This Horace calls deceiving the world, and in another place uses the same phrase. This Secretum iter et fallentis semita vitæ. The secret tracks of the deceiving life. It is very elegant in Latin, but our English word will hardly bear up to that sense, and therefore Mr. Broome translates it very well: CONTENTS Or from a life, led as it were by stealth. Yet we say in our language, a thing deceives our sight, when it passes before us unperceived, and we may say well enough out of the same author: CONTENTS Sometimes with sleep, sometimes with wine we strive The cares of life and troubles to deceive.
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