^Pfn-Drwwimg and Ptn-Drmtghismgn, and cd. 1I94, p. 3sS*



HORATIAN ODE

ON THE TERCENTENARY OF

"DON QUIXOTE"



MS



HORATIAN ODE

ON THE TERCENTENARY OF

"DON QUIXOTE"

{Published at Madrid, by Francisco de RobUs, January 1605)
"Psra mi sola naci6 don Quixote, y yo para <l/'— Crvantes

Advents we greet of great and small ;
Much we extol that may not live ;
Yet to the new-born Type we give
No care at all I

This year,* — ^three centuries past, — ^by age

More maimed than by Lepanto's fight,—
This year Cervantes gave to light
His matchless page,

Whence first outrode th' immortal Pair, —
The half-crazed Hero and his hind, —
To make sad laughter for mankind ;
And whence they fare

*/.#. January X9o$«



128 DE LIBRIS

Throughout all Fiction still, where chance
Allies Life's dulness with its dreams —
Allies what is, with what but seems, —
Fact and Romance: —

O Knight of fire and Squire of earth 1 —
O changing give-and-take between
The aim too high, the aim too mean,
I hail your birth, —

Three centuries past, — in sunburned Spain,
And hang, on Time's Pantheon wall,
My votive tablet to recall
That lasting gain !



THE BOOKS OF SAMUEL ROGERS



ta9



THE BOOKS OF SAMUEL ROGERS

One common grave, according to Garrick, covers the
actor and his art. The same may be said of the
raconteur. Oral tradition, or even his own writings,
may preserve his precise words; but his peculiarities
of voice or action, his tricks of utterance and in-
tonation, — all the collateral details which serve to
lend distinction or piquancy to the performance —
perish irrevocably. The glorified gramophone of
the future may perhaps rectify this for a new genera-
tion; and give us, without mechanical drawback, the
authentic accents of speakers dead and gone; but
it can never perpetuate the dramatic accompaniment
of gesture and expression. If, as always, there are
exceptions to this rule, they are necessarily evanescent.
