explains as follows: Invoking the gods to testify to the purity of his sentiments in every position with which he had hitherto been honoured, he deemed himself by the most sacred bonds bound to the worthy fulfilment thereof, and to that intent he, Cicero, not only suffered himself not the indulgence of the pleasures forbidden by law, but refrained even from those lighter distractions which are held to be indispensable by all.' Below stood the inscription: 'Composed in Siberia in hunger and cold.' A good specimen, too, was a poem entitled 'Tirsis', where these lines were to be met:
`A settled peace is over all,
The dew's asparkle in the sun,
Nature it soothes, with freshness cool,
Giving new life to the day begun!
Tirsis alone, with soul dismayed,
Sorrows, pines, so lone and so sad.
His darling Aneta is far away,
And what can then make Tirsis glad?'
and the impromptu composition of a captain who had come on a visit in 1790, dated ' May 6th':
'Never shall I forget
Thee, lovely hamlet!
For ever shall I recall
How sweetly the time passed!
What kindness I received
In thy noble owner's hall!
212
