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.
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