In forest, brake or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude:--
Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain;
Prevent the long-aimed blow,
And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain.

Translation of Sir William Jones.

POVERTY

The worst of ills, and hardest to endure,
Past hope, past cure,
Is Penury, who, with her sister-mate
Disorder, soon brings down the loftiest state,
And makes it desolate.
This truth the sage of Sparta told,
Aristodemus old,--
"Wealth makes the man." On him that's poor,
Proud worth looks down, and honor shuts the door.

Translation of Sir William Jones.

BALTAZAR DE ALCAZAR

(1530?-1606)

Although little may be realized now of Alcazar's shadowy personality,
there is no doubt that in his own century he was widely read. Born of a
very respectable family in Seville, either in 1530 or 1531, he first
appears as entering the Spanish navy, and participating in several
battles on the war galleys of the Marquis of Santa Cruz. It is known
that for about twenty years he was alcalde or mayor at the Molares on
the outskirts of Utrera,--an important local functionary, a practical
man interested in public affairs.

But, on the whole, his seems to have been a strongly artistic nature;
for he was a musician of repute, skillful too at painting, and above all
a poet. As master and model in metrical composition he chose Martial,
and in his epigrammatic turn he is akin to the great Latin poet. He was
fond of experimenting in Latin lyrical forms, and wrote many madrigals
and sonnets. They are full of vigorous thought and bright satire, of
playful malice and epicurean joy in life, and have always won the
admiration of his fellow-poets. As has been said, they show a fine
taste, quite in advance of the age. Cervantes, his greater contemporary,
acknowledged his power with cordial praise in the Canto de Caliope.

The "witty Andalusian" did not write voluminously. Some of his poems
still remain in manuscript only. Of the rest, comprised in one small
volume, perhaps the best known are 'The Jovial Supper,' 'The Echo,' and
the 'Counsel to a Widow.'

SLEEP

Sleep is no servant of the will,
It has caprices of its own:
When most pursued,--'tis swiftly gone;
When courted least, it lingers still