berian friend, I really thought that you knew everything; but
I find that you have set up for an Admirable Crichton upon an
inadequate capital. Know, then, that a great many years ago
Sannazarius--never mind who he was,--I do not justly know,
myself--wrote an hexastich on the city of Venice, and sent it to the
potent Senators of that moist settlement. It was as follows:--

"Viderat Adriacis Venetam Neptunus in undis
Stare urbem et toti ponere jura mari.
Nunc mihi Tarpeias quantumvis, Jupiter, arces,
Objice, et ilia tui moenia Martis, ait;
Sic Pelago Tibrim praefers; urbem aspice utramque,
Illam homines dices, hanc posuisse deos."

Which may be liberally rendered thus:--

When sea-faring Neptune saw Venice well-founded
And stiffly coercing the Adrian main,
The jolly tar cried, in a rapture unbounded:
"Why, d--ash my eyes, Jove, but I have you again;
You may boast of your city, and Mars of his walling;
But while I'm afloat, I'll stick to it that mine
Beats yours into rope-yarn in spite of your bawling,
Just as snuffy old Tiber is flogged by the brine;
And he who the difference cannot discern
Is a lob-sided lubber from bowsprit to stern.

"Very free, indeed!" you will say. It might have been worse, if I had
staid at college a year or two longer, or if I had been elevated to a
place in the Triennial Catalogue,--thus:

PAULUS POTTER, LL.D., S.T.D.; Barat.
V. Gubernator, Lit. Hum. Prof.,
e Cong., Praeses Rerumpub. Foed., A.B.
Yal., M.D. Dart., D.D. Dart., P.D.
V. Mon., etc., etc., etc.

I have put myself down _stelliger_, because it is certain, that, after
obtaining all the above honors, if not an inmate of the cold and silent
tomb, I should be false to my duties as a member of society, and a
nuisance to my fellow-creatures. The little anachronism of translating
after being translated you will also pardon; and talking of the tomb,
let us return to Sannazarius. I pray that your nicely noble nose may
not be offended by the tarry flavor of my version. You will find the
Latin in Howell's "Survey of Venice," 1651,--a book so thoroughly
useless, and so scarce withal, that I am sure it must be in your
library. By the way, as you have written travels in all parts of this
and other worlds, without so much as stirring from your arm-chair, and
have calmly and coolly published the same, I must quote to you the
rebuke of Howell, who says, "He would not have adventured upo