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