‘Dear Mr. Rogers,—I have just received some strawberries from the country—and I venture to request your acceptance of them. If they are a little in advance of the season, they are more appropriate as an offering to you—since to the Poet there are no seasons, or rather, he is Lord over all.
‘Floribus halans
Purpureum Veris gremium, scenamque virentem Pingis, et umbriferos colles et cærula
regna. |
‘I quote from a poem with which you perhaps first made acquaintance when strawberries were dainties, at least, for my part, I suppose it is from some association of youth between the first-fruits of the summer and my own early Latin studies, that I find myself quoting Gray’s noble lines, “De Principiis Cogitandi,”1 which I cannot have read for these twenty years, à propos of a basket of strawberries! But indeed, when one writes to
1 Lines 87-89. |
| SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON | 391 |
|
‘In the groves of Academe
Or where Ilyssus winds his wandering stream.1
|
‘Believe, dear Mr. Rogers, in the profound respect of your admiring and faithful friend,
