"O'er ice the rapid skater flies,
With sport above and death below;
Where mischief lurks in gay disguise,
Thus lightly touch and quickly go."
He was, however, most exceedingly enraged when he knew that in the course
of the season I had asked half-a-dozen acquaintance to do the same thing;
and said, "it was a piece of treachery, and done to make everybody else
look little when compared to my favourite friends the _Pepyses_, whose
translations were unquestionably the best." I will insert them, because
he _did_ say so. This is the distich given me by Sir Lucas, to whom I
owe more solid obligations, no less than the power of thanking him for
the life he saved, and whose least valuable praise is the correctness of
his taste:--
"O'er the ice as o'er pleasure you lightly should glide,
Both have gulfs which their flattering surfaces hide."