Cambridge ^<1>
Monday 26 Jan. 1818

Only time for a few words. The first examination was this morning – Subjects – To translate Pliny’s letter to Trajan, ^<2> and a passage of Claudian ^<3> into English Prose. Very easy: – harder tonight I suppose – Great fag I assure you – five hours this morning – finished my task about an hour & a quarter within the time: so thought I would employ the rest of it, in translating the Claudian of my own accord into English Verse. Did so accordingly, but nevertheless thought my translation not so good as a work of supererogation ought to be: – so did not shew it up – Sorry however to lose my labour, so send it to you on the opposite page – Adieu,

Y^r Aff^t Son
W. H. F. Talbot

The Torpedo
Who has not heard from far-extended Fame
The dread Torpedo’s yet unrivalled name?
Soft tho’ she be, & swim with sluggish gait,
And grind the sands beneath her swagg’ring weight,
Yet often gushes from her swelling side
Of crudest poison a pernicious tide.
Still does a self-engendered winter hold
Her entrails frozen with an icy cold:
Yet, from within by wondrous instinct led
She lies extended on a weedy bed,
Then sudden springing from her secret snares
Exults in triumph o’er the prey she tears.
But if, too eager for her ravenous meal,
Fix’d in her throat the fatal hook she feel,
(Her prudence baffled, & her caution gone)
Hid in the food she fiercely seizes on:
She fastens closely on the tainted line,
Which round & round her noxious folds entwine:
Tho’ captive, yet collects her might again,
And threatens Vengeance for her present pain.
Then far & wide throughout the watery plains
She pours foul poison from her livid veins;
Swift creeps the rod the torpid influence o’er,
And numbs the fisher on the distant shore.
Sudden he starts – and stung with maddening pain
He hurls the monster to the waves again –
Then turns him homeward from the luckless coast,
His arm disabled, and his weapon lost –

You’ll excuse the inaccuracies for I had been fagging four hours nearly before I began them.

The L^y Elis^th Feilding
31 Sackville S^t
London

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Notes:

1. Trinity College, Cambridge.

2. This comes from the letters of Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, known as Pliny the Younger to the Roman Emperor Trajan (98–117), written in ca.110.

3. Claudius Claudianus ( ca.370 –404), Roman poet.