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With as much zeal, devotion, piety,
He always liv'd as other saints do die;
Still with his soul severe account he kept,
Weeping all debts out ere he slept.
Then down in peace and innocence he lay,
Like the sun's laborious light,
Which still in water sets at night,
Unsullied with his journey of the day.
Wondrous young man, why wert thou made so good,
To be snatcht hence ere better understood?
Snatcht before half enough of thee was seen!

Thou ripe, and yet thy life but green!

Nor could thy friends take their last sad farewell,
But danger and infectious death,
Maliciously seized on that breath
Where life, spirit, pleasure, always used to dwell.

Epitaph on the Living Author.

Here, stranger, in this humble nest,
Here Cowley sleeps; here lies,
Scaped all the toils that life molest,
And its superfluous joys.

Here, in no sordid poverty,

And no inglorious ease,
He braves the world, and can defy
Its frowns and flatteries.

The little earth, he asks, survey:

Is he not dead, indeed?

'Light lie that earth,' good stranger, pray, 'Nor thorn upon it breed!'

With flowers, fit emblem of his fame,
Compass your poet round;

With flowers of every fragrant name,
Be his warm ashes crown'd!

Claudian's Old Man of Verona.

Happy the man who his whole time doth bound
Within the enclosure of his little ground.
Happy the man whom the same humble place
(The hereditary cottage of his race)
From his first rising infancy has known,
And by degrees sees gently bending down,
With natural propension, to that earth

Which both preserv'd his life, and gave him birth.
Him no false distant lights, by fortune set,
Could ever into foolish wanderings get.
He never dangers either saw or fear'd:
The dreadful storms at sea he never heard.
He never heard the shrill alarms of war,
Or the worse noises of the lawyers' bar.
No change of consuls mark to him the year;
The change of seasons is his calendar.

The cold and heat winter and summer snows;
Autumn by fruits, and spring by flowers he knows.
He measures time by land-marks, and has found
For the whole day the dial of his ground.

A neighbouring wood, born with himself, he sees,
And loves his old contemporary trees.
He has only heard of near Verona's name,
And knows it, like the Indies, but by fame;
Does with a like concernment notice take
Of the Red Sea, and of Benacus' lake.

Thus health and strength he to a third age enjoys,
And sees a long posterity of boys.

About the spacious world let others roam:
The voyage, life, is longest made at home.

HENRY VAUGHAN.

HENRY VAUGHAN (1614-1695) published in 1651 a volume of miscellaneous poems, evincing considerable strength and originality of thought and copious imagery, though tinged with a gloomy sectarianism and marred by crabbed rhymes. Mr Campbell scarcely does justice to Vaughan, in styling him " one of the harshest even of the inferior order of the school of conceit,' though he admits that he has 'some few scattered thoughts that meet our eye amidst his harsh pages, like wild flowers on a barren heath.' As a sacred poet, Vaughan has an intensity of feeling only inferior to Crashaw. He was a Welshman (born in Brecknockshire), and had a dash of Celtic enthusiasm. He first followed the profession of the law, but afterwards adopted that of a physician. He does not seem to have attained to a competence in either, for he complains much of the proverbial poverty and suffering of poets

As they were merely thrown upon the stage,
The mirth of fools, and legends of the age.

In his latter days Vaughan grew deeply serious and devout, and published a volume of religious poetry, containing his happiest effusions. The poet was not without hopes of renown, and he wished the river of his native vale to share in the distinction

When I am laid to rest hard by thy streams,
And my sun sets where first it sprang in beams,
I'll leave behind me such a large kind light
As shall redeem thee from oblivious night,
And in these vows which (living yet) I pay,
Shed such a precious and enduring ray,
As shall from age to age thy fair name lead
Till rivers leave to run, and men to read!

Early Rising and Prayer.

[From Silex Scintillans, or Sacred Poems."]
When first thy eyes unveil, give thy soul leave
To do the like; our bodies but forerun
The spirit's duty: true hearts spread and heave
Unto their God, as flowers do to the sun :
Give him thy first thoughts then, so shalt thou keep
Him company all day, and in him sleep.

Yet never sleep the sun up; prayer should
Dawn with the day: there are set awful hours
"Twixt heaven and us; the manna was not good
After sun-rising; far day sullies flowers:
Rise to prevent the sun; sleep doth sins glut,
And heaven's gate opens when the world's is shut.
Walk with thy fellow-creatures; note the hush
And whisperings amongst them. Not a spring
Or leaf but hath his morning hymn; each bush
And oak doth know I AM. Canst thou not sing!
O leave thy cares and follies! Go this way,
And thou art sure to prosper all the day.
Serve God before the world; let him not go
Until thou hast a blessing; then resign
The whole unto him, and remember who
Prevail'd by wrestling ere the sun did shine;
Pour oil upon the stones, weep for thy sin,
Then journey on, and have an eye to heav'n.
Mornings are mysteries; the first, the world's youth,
Man's resurrection, and the future's bud,
Shroud in their births; the crown of life, light, truth,
Is styled their star; the stone and hidden food:

Three blessings wait upon them, one of which
Should move-t
-they make us holy, happy, rich.
When the world's up, and every swarm abroad,
Keep well thy temper, mix not with each clay;
Despatch necessities; life hath a load
Which must be carried on, and safely may;
Yet keep those cares without thee; let the heart
Be God's alone, and choose the better part.

The Rainbow.

[From the same.]

Still young and fine, but what is still in view
We slight as old and soil'd, though fresh and new.
How bright wert thou when Shem's admiring eye
Thy burnish'd flaming arch did first descry;
Wher. Zerah, Nahor, Haran, Abram, Lot,
The youthful world's gray fathers, in one knot
Did with intentive looks watch every hour
For thy new light, and trembled at each shower!
When thou dost shine, darkness looks white and fair;
Forms turn to music, clouds to smiles and air;
Rain gently spends his honey-drops, and pours
Balm on the cleft earth, milk on grass and flowers.
Bright pledge of peace and sunshine, the sure tie
Of thy Lord's hand, the object of his eye!
When I behold thee, though my light be dim,
Distinct, and low, I can in thine see him,
Who looks upon thee from his glorious throne,
And minds the covenant betwixt all and One.

The Story of Endymion.

[Written after reading M. Gombauld's Romance
of Endymion."]

I've read thy soul's fair night-piece, and have seen
The amours and courtship of the silent queen;
Her stol'n descents to earth, and what did move her
To juggle first with heav'n, then with a lover;
With Latmos' louder rescue, and (alas!)
To find her out, a hue and cry in brass;
Thy journal of deep mysteries, and sad
Nocturnal pilgrimage; with thy dreams, clad
In fancies darker than thy cave; thy glass
Of sleepy draughts; and as thy soul did pass
In her calm voyage, what discourse she heard
Of spirits; what dark groves and ill-shap'd guard
Ismena led thee through; with thy proud flight
O'er Periardes, and deep-musing night
Near fair Eurotas' banks; what solemn green
The neighbour shades wear; and what forms are seen
In their large bowers; with that sad path and seat
Which none but light-heel'd nymphs and fairies beat;
Their solitary life, and how exempt

From common frailty-the severe contempt
They have of man-their privilege to live
A tree or fountain, and in that reprieve
What ages they consume: with the sad vale
Of Diophania; and the mournful tale

Of the bleeding, vocal myrtle: these and more,
Thy richer thoughts, we are upon the score
To thy rare fancy for. Nor dost thou fall
From thy first majesty, or ought at all
Betray consumption. Thy full vigorous bays
Wear the same green, and scorn the lean decays
Of style or matter; just as I have known

Some crystal spring, that from the neighbour down
Deriv'd her birth, in gentle murmurs steal
To the next vale, and proudly there reveal
Her streams in louder accents, adding still
More noise and waters to her channel, till
At last, swoll'n with increase, she glides along
The lawns and meadows, in a wanton throng

Of frothy billows, and in one great name
Swallows the tributary brooks' drown'd fame.
Nor are they mere inventions, for we

In the same piece find scatter'd philosophy,
And hidden, dispers'd truths, that folded lie
In the dark shades of deep allegory,
So neatly weav'd, like arras, they descry
Fables with truth, fancy with history.
So that thou hast, in this thy curious mould,
Cast that commended mixture wish'd of old,
Which shall these contemplations render far
Less mutable, and lasting as their star;
And while there is a people, or a sun,
Endymion's story with the moon shall run.

Timber.

Sure thou didst flourish once, and many springs,
Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers,
Pass'd o'er thy head; many light hearts and wings
Which now are dead, lodg'd in thy living towers.

And still a new succession sings and flies,
Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot
Towards the old and still enduring skies,
While the low violet thrives at their root.

THOMAS STANLEY,

THOMAS STANLEY, the learned editor of Eschylus, and author of a History of Philosophy, appears early in this period as a poet, having published a volume of his verses in 1651. The only son of Sir Thomas Stanley, knight, of Camberlow-Green, in Hertfordshire, he was educated at Pembroke college, Oxford; spent part of his youth in travelling; and afterwards lived in the Middle Temple. His poems, whether original or translated, are remarkable for a rich style of thought and expression, though deformed to some extent by the conceits of his age.

The Tomb.

When, cruel fair one, I am slain
By thy disdain,

And, as a trophy of thy scorn,
To some old tomb am borne,
Thy fetters must their power bequeath
To those of Death;

Nor can thy flame immortal burn,
Like monumental fires within an urn:
Thus freed from thy proud empire, I shall prove
There is more liberty in Death than Love.

And when forsaken lovers come
To see my tomb,
Take heed thou mix not with the crowd,
And (as a victor) proud,

To view the spoils thy beauty made,
Press near my shade,

Lest thy too cruel breath or name
Should fan my ashes back into a flame,
And thou, devour'd by this revengeful fire,
His sacrifice, who died as thine, expire.

But if cold earth, or marble, must
Conceal my dust,
Whilst hid in some dark ruins, I,
Dumb and forgotten, lie,

The pride of all thy victory

Will sleep with me;

And they who should attest thy glory, Will, or forget, or not believe this story. Then to increase thy triumph, let me rest, Since by thine eye slain, buried in thy breast

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A faith so bright,

As Time or Fortune could not rust;
So firm, that lovers might

Have read thy story in my dust,

And crown'd thy name

With laurel verdant as thy youth,

Whilst the shrill voice of Fame Spread wide thy beauty and my truth.

This thou hast lost,

For all true lovers, when they find
That my just aims were crost,
Will speak thee lighter than the wind.

And none will lay
Any oblation on thy shrine,

But such as would betray

Thy faith to faiths as false as thine.

Yet, if thou choose

On such thy freedom to bestow,

Affection may excuse,

For love from sympathy doth flow.

Note on Anacreon.

[The following piece is a translation by Stanley from a poem by St Amant, in which that writer had employed his utmost genius to expand and enforce one of the over-free sentiments of the bard of Teios.]

Let's not rhyme the hours away;
Friends! we must no longer play:
Brisk Lycus-see!-invites
To more ravishing delights.

Let's give o'er this fool Apollo,

Nor his fiddle longer follow:

Fie upon his forked hill,

With his fiddle-stick and quill;

And the Muses, though they're gamesome,
They are neither young nor handsome;
And their freaks in sober sadness

Are a mere poetic madness:

Pegasus is but a horse;

He that follows him is worse.

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See, the rain soaks to the skin, * Make it rain as well within. Wine, my boy; we'll sing and laugh, All night revel, rant, and quaff; Till the morn stealing behind us, At the table sleepless find us. When our bones (alas !) shall have A cold lodging in the grave; When swift death shall overtake us, We shall sleep and none can wake us. Drink we then the juice o' the vine Make our breasts Lyceus' shrine; Bacchus, our debauch beholding, By thy image I am moulding, Whilst my brains I do replenish With this draught of unmix'd Rhenish; By thy full-branch'd ivy twine; By this sparkling glass of wine;

By thy Thyrsus so renown'd;

By the healths with which th' art crown'd; By the feasts which thou dost prize;

By thy numerous victories;

By the howls by Monads made;

By this haut-gout carbonade;
By thy colours red and white;
By the tavern, thy delight;
By the sound thy orgies spread;
By the shine of noses red;
By thy table free for all;
By the jovial carnival ;

By thy language cabalistic;

By thy cymbal, drum, and his stick ;
By the tunes thy quart-pots strike up;
By thy sighs, the broken hiccup;
By thy mystic set of ranters;
By thy never-tamed panthers;

By this sweet, this fresh and free air;

By thy goat, as chaste as we are;
By thy fulsome Cretan lass;

By the old man on the ass;

By thy cousins in mix'd shapes;
By the flower of fairest grapes;
By thy bisks fam'd far and wide;
By thy store of neats'-tongues dry'd ;
By thy incense, Indian smoke;
By the joys thou dost provoke;
By this salt Westphalia gammon ;
By these sausages that inflame one;
By thy tall majestic flaggons;
By mass, tope, and thy flap-dragons;
By this olive's unctuous savour;
By this orange, the wines' flavour;
By this cheese o'errun with mites;
By thy dearest favourites;
To thy frolic order call us,

Knights of the deep bowl install us ;
And to show thyself divine,

Never let it want for wine.

Note to Moschus.

[Stanley here translates a poem of Marino, in which that writer had in his eye the second idyl of Moschus.]

Along the mead Europa walks,

To choose the fairest of its gems,

Which, plucking from their slender stalks,
She weaves in fragrant diadems.
Where'er the beauteous virgin treads,
The common people of the field,
To kiss her feet bowing their heads,
Homage as to their goddess yield.
"Twixt whom ambitious wars arise,
Which to the queen shall first present
A gift Arabian spice outvies,
The votive offering of their scent.

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When deathless Amaranth, this strife,
Greedy by dying to decide,
Begs she would her green thread of life,
As love's fair destiny, divide.
Pliant Acanthus now the vine

And ivy enviously beholds,
Wishing her odorous arms might twine
About this fair in such strict folds.

The Violet, by her foot opprest,

Doth from that touch enamour'd rise, But, losing straight what made her blest, Hangs down her head, looks pale, and dies.

Clitia, to new devotion won,

Doth now her former faith deny, Sees in her face a double sun,

And glories in apostacy.

The Gillyflower, which mocks the skies,
(The meadow's painted rainbow) seeks
A brighter lustre from her eyes,

And richer scarlet from her cheeks.
The jocund flower-de-luce appears,
Because neglected, discontent;
The morning furnish'd her with tears;
Her sighs expiring odours vent.
Narcissus in her eyes, once more,
Seems his own beauty to admire ;
In water not so clear before,

As represented now in fire.

The Crocus, who would gladly claim
A privilege above the rest,
Begs with his triple tongue of flame,
To be transplanted to her breast.
The Hyacinth, in whose pale leaves
The hand of Nature writ his fate,
With a glad smile his sigh deceives
In hopes to be more fortunate.
His head the drowsy Poppy rais'd,

Awak'd by this approaching morn,
And view'd her purple light amaz'd,
Though his, alas! was but her scorn.
None of this aromatic crowd,

But for their kind death humbly call,
Courting her hand, like martyrs proud,
By so divine a fate to fall.

The royal maid th' applause disdains
Of vulgar flowers, and only chose
The bashful glory of the plains,
Sweet daughter of the spring, the Rose.
She, like herself, a queen appears,

Rais'd on a verdant thorny throne,
Guarded by amorous winds, and wears
A purple robe, a golden crown.

SIR JOHN DENHAM.

SIR JOHN DENHAM (1615-1668) was the son of the chief baron of exchequer in Ireland, but was educated at Oxford, then the chief resort of all the poetical and high-spirited cavaliers. Denham was wild and dissolute in his youth, and squandered away great part of his patrimony at the gaming-table. He was made governor of Farnham castle by Charles I.; and after the monarch had been delivered into the hands of the army, his secret correspondence was partly carried on by Denham, who was furnished with nine several ciphers for the purpose. Charles had a respect for literature, as well as the arts; and Milton records of him that he made Shakspeare's plays the closet-companion of his solitude. It would appear, however, that the king wished to keep poetry apart from state affairs: for he told Denham,

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on seeing one of his pieces, that when men are young, and have little else to do, they may vent the overflowings of their fancy in that way; but when they are thought fit for more serious employments, if they still persisted in that course, it looked as if they minded not the way to any better.' poet stood corrected and bridled in his muse. In 1648 Denham conveyed the Duke of York to France, and resided in that country some time. His estate was sold by the Long Parliament; but the Restoration revived his fallen dignity and fortunes. He was made surveyor of the king's buildings, and a knight of the bath. In domestic life the poet does not seem to have been happy. He had freed himself from his early excesses and follies, but an unfortunate marriage darkened his closing years, which were unhappily visited by insanity. He recovered, to receive the congratulations of Butler, his fellowpoet, and to commemorate the death of Cowley, in one of his happiest effusions.

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Cooper's Hill, the poem by which Denham is now best known, consists of between three and four hundred lines, written in the heroic couplet. The descriptions are interspersed with sentimental digressions, suggested by the objects around-the river Thames, a ruined abbey, Windsor forest, and the field of Runnymede. The view from Cooper's Hill is rich and luxuriant, but the muse of Denham was more reflective than descriptive. Dr Johnson assigns to this poet the praise of being the author of a species of composition that may be denominated local poetry, of which the fundamental subject is some particular landscape, to be poetically described, with the addition of such embellishments as may be supplied by historical retrospection or incidental meditation. Ben Jonson's fine poem on Penshurst may dispute the palm of originality on this point with the Cooper's Hill,' but Jonson could not have written with such correctness, or with such intense and pointed expression, as Denham. The versification of this poet is generally smooth and flowing, but he had no pretensions to the genius of Cowley, or to the depth and delicacy of feeling possessed by the old dramatists, or the poets of the Elizabethan period. He reasoned fluently in verse, without glaring faults of style, and hence obtained the approbation of Dr Johnson far above his deserts. Denham could not, like his contemporary, Chamberlayne, have described the beauty of a summer morning

The morning hath not lost her virgin blush,
Nor step, but mine, soil'd the earth's tinsell'd robe.
How full of heaven this solitude appears,
This healthful comfort of the happy swain;
Who from his hard but peaceful bed roused up,
In's morning exercise saluted is

By a full quire of feather'd choristers,
Wedding their notes to the enamour'd air!
Here nature in her unaffected dress

Plaited with valleys, and emboss'd with hills
Enchas'd with silver streams, and fring'd with woods,
Sits lovely in her native russet.*

Chamberlayne is comparatively unknown, and has never been included in any edition of the poets, yet every reader of taste or sensibility must feel that the above picture far transcends the cold sketches of Denham, and is imbued with a poetical spirit to which he was a stranger. "That Sir John Denham began a reformation in our verse,' says Southey, is one of the most groundless assertions that ever obtained belief in literature. More thought and more skill had been exercised before his time in the construction of English metre than he ever bestowed on the

*Chamberlayne's Love's Victory.'
·

subject, and by men of far greater attainments, and far higher powers. To improve, indeed, either upon the versification or the diction of our great writers was impossible; it was impossible to exceed them in the knowledge or in the practice of their art, but it was easy to avoid the more obvious faults of inferior authors and in this way he succeeded, just so far as not to be included in

The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease; nor consigned to oblivion with the "persons of qua lity" who contributed their vapid effusions to the miscellanies of those days. His proper place is among those of his contemporaries and successors who called themselves wits, and have since been entitled poets by the courtesy of England.'* Denham, nevertheless, deserves a place in English literature, though not that high one which has heretofore been assigned to him. The traveller who crosses the Alps or Pyrenees finds pleasure in the contrast afforded by level plains and calm streams, and so Denham's correctness pleases, after the wild imaginations and irregular harmony of the greater masters of the lyre who preceded him. In reading him, we feel that we are descending into a different scene-the romance is over, and we must be content with smoothness, regularity, and order.

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My eye, descending from the hill, surveys
Where Thames among the wanton valleys strays;
Thames, the most lov'd of all the ocean's sons
By his old sire, to his embraces runs,
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,
Like mortal life to meet eternity.

Though with those streams he no remembrance hold,
Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold,
His genuine and less guilty wealth to explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore,
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,
And hatches plenty for th' ensuing spring,
And then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers which their infants overlay ;
Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave,
Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave.
No unexpected inundations spoil

The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil,
But Godlike his unwearied bounty flows;
First loves to do, then loves the good he does.
Nor are his blessings to his banks confin'd,
But free and common, as the sea or wind.
When he to boast or to disperse his stores,
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,
Visits the world, and in his flying towers
Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours:
Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants,
Cities in deserts, woods in cities plants;
So that to us no thing, no place is strange,
While his fair bosom is the world's exchange.
O, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull,
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.

*

But his proud head the airy mountain hides
Among the clouds; his shoulders and his sides
A shady mantle clothes; his curled brows
Frown on the gentle stream, which calmly flows
While winds and storms his lofty forehead beat,
The common fate of all that's high or great.
Low at his foot a spacious plain is plac'd,
Between the mountain and the stream embrac'd,

*Southey's Cowper, vol. ii. p. 130.

Which shade and shelter from the hil derives,
While the kind river wealth and beauty gives;
And in the mixture of all these appears
Variety, which all the rest endears.
This scene had some bold Greek or British bard
Beheld of old, what stories had we heard
Of fairies, satyrs, and the nymphs their dames,
Their feasts, their revels, and their amorous flares!
"Tis still the same, although their airy shape
All but a quick poetic sight escape.

The four lines printed in Italics have been praised by every critic from Dryden to the present day.

[The Reformation-Monks and Puritans.] Here should my wonder dwell, and here my praise, But my fix'd thoughts my wandering eye betrays. Viewing a neighbouring hill, whose top of late A chapel crown'd, till in the common fate Th' adjoining abbey fell. May no such storm Fall on our times, where ruin must reform ! Tell me, my muse, what monstrous dire offence, What crime could any Christian king incense To such a rage? Was't luxury or lust? Was he so temperate, so chaste, so just? Were these their crimes? They were his own much

more;

But wealth is crime enough to him that's poor,
Who having spent the treasures of his crown,
Condemns their luxury to feed his own.
And yet this act, to varnish o'er the shame
Of sacrilege, must bear devotion's name.
No crime so bold, but would be understood
A real, or at least a seeming good.
Who fears not to do ill, yet fears the name,
And, free from conscience, is a slave to fame.
Thus he the church at once protects, and spoils :
But princes' swords are sharper than their styles.
And thus to th' ages past he makes amends,
Their charity destroys, their faith defends.
Then did religion in a lazy cell,

In empty, airy contemplation dwell;
And like the block unmoved lay; but ours,
As much too active, like the stork devours.
Is there no temperate region can be known,
Betwixt their frigid and our torrid zone?
Could we not wake from that lethargic dream,
But to be restless in a worse extreme?
And for that lethargy was there no cure,
But to be cast into a calenture?

Can knowledge have no bound, but must advance
So far, to make us wish for ignorance ?
And rather in the dark to grope our way,
Than, led by a false guide, to err by day.

Denham had just and enlightened notions of the duty of a translator. It is not his business alone, he says, to translate language into language, but poesy into poesy; and poesy is so subtle a spirit, that, in pouring out of one language into another, it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit be not added in the translation, there will remain nothing but a caput mortuum; there being certain graces and happinesses peculiar to every language, which give life and energy to the words.' Hence, in his poetical address to Sir Richard Fanshawe, on his translation of Pastor Fido,' our poet says-

That servile path thou nobly dost decline
Of tracing word by word, and line by line.
Those are the labour'd births of slavish brains,
Not the effect of poetry, but pains.
Cheap vulgar arts, whose narrowness affords
No flight for thoughts, but poorly sticks at words.
A new and nobler way thou dost pursue,
To make translations and translators too.

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