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LINE 162.

How can thy hoofs, so heavy, steer with ease.

NONNUS (DIONYS. b. i.) hath imitated this part of Europa's speech:

Οφθαλμοι, τι το θαύμα ; ποθεν ποσι κυματα τεμνων

Νηχεται ατρύγετοιο δι υδαίο αγρονομα βες; &c.

This fentiment is put into the mouth of a mariner, astonished at seeing the bull swimming over the broad ocean. Here all is natural. The copy furpaffes the original. For, what can be more improper than thefe expreffions of admiration in EUROPA, though a spectator (as in NONNUS) might exprefs his wonder, with propriety, at the bull's miraculous appearance on the waters? The fears of EUROPA should, at firft, have precluded utterance. And, when he began to fpeak, fhe ought to have spoken in terms of extreme agitation and diftrefs. She feems, however, quite at her eafe-at leifure for fimilies and conjectures; and, in the midst of her pretty failing expedition, indulges her more excurfive fancy with the prospect of an aërial route.

CLAUDIAN'S PROSERPINE, on her way to the infernal regions, begins her speech, fomewhat to the purpose. Her oration, however, is much too long; and, at its close, degenerates into bombastic description.

LINE 182.

Courage, dear nymph

PLUTO'S confolatory addrefs to PROSERPINE, in CLAUDIAN,* (fee 2d book) is one of the fineft paflages in all his works.

See POEMS BY GENTLEMEN OF DEVONSHIRE AND CORNWALL," where is a translation of Claudian's Rape of Proferpine. Vol. ii. p.,115.

IDYLLIUM

IDYLLIUM the THIRD.

LINE 4.

Ye flowers, breathe fickly sweets o'er BION's grave.

THE

HE diftrefs of a modern Greek lady, on the death of her brother, is finely represented in M. Guy's entertaining Memoirs. Her expreffions of forrow are in the fame romantic ftrain with the elegy before us: but they affect us with all the force of genuine pathos. The reafon is-the Greek lady's elegy contains particular allufions. The flowers, &c. which the invokes (in fact every thing around her) have an obvious reference to the perfon fhe laments. The garden of the deceased is thus defcribed: The sea was feen from this garden, which was ornamented by beautiful flowers, fruit-trees, and an area full of birds. There was likewife a refervoir of water recruited by the sea, in which all forts of fish were kept. This garden, these birds and fish, were the amufement of the Sage who had been juft torn from his fifter and friends. 'Where is my brother? (faid this despairing fifter, as her eyes wandered over the garden) "He is gone-has paffed away like a fhadow. Ye flowers which •he cultivated with so much pleasure; ye have already loft the 'freshness his hand bestowed! Perish with him! Droop and • wither, even to the root !-Ye fish, fince ye have no longer a mafter nor a friend, to watch over your prefervation, return ye to the great waters! Return and feek uncertain life!—And ye little birds, if ye may furvive your grief, accompany my fighs with your plaintive fongs! Thou peaceful ocean, whofe furface begins to be disturbed, art thou also fenfible to my forrows? Then turning towards her flaves, she said: Weep, my children, weep! Ye have loft one who was kinder than a father to you! My brother is no more! These haunts, which his prefence ren•dered fo delightful, must now become the refidence of gloom • and affliction!'

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LINE 6.

Expand, pale hyacinth, thy letter'd leaf,

Ovin's fable of Hyacinthus is well known,

aj aj

Flos habet infcriptum, &c. &c,

The hyacinth bewrays the doleful Ai,
And calls the tribute of APOLLO's figh:

Still on its bloom the mournful flower retains
The lovely blue that ay'd the ftripling's veins.

Lufiad. b. ix.

LINE 39.

The trees refign'd their fruitage at thy death.

The following lines from GAY's fifth paftoral are a good fpecimen of the mock elegiac, and no bad burlesque of the above.

Henceforth the morn shall dewy forrows shed,

And evening tears upon the grafs be spread.
The rolling fireams with watery grief shall flow,
And winds fhall moan aloud-when loud they blow.
Henceforth, as oft as autumn shall return,

The dropping trees, whene'er it rains, shall mourn!
This feafon quite fhall strip the country's pride,
For 'twas in autumn BLOUZELINDA died.

Let us, however, compofing our countenances to a becoming gravity, recollect old SPENSER's numbers, which are meant as a ferious imitation of the Greek elegiast,

The faded locks fall from the lofty oak,

The flouds do gafp, for dried is their source,
And flouds of tears flow in their ftead perforce,
The mantled meadows mourn

Their fundry colours torn.

The feeble flocks in field refuse their former food,
And hang their heads as they would learn to weep;

The

The beasts in forest wail, as they were wood,
Except the wolves that chace the wand'ring fheep,
Now he is gone that fafely did 'em keep.

LINE 47.

Not with more grief the dolphin fill'd the_seas.

It is among the ftories of ancient naturalifts, as well as poets, that the dolphin is delighted with mufic. The fiction was not only admitted into poetry, but natural hiftory. PLINY hath recorded several examples of the dolphin's mufical ear, and benevolent feelings: See book ix. c. 8.

ÆLIAN hath given us, in his lively manner, many little detached hiftories of the dolphin. He relates in his 12th book, c. 45, the well-known ftory of ARION. In respect to this pas fage, SCHOTTUS affures us, that he saw a fimilar inftance of fishes being allured by mufic.

Quod oculis meis fpectavi.

In the "Electra" of SOPHOCLES, dolphins are defcribed as gamboling round the Grecian fhips. The paffage in our author alludes (according to LONGEPIERRE) to the ftory of HESIOD, which is recorded in PLUTARCH. We are there informed, that a gang of affaffins, having difpatched the poet, threw his body. into the fea, which was received by a shoal of dolphins, and, on the festival of NEPTUNE, conveyed by them to the shore, near the city of MOLICRIA. Hence the murderers were discovered, and brought to condign punishment.

LINE 51.

Or faithful Cerylus

The Cerylus was a very extraordinary bird of antiquitymuch celebrated for conjugal affection. It is faid that when he grew old and feeble, his spouse was accustomed to carry him about on her wings; and that on the death of either, the sur

vivor was observed to hover over the fpot where the dead bird lay, uttering the most miserable cries.

HESKIN.

LINE 53.

Or MEMNON's screaming birds

For an account of thefe birds, fee PLINY, b. x. c. 36, and OVID, Metam. b. xiii. fab. 3.

Terque rogum luftrant, et confonus exit in auras
Plangor.

LONGEPIERRE.

The introduction of the feather'd race, mourning the death of BION, reminds the tranflator of a very fingular idea in one of the Gothic poets. His blood-thirsty hero, who had been a liberal benefactor to the birds of prey, was fallen in the field of battle→ and for him' (cries the poet)

Mourned all the hawks of heaven.

LINE 71.

And GALATEA, too, bewails thy fate

The poet here alludes, perhaps, to BION's Idyll. on GALATEA} of which we have only a small fragment.

LONGEPIERRE.

The difcerning reader will fee frequent allufions in this Idyllium to that of BION, on the death of ADONIS.

LINE 85.

MELES, mufical in woe.

Meles, a river of Ionia, washes the walls of Smyrna, where BION was born. Here alfo was fupposed to have been the birthplace of HOMER.

LINE 109.

and every fwain, &c. &c.

This and the five following lines are a tranflation of fix Greek verfes which were not in the old editions of MoSCHUS. MUSURUS

of

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