ECHENAIS, the mistress of DAPHNIS, upbraiding him with his incontinence and infidelity. In this light, the whole paffage is both striking and beautiful. There is a vein of pleasant raillery runs through it; nor can we help obferving its peculiar gracefulness and truly characteristic fimplicity. HEINSIUS and WARTON. Still, however, a difficulty remains. The poet observes, that DAPHNIS made no reply. True: for how could he reply to what he did not hear? The female perfonage, whoever she is, is represented as thus complaining at a distance, amidst the groves and the fountains. A learned critic hath conjectured that a Kwga means the goddefs DIANA. It may be fo. But the only way perhaps of removing the difficulty, is to imagine PRIAPUS ftill continuing his addrefs, and repeating this paffage as the words of the flighted nymph. LINE 107. He views with leering eyes his goats afkance. VIRGIL alludes to this place Novimus et qui te-tranfverfa tuentibus hircis. Tanɛai oflauws feems to be a very bold expreffion, that will scarcely admit of a literal verfion. HORACE's intabuissent pupula expreffes, with rather more energy, the effect produced in the eyes, by a vehement defire for an unattainable object. LINE 123. But he: Too true thou fay'st, that love hath won! This paffage hath been much perplexed by conjectural criti cifm. In the opinion of fome, it means: Now all things fhew that my fun is fet,' intimating, that he forefaw his death; or, that he should no more behold the light of the fun. Ηέλιος δε Ουρανο εξαπολωλε the fun has perifhed from heaven’hath been cited as an illuftration from Homer's Odyffey. Others think, that the original fhould run нот Ηδη γαρ φράσδει πανθ' ΑΛΙΟΣ αμμι ΔΕΔΥΚΕΙ Aaquis, &c. Here the fenfe is rather obfcured than illuftrated. The following Mr. WARTON determines to be the genuine reading: Venus, you say that my fun [i.e. all my hopes] are fet, are vanished! Daphnis therefore, &c.' which reminds the translator of that fine hymn to Hope, the production of the elegant LANGHORNE: Sun of the foul, whofe cheerful ray Darts o'er this gloom of life a fmile; LINE 131. There the broad rush, in matted verdure, thrives. The KUTEgos is, moft probably, the three-cornered rufh defcribed by PLINY the naturaliit, (21, 18) white at bottom, and black at top. It occurs feveral times in THEOCRITUS. Some have imagined it to be a tree; perhaps from its affociation with oaks, as in this place, and the fifth Idyllium. But VIRGIL, in imitation of the paffage, affociates the oak and the reed: Hic virides tenerâ prætexit arundine ripas Kuegos is evidently an aquatic plant in HOMER, Iliad b. 21. Yet POPE has tranflated it cyprefs. In the thirteenth Idyllium, the epithet Bados is attached to Kesegos-deep or lofty; which may imply its thick growth or its height. It grew perhaps confiderably high. There is no doubt but it must have been an object of fome diftinction in the paftoral piece; otherwife THEOCRITUS would not have introduced it, (as in the first and fifth Idyllia) without a fingle epithet or adjun&t. We may poffibly conceive fome idea of its growth in Sicily, from SWINBURNE's defcription of the fennel-giant. His route to Manfredonia was, thirty miles, through a flat paflure covered with afphodels, thiftles, wild artichokes, and fennel-giant. Of the last he tells us are made bee-hives (oxapidas μEditos, fee fifth Idyll.) and chair-bottoms. The leaves are given to affes, by way of a ftrengthener; and the tender buds are boiled and eaten as a delicacy, by the peasants. This plant covers half the plain, and rifes to fuch a height, that there is an inftance, in one of the wars between France and Spain, of the Spaniards having marched through it, undifcovered, clofe up to the French entrenchments. LINE 132. There bees, in busy swarms, hum round their hives. Ω δε καλον βομβεύντι ποτι (μάνεσσι μελισσαι· We cannot repeat this verfe, without fancying we hear the buzzing of bees. It again occurs in the fifth Idyllium. LINE 161. Leave Lycaonian HELICAS' high tomb. In the original, it should probably be read, Ελικα δε λιπ' Ηριον, αιποτε σαμα Τηνο λυκαονίδας But leave the monument and that fublime fepulchre of HELICAS the fon of LYCAON.' LINE 165. O PAN, my reeds fo clofe compacted take, And call forth all their tones for DAPIINIS' fake. PAN primus calamos cera conjungere plures Inftituit From these paffages, as well as many others interfperfed in the Greek and Latin poetry, it appears that PAN was highly ho noured noured as the inventor of the fhepherd's pipe. The mufical inftruments used by the ancient fhepherds have various names, denoting the materials of which they were made-fuch as oat and wheat ftraw, reeds, and hollow pipes of box, leg-bones of cranes, horns of animals, and metals. The pipe commonly used was compofed of feven reeds, unequal in length, and of different tones, joined together with wax. In the eighth Idyllium, two pipes are mentioned compofed of nine reeds. The Fiftula is ufed, to this day, in the Grecian iflands. With respect to the manner of playing and finging among the fhepherds, we need not hesitate in determining, that their vocal and inftrumental mufic was alternate-the verse they fung correfponding with the tune they played. It is impoffible that a fhepherd could fing and play at the fame moment. This mode of playing and finging is very common with the pipers and fidlers at our country wakes, fays Dr. PERCY. They probably borrowed the custom from the Romans during their refidence in Britain. Thus (adds he) the old English minstrels used to warble on their harps, and then fing. LINE 171. Ye thorns and brambles the pale vi'let bear The poet hath here reverfed the order of nature, on the death of DAPHNIS. But the phænomena he hath exhibited are not the independent offspring of his own imagination. They are evidently imitated from ISAIAH. The defart fhall rejoice and • bloffom as the rofe-the glory of Lebanon fhall come unto thee the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together-the wolf alfo fhall dwell with the lamb; and the leopard lie down ⚫ with the kid: And the calf and the young lion, and the fatling together; and a little child fhall lead them. And the cow and the bear fhall feed-their young ones fhall lie down together; and the lion fhall eat ftraw like an ox.'-These are paffages which THEOCRITUS had, certainly, in view-though the marks of imitation are by no means fo ftriking as in VIRGIL'S Pollio. LINE LINE 192. For fweeter, fhepherd, is thy charming fong, The Ter, or Cicada, occurs frequently in THEOCRITUS; an insect, which some have mistaken for the locust, and others for our English grafshopper. Pore hath confounded it with the latter; and FAWKES (though fenfible of his error) hath followed POPE-copying, in fpite of HORACE's ridicule, a great man's imperfections. We meet also with the Axgis, or locuft, in our author; it is confiderably larger than the Ter; which appears to be the principal point of diftinction between them. According to Dr. MARTYN's accurate description, < the Terl hath a fhorter and rounder body than our common grasshopper, and is of a dark green colour. Its wings are beautiful, being ftreaked with filver, and marked with brown spots. The outer wings are twice as long as the inner, and more variegated.' After the Latin term Cicada, the Italians call it Cicala, and the French Cigale. With refpect to its voice, it is characterised (in the above place and most others of THEOCRITUS) as an infect, whofe fong is mufical and pleafing. Its notes are fometimes, however, reprefented as harsh and diffonant. Agiosσoav is an epithet by which HOMER hath expreffed his idea of the voice of the Cicada. SPONDANUS and HESYCHIUS difagree as to the meaning of the word the former interpreting it weet, the latter feeble. VIRGIL'S Cicada are querule and rauca. MARTIAL's argutæ, and inhumane. The voice of the Cicada, according to ANTIPATER, (Anthologia book I.) is as mufical as the fwan's. On this question the moderns feem inclined to the unfavourable fide. SPENCE (who was certainly a pretty fcholar, as Dr. JOHNSON ftiles him) remarks, that thefe infects make one uniform noife all day long in fummer time, which is extremely difagreeable, particularly in the great heats. Their note is fharp and shrill in the beginning of the fummer; but hoarfe and harsh towards the latter |