great deal of money, bequeathed her estate when The died, to the commonwealth of Rome. This is certain, that the fenate made her the goddefs of flowers, gardens, and meadows: "ut pudendæ rei quædam dignitas haberetur," as Lactantius in the place above-cited tells us: they inftituted likewife feftivals in her honour, called Floralia, which is confirmed by Ovid, lib. v. Faftorum: Convenêre patres, et fi benè florat annus, Numinibus veftris annua fefta vovent,

And the fame poet acquaints us, that these solemnities were performed towards the latter end of April:

Incipis Aprili, tranfis in tempora Maii ;
Alter te fugiens, cum venit, alter, abit.
These feftivals therefore were inftituted,

ut

fruges cum arboribus, aut vitibus benè profperèque florefcerent," fays Lactantius in the fame place. And in thefe Floralia, vile, impudent ftrumpets were wont to dance naked in the streets to the found of trumpets; to which cuftom Juvenal alludes, fat. vi. ver, 249.

-Digniffima prorfus

Florali matrona tubâ,

Ver. 790. The Etefias are winds that blow conftantly for about eleven days together in the heat of fummer, and chiefly after the rife of the dog-ftar. Hence they are called Etefia, which is as much as to fay, annual, from the Greek word ros, a year. Thus Pliny, lib. xxxvii. cap. 18. Strabo calls them fubfolani of which fee above ver 784. others weft winds, and others eaft, and Lucretius in this place makes them north winds: "Etefia flabra aquilonum." See more book vi. ver. 718.

Ver. 792. "Lucr. Graditur fimul Evius Evan." Bacchus was called Evius and Even, from the word in, which the mad Baccha or Bachides ufed in their orgies: Ovid. lib. iv. Metam. ver. 15.

Nydeliufque Eleleufque Parens, et Jacchus et

Evan.

Ver. 793. Lucretius. Altitonans Vulturnus, et Aufter fulmine pollens Vulturnus, of which Creech takes no notice, is the fouth-east wind, fays Agell. lib. 2. cap. 22. Aufter is the south wind, and generally blows in

autumn.

Ver. 803. In thefe twenty-one verses he treats of the eclipfes of the fun and moon: the fun, fays he, is eclipfed, when the moon, or any opacous body, below his globe, interpofes between that and the earth, and thus intercepts his beams, and hinders thofe rays of light from coming forward to the earth. The moon is eclipfed, when the happens to be in the shadow of the earth, or any other opacous body, that is interpofed between her orb, and the fun: befides; why may not both the fun and the moon grow faint and ficken, may, as it were, fall into a fwoon, when they

chance to go through any places of the heav that are infectious to them, and deftructive u their fires and light? This last was the opinion Xenophanes.

Ver. 816. Lucretius.

Menftrua dum rigidas coni perlabitur umbras. That is to fay, while the moon, in her months courfe, paffes by the rigid fhadow of the earth, which fhadow is of a conic figure. But fax interpret coni to be meant of the earth itself, as it were xavocions, shaped like a cone, because Ariftotle, lib. 2. Meteor. fays, That the earth fhaped like a timbrel, and that the lines drawa from its centre make two cones: but the post means the lunar eclipfe is made, by reafon of the fhadow of the earth, that ftretches out in the shape of a cone.

Ver. 818. The ancient heathens were of

nion, that witches, by muttering some charm verfe, caufed the eclipfes of the moon; who they conceived to be, when the moon, the defs of the earth, was brought down from fphere by the virtue of thofe incantations: The believed likewise, that in these eclipfes, he s ened and laboured as in an agony, and fuffereda kind of death: Of this belief were even Stecher and Pindar, as Pliny relates, lib. 2. cap. Milton, though not of the fame opinion, ye fcribes this foolish belief,

Not uglier follow the night-hag, when call'd
In fecret riding through the air fhe comes,
Lur'd with the smell of infant blood to dance
Eclipfes at their charms.
With Lapland witches, while the lab'ring

And Lee in the tragedy of dipus, fpring s the moon in eclipse,

-The filver moon is all o'er blood: A fettling crimson ftains her beauteous fact: Sound there, found all our inftruments of war; Clarions, and trumpets, filver, brafs, and it't And beat a thousand drums to help her labour.

The vain heathens farther believed, That t moon being by these inchantments brought d from heaven, they were at those times in dar of lofing that celeftial light: and therefore the made a great noise by beating of brass vessels, ringing of bells, founding of trumpets, whoopi hallowing, and the like to drown the with mutterings, that the moon not hearing the they might be rendered ineffe&tual, and the f no hurt. Thus Medea in Ovid boafts that could draw down the moon from heaven:

Te quoque, Luna, traho, quam Temefaa labora
Æra tuos minuant-
Metam. 7. ver.

And Tibullus.

- Cantus et è curru lunam diducere tentat, Et Facerant, û non æra repulfa fonent

And this abfurd fuperftition was fo grounded in the Pagans, that after many of them were become Chriftians, it was not quite rooted out: not even in St. Ambrofe's time, whofe reprehenfion of this piece of Paganism is cited by Turnebus in Adverfar. And Maximus likewife blames it in a Lomily de defectu luna. And Bonincontrius, who lived yet feveral ages later, affirms, That he himfelf had feen this abfurd cuftom practifed upon de the like occafion, by his own countrymen, the Italians. The Turks continue it to this day, as Scaliger affirms: And Plutarch in the life of ab milius reports, That the Romans, befides their beating of brazen veffels, founding of trumpets, &c. were wont to reach up flaming links and torches towards heaven, to refupply, and kindle again the light of the moon, which they believed by charms to be extinguished. Delrius in Senec. Traged. fays, he has read that the Indians are wont with tears and lamentations to bewail this effect or deliquium of the moon, believing the fun bad then whipt her till fhe bled, to which they impute the cause of her dark and fanguine colour. In Commentar. ad Hippolyt. pag. 195. Vide etiam Turnebum in Adverfar. lib. xxii. cap. 23 and 24. And Pincierus in Parerg. Otii Marpurg. lib. ii. cap. 37. Of this fuppofed fainting of the moon Wowerus alfo makes mention in his Pægnion de Umbrâ, cap. 8. towards the end. But we may farther obferve, that the Arabians believed the moon to be in the like agony, when The eclipsed the fun, as appears by a custom they obferved at their new-moon. For keeping holy the day of their neomenia, or new-moon, and believing it unlucky to have the moon fuffer any hurt on that day, they were wont, because the might on that day eclipfe the fun, the solar eclipse happening when the moon is new, to defer the celebration of their neomenia till the next day : or at least for fixteen hours, till the fun was past the eclipfe. And hence it is that the aftronomers diftinguish the neomenia of the Arabians, into the lekis, which was the first and natural time;

and the civilis, which was not the true time, but the day following, and on which they celebrated their neomenia to avoid the ill luck, and improlperous accidents, which their fuperftition made them apprehend. See Nicolaus Mulerius in his Diatribe de Anno Arabico, in the explication of the Arabian Epocha, or the Hegyra. Ubbo Emmius has inferted it in his chronology between the fourth and fifth books.

Ver. 824. Having explained after his manner the motions of the fun, moon, and ftars, he defcends from heaven to his native element, and in thefe ten verses tells us that he is going to describe the rife and origin of things from the earth, the common parent of all.

Ver. 834. Lucretius defcribes the rife of things from the new-formed earth in fo lively a manner, that he seems even to have been prefent at their birth. And first, in these twenty-one verfes he tells us that the earth firft produced the grafs, herbs, and flowers, then the trees, then the less perfect, and laft the most excellent animals. For, fays he, fince we fee that even now, when the whole world is decayed, and worn out to a great degree, fhe ftill produces mice, frogs, and other the like ignoble animals, what may we not reafonably believe of her, when both herself and her husband Æther, were in their blooming age?

Here we may take notice that the order which Lucretius obferves in the creation of things, differs very little from that, for which we have a better authority than his : But let us here a Christian poet defcribe the fame thing.

Her univerfal face with pleafant green.
Then herbs of ev'ry leaf, that fuuden flow'r'd,
Op'ning their various colours, and made gay
Her bofom smelling fweet: And these scarce
blown,

Forth flourish'd thick the cluft'ring vine, forth
The fmelling gourd, upftood the corny reed
crept
Embattl'd in her field, and th' humble fhrub,
And bush, with frizzled hair implicit : Laft,
Rofe as in dance the ftately trees, and spread
Their branches hung with copius fruit, or gem'd
Their bloffoms: With high woods the hills were
crown'd,

With tufts the valleys, and each fountain-side,
With borders long the rivers.-

Ver. 847. Here the poet proves by a fimilitude, that all animals did in the beginning proceed from the humidity of the earth, warmed and impregnated by the heat of the fun, in like manner as we now fee worms and infects generated.

Ver. 849. Lucretius forefeeing that it might be objected, that perfect and adult animals do not burst out of the earth, intimates in this place, that the fun is now grown a difabled lover, and the earth past her teeming time: and thus their vigour being exhausted, they cannot now pro

duce horfes, lions, &e, nor any of thofe large animals, which they did in the beginuing of the world when they were both in the prime and flower of their age.

Ver. 853, 854. In thefe nineteen verfes, he fays, That firft of all animals, and that too in the fpring, for that was the moft proper feafon, the birds were hatched from eggs, which, as Milton expreffes it,

Bursting with kindly rapture, forth disclos'd Their callow young: but feather'd foon, and fledge,

They fum'd their pens, and foaring th' air fublime, With clang defpis'd the ground :

For, fays our poet, they had growth and ftrength fufficient to go in fearch of their food: Then from certain little bags or bladders, which he calls wombs, and that fuck to the carth, the other animals and men themselves burft forth while for their nourishment a proper liquor, very like milk, flowed from the veins of mother earth into their infant mouths: For we ought to believe, that the earth, when she brought forth her young, had milk no lefs than mothers has now a-days, when they bring forth their children. Thus the earth fupplied them with food, the temperature of the air was fuch that they needed no garments, and the meadows, thick with grafs, afforded them eafy beds.

This firft manner of the origin of things Lucretius explains according to the opinion of Animaxander, and of fome others of the ancient philofophers, as we fee in the first book of Diodorus Siculus, near the beginning, where he fays, That the earth firft ftiffen'd and grew together, when the circumfufed fire of the fun had enlightened and warmed it all around: Then, when by reafon of its being thus heated, the outmoft furface of it was in a manner fermented, fome humidities fwelled in many places, and in them there grew certain flimy ftinking fubftances,

involved in tenuious membranes: the like to which may be feen to this day in fens and marshes, where the waters ftagnate, when after cold weather, the air grows hot on a fudden, and is not changed by degrees: Now thofe humid things which we mentioned before, being animated by the heat, received nourishment in the night by the mifts that fell from above: but in the day were confolidated and hardened by the heat. Laftly, When they that grew in the wombs of the earth, had attained their due growth, the membranes being burft and broken to pieces, difclofed the forms and fhapes of all kinds of animals: And fuch of these as had the greatest share of heat, went to the higher places, and became birds: but fuch of thefe as had retained the carthly folidity, were reckoned in the rank of reptiles, and other terrestrial animals: and those that participated most of the nature of man, ran together to the places, where human kind affembled, and which was called the place of their birth. Thus far Diodorus.

Ver. 854 It is questioned by fome, whether birds, which are generally called genus aëreum,

Cicero obferves the like difpofition in the fecond book of the nature of the gods, and in Timess: fo too does Ariftotle, as he is cited by Plutarch in 5. de Placit. Philofoph. To thefe may be added the belief of the ancient Greeks, and which produced before the earth itfelf was formed, to they had from the Egyptians, that birds were which Ariftophanes in Avibus alludes. But Ma nillius more truly places them upon earth: ípeaking of which he says,

Hanc circum variæ gentes hominum atque fen

rum,

Beriæque colunt volucres.

Lib. i. ver. 236.

Apuleius agrees with Manilius, and ends the controverfy in these words: "Si fedulo animadvertas, ipfæ quoque aves, terreftre animal, non a nis in terrâ; ibidem pabulum, ibidem cubile, tan um, perhibeantur: femper enim illis victus omtumque aëra proximum terræ volando verberant: iterum cum illis feffa funt remigia alarum, terra ceu portus eft." That is, if you weigh the ma ter aright, birds may be truly affirmed to be ra ther a terreftrial than an aërial animal, for they

have ail their food from the earth; there they feed, and there they reft: when on wing, they indeed fan the air that is next the earth; bet when their wings grow weary, the earth is their refting place. But as to this question, fee Hiere Magius, lib. i. Mifcellan. cap. ult. Jacobus Cru teus Syllog. iii. and Kircher in his Iter. Ecftic. ii. Dialog. ii. cap. 5. I will only add, that an ther difficulty, not much unlike the former, cither of them deferve to be called fo, has puzzled the brains of Ariftotle, Theophraftus, and most of the ancient Peripatetics, to wit, which were firk created, birds or eggs, fince neither an egg can be produced without a bird, nor a bird without an egg; for fo Cenforinus propofes the question, "Avefne ante, an ova generata fint, cùm et ovem fine ave, et avis fine ovo gigni non poflit?" de Die Natali, cap. 14. Difarius in Macrobius Saturnal. lib. vii, cap. 16. fums up the arguments on both fides, and gives the decifion, of which the reader may there be informed.

Ver. 857. Milton's defcription of the fr beafts rifing out of the ground at their creation, is fo lively and fublime, that it well deferves to be tranfcribed by way of illuftration, to this p fage of our poet.

-The earth obey'd, and, straight Op'ning her fertile womb, teem'd at a birth Innum'rous living creatures, perfect forms, Limb'd, and full grown out of the ground up rofe,

As from his lair, the wild beast where he wons
In forest wild, in thicket, brake, or den :
Among the trees, in pairs they rofe, they walk'd:
The cattle in the fields and meadows green:
Those rare and folitary, these in flocks
Paft'ring at once, and in broad herds up fprung
The graffy clods now calv'd; now half appear'd
The tawny lion, pawing to get free

His binder parts; then fprings; as broke from bonds,

And rampant fhakes his brinded mane ; the ounce,
The libbard, and the tyger, as the mole
Rifing, the crumbled earth about them threw
In hillocks: the fwift ftag from under ground
Bore up his branching head: fcarce from his mold
Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheav'd
His vanefs: fleec'd the flocks, and bleating role,
As plants: ambiguous between fea and land,
The river horfe, and fcaly crocodile, &c.

Paradife Loft, B. 7. Lucretius in this place fpeaks not after the opinion of Epicurus only, but partly too of the Stoics, who, as Lactantius witneffes, believed, "Hommes in omnibus terris & agris tanquam fungos effe generatos:" That men were born, like mushrooms in every field: and partly after the opinion of Animaxander, who, though he held that men, and all the other animals were produced of the water, yet as Plutarch de Plac. Phil. lib. v. cap. 19. fays, he taught, that they were contained in thorny bags, and fhut up in them, till the age of puberty, and then bursting from thofe prifons, they came out men and women, already able to nourish themselves: And, laftly, partly after the opinion of Archelaus, who in Lactantius, lib. ii. teaches, "homines ortos è

terrâ, quæ limum fimilem lacti ad efcam eliquaverit," that men were born of the earth, which for their nourishment oozed out a flime like milk. Others had yet other opinions concerning the original of mankind: Juvenal, Sat. 6. v. II. Quippe aliter tunc orbe novo, cœloque recenti Vivebant homines, qui rupto robore nati, Compofitique luto, nullos habuêre parentes.

In which paffage that poet hints at two other ways of the creation of man: the one from trees, the other from the earth. As to the first Britan

nicus fays, " Quum primâ illâ ætate in fpeluncis fylvifque more ferarum, habitarent, quumque ex arboribus vetuftate cavatis, tanquam ex domicilio exirent, putabantur ex arboribus cffe nati." Then alleging this verfe of Virgil, Æneid. 8. 315. Genfque virum truncis, & duro robore nati, he fhows in those words the probable cause of the fiction that as they dwelt in woods, fo they feemed to be born of the trees: but furely he forgets himself a little, when he fays "ex arboribus vetuftate cavatis," having but just before faid, "primâ illâ ætate," for how then could the trees have had time to decay and grow hollow? yet Autumnus commits the fame overfight. The se. cond way, mentioned by Juvenal of man's original, gives juft grounds to believe, that though TRANS. II.

many of the more learned among the Heathens had read the history of Mofes, yet that they either defpifed, or corrupted, or opposed the inftruction: witnefs Julian the apoftate, who in a fragment of an epiftle published with his other works by Petavius, page 534. &c. feqq. delivers it as the theology of the ancient Heathens, that mankind increafed not from two perfons, as Mofes taught, but that when Jupiter created the world, drops of facred blood fell down, out of which arofe mankind, ὡς ότι Ζευς ἐκόσμο τὰ πάντα, κάμνων α μαλος Ἱερᾶς της φασῶν, ἐξ ὧν του τὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων βλα shoess yves impioufly urging, that otherwife the world could not have been fo foon increased, though women, as he lewdly adds, had been as fruitful as fwine. But what wonder is it, that men had fo mean an opinion of their own original, who believed but little better of their gods? Witness Varro, who in his fragments, " Antiquitatum rerum divinarum," blaming their fabulous theology," Mythicon genus Theologiæ," fays, in this we find, That one god is born out of the head, another out of the thigh, a third from drops capite, alius ex femore, altus ex guttis fanguinis natus." Nor were fome of the ancient philofophers lefs ridiculous in their opinions, concerning the reparation of mankind: To inftance only in one: Every one knows, that there are in the joints of the fingers little bones, commonly called feedbones: one of which, about half as big as a pea, is placed in the first joint of the thumb: This the Arabians call Abadara, as Bartholinus obferves in fome of the wife ancients foolishly held, that out his Anatomical Inftitutions, lib. iv. cap. ult. Now of that bone, as out of feed, mankind fhould at other opinions concerning man's original, in the laft be propagated anew. You may find likewife learned Cenforinus de Die natali, cap. iv. where he treats at large of this matter. And if you think it worth your while to fee this fabulous rife of the world confuted, you may find it well done by Firmianus, lib. ii. cap. 12.

of blood: "In hoc enim eft, ut Deus alius ex

Ver. 860. Lactantius, lib. ii. de Origine Error, cap. 11, and 12, cites this verfe of Lucretius, and makes this remark upon it. "Aiunt certis converfionibus cœli: et aftrorum motibus maturitatem quandam extitiffe animalium ferendorum: folliculos ex fe quofdam in uterorum fimilitudiitaque terram novam femen genitale retinentem nem protuliffe, de quibus Lucretius, lib. v.

Crefcebant uteri, terræ radicibus apti,

cofque, cum maturâffent, naturâ cogente, ruptog animalia cætera profudiffe: Deinde terram ipfam humore quodam, qui effet lacti fimilis, exuberâsse, eoque alimento animantes effe nutritos." Thus too Cicero, lib. i. de Leg. et Cenforinus de die Natali, cap. 2. where he tells us befides, that Democritus too was of the fame opinion.

Lucret." Terræ radicibus apti:" i. e. affixed and flicking in the earth, by their roots.

Ver. 872. But how could these infant animals bear the inclemencies of the feafons, the parching heat, and the chilling cold: nay, how could they live, or É P