12 2 Either because they apprehended the infults of enemies, or were jealous of their own fubjects, whom they oppreffed with too severe a flavery. V. How came the kingly power, with all its marks of royalty, to be at length totally fubvert- | ed and laid afide? Because nothing refifts envy; which climbs the loftieft towers, and invades the palaces of kings: nay, the favourites of fortune are chiefly exposed to her affaults. VI. Why were laws firft invented and made? Perhaps for the fake of commerce: for man is a fociable animal, and indigent of mutual offices. Therefore, that he might not be perpetually in arms, laws were invented to establish a rule of common fociety, and to reftrain and keep within certain bounds, the petulancy and unbridled luft of the wicked. Ver. 1226. For, as Cicero fays very truly, "fua quemque fraus, fuum facinus, fuum fcelus, fua audacia de fanitate ac mente deturbat," Lib. i. de Finib." Ver. 1229. That is, as Cicero, lib. 1. de Finib. treating of these things, fays, "nunquam confidant id fore femper ocultum," let them never flatter themfelves, that thefe enormities will lie forever buried in darknefs: becaufe many are faid to have betrayed their crimes in their dreams: and others in the delirious ravings of a disease, have discovered their abominable actions, that had lain a long time concealed. Ver. 1230. Thus Book iv. v. 1012. Multi de magnis per fomnum rebu' loquuntur, Some talk of state affairs, and fome betray, fitudes of the feafons, when they perceived the Thus Manilius, lib. i. v. 475. fpeaking of the Certa fed in proprias oriuntur fydera luces; At mihi tam præfens ratio non ulla videtur, Ut voluit credi, qui, &c. Which our tranflator thus renders: The ftars ftill keep one courfe: they still pursue Repeat their whirl, and vifit it again : A moft convincing reafon, drawn from sense, The plots, their treach'rous minds had fram'd by Which, like the foul, does ev'ry whirl advance: Ver. 1233. Religion, fays he, and the fear of the gods, began at the first birth of men: But from whence had they their knowledge of the deities? It is uncertain, whether from the images that flowed from the gods themselves, to whom Epicurus afcribed, as it were, a body and blood; or from images that arofe by chance. Now thofe images, whatever they were, or from whence fo. ever they came, by continually ftriking the minds of men, either when they were fleeping or awake, were the cause that men conjectured that fome fubftances, like thofe images, and capable of underftanding, did exift fomewhere or other: for the images feemed to fpeak, and to move their members; and they believed them immortal too, because the form of the images was always the fame, and their power and ftrength, feemed to be immenfe; and happy likewife, because they were never terrified at dangers, nor disturbed at the fear of death: and never grew weary, as if they enjoyed eternal rest. Ver. 1262. In thefe eleven verfes he farther afferts, that the ignorance of natural caufes gave rife lil ewife to religion. For when men obferved the motions of the heavens, and the vicif Ver. 1273. This belief of a Divine Providence, "Papicolam crederes Lucretium," fays Creech, And Virgil: Falix qui potuit rerum cognofcere caufas, -ftrepitumque Acherontis avari Subjecit pedibus. Ver. 1274. Subject unto rage.] Velleius in Cicero explains this opinion of Epicurus, and gives us the reason of it in these words: "Quæ enim nobis Natura informationem Deorum ipforum dedit, eadem infculpfit in mentibus, ut cos æternos, et beatos haberemus: Quod fi ita eft, verè expofita eft illa fententia ab Epicuro, quod æternum beatumque fit, id nec habere ipfum negotii quidquam, nec exhibere alteri, itaque neque irâ, neque gratiâ teneri; quod quæ talia effent, imbecilla effent omnia: Nihil enim agit Deus, nullis occupationibus eft implicatus, nulla opera molitur; fuâ fapientiâ et virtute gaudet: habet exploratum fore fe femper tum in maximis, tum in æternis voluptatibus. Hunc Deum ritè beatum dixerimus, veftrum vero laboriofiffimum: Nos enim beatam vitam in animi fecuritate, et in omni vacatione munerum ponimus." De Natur. Deor. lib. I. Upon which Lactantius fays, that he is apt to believe with Poffidonius in the fame Cicero, that Epicurus did indeed believe, that there were no gods at all; and that what he said of the immortal deites, he faid only to avoid the cenfure of the world: That though he indeed confeffed with his mouth, that there were gods, yet he denied them in effect, by exempting them from all manner of affections, and from all employment whatever. De Irâ Dei. cap. 4. Ver. 1279. To bend.] Lucret. "Vertier ad lapidem." For the Romans were wont, in their worfhip of the images of their gods, to turn their bodics round to the right. Plaut. in Curcul. act. i. Ver. 1326. In these thirty-eight verfes, teaches how metals came firft to be difcovered, what use they put them to, and the value they fet upon them. He afcribes the first discovery to the burning down of the woods: No matter how. nor why they were fet a fire: but the heat of the flames melted the metals that were difperfe! here and there in the veins of the earth, and made them flow into one mafs. Now when mea firt happened to fee that glittering body, they were furprised at its fplendor, and this it w that invited them to handle it, and try what was good for And taking notice that the figur of each lump of it refembled, and bore a propertion with, the figure of the hole or hollow plac our of which they had taken it, they conclude that by melting thofe metals again, they migh bring them into what form they pleafed; and that they might be made fo thin, as to receive an All cover'd.] For the Romans likewife woredge, and be fharpened: Thus they begin to fhipped the images of their gods, with a veil make inftruments of each fort of metal; d hanging down from their head, Plaut. in Amph. with them fell to cutting down the woods, "Invocat Deos immortales, ut fibi auxilium fecleaved the timber, made beams, &c. Now be rant manibus puris, capite operto." The reafon cause the inftruments and tools they had made of of which ceremony, you may fee at large in Plu-gold and of filver, as being fofter metals, were tarch, in pain and in the life of Marcellus. See likewife the interpreters of Minutius Felix, P. 10. v. 70. Ver. 1281. Spread arms. 75.] Lucr. "Pandere palmas;" which was a custom observed likewise in their fupplications to the gods: Virgil. Æneid. i. v. 97. Ingemit, et duplices tendens ad fydera palmas. Ver. 1298. In thefe twenty-eight verfes he fays, that fear is another caufe of religion: for men, being frighted at tempefts, earthquakes, &c. against which they could not ftruggle with any ftrength, nor avoid them by any art or induftry of their own, implored the aid and affiftance of invifible powers: This was the beginning of prayers and vows; and thus Primos in orbe Deos fecit Timor. But what do vows avail? The wind ftill rages on relentless: the unpitying gods are as deaf and more fubject to blunt than the others; thofe fir men fet a greater value upon brafs, because it was the more useful metal. Whence the pert takes occasion to say, that those wretched miler who fit brooding over their unprofitable gold and filver, and contemn brafs and iron, thofe more ufeful metals, act contrary to the dictates of ture, who teaches to fet value on things according to the utility and usefulness of them. Gold] Cadmus, the Phoenician, is by fort faid to have been the first who discovered gold Others fay, that Thoas first found it, and that too in the mountain Fangæus in Thrace, new called Malaca, and Caftagua: The Chronic Alexandrinum afcribes it to Mercury, the fon ci Jupiter, or to Picus, king of Italy, who, quitting his own country, went into Egypt, where, after the death of Mifraim, the fon of Cham, he wa elected to fucceed him in the royal dignity, and was, for the invention of gold, called ; the golden god, fchylas attributes the inver tion of this and all other metals to Prometheus: By him first And there are others who write, that either Æa-Men alfo, and by his fuggeftion taught, Ranfack'd the centre, and with impious hands Now thofe profounder regions they explore, Ver. 1340. Ariftotle, in his treatise wigi dav ús. x. fays, that fome fhepherds in Spain having fet fire to certain woods, and heated the fubitance of the earth, the filver that was in the bowels of it, melted, and flowed together into a heap and that a little while afterwards there happened an earthquake, which cleaved the earth, and disclosed a vast quantity of silver, that had flowed together by that means. This too is confirmed by Strabo, lib. 3. where he fays, that the mines in Andalufia were discovered by this accident. So too Athenæus, lib. vi. c. 4. But of the first discoverers of metals, confult the authors mentioned, v. 1336. and Georg. Agricol. lib. i. de Metal. Ver. 1345. Thus Ovid. Met. i. v. 138. -Itum eft in vifcera terræ, [bris, Quafque recondiderat, Stygiifque admoverat umEffodiuntur opes, irritamenta malorum. Jamque nocens ferrum, ferroque nocentius aurum Then greedy mortals, runimaging her store, Ver. 1359. The author of the Dispensary says to the fame purpose: Gold makes a patrician of a flave; And Dryden in Amphitryo makes Jupiter say, This gold, I made a greater god than Jove, Ver. 1360. To the fame purpose, Dryden Are fet afide, like abdicated kings. Ver. 1364. Since it is reasonable to fuppofe, that the veins of iron, as well as of brafs, filver, lead, &c. were melted by the heat of those burning forefts, how comes it to pafs, that the ancients fcarce make any mention of iron, but often of brafs? Because, says he, in these fixteen verses, brafs was a more eafy metal to work, and there was greater plenty of it: therefore the weapons and tools of husbandry that were first used, were made of brafs: at length, iron came in play; a fitter metal to plough and till the stubborn and hardened earth, and more proper for the daily increasing roughness and cruelty of man. Ver. 1366. For as Cowley fays, David. 3. These were the first rude arts that malice try'd, Ere man the fins of too much knowledge knew, And death, by long experience, witty grew. Ver. 1370. Ovid. Faft. lib. iv. s erat in prætio, chalybs jam massa placebat: Eheu! perpetuo debuit illa tegi. Ver. 1372. Hefiod. "Εργων, καὶ ἡμερῶν, lib. i v. 149. fpeaking of the brazen age: Τοῖς δ ̓ ἦν χάλκεα μὲν τεύχεα, χάλκεοι δὲ τὲ οἶ Χαλκῷ δ' ἐργάζοντο, μέλος δ' ἐχ ̓ ἔσκε σίδηρος. And Euftathius on Iliad i. v. 236. xaλxòv dì ròU Θάησαί μ', ἐτεὸν γὰρ ἐν Ιλίε ευρεῖ πύργῳ Ver. 1380. Having made mention of wars in the preceding verfe, he takes occafion to explain in forty-eight verses, those savage, which we call Milton, in the first book of Paradife Loft, fpeak- warlike, arts of the first men, who improved in ing of Mammon: cruelty, and grew daily more and more ingenious to destroy. At first they fought on horfeback, and a horfe is a tame and gentle animal: then they joined two horses to a chariot, then four, and armed their chariots with iron bills and fcythes. After this, wild beasts were brought to the wars, elephants by the Africans, lions by the Parthians, then bulls, boars, &c. But Lucretius himself does not believe all this: only having met with these relations in fome hiftories, he mentions them, and mingles truths with falfities. And yet, fays he, they are not altogether incredible: For what has not witty rage and cruelty invented? And what kind of assistance and relief will men not embrace and refuse, who labour under oppreffion and despair? Orfilochum referunt primas junxiffe quadrigu, But Dempfter, in his edition of Carippus, of Orfilochum reads Cecropidem, by which means Erichonius, who was the fourth king Athens from Cecrops, who founded that t Others again will have it to have been Em maus, the king of Elis: But Theon, the Sw liaft of Aratus fays plainly, that the conftella of Heniochus, which the Latins called the Charioteer, is, eéïdwλov ň Biλhegoforró, i Tequi the reprefentation either of Bellerophone Trochilus, the first inventor of the quatr Moreover, as to the manner of joining thefe f horfes in a chariot, the ancients, as they dif from us, fo they differed among themselves! wife: For fome chariots had two poles, ane tween each pair of horses; for the horses neigh-horics were uya, i. e. jugales, yoked and "æquatâ fronte," all a-breaft: so that all t Sophocles afcribes the firft invention of the bridle, and of riding on horfeback, to Neptune: Lyfias, the orator, to the Amazons: and others, to others: But Virgil abfolutely to the Lapitha, a people of Theffalia, that inhabited the mountains Pindus and Othrys, and were next bours to the Centaurs. Georg. iii. v. 115. Fræna Pelethronii Lapithæ, gyrofque dedère, Impofiti dorfo: atque equitem docuêre fub armis Infultare foi, et greffus glomerare fuperbos. Thus rendered by Dryden : The Lapithe add the state Of bits and bridles; taught the steed to bound, Ver. 1383. The first invention of chariots is by Efchylus afcribed to Prometheus, by Cicero to Minerva, by the Trezenians to Hippolytus, and by Virgil to Ericthonius: Primus Erichonius currus et quatuor aufus Jungere equos, rapidifque rotis infiftere victor. Georg. iii. v. 113. Bold Erichonius was the first that join'd Four horfes, for the rapid race defign'd, And o'er the dusty wheels prefiding fate. Dryd. But whether the poet means that Ericthonius, who was king of the Athenians, the fon of Vul can and Tellus, who is faid to have been fnakefooted, anguipes, and, to conceal that deformity, to have firft invented a chariot; or that other Ericthonius, the Phrygian, who was the fon of Dardanus, grandson of Jupiter, and one of the ancestors of Æneas, is uncertain. Pliny fays the Phrygians first drove a chariot with two horses, and Erichonius one with four: " Bigas prinum junxit Phrygum Natio, quadrigas Ericthonius." Nat. Hift. lib. vii. cap. 56. Eufebius in Chronic. makes Trochilus, the Argive, who was fon of Callithea, the priestefs of Juno, to be the firft inventor of chariots; and with him agrees Tertul. lian de Spectac. However, he is erroneously called Orfilochus by Hyginus, who nevertheless is followed in his error by Corippus in Panegyr. 1. as we find by these verses, which Scaliger on Eufebius cites: naffed to the poles: Afterwards Clythenes, s Sycionian, changed that manner, and made riots with one pole only; fo that the two horfes only were jugales; the other two tha outmost to the right and left, had only reima the other neceffary harness and traces, ande therefore called rugapógos, i. c. funales; and were more at liberty than thofe called Of the funales, Suetonius, in the life of The gives us a remarkable example in these vita "Tiberius, pubefcens Actiaco triumpho, c Augufti comicatus eft finifteriore funali equ Marcellus, Octavia filius, dexteriore vebear Alexandro undertakes to explain, but isn Which paffage of that hiftorian Alexandr in it for he says, that the equi funch called à funalibus, i. c. à facibus triumph from the triumphal torches, which the carried in their hands: But of this fee Salman his Plinian Exercitations, Tom. ii. pag. 899, he treats of thefe matters at large. The fer figures of the curins quadrijuges may be seen confular and imperial coins, which we find prefented in Urfinus, Golizius, and in Parves de Ludis Circenfibus: but above all fee Sche ferus, who not long ago published a treatife this fubject, intitled, de re vehiculari Vetera Tertullian in his book de Spectaculis, acquain That Romulus was the firft who brought quadriga, or chariot with four horfes, in use az the Romans: Pliny makes mention of curr juges, chariots drawn by fix horses, and fays 1 the firft of them among the Romans was it time of Auguftus, to whom the fenate decre chariot with fix horses, as a triumphal honour, 4) which nevertheless the modesty of that pat would not permit him to accept. Ver. 1384. The armed cars.] Of them, fer bod iii. ver. 615. Ver. 1385. Cafled elephants.] Because th carried towers on their backs. Lucretius calls th Lucas Boves: and Faber fays, that Laras is the put for Lucanas, as we find Campas for Camper 46 in Plautus: Then he adds, that elephants were fo called, because the first time the Romans had feen any, was in the war against Pyrrhus, and at Lucanus, now called Lugano, a town in the Milaneze, Pany, lib. viii. cap. 6. Elephantas Italia primum vidit Pyrrhi Regis bello, & boves Lucas appellavit in Lucanis vifas; anno urbis 472." This confirms the opinion of Faber: But Varro, lib. vi. de Linguâ Latinâ, has this Passage : "Luca bos Elephas, cur ita fit dieta duobus modis invenio fcriptum: Nam in C Elii Commentario à Lybicis Lucas, & in Virginii Commentario à Lucanis Lucas, ab eo quod noftri maximam quadrupedem; quam ipfi habebant, vocarent bovem ; & in Lucanis Pyrrhi bello primum vidiffent apud hoftes Elephantes, id eft, quadrupedes cornutas, (nam quæ dentes multi dicunt funt cornua) Lucam bovem appellâffe: Ego arbitror potius Lucas á luce, quod longe relucebant; propter inauratos regios clypeos quibus eorum tum ornatæ erant turres." But this reafon of Varro's feems but weak: And it is certain, that Pyrrhus first made ufe of them in Lucania, and afterwards Hannibal in Africa, against the Romans. Lucretius calls them likewife Anguimanos, inake-handed : for the probofcis of the clephant is called a hand, in Cicero ii. de Naturâ Deorum: but that hand is, like a ferpent, voluble and pliable. -Th' unwieldy elephant, Milton. To make them mirth, us'd all his might and wreath'd His lithe probofcis. Ver. 1386. The Africans, but more particularly the Carthaginians, who, as I faid before, under their leader Han nibal, fought against the Romans. Ver. 1390. Here the poet teaches, that in their wars, they likew ife made ufe of bulls, boars, and lions, to help the m to fight their battles, but that thefe untractable beafts often did them more hurt than good; for when the armies were engaged in heat of action, these favage anin als raged not on the enemy alone, but turned back upon their own mafters, and, tearing them to pieces, put all into diforder. See the note on book iii. ver. 614. Ver. 1391. The Parthians were a people of Afia, who long enjoyed the empire of the Eaft. The country they inhabited was called Parthia, and lay between Media to the weft, and Afia to the east; and between Perfia to the fouth, and Hyrcania to the north: It was called Parthia, fays Stephanus, from thefe people, who were originally Scythians, and fled out of Scythia to the Medes, who called all fugitives Parthi, and Parthyæi, and thus the country where they fettled was from them called Parthia. It has now feveral Mercator calls it Arach: Alphonfus Hadrianus, Jexdi; and Niger, Coraffau: For, contifting of divers provinces, it comes likewife to have fundry nanies. The Parthians were remarkable for their drunkennels; and from them came the proverb, " Parthi quo plus biberint, co pius fitiunt." The more the Parthians drink, the more they are adry; nay, to be able to drink a TRANS. II. names. great deal is esteemed honourable among them? Their wine was made of the fruit of the palm" tree, and their chief food was grafhoppers. Ter" tullian fays, they are fo addicted to venery, that they mix promifcuoufly with their own filters and mothers: Theft is with them unpunished: They neither built temples, nor erected ftatues to the gods; but worshipped their king for their deity: However they offered facrifices in the mountains to Jupiter, and to Sol, Luna and Tellus the fun moon and earth. They held lying to be the mofe heinous of all crimes. Ver. 1412. In like manner an English poet. Walje. Ver. 1428. In thefe eleven verfes he tells us, that in regard to the more civilized arts, their first care was to clothe themselves, which they did at firft with the fkins of beafts, tagged together with thorns, not fewed, nor were the arts of pinning or of weaving yet difcovered: Nor indeed was it possible they should be fo, before the ufe of iron, without which the tools for fpinning and weaving could not be made: Nor was fpinning first practifed by women, but by men; they being the more industrious and inventive fex: till at length the sturdy peasants reproached thete male ipinfters for their effeminate lazinéfs, laughed them from the diftaff, and brought them to follow the more laborious occupations. All arts are generally diftinguished into two forts: I. The illiberal, or manual: II. The liberal, or ingenuous: Of the first fort the number is almoft without number: yet both kinds, though very imperfectly, are reduced each to a feptenary divifion, and expreffed in the following diftich: Lingua, Tropus, Ratio, Numerus, Tonus, Angu lus, Aftra: Rus, Nemus, Arma, Faber, Vulnera, Lana, Rates. The firft of which verfes expreffes the liberal fciences, viz. grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, mufic, geometry, and aftronomy: The fecond, the illibe ral; as agriculture, hunting, arts military and fabrile, chirurgery, fpinning and weaving, and arts nautical: Of the first inventors of which, fee Pliny, lib. vii. cap. 56. Polydore Virgil, and Gar zone in his Piazza Univerfale: And as to the different efteem and practice of thefe arts among the Greeks and Romans, you may confult Aldus Manutius in Quæfit. per Epiftol. lib. ii. cap. 9. Ver. 1439. In thefe ninteen verfes the poet teaches, that Nature herself taught them to plant: for they had obferved that the acorns berries, &c. that dropped off the trees, produced new fhoots; and this put them upon endeavouring to make them do the like: Every one according to his capacity added fome improvement to the culture of the field, and gardens : And thus by degrees they arrived to the perfection in which we now admire them, by the beau ૨.૬ |