was heaped up, not dug into the ground, as Cornutus is of opinion, till it raifed a monument high enough, to give notice of the place to paffers by. Plutarch. in Symp. iv. Prob! 2. afferts, That the bodies of men blafted with lightning never putrify; for many, fays he, neither burn them, nor bury them, but fuffer them to lie where they were ftruck; and hedge in the place, that thofe uncorrupting carcafes may remain as a spectacle of admiration And for this reafon they foolishly thought fuch perfons to be honoured by Jupiter. But Seneca, Nat. Quæft. lib. ii with more confonance to truth, fays that bodies, killed by thunder, crawl with worms in a few days; and adds befides, that they were buried with the lightning: Whence the faying, "Male tecum agitur, fi cum fulmine conderis:" The places were hedged about, that they might not be trod on unawares; and the bodies were interred to avoid the stench of their corruption: For it is known by experience, that as well men as beafts, are for the moft part fuffocated by the blaft of ligh ning, not burnt with the fire; and when the innate heat of the animal decay, the remaining moisture is prone to corruption. Yet fome perfons, ftruck with lightning, were not buried, but only covered with a white garment; as well because they believed fuch bodies did not putrify, as that they might be feen by the people; who, nevertheless, were not permitted to look at them, except at fome diflance: for none were permitted to come within the enclofure, but the priests.

I fhail pafs by many things relating to thander, but cannot omit one, which Pliny mentions, lib. xxviii. cap. 25. where he fays: “ Fulgetras Poppyfmis adorare, confenfus eft gentium:" All na. tions agree in adoring the thunderbolts, by preffing their lips close together, and then, by drawing in the air by force, to make fuch a found as horsemen generally do, to encourage and put forward their horles; for fuch a noife the word " poppyfmus" fignifies: and this was the custom both of the Greeks and Romans in their expiatory facrifices. Some of the learned add likewife the clapping of hands, which others nevertheless take to be only the noise that is made, by closing the palms of the hands, and hiffing between the thumbs. But to proceed:

When the portents and prodigies were uncom mon, or more than ufually frequent, they confulted the Thufcan Fulguratores, or the Sybilline books, and the city was expiated, by public facrices and fupplications, and by the ceremonies they called Lecifternia, i. e. bringing their beds, on which they lay down to eat, into the temples, where they used to feat themfelves in honour of the facred rites: as alío by votive games, Livy in decad. iv lib. 10. gives an example of the purgation of the city, after the fall of lightning, in thefe words: "Ob ea decemviri juffi adire libres, edidere quibus diis et quot hoftiis facrificaretur: Er a fulminibus complura loca deformata, ad ædem Jovis ut fupplicatio diem unum effet. Ludi denique votivi Quivi Conf per dies desem magno apparatu fadi" For to distinguish to

which god the facrifice was due, was not so caffiy difcerned by the Romans, but that they equaly facrificed fometimes to Jupiter and Pluto, when the lightning happened at a doubtful time, that is to fay, either in the morning or evening twi light; and this lightning, as we faid before, they called "pervorfum," Joannes Magnus, in his hiftory, lib. iii. cap. 8. relates a ridiculous cuftem of the Goths and Vandals; and which is likewise confirmed by his kinsman Olaus Magnus: They tell us, that thofe people, when they heard the noife of thunder in the clouds, were wont to fhost arrows up into the air, to exprefs their carnett defire to affist their own gods, whom they be lieved to be then engaged in battle with other gods; and that, not contented with this fooli fuperftition, they had inallets of an unusual weight, bound about with brafs, and which they held in great veneration, on purpose that, by their help, as by the imitative thunder of Claudian, they might exprefs the noise they heard in the he vens, and which they believed was made by mallets likewife: And they held it very merite rious to be thus present, and afsist in the battles of their gods.

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It remains only to fpeak of the lightning, which the ancients called Elicia, and thefe were either commanded and compelled from heaven, et allured and obtained by holy rites. Pliny tell, That lightning may either be compelled, or im plored from heaven, by certain holy rites and fupplications; that there was an old tradition in Etruria, that it had been obtained by holy rites, when a monster they called Volta, entered inte the city Volfinii, after having first depopulated the country round it: And the fame author, o the teftimony of Pifo, whom he calls an author of credit, fays, That Porfenna, king of the Tha cans, drew down thunder from heaven; and that, before him, Numa had often done the like. He adds, that Tullus Hoftilius, endeavouring) tate them, and either not knowing, or for t observing the due rites, was himself ftruck dead by a thunderbolt. "Extat annalium memoria, facris quibufdam et precationibus, vel cogi ful mina, vel impetrari: Vetus fama Hetruria, impetratum; Volfinios urbem, agris depopulatis, fubeunte monftro, quod vocavere Voltam. Ecatum et à Porfenua fuo rege, et ante cum à N ma fæpius hoc factitatum, in primo Annal. Suerum tradit L. Pifo, gravis Author: quod imitatum parum rite Tullum Hoftilium, ictum fulmine. Lucolque et aras, et facra habemus inter que Statores, et Tonantes, et Feretrius, Elicium que que accepimus Jovem." Plin. lib. ii. cap. 52. He concludes with making this remark: Varia," says he, " in hoc vitæ fententia, et pro cujufque animo. Imperari naturæ adacis eft credere: nec minus hebetis, beneficiis abrogare vires." Thus Pliny In relation to Numa, Livy relates the matter at large, in decad. i. lib. I where, among many other things, he tells us, that Noma, in order to allure down thunderbolts from the divine minds, erected an altar on the AVEB tine hill, to Jupiter Elicius: “ Ad ca (fcil, fab

mina) elicienda, ex mentibus divinis, Jovi Elicio aram in Aventino dicavit; deumque confuluit auguriis, quæ capienda effent." And that nothing might be wanting to this fable, Valerius Antias, as cited by Arnobius, advers. gent. lib. v. ays, that king Numa, not having the fcience of rocuring lightning, and, by the advice of the ymph Egeria, being defirous to know it, gave hains and fetters to twelve chafte young men, nd placed them in ambuscade, near a certain water, in which Faunus and Martius Picus were ront to bathe, with orders to surprise and bind hem: This they did, and extorted from them The art of alluring Jupiter, of whom Numa by his means learnt the art of drawing down thunK derbolts out of heaven. The Greeks, however, -vill not allow this honour to be first due to Nuna, but afcribe it to Prometheus; who, as Serius on the 6th Eclogue of Virgil, relates, by reding long upon the top of Mount Caucasus, difwered the art of alluring down lightning, and #ught it to men; from whence the fable of his aving stolen fire out of heaven. Lastly, These Delicia fulmina" were of three forts: I. "Hofitalia," which Seneca mentions in lib. ii. Nat. æft. and these by facrifices compel, or rather, ufe their milder expreffion, invite Jupiter from aven: But if his godship should happen to be willing, or in an angry mood, they invite him their own coft: and this, fays the fame Seneca, is the misfortune of Tullus Hoftilius, the third ng of the Romans, whom we mentioned befe. II. The Auxiliaria," which were alfo led " Advocata," but these always came for good of thofe that called them. III. The Imprecatoria," which cannot be reckoned in A number of auxiliary lightning; for no man ires destruction, or imprecates thunderbolts on own head. After all, Pliny, lib. xxviii. cap. obferves out of old authors, that it was a very fficult task to allure down lightning by fupplitions and facrifices. And fo much for the furftition of the ancients, in regard to thunder d lightning.

Ver. 431. Hitherto the poet has been treating thunder and lightning; and is now about to fpute of another kind of meteor, called whirlinds: And for the better understanding of fuch fputation, it will be neceffary, with Ariftotle, iii. Meteor. and with Pliny, lib. ii. cap. 48. diftinguish between the feveral forts of whirlinds, which the ancients called by feveral names, cording to their several natures; as ecnephias, refter and typho:" For fince all these things, under, lightning," ecnephias, prefter, and tyho," and thunderbolts, are only feveral winds, e ought to diftinguish between them. First, hen, if the wind be thin and fubtle, and if it be lown and scattered piecemeal here and there, it roduces thunder and lightning. If it be more enfe and thick, it begets the tempeft, which the Greeks call 'Expàs, i. e. a storm without rain, hurricane, as Pliny fays, lib. ii. cap. 48 But if he wind bursting out of the bowels of a cloud, meet with other winds, breaking out of other

clouds likewise, and without fire, it comes to be that fort of whirlwind, which the Greeks called rupos, of which there are two forts, called by the Latins" vortex and turbo:" "Vortex," if it make a great and roaring noife: "Turbo," if it make none at all, or but a whistling one. But if the wind, when it breaks from the clouds, takes fire, and kindles into flame, it makes á 66 prefter," called by the Greeks pasng, which fignifies, inflaming, fwelling, and making hot, “ quafi comburens contacta, pariter et proterens," fays Pliny, in the place last cited: If the wind, after it breaks from the clouds, do not take fire; but bursts out in a flame, it makes the lightning, which the Greeks call xsgavvis, a thunderbolt: And, laftly, if the wind cannot break the cloud, but forces and drags it down upon the earth, or fea, it then makes the whirlwind, which the Latins called "columna," a pillar. And of these whirlwinds the poet difputes in the following twenty-nine verfes, and feems to call the "columna, vortex, and turbo," all of them certain prefters. And first, in these twenty-one verfes, he explains the caufe of a fiery whirlwind, called a prefter; which, fays he, is a wind impetuoufly whirled about, and that takes fire by the continuance and vehemence of the agitation. If this wind burft out of the clouds, and move violently in a straight line, it kindles into lightning only; but if the cloud be fo tough, that it cannot break through, but bears it down into the fea, and, there impetuously whirling round in the waves, it becomes a prefter, the fure deftruction of failors.

Ver. 452. Prefters are feldom felt at land, but chiefly infeft the fea. There is another fort of whirlwind, which is not fiery: and this too is a wind, that turns and whisks about with violence in a cloud, and tumbles down with that cloud upon the earth; where breaking out without being kindled into flame, it whirls and tumbles down all things where it lights: Neither is this fort of whirlwind frequent at land; for the hills hinder its defcent, and break its force; but at fea the poor failors often feel its violence.

Of this fort of whirlwind, Pliny, lib. ii. cap. 48. "Sin vero flatus repentini depreffo finu arctius rotati nubem effregerint, fine igne, hoc eft, fine fulmine, Vorticem faciunt:" which agrees with what Lucretius fays of it. But whatever he fays of their being most frequently felt at sea, they are very common in Florence, and in feveral other countries.

But before we leave this fubject of whirlwinds, it will not be improper to give a fhort account of the cause of wind; the original of which is reckoned among the hidden fecrets of nature. Ariftotle will have it to proceed from the earth, and defines it to be a dry earthy exhalation; Metrodorus and Animaxander held, that it proceeds from the water: of the fame opinion too is Vitruvius, who, lib. i. cap. 6. fays, "Ventus eft aëris fluens unda, cum incerta motus redundan tia; nafciturque cum fervor offendit humorem & impetus fervoris exprimit vim fpiritus flantis:" This he illuftrates, by the example of colipila,

r: therefore instead of, For the warm vius rays, &c. read, For the defcending parts,

er. 488. In these fourteen verfes, as a third of clouds, he fetches the feeds of them from infinite space, and from the other worlds. Lucretius, after Epicurus, believed, that the s which assemble in the concretion of clouds, not only out of the air, water, and earth, ut of the void likewife: for having taught, i. ver. 1005. & feq. that the space in which, of which, and through which the infinite s are continually flying, is immenfe and inlikewife, what wonder is it, if they fupply that inexhaustible magazine a fufficient tity of feed for the production of clouds? d. External matter.] That is to fay, matter comes not only from the sea, nor only from arth, nor only from the air, but from withi. e. from the immense and infinite space : univerfe.

490. See book i. ver. 965. & feq. & & feq. where the poet has brought many ments to prove the universe to be infinite, hat it has no centre.

T. 493. See book ii. ver. 134. &c.

T. 494. This and the following verse are ribed from Cowley, and repeated in this from b. iv. v. 226.

502. These thirty verses contain a fhort ation of rain. Many feeds of water rise up her with the feeds of the clouds, and grow r together with the clouds, in like manner, blood, and other humours increase in proa with our bodies. For a cloud may be fed to be a body, that contains the rain, may be compared to the blood in the boof animals. To these feeds of water and , add those particles of water that the clouds, leeces of wool, which they feem to resemble, from the rivers and fea. And thus when louds are full of water, if they are preffed r by the force of the wind, or their own ht, water muft of necessity be squeezed out, drop from them: This in feventeen verfes. he fays in four verses, that if the winds y the clouds, the rain will likewife drop from 1; and if the heat of the fun pierce the clouds, will flow like melted wax. That a violent y fhower is occafioned by a violent comprefof the clouds in four verfes, and lastly, in verses, that conftant fhowers happen, when ty clouds are heaped upon one another, and En the earth refolves into vapours the rain it received, and sends it up again into the region he clouds.

Ariftotle and his followers, who held that the nents change from one into another, and so ke a circle of generation, define rain to be air verted into water, and diftilling from a cloud drops. Epicurus held that rain might be geated two feveral ways: I. By tranfmutation. By compreffion. By tranfmutation; because is the nature of the air, that it changes by denfation into water; and fuch too is the na

ture of a cloud; that by the retreat and abfence of heat, and by the acceffion of cold, its parts are fo tranfpofed and varied, as renders them more apt to flow and fall. This is exemplified by vapours gathering together in a limbeck, and then falling in drops. By compreffion, when by wind or cold the cloud is compreffed, and the vaporous corpufcles within the hollows of it are crowded together; and thus, by that acceffion of weight, or by the force of the wind, are driven and squeezed out of the cloud, in like manner as water out of a fponge. From whence it appears, that the drops of rain are formed by coalition, rather than by divifion; and that rain is not, as it is vulgarly taken to be, a watery mass effused from a cloud, as water out of the rofe of a watering pot, nor as Trepfiades and Ariftophanes, deriding this opinion, fays, does it proceed from Jupiter's making water through a fieve. For, if there were any fuch ftagnation of water in a cloud, it would fall from thence in a torrent, or as water does from spouts, rather than in drops. Moreover, there are reckoned three kinds of rain. "Stillicidium, Imber, and Nimbus." The first is a misty rain. The second more intenfe, and composed of larger drops, a fober rain. The third, a violent pouring rain; which, as Fromondus fays, falls " decumanis guttis:" Apuleius de mundo, fums up the whole mat. ter in a few words: "Tot diverfitatibus," fays he, " pluviæ cadunt, quot modis aër nubium conditionibus cogitur."

Ver. 505. Hippocrates agrees with Lucretius in this opinion, and lib. de Aër. Aqu. et Loc. fays exprefsly, that there is moisture in all things.

Ver. 508. Here the poet teaches in five verses, that while the clouds are driven by winds over the furface of the sea, or other waters, they, like wool, hung in damp places, imbibe and fuck in the mois

ture.

Ver. 513. In these fix verses, the poet mentions one of the ways, by which rain diftills from the clouds, that is, by compreffion; when the clouds, compreffed by the force of the wind, or by the great quantity of water, contained within their bowels, let drop the rain; as water is squeezed out of a sponge, by preffing it.

Ver. 519. These four verfes contain the other way, by which Epicurus, and, after him, Lucretius held, that rain might be made, to wit, by tranfmutation, that is to fay, when the clouds, being struck and rarefied, either by the force of the wind, or the heat of the fun, distil in rain, as is explained above, ver. 502.

Ver. 523. These four verses, that give the reafon of a violent storm of rain, are sufficiently explained in the note on ver. 502. and fo likewise are the five that follow them, and affign the cause of constant showers.

Ver. 532. In these two verfes, he tells us, that a rainbow is made by the beams of the fun, ftriking upon an oppofite and wet cloud.

Lucretius fays not any thing of the various colours of the rainbow; a fubject which neverthe lefs has employed many of the philofophers; and concerning which, there are two things chiefly to

be inquired into; their number, and their order. As to the first, Ariftotle difcerns only three diftinct colours; povízesov, a light red, or faffron, as fome interpret it; xwgos, green, and woppugtos, purple, or violet. and cerulean; and thence he called the rainbow three coloured; but Ptolomæus calls it feven coloured, because of the mingled colours that intervene among those three chief colours. Others call it many-coloured, as if the number of its colours could scarce be diftinguished. Whence Virgil, Æn. iv. ver. 701. Mille trahit varios adverfo fole colores.

A rainbow is only the picture of the light of the fun, in an oppofite cloud, moift or wet, and juft ready to be diffolved, and fall down in rain. It is in itfelf of no colour; and the various colours that appear, are but reflections of the light of the fun received differently, according as the cloud is more or lefs denfe: this is evident by artificial rainbows. And yet this fhadow, this almoft nothing, does, by reflection, fometimes make another rainbow, though not fo diftinct and beautiful. Sir R. Blackmore describes a rainbow poetically, and like a philofopher too.

Thus oft the Lord of Nature, in the air,
Hangs ev'ning clouds, his fable canvafs, where
His pencil, dipt in heav'nly colours, made
Of intercepted fun-beams, mix'd with shade
Of temper'd ether, and refracted light,
Paints his fair rainbow, charming to the fight.

There are only four chief colours in a rainbow. 1. A light red. II. A yellow, or faffron. III. A green. IV. A purple These colours change their fite and order, according to the difference of the rainbow; for there are two diftin&t forts of rainbows;" iris primaria," and " iris fecundaria," the primary and fecundary rainbow. The primary rainbow is that which, for the most part, appears alone, and in which the ruddy colour is outmoft, or highett; the yellow next, the green the third colour, and the purple the inmoft, or lowest. But the iris fecundaria," or fecundary rainbow, is that which never appears alone, but always above, and larger than the primary, and has the fame colours, but more faint, and quite inverted; that is to fay, in the fecondary rainbow, the purple colour is the outmoft, or highest, the next to that the green, the third the yellow, and the ruddy the inmoft or lowest. This rainbow is not fo diftinct and beautiful as the other, of which it is held to be only a reflection. It is agreed by all, that there are two caufes of the colours of the rainbow; the fun, and the watery cloud placed against it; but they do not explain this in the fame manner. Metrodorus in Plutarch de Placit. Philof. 1. iii. c. 3. believes, that the redness of the rainbow proceeds from the beams of the fun, and the cerulean colour from the cloud. Seneca af fents to this opinion, and adds, that the other coJours are only a mixture of these two. Aristotle, 3. Meteor, will have the cloud to be in the nature of a mirror, from which the beams of the fun, being variously reflected, produce the various co

lours: the light red, because they are reflected from that part of the cloud that is nearest to his orb; the green, because they are reflected from the part that is farther off; laftly, the purple, be cause they are scarce reflected at all, by reafon of the yet greater remoteness of the cloud; nor does he diftinguish the yellow from the red, only be caufe it grows whitish, by reafon of the vicinity of the green. Scaliger believes the cloud to confift of the particles of the four elements, and therefore will have the upmoft parts of it to turn red, when they receive the light of the fun, because they are fiery; the next to become yellow, as being aerial, and the third to grow green, as holding of the earth. As to the figure of the rainbow, it is round; but it would be too tedious to relate the various opinions why it is fo. Of this confult P. Gaffendus on the tenth book of Laërtius Animad. de Meteorolog p. 1123.

Ver. 534. Lucretius fays nothing in particular of the caules of fnow wind, hail, hoar-froft, ice, &c. but only takes notice in these seven veríes, that whoever contemplates on these things, and confiders the clouds and showers, and at the fame time reflects on the various figures and motions of the principles, will eafily be able to compre. hend the caufes of thefe and the other meteors, which he leaves unexplained.

Ver. 535. Pliny, lib. xvii. cap. 2. calls fnow, the foam of celestial waters, when they dash againf one another which, fays Cowley, is ingenioully expreffed for a poet, though but ill defined for a philofopher. Aristotle, and after him, moft of our modern philofophers, hold it to be generated of a moift, but rare and thin cloud, which, being condenfed by cold, as it falls down, that it may the more easily cut through the air, divide itself into flakes, like fleeces of wool; to which the Pfalmift alludes, “ Qui dat nivem, sicut lanam,” Pfal. 147. He gives inow like wool. Yet Bodi nus, in Theatro Naturæ, is of opinion, that the Royal Pfalmift refembles fnow to wool, beaut of the warmth it affords to plants and vegetables in the cold of winter, as woollen garments do te men, rather than for its fleecy fimilitude. The whitenefs of fnow is derived from its efficient caufe, which is cold; and alfo from the copious mixture of aërial spirits. Anaxagoras affirmed it to be black; and in Armenia it is of a ruddy colour; which, as Euftathius on the fecond Iliad ob ferves, is caused by the terreftrial particles, or a toms of the foil of that country, which abounds with minium. For those particles, mixing with those of the air, tinge the fnow, and give it that hue. Of the wonderful contexture and figure of fnow, which is faid to be always fexangular, fee Kepler, who has written a particular treatife upon that fubject.

Ibid. Hail is nothing else but rain congealed in its fall: and this congelation or concretion is made not far from the earth, because hail is ne ver feen upon the high mountains, which are of ten covered with fnow; befides; hail, the nearer to the earth the cloud is, out of which it falls, is the more triangle or pyramidal in its figure: the