Ver. 36. Brockhufius's note on the original of this paffage is so curious, that the reader fhall have it in his own words: "Minus recte Turnebus (nam et Turnebus homo fuit) hanc digitorum concrepationem exponit de re, quam facile nulloque negotio adfequimur, et levi quodam velut fono et nutu jubemus et obtinemus." Adv. lib. 20. This explanation, adds our commentator, l'urnebus confirms by a quotation from Martial, which, however, as Broekhufius fagaciously oberves, only intimates the gefture of a perfon, ' matulam_poscentis." He then interprets the affage, and his interpretation the tranflator has adopted. Ver. 38. This was a punishment fuppofed to be inflicted on those who beheld, though without defign, any deity. The old prieftefs of the "bo1a Dea," in Propertius, thus addreffes Alcides: Parce oculis, hofpes, lucoque age fede verendo, Cede agedum, et tuta, limina linque, fuga. Lib. iv. El. 9. Venus, in the end of the hymn afcribed to Homer, threatens Anchifes, if he blabbed their intercourse, to strike him with thunder. The youth, having difregarded this warning, was thus derived of one of his eyes. See Callimachus' poem atituled the Bath of Diana. Ver. 49. The first defcription of a witch to be ound in any Latin poet, is that which Virgil has iven in his eighth eclogue. Thofe critics who re fond of tracing refemblances among poets, rould be apt to affert, that our author had that aflage in his eye; and yet, if it is confidered, hat popular prejudice imputed thofe very effects o witchcraft, there is no occafion for fuppofing hat Maro's Maris affifted Tibullus in his decription of his "Saga Verax." However diffoant to found fenfe and philofophy magical decriptions may be, yet they have an excellent effect in poetry, where admiration is to be excited. According to Marcellas, "faga," in its primitive meaning, fignified" turpis amorum conciliatrix;" and as fuch bawds ufed fpells and drugs to effectuate their illicit purposes, it came afterwards to be applied to a witch. | The Romans, according to Broekhufius, held magic in the utmost abhorrence. Would the reader view the full force afcribed by the ancients to witchcraft, let him turn to Horace's fifth and feventeenth Epodes. Ovid's Epiftle to Hypfipyle, ver. 83. and El. viii. lib. I. and Metamorp. lib. vii. ver. 179. lib. xiv. ver. 43. Propertius, lib. iv. El. v. Seneca's Medea, ver. 675. and his Hercules Eta, ver. 454. Lucan, lib. vi. ver. 431. Apuleius, lib. i. ii. iii. of his Metamorphofis. Petronius. Claudian, lib. i. in Rufin. ver. 146. Silius, lib. viii. ver. 496. Valerius Flaccus, lib. vi. ver. 439. and Nemefianus's fourth Eclogue. But Virgil's defcription (lib. iv. Æn. 487.) of a witch, though comprised in five lines only, is, by Brockhufius, preferred to all the rest. However the moderns may be obliged in other respects, to yield the poetical palm to the ancients, yet the most bigotted to claflical fuperiority muft confefs, that the ancients themselves have been furpaffed by us in the poetry of magic. Who, for inftance, of the Greek or Roman poets, can be compared with our Shakspeare in this particular? Nay, they might be challenged to produce any magical rites equal in propriety and terror to those we find in Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess; a poem from which, if Shakspeare did not tranfplant many a beauty, Milton certainly did. Ver. 50. It was believed by the ancients, that magic could raise the manes of the dead, and that those ghosts could certainly inform inquirers concerning future events. Vid. Homer's Odyssey, lib. xi. Virgil's Æn. vi. Seneca's dip. Statius, lib. iv. Silius Italicus, lib. xiii. and Valerius Flaccus, lib. i. Nor did the Romans regard necromancy as an infamous or abominable art. One of the usages practised to make the manes appear, was to shed human blood; and, if Cicero may be credited, (vid. Interrogat. Vatin.) the entrails of boys particularly were, on such occasions, offered up. Ver. 52. Some editors read “Aluminis;” and A wizard dame, thy lover's ancient friend, The whole of this fifth elegy of Hammond's is indeed a beautiful imitation of this fecond of Tibullus. fernæ catervæ" back to hell was milk; and, if Ver. 54. The afperfion used to send those " inthe tranflator is not mistaken, this is the only paffage in the ancient poets where milk is taken notice of as used for this purpose. See note on the fecond elegy of the third book, for the use of book, for its virtue in difpelling difeafes, when milk at funerals; and elegy fixth of the fame offered along with blood and wine to the infernal gods. Ver. 60. The unusual hiffing in the original of this line Sola feros Hecates perdumuiffe canes, was probably meant to give the reader a more offered by Broekhufius, feems improper. Ver. 62. The reader who wants to be inform ed of the many uses made of spittle in medicine, Nor did only the shepherds of Sicily look upon fpittle in this light, the Romans believed the fame of it. Accordingly, on the day when an infant was named (which for girls was on the eighth, for boys on the ninth, after birth), the grandmother or aunt, moving round in a circle, rubbed, with her middle finger, the child's forehead with fpittle, which was hence called "Luftralis Sa. liva." phofis, ver. 192. and in the two Spanish por Seneca, Med. ver. 140. and Lucan, lib. vi, ve 730. Brack Ver. 74. Though this be evidently the conci fion of the elegy, yet fome editors have strangey tacked to it, Ferreus ille fuit, and the thirteen following lines, which belong the first elegy. Nor content with this, they lart forced Num veneris niagnæ, and the feven fucceeding verfes, from their tru ral place in the fifth elegy of this book, and bare added them to the other tranfpofition. Mr. Det followed one of these editions. May it not have been this inaccuracy of ed tors which induced that great poet, as well a critic, Mr. Dryden, to affert, that Tibullus, i compofing, feldom looked farther than the tex line; that he rambles from his subject, and as cludes with something which is not of a p with the beginning. Although it is granted, no man understood the beauties of ancient par and of course could draw the characters of ant poets, better than Mr. Dryden; yet it is c that his fentiments on these subjects were ways the refult of mature deliberation. general preface to the volume from whit above cenfure on our author is taken, Mr. Dryan complains of his want of leifure; and, isdeá this is too evident in the quotation above, a arguments to Tibullus's elegies will show an ginning, a middle, and a conclufion, ev Ver. 63. Ovid, who, without any ceremony, than can be found in Propertius, who yet, as adopts our poet's fentiments, whenever they fuiting to that critic, had always a plan where his purpose, has made use of the fame argument to an over-vigilant keeper. The number three was of great import in almost all the religious and magical ceremonies of antiquity; for though, as Virgil expreffes it, the gods were fuppofed to be pleafed with all odd numbers, yet three was deemed the most pleafing to them. The number four was alfo of fome eftimation, as Macrobius, in his Commentary on the Somn. Scipion. informs us. Vid. cap. 5, 6. Our poet also uses the number four in one of his elegies. Viderit ipfe licet, credet tamen ille neganti Although it is with great reluctance that men credit any report injurious to the fame of one they love, yet nothing less than a spell was neceffary to make a husband deny the testimony of his own fenfes. Ver. 69. The luftration mentioned in the original was a torch of pine-tree; to which were added fulphur and bitumen, and, as Brockhufius conjectures, blood. A folemn wafhing, and the facrifice of a black lamb, preceded the ufe of the torch. These ceremonies were alfo performed on a clear night, "nocte ferena." The ancients thought them equally powerful either to bind the lover, or free him from the influence of love. Pontanus and Amaltheus among the moderns, not to mention others, have given us an ample detail of the ceremonies practifed on thefe occafions: but as most of them are unadapted to modern fuperftition, their accounts fhow fome learning, but little judgment. Ovid laughs at all these ceremonies in his Remedy of Love. Ver. 71. The beft lift of thefe deities is to be found in the feventh book of Ovid's Metamor down to write. Let not, however, the reader imagine th is meant as a cenfure on Mr. Dryden; mortal genius had not time to correct his w But what shall we fay of the age which f its first pen to be hackneyed through nece However, if Dryden's circumftances are apology for his little incorrectnesses, Rapin cans be pardoned on the fame account and yet th critic, who often characterizes books he neve read, makes the following obfervation: "Je fcai, qu'il y a des ouvrages qui doive par la qualité de leur characére être écrits d' == air libre fans autre deffein, que celui d'une ta veté naturelle, et fans contrainte, tels que fanta hymnes d' Orphée d' Homére, de Callimach tels que font certaines Odes de Pindare, d'An créon, et d' Horace, qui n' ont de régle que le thousiasme, tels que font auffi la plupart des E gies de Tibulle et Properce; mais il faut avone, que ce ne font pas les plus belies, et quand on s Reflexions aux Elegies d' Ovide on y trouve to jours un tour fecret qui en fait le defein." Whe fhall one fay to all this critical jargon, but that Ten cenfure wrong, for one who writes amifs Jo. Antonius Vulpius, a lawyer of Bergant who publifhed an edition of Catullus, Tibalin and Propertius, A. D. 1. 10. at Padua, concludes | this fecond elegy with nec te poffe carere vilim, s Broekhufius has done; but then he immediate ly adds, though without any reafon, "Videntus aliqua defiderari. Vulpius obferves, that "poffe carere" was a Roman colloquial expression, of which he produces two inftances from Martial. ELEGY III. VHILE you, Meffala, plough th' Ægean sea, fometimes kindly deign to think of me : le, hapless me, Phæacian fhores detain, nknown, unpitied, and opprefs'd with pain. et spare me, death, ah spare me and retire : o weeping mother's here to light my pyre: ere is no fifter, with a fifter's woe, ich Syrian odours on the pile to throw : at chief, my foul's foft partner is not here, er locks to loofe, and forrow o'er my bier. What though fair Delia my return implor'd, ich fane frequented, and each god ador'd: hat though they bade me every peril brave; id fortune thrice aufpicious omens gave: I could not dry my tender Delia's tears, pprefs her fighs, or calm her anxious fears; In as I ftrove to minifter relief, confcious tears proclaim'd my heart-felt grief: g'd still to go, a thousand shifts I made, 'ds now, now festivals my voyage ftaid: , if I ftruck my foot against the door, ait I return'd, and wisdom was no more. bid by Cupid, let no fwain depart, pid is vengeful, and will wring her heart. What do your offerings now, my fair, avail ? ur luis heed not, and your cymbals fail! hat, though array'd in facred robes you flood, ed man's embrace, and fought the purest flood? hile this I write, I fenfibly decay, Affift me, 20 30 Ifis, drive my pains away: That you can every mortal ill remove, The numerous tablets in your temple prove : 30 fhall my Delia, veil'd in votive white, Before your threshold fit for many a night; And twice a day, her treffes all unbound, Amid your votaries fam'd, your praises found: Safe to my household gods may I return, And incense monthly on their altars burn." How bleft man liv'd in Saturn's golden days, er diftant climes were join'd by lengthen'd ways. cure the pine upon the mountain grew, or yet o'er billows in the ocean flew ; hen every clime a wild abundance bore; and man liv'd happy on his natal fhore : or then no fteed to feel the bit was broke, Then had no fteer fubmitted to the yoke; 41 io houfe had gates, (bleft times!) and, in the grounds To fcanty landmarks parcell'd out the bounds: rom every oak redundant honey ran, and ewes fpontaneous bore their milk to man: 50 No deathful arms were forg'd, no war was wag'd, No rapine plunder'd, no ambition rag'd. How chang'd, alas! Now cruel Jove commands; Gold fires the foul, and falchions arm our hands: Each day, the main unnumber'd lives destroys; And flaughter, daily, o'er her myriads joys. Yet fpare me, Jove, I ne'er disown'd thy sway, I ne'er was perjur'd; fpare me, Jove, I pray. But, if the fifters have pronounc'd my doom, Infcrib'd be these upon my humble tomb : "Lo! here inur'd a youthful poet lies, "Far from his Delia, and his native skies! "Far from the lov'd Meffala, whom to please "Tibullus follow'd over land and seas.” 60 Then love my ghoft (for love I still obey'd) Will grateful usher to th' Elysian shade: There joy and ceaseless revelry prevail; There foothing mufic floats on every gale; There painted warblers hop from spray to spray, And, wildly-pleasing, swell the general lay: 70 There every hedge, untaught, with caffia blooms, And scents the ambient air with rich perfumes : There every mead a various plenty yields; There lavish Flora paints the purple fields: With ceafelefs light a brighter Phoebus glows, No fickness tortures, and no ocean flows; But youths affociate with the gentle fair, And ftung with pleasure to the fhade repair : With them love wanders wherefoe'er they ftray, Provokes to rapture, and inflames the play: But chief, the conftant few, by death betray'd, Reign, crown'd with myrtle, monarchs of the shade. Not fo the wicked; far they drag their chains, By black lakes fever'd from the blissful plains; Those should they pafs, impaffable the gate Where Cerb'rus howls, grim fentinel of fate. There fnake-hair'd fiends with whips patrole around, 80 Rack'd anguish bellows, and the deeds refound: 100 THIS elegy was written in a dangerous fit of fickness, which detained our poet in the island of Corfu, anciently called Phaacia, and was apparently composed before the second. The commentators pretend, that Meffala was upon his Syrian expedition at this time; and that Tibullus recovering, followed his patron to Cilicia, Ægypt, &c. As this expedition took place A. U. C. 724, Tibullus was then only fourteen years old, if he was born in the confulfhip of Hirtius and Panfa; but as this is rather too fine an elegy for a boy of that age (and yet Pliny the younger had wrote a Greek tragedy before fifteen years), and as it appears, that he had been for fome time in love with Delia; not to mention other arguments which the poem itself affords us, the tranflator is inclined to join iffae with Douza, who places his birth A. U. C. 690, in the confulfhip of Cicero and of Caius Anthony. Vide the Life. But whatsoever time this elegy was written, we may apply what Quintilian fays of eloquence to this fpecies of writing in particular, "Pectus eft, quod difertos facit." Ver. 1. The original of these lines is quoted by Dr. Trapp, in his chapter on elegy, as an inftance of the foothing graces of elegiac complaints, "Quam jucundus eft dolor poeticus," (fays that critic, prælect. 13.) "et quanta elegantia querelarum, morbum fuum, terra peregrina ægrotus, fic deflet Tibullus. has beautifully inferted many such pathetic fir Ver. 14. The original runs thus: Illa facras pueri fortes ter fuftulit, Those who were fuperftitious, among cients, generally confulted the lots before thy gan any thing of importance. The firi wa Spoken by the virgin in the temple of June, the fortes, in cafes of marriage; as the firft fpd by a boy in the highway, gave the omen as monly depended upon before a journey was unde taken. An example will better explain this fcure piece of fuperftition. A lady who wa trothed, went, with a young companion, to de temple of the goddefs of marriage, to watch firft words fpoken by a woman. Anxioly The cohors mentioned in the text, was Meffala's retinue; which must have been very differenttentive the feated herself, while the other to from that of moft modern generals, if made up of fuch men as Tibullus. But in thofe days a man was thought the better foidier for cultivating an acquaintance with the muses. An abhorrence of our diffolution was implanted in us by the Author of Nature for the wifelt purpofes. Even the oldeft, and moft wretched, are, in general, unwilling to die. But to be fnatched away in the bloom of life, and whilft in a foreign country, at a diftance from one's relations, efpecially from a darling miftrefs, are circumstances peculiarly distressful. Homer, who knew the fource of every paffion, and could raise them all, Two hours having paffed, without a word's be uttered, or any body entering, the younger at a faid, " My dear I am tired, will you perms f "to fit in your chair a little?" Thefe wer firft words. The younger accordingly feared he felf, and no body coming in, they both went awa after having waited fome time longer. The trothed lady foon after died, and the other s married to the bridegroom in her stead. There were other kind of fortes. The Scholiaft on the fourth Pythian ode of Pins tells us, that dice thrown upon a table were e as a lot; and if one particular side turned up, whi Of lots, fome were facred to Apollo, fome to lercury; and they were fometimes to be caft to a deep well or fountain. We see an instance this in Suetonius's Life of Tiberius. cap. 14. id Dempster in his Notes on Rofinus, informs , that those who had fuccefs in this kind of diviition, often bestowed gifts upon the fountain. e Pliny, Lib. viii. Ep. 8. At Prænefte was a temple, erected to fortune, ere devotees ufed often to repair in order to ve their future adventures told them. This mple was very magnificent, which made Carides fay," He never had feen fortune more forunate than at Prænefte." In that temple the s were blended together, thrown into an olive ft or urn, and drawn by a boy. This is probly the fpecies of divination alluded to here by poet. Ver. 21. The friking the foot against the refheld, at the firft going abroad, was, by the cients, reputed a bad omen; and is one of the etexts our poet ufed in order to delay his derture. The fuperftitious among ourselves have iny as foolish obfervances. Ver. 26. Jupiter, in one of Lucian's dialogues nmands Mercury to haften to the Nemean eft, there to destroy Argus, which done, he sto waft lo over fea to Ægypt, and there make Ifs of her, Εξω θεατοις εκεί, και τον Νείλον γέτω και τους ανέμους αποπέμπετω, και σοζέτω Η πλέοντας. "Sit illis Dea, Nilumque attollat, ventos immittat et navigantes fervet." The e witty author alfo informs us, that the gyptians not only used to call their larger fhips the name of Ifis, for good-luck's fake, but alfo have ftatues of this tutelary deity placed in the rn and forecastle of their veffels. Vid. his piece titled, #2010 n tuxa. This fhows the propriety Delia's addreffing Ifis to protect Tibullus in the yage he was about to make. Gruterus has tranfmitted to us the figure, &c. a marble altar, dedicated to Ifis, to which ockhufius was obliged for the form he has given of an Egyptian Siftrum or Cymbal. Apuleius s defcribed this inftrument, Lib. 3. of his Me m. Ver. 28. In the myfteries of Ifis, it was custom- Dart. But Broekhufius is of opinion, that, as failors dedicated to Iis a repefentation in paint of the danger they had efcaped; fo those who recovered from any dangerous difeafe, by the affiftance of Ifis, fufpended, on the walls of her temple, tablets, whereon was reprefented the form of the organ that had been principally affected, without any mention of the remedies ufed. Thus the old poet in the Priapeia has it. Ver. 32. Those who had escaped fhipwreck, or y dangerous fit of ficknefs, ufually hung up, in e temple of Ifis, tablets, on which, fay authors was defcribed the manner of their deliverance: TRANS. II. Cur pictum memori fit in tabella Membrum quæritis, &c. Befides this, among the many votive inscrip tions to Ifis for health recovered, which Gruterus and others have preferved, we meet with no mention of the applications or medicines fuppofed to have been fuccefsful. It is, however, an odd tradition, that Hippocrates was indebted to fuch tablets, in a temple in the ifland of Cos, for the beft part of the Coac Prænotiones. Could this be proved, it would fhow, that great good may fometimes fpring from fuperstition In Popith countries, many figures of wax, filver, &c. are at this day to be feen on the walls of their churches, chapels. &c Ver. 33. As the goddefs herfelf was clothed in white linen; fo thofe who returned her thanks for their own, or friends, recovery from fickness, were always veiled in the fame manner, and fat on the ground before the porch of the temple. Her priests had their heads fhaved, and alfo wore linen furplices. Hence they were called “ Linigeri." See Martial's humorous epigram on that fubject, Lib. ii. Ep. 29. Apuleius, in the eleventh book of his Metamorphofis, has given the fullest account of the worshippers of Ifis. Ver. 35. From the words "pharia turba," a great critic, as Brockhuftus informs us, conje&ured, that Meffala attended Auguftus Cæfar in his Ægyptian expedition against Mark Anthony. But the epithet " pharia" which is every where appropriated to Ifis, and her worship, deceived him. Ver. 39. Ovid has imitated the whole of this paffage in the beautiful elegy, which he fent to Corinna upon her going abroad. Lib, ii. El. 11. No poet, either ancient or modern, has furpaffed Tibullus in his defeription of the golden age; yet how different that age was from the picture given us of it by Tibullus, the great rural and philofophical poet informs us in his Autumn, |