For home he had not; home is the refort Ver. 65. This description of Elyfium is not fo poetical as may at first fight be imagined; fince even the philofophers have painted that happy refidence of the bleffed in as lively colours. Brockbuf. Upon turning to the paffage in Plutarch (Confol. ad Apollon.) cited by Broekhufius in defence of this cenfure, we were not a little aftonished to find that excellent philofopher, borrowing the whole of his defcription of Elyfium from Pindar's fecond Olympian ode; which, as it is one of the fineft pallages in the old Theban, we fhali here tranfcribe. ισον δε νυκτεσσιν απ εσα δ' εν άμηραις αλι OY EXOVTSS, ArovsTipor εσέλοι νέμονται βιο του, 8 χθόνα ταρασσον. τις αλκα χειρων εδε ποντιον ύδωρ κείναν παρα διαιταν, αλλα παρ μεν τιμίοις θεων οίτινες εχαι por cogniais αδακρυν νέμονται άλογα, επισ And efpecially in the fucceeding antiftrophe. ενθα μακαρον να σου Ωκεάνιδες αυραι περιπνεουσιν, Ε. Which paffages are thus tranflated by the late Where Phoebus, with an equal ray, And gilds the cloudless day. In peaceful, unmolested joy, To tempt the dangers of the billowy main, But, in their joyous calm abodes, The recompence of juftice they receive; And, in the fellowship of gods, Without a fear eternal ages live. Again, in the antiftrophe, he says, that the good who have been three times purified in as many fucceffive tranfmigrations, &c. become then qualified to enter the fortunate islands, where Fragrant breezes, vernal airs, Sweet children of the main, Purge the bleft illand from corroding cares, and fan the bofom of each verdant plain, Whose fertile foil immortal fruitage bears: But beautiful as this description is, it does t furpafs that which Homer has given in the four.. Odyfley, line 564, which, as Mr. Spence justly c ferves, is the only paffage where that father poetry defcribes the regions of the bleft. But finish this long note, we shall ohly remark, the, as these last mentioned pictures of Elysium fuited to their different places, or the poems in which they appear, fo is that of our poct appro priated to the elegiac mufe; Dr. Trapp accord ingly quotes it for its uncommon beauty. Prz lect. 13. Ver. 83. The first poetical defcription of hell's to be found in Homer; and though all the i ceeding epic poets of antiquity have, in imita of their great father, fent their heroes to va thofe regions of woe, none of them have improv the original. But although Homer's hell furpaffes the hi the ancients, it cannot however be compared many paffages in the Inferno of that grea nal poet Dante. Milton perhaps has not t him. Voltaire's hell is as little terrible, as his M facre of St. Bartholomew is unaffectedly told Ver. 86. Mythologifts place a hundred b ferpents round the head and neck of Ce whom they alfo equip with the tail of a drag Ver. 89. As the poet meant, not only way off every one from laying fiege to his nu alfo to preferve her conftant in his ab has felected, from the amours of mytholog incidents very proper to his purpose. Yet the whole of this defcription is liable wh cenfure which Lucan, in his admirable T on the Manner of writing Hiftory, pafler sa Pa thenius, Euphorion, and Callimachus, whe, dering from their main fubject, spend, accord to that witty critic, many words in defcribing pertinences; but as the whole paffage is ad able, the reader will not probably be difpleated a fee it tranflated. You must be particularly cautious, how launch out in defcribing mountains, rivers, and fortifications; left, by an oftentatious difplay eloquence, you entirely drop the thread of y history; whenever, therefore, perfpicuity deman that the reader fhould, in some degree, be infor ed of such circumftances, let your defcription them be comprised in as few words as pe On occafions like thefe, place Homer before eyes, who, though a poet, yet, in his account hell, paffes flightly over Tantalus, Ixion, Tita and the rest all which particulars, were they a be defcribed by Parthenius, Euphorion, or e Callimachus, what a profufion of verfes would employed in bringing the water to the lis Tantalus, and in turning round the wheel of xion? The more judicious among the ancients faw, hat under the fables of Tantalus, &c. were reresented the torments of an evil confcience. See Macrobius's fenfible Commentary on the Somnium Scipionis. Ver. 109. This is one of thofe thoughts, which, as Horace happily expreffes it, Venus has imbued with a fifth part of her nectar. Poet. ELEGY IV. › round, my god, may fhady coverings bend, o fun-beams fcorch thy face, no fnows offend! hence are the fair fo proud to win thy heart, trude thy beard, and guiltless thou of art? ked thou ftand'ft, expos'd to wint'ry fnows! ked thou ftand'ft when burning Sirius glows! us I-and thus the garden-power reply'd, crooked fickle glittering by his fide. Priapus. 10 ke no repulfe-at firft what though they fly! ercome at laft, reluctance will comply. e vine in time full ripen'd clufters bears, d circling time brings back the rolling fpheres: ime foft rains through marble fap their way, d time taught man to tame fierce beafts of prey. raw'd by confcience meanly dread to swear; re-oaths, unratified, wild tempefts bear! ifh then fcruples, if you'd gain a heart; car, fwear by Pallas' locks, Diana's dart; all that's most rever'd-if they require: hs bind not eager love, thank heaven's good Sire! 20 be too flow; your flownefs you'll deplore; ae pofts; and, oh youth's raptures foon are o'er: w forefts bloom, and purple earth looks gay; ak winter blows, and all her charms decay: w foon the fteed to age's stiffness yields, late a victor in th' Olympic fields? feen the aged oft lament their fate, at fenfelefs they had learnt to live too late. partial gods, and can the fnake renew youthful vigour and his burnish'd hue? youth and beauty paft; is art in vain bring the coy deferters back again? Poet. Jove gives alone the powers of wit and wine, youth immortal, fpite of years to shine. 30 glow'd 6a What cannot ftrains? By tuneful strains alone 79 Soft flattering fongs the Cyprian queen ap The god, no novice in th' intriguing trade, This anfwer, Titius, to my question made: But caution bids you fly th' infidious fair, And paints the perils of their eyes and air; Nor thefe alone, devoted man fubdue, Devoted man their flightest actions woo. Be cautious those who lift-but ye who know Defire's hot fever, and contempt's chill woe; 8a Me grateful praise-contempt fhall pain ne more; But wifh meet wish, inftructed by my lore: By various means, while others feek for fame, Scorn'd love to counsel be my noblest aim, 3 A iį Wide ftands my gate for all-I rapt forefee Alas my hopes are fled, my wiles are vain; The fair, I doat on, treats me with dildain: Yet f¡ are me, charmer, your difitain betrays To witty laughter my too boastful lays. NOTES ON ELEGY IV. In this elegy the poet confults Priapus about the means to be afed in order to become a favourite with the fair; and that god, in his anfwer, deliwers an epitome of the art of courtship. However immoral fome parts of Priapus's directions may be, there are but too many among the modern men of gallantry, who implicitly obey them; for, if the tranflator is not greatly mistaken, perjury in love-matters prevails now as much in Britain as ever it prevailed in ancient Italy. Those who understand the original, need not to be told the reafons which obliged the tranflator to alter and omit many paffages of this elegy, which with fome few others of the fame ftamp, were probably thofe parts of Tibullus, which made the pious Anthony Poffevin apply to heaven in prayer, to preferve him from temptation whenever he purposed to read our poet. Ver. 4. Priapus thus defcribes himself in an ancient author, Parum eft mihi, fixi quod hic miser sedem VULP. Ver. 11. The vine in time.] This was fo favou rite an illuftration, that Ovid has thrice inferted it in his Art of Love. Lucretius has alfo twice in. troduced the drop of water into his admirable poem De Rerum Natura; and Taffo, in his Amynta, has made it his own. -O miferello Non difperar ch' acquifterai coftei; La lunga etate a l' omine di porre Freno a i Leoni, et a le Tigre Hyrcane. Ver. 18. The ancients not only fwore by particular divinities, but by thofe things which were But fuppofed to be moft acceptable to them. whence was it, fays Brockhufius, that lovers fwore by the virgin goddefs? and adds this wife folution," Credo, ob adamatum Endymiona Minerva was fo fond of her hair, which it feems was very fine, and fo highly refented all rivalfhip in that particular, that he turned the hair of Medufa, who had preferred her own to that of the goddefs, into ferpents. Vid. Serv. in 6. Æn. V. 289. Before the virgins of Argos married, ther up a lock of their hair in the temple of Mue who was thought in a peculiar manner to pr the " capillitium puellare." Bro-khufus at “In vicem puellas Palladi crinem difponchant ...norariæ plecades." Ver. 20. Oaths bind not eager love] This ment is introduced by Plato in his Symposium. ὁ δὲ δεινότατον, ως γε λέγουσιν οι πολλοί ότι σε κ νυκτι μένω ξυγγνωμη παραθέων, &c. See an epigram to the fame purpose in machus. Ver. 26. So late a victor.] See an admire fertation upon this fubject by the late M prefixed to his tranflation of Pindar. Ver. 29 It is reported by naturalifs, the ** pents or fnakes, upon eating a certain herb, 25% Maratos, caft their skin and renew the Ovid has a thought like this in his Ars Am Anguibus excutitur tenui cum pelle vealz. which Mr. Congreve has thus English The fnake his skin, the deer his horns, t And both renew their youth and viger på But no receipt can human kind relieve, Doom'd to decrepid age without reprieve. This is a good poetical illuftration, bat på phy difclaims it. Serpents, and most of the tile kind, do indeed cat their coats (eravir they do not thereupon grow young ag more than a bird does after moulting. The fugacity of beauty is a topic whiteevery love-writer, fince the days of Tibach ufed to his miftrefs whenever the demurred yet Mr. Prior, in his manner of applying made it entirely his own. Take heed, my dear, youth flies apace; As well as Cupid, time is blind; Soon must thofe glories of thy face The fate of vulgar beauties find: The thousand loves that arm thy potent eve Muft drop their quivers, flag their wings, Ver. 33. Bacchus was much celebrated by the Greek and Roman poets, for he acreon honours him with the epithet xaxes, and to makes him the following fine compliment. -Tibi enim inconfumpta juventus, Tu puer æternus, tu formofflimus alto Confpiceris cœlo, tibi cum fine cornibus adftas Firgineum caput eft. Apollo's beauty is commonly known. Bacchus, vell as Cupid and Minerva, is always repreed with long yellow hair; and hence the epiwhich fome of the poets have beXOXOLLOS, ved on him. er. 37. Go pleas'd where'er fhe goes.] This ght is finely imitated by that fweet elegiac Joannes Secundus. simperio ventes patiemur et imbres, imus et folas nocte filente vias, grave frigus erit, nec folftitium, licet in me rvidus ingeminet fidera ficca puer roict comitem fibi, me quocunque fequemur ga via nulla rotae pervia nulla rati. Eli. Lib. I. er 48 The coy may Aruggle.] Horace has tifully applied this thought to Lycimnia. um flagrantia detorquet ad ofcula Cervicem, aut facili fævitia negat. a pofcente magis gaudcat eripi interdum rapere occupat. uleau has done great juftice to this thought in Art Poetique, Chant. 2. and Mr. Francis to have caught the foul of Horace when he lated it. 1. 65. If poetry beftows immortality on us, which would otherwife fade, it is emiy the intereft of the fair fex to keep well the poets. Propertius and Ovid impute to own verfes, what Tibullus more modeftly Des to poetry in general. Indeed beauty is arent of poetry; and if the British bards have afied their brethren on the continent, it is ly owing to the fuperior charms of our fair that the poet Titius introduces a fervant of the name of Pyrrhia, ftealing a ball of wool from her mistress. All his works are unfortunately loft. He had a noble monument erected to him in the neighbourhood of Aricia, ten miles from Rome. Barthius, in his Adverfaria, owns that he did not know who the Titius was, whom Horace mentions; and therefore Mr. Francis is the more excufably filent on this article. After all, it is impoffible for any modern to determine, whether Horace and Tibullus meant the fame Titius; and indeed it is of no confequence. Ver. 85. Wide flands my gate for all] This is an image borrowed from the practice of the Roman lawyers. There is no word in the English language which fully expreffes the meaning of the Latin verb" deducere." It implies that folicitous attendance which the younger paid to men of eminence, or clients to their patrons. To form a juft idea of this cuftom, a modern muft confult Juvenal, and Cicero de petitione confulatus. TIBULLUS. Tibullus probably had in his thoughts fome verfes of Callimachus, which Stobæus (Serm. 114) has preferved. Γηράσκει δ ̓ ὁ γέρων κεινος ελαφρότερον, Fulp. 3 A iij ELEGY V. Or late I boafted I could happy be, What can atone, my fair, for crimes like these? The cake, by me thrice sprinkled, put to flight 20 Are these the joys my madding fancy drew, If young ey'd Health reftor'd your rofy hue? I fondly thought, fweet maid, oh thought in vain! With you to live a blithefome village swain. When yellow Ceres asks the reaper's hand, Delia (faid I) will guard the reaper's band; Delia will keep, when hinds unload the vine, The choiceft grapes for me, the richest wine: My flocks fhe'll count, and oft will sweetly deign To clafp fome prattler of my menial train : 30 With pious care will load each rural farine, Such were the fond chimeras of my bran, But ye who, falfely wife, deride my pain Beware; your hour approaches-love has chan I've known the young, who ridicul'd his rap Love's humblest vaffals, when opprefs'd Each art I've known them try to win the Smooth their hoarse voice, and drefs ther hair; I've known them, in the street, her mail bit. Why do you crush your flave, fair quit • Deftroying me, your harvest you destroy! NOTES ON ELEGY V. TIBULLUS had unfortunately boasted, that De- | lia had not fo great an afcendant over him as fhe imagined. Being willing to know the extent of her authority, the forbade him her prefence. This he at first treated as an order which would give him no pain to comply with; but he was foon convinced of his error, and found that his felicity confifted folely in her converse. To reinftate himself, therefore, in her good graces, the following elegy was compofed. ways employed him too much to think of blances. Virgil has applied the fimile of to Amata, in the feventh Eneid; as Va Flaccus does to Medea, in the eighth book Argonautics. Things, of no dignity t felves, become important in the hands of poet. Ver. 9. When the ancients begged a fav they generally enforced their entreaties by ing to the objects which were held in the b Ver. 5. No poet, perhaps, ever ufed fewer fi- eftcem by thofe whom they petitioned. miles than Tibullus. The principal object al-rous compofitions, allufions to a perfea k |