More fweet and wholesome than the pleasant hill Of Rhodope He fays, according to cuftom, mantled with green, &c. inftead of was mantled. Methinks he should not have fingled out Rhodope, a mountain of Thrace, as an agreeable spot. The ancients are against him. Compare with Spenfér, Claudian's description of the Garden of Venus, Nupt. Hon. and Mar. 51, 60. Hunc neque canentes audent veftire pruinæ ; Sedefque quieta: Quas neque concutiunt venti, neque nubila nimbis Cana cadens violat: femperque innubilus æther Which lines are an excellent tranflation of Homer, Odyff. Z. 42. See alfo Sidonius. Carm. II. 407. STANZ. Sometimes the one would lift the other quite To unbele, not explained in the Gloffary, is in Or as the Cyprian goddefs, newly born Crystalline humour dropped down apace. Alluding to Venus αναδυομενη. Amat. III. 224. and the Notes. See Ovid, Art, STANZ. LXXIV. Ah! fee the virgin rofe, how sweetly the Doth first peep forth with bafhful modefty, That fairer feems, the lefs you fee her may : Lo! fee foon after, how, more bold and free, Her bared bofom fhe doth broad difplay; Lo! fee foon after, how the fades and falls away. So paffeth, &c. Compare this with Aufonius, Idyll. XIV. 23. Momentum Momentum intererat, &c. Quam longa una dies, atas tam longa rofarum, Hanc rediens fero vefpere vidit anum.— It would be endless to collect all the poetical trifles that occur upon this fubject. I fhall confine myfelf to this Epigram in the Anthologia: Πέμπω σοι, Ροδόκλεια, τόδε σέφῷ ἄνθεσι πλέξας, Εσι κρίνου, ροδεή τε κάλυξ, νοτερή τ' ἀνεμώνη, Of which the following (already inferted in the LUSUS POETICI: See No. XII. Page 21.) is given as a Tranflation. Mitto tibi hæc, Rodoclea, virentia ferta virenti : Narciffumque rofamque legens, mollemque anemonem, et Indue et hæc, et mitem animum. Florem effe memento, Pulrior his qui fit, forfitan et brevior. STANZ. STAN Z. LXXVIII. like starry light, Which sparkling, on the filent waves, does feem more bright. Horace: Lib. II. Od. v. 19. Ut pura nocturno renidet Luna mari. "Silent waves." Unde nocturne. Silence denotes nighttime or midnight in the Latin Poets, when applied to the world, moon, ftars, fea, &c. Though perhaps by filent waves he means quiet; not violently moved. The account how Guyon and the Palmer took Acrafia in a net, is from the well-known ftory of Vulcan. STAN Z. LXXXVI. The enchantress Acrafia is reprefented, like Circe in Homer, as changing men into beafts. After Guyon had taken her Captive, "the Palmer," fays the poet, "ftruck the beafts with his ftaff, and they became men again." But one above the reft in fpecial, That had an hog been late, hight Grill by name, That had, from hoggifh form, him brought to natural. This is taken from a Dialogue in Plutarch, infcrib'd Περὶ T୪ Περὶ τὰ τὰ ἄλογα λίγῳ χρήθαι, where Gryllus, one of the companions of Ulyffes, transform'd into a hog by Circe, holds a difcourfe with Ulyffes, and refuses to be restored to his human shape. But living art may not leaft part express, Praxiteles was no Painter. CANTO I. 46. For fhe was full of amiable grace, Claudian, Conf. Pr. et Ol. 91. Mifcetur decori virtus, pulcherque fevero Statius, in his way, calls it horror decorus. All that follows, from this Stanza to the end of the Canto, is copied from Virgil's Ciris,—if it be his: and manylines in that põem are here tranflated, almoft word for word. STANZ. |