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STANZ. xv.

Yet did the workmanship far pass the cost.

Ovid, Met. II. 5.

Materiem fuperabat opus.

CANTO v.
v. 5, 6.

On Aridalian mount, where many an hour She [Venus] with the pleafant Graces wont to play. That goodly belt was Ceftas hight by name.

It

So Fol. Edit. 1679. and Hughes' Edit. fhould be Acidalian and Ceftus. Venus was called Acidalia, a fonte Acidalio. There is no Acidalian mountain. Spenfer has it again, VI. x. 8, 9.

Therefore it rightly cleeped was mount Acidale. They say that Venus, when she did dispose Herself to pleafance, ufed to refort

Unto this place.

In his Epithalamium he has

the Acidalian brook.

STANZ. VI.

The Judges, which thereto selected were,
Into the Martian Field adown descended.

Alluding to the Campus Martius, and to the phrafe defcendere in Campum.

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STANZ.

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For Chian folk to pourtrait beautie's Queen,
By view of all the fairest to him brought,
So many fair did fee.

Zeuxis drew Helena for the inhabitants of Croton, fay fome; of Agrigentum, fay others; and chofe five of their women to copy from. This is the story that Spenfer alludes to, and mistakes.

STANZ. XV.

As guileful goldsmith, that by secret skill,
With golden foil doth finely overspred
Some bafer metal, which commend he will
Unto the vulgar for good gold insted.

He might have put,-of good gold instead.
So IV. VII. 7•
for steel to be infed.

STAN Z. XXXVII.

The which in Lipari do day and night
Frame thunderbolts for Jove's avengeful threat.

Inftead of Lipara, or Lipare.

CANT O VII. 12.

-The vileft wretch alive;

Whofe curfed ufage and ungodly trade

The heavens abhor, and into darkness drive.

Ill expreffed; unless I mistake the sense, which

feems

feems to be this: whofe ungodly trade the heavens abbor; and whofe ungodly trade, &c. drive the beavens into darkness.

I. VI. 6.

And Phœbus, flying so most shameful fight, His blushing face in foggy cloud implies. In this manner he often fpeaks. "Implies:" See Remark on I. IV. 28. page 79.

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Yet over him she there long gazing stood,
And oft admir'd his monftrous shape, and eft
His mighty limbs.

Virgil, Æn. VIII. 265.

Nequeunt expleri corda tuendo

Terribiles oculos, vultum, villofaque fetis
Pectora femiferi.

CAN Tо VIII. 16.

When fo he heard her fay, eftfoons he brake
His fudden filence, which he long had pent;
And, fighing inly deep, her thus bespake.

Sudden filence is not proper: fullen filence would have been better; and I incline to think that Spenfer intended it fo. So in the Shepherd's Calender. MAY:

At laft, her fullen filence fhe broke.

That is, after having been unable some time to speak, for forrow.

STANZ..

STANZ. XLIX.

Therefore Corflambo was he call'd aright, Though nameless there his body now doth lie. His head was cut off. Nameless body is taken from Virgil, Æn. II. 557.

Facet ingens litore truncus,

Avolfumque bumeris caput, et fine nomine corpus.

CANTO X. 27.

Such were great Hercules, and Hylas dear ;-
Pylades, and Oreftes by his fide:

Damon and Pythias, whom death could not fever.

The name of Damon's friend is Phintias. I fuppose he makes the fecond fyllable in Pylades long. So V. v. 24. fpeaking of Hercules:

How for Iola's fake he did apply

His mighty hands, the diftaff vile to hold.

He commits the fame fault in the fecond fyllable of Iola, or Iole. The old English poets regard not quantity.

STANZ. XXXVIII.

Speaking of the Temple of Venus:

An hundred altars round about were fet,

All flaming with their facrifice's fire.

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Virgil, Æn. I. 415.

Ipfa Papbum fublimis abit, fedefque revifit
Leta fuas: ubi templum illi, centumque Sab.co
Thure calent ara, fertifque recentibus halant.

STANZ. XLIV.

Great Venus, queen of beauty and of grace,
The joy of gods and men; that under fkie
Doft faireft fhine, and moft adorn thy place,
That with thy fmiling look doft pacify
The raging feas, and mak'st the storms to fly, &c.

"This is taken from Lucretius' invocation of the fame Goddefs, in the beginning of his poem, and may be reckoned one of the most elegant tranflations in our Inaguage." Mr. HUGHES. It is, for the most part, an elegant tranflation, but not an accurate one; nor was it, I fuppofe, defigned to be fuch. It certainly is below the original.

STANZ. XLVII.

Great God of men and women, queen of th' air, Mother of laughter, and well-fpring of bliss.

Here Venus is called a God. So Virgil, Æn. II. 632.

Defcendo, ac, ducente Deo, flammam inter et hoftes Expedior.

Where

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