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If this paffage refer to that Prytaneum at Athens, (where a fire facred to VULCAN was kept conftantly burning) there might be an impropriety in fuch an allufion, as SCALIGER remarks: For we cannot fuppofe two ignorant fishermen acquainted with a place fo remote from their labors. But it appears, that there was a place in their neighbourhood named Prytaneum, where nocturnal lamps were fixed, for the convenience of fishing, by night. To this circumftance SANNAZARIUS alludes:

Dumque alii notofque finus, pifcofaque circum
Equora colluftrant flammis, aut linea longe
Retia, captivofque trahunt ad littora pifces.

LINE 59.

See fecond Eclogue.

Nor was my ftomach full

Whatever may be Lord MONBOD DO's fantaftic notions of dreams, or however plaufibly the ingenious SEED may reason on the fubject, [fee his Sermons] they are, in reality, very closely connected with materialism-more dependent on the machinery of corporeal creatures, than that of spiritual effences. Repletion is one great cause of them, as the good old fisherman seems to intimate.

LINE 66.

Dogs dream of bones, and fishermen of fish. Borrowed from FAWKES.

IDYLLIUM

IDYLLIUM the TWENTY-SECOND.

T

O compare different authors that have written on the fame fubject, is generally found both amufing and inftructive. It would be worth while to read APOLLONIUS and VALERIUS FLACCUS with our author, in the combat of POLLUX and AMYcus, and the death of HYLAS.

The combat of the Ceftus is faid to have been invented by AMYCUS. HOMER, APOLLONIUS, and THEOCRITUS, have neither of them made mention of plates of lead or iron, in their several descriptions of the Ceftus. But,

Terga boum plumbo infuto ferroque rigebant

we may recollect in VIRGIL.

LINE 34.

And o'er the Shelter'd beach——

Axтn vænuevos-haud ventofa maris ora, fed littus tranquillum vento non expofitum. Under the wind.

LINE 41.

And, tracing the receffes of the mount.

TOUPE.

This pictorefque fcene reminds the tranflator of Guy-Cliffe, in Warwickshire.

See LELAND, vol. iv. P. 66.

Guy-Cliffe, ipfa fedes eft amanitatis: Nemufculum ibi eft opacum, fontes limpidi et gemmei, antra mufcofa, prata femper verna, rivi levis et fufurrans per faxa difcurfus; necnon folitudo et quies mufis amiciffima.

LINE 45.

Full many a scatter'd pebble to the light.

In the original AAAAI иpusaλλw—Other springs. But here all the Commentators feem to have fufpected a corruption. VOL. II.

M.

REISKE

Reiske hath changed αλλαι to αμμοι, which may be ingenious enough-but the emendation of RHUNKENIUS deferves the highest applause. He thinks it must have been originally written AAAAAI, Calculi or pebbles-which hath every appearance of probability. We are much pleased, when with a very trivial alteration (such as the addition of a letter) the sense is materially improved. MUSGRAVE, that admirable judge of ancient elegance, was highly delighted with this correction. And TOUPE in a very learned note, (where, as ufual) we have a fine relish of antiquity, amidst a variety of corresponding passages, hath proved, beyond difpute, the propriety of the emendation.

LINE 53.

WARTON.

Hard by (his couch the rock) a chieftain frown'd.

Here we have all those terrible graces which poets of the prefent day, either dread or difdain-but which we so much admire in the writers of antiquity! We find a gigantic figure fitting with no other covering but the sky, amidst an unknown folitude, with the trees of the mountain waving their vaft and shadowy foliage around him! In fuch bold and magnificent defcription, we discover the genius and the pencil of a SALVATOR ROSA. Surely (as Mr. WARTON remarks) THEOCRITUS hath far exceeded APOLLONIUS RHODIUS in this, as well as other paffages of the poem. Yet Dr. WARTON gives the preference to APOLLONIUS. Our commentator hath CASAUBON on his fide; and his brother of Winchester, the learned SCALIGER.

The gigantic ftature of AMYCUS is well defcribed both by APOLLONIUS and VALERIUS FLACCUS; the latter of whom in the following verfes, b. iv. 1. 232, reminds us of DAVID and GOLIATH.

Illum Amycus nec fronte trucem, nec mole tremendum

Vix dum etiam primæ fpargentem figna juventæ
Ore renidenti luftrans obit, et fremit aufum.

And when the Philiftine looked about and faw DAVID, he • difdained him: for he was but a youth and ruddy, and of a

• fair

fair countenance.

And the Philistine faid unto DAVID: Âm

'I a dog that thou comeft to me with staves? And the Philistine 'cursed DAVID by his gods.' I SAMm. xvii. 42, 43.

WARTON.

Mr. MICKLE hath thus finely displayed the vast figure of GOLIATH:

So ftrode in Elah's vale the towering height

Of Gath's proud champion; fo with pale affright
The Hebrews trembled, while with impious pride
The huge-limb'd foe the shepherd-boy defy'd:
The valiant boy advancing fits the firing,
And round his head he whirls the founding fling;
The monfter staggers with the forceful wound,
And his vaft bulk lies groaning on the ground.

LINE 86.

But whom am I to fight, &c.

Lufiad, b. 3.

For this paffage the tranflator is obliged to the ingenious Critical Reviewer of his THEOCRITUS.

LINE 101.

Soon as the combatants, &c.

In the contest between AMYCUS and POLLUX, FLACCUS seems inferior to APOLLONIUS, in nearly the fame proportion as APOLLONIUS to THEOCRITUS. The firft is inflated with too pompous expreffion-the fecond hath lefs bombaft; but the last is diftinguished by a truly majestic fimplicity. WARTON.

PLINY takes notice of the tomb of AмYCUS, fhaded by an ancient laurel, near Heraclea in Pontus. Nat. Hift. c. 16.

LINE 123.

Drunk with the blows

Πληγαις μεθύων a very bold and fingular metaphor! The poets often fay, Drunk with cares-with love-with grief-but

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here bu is metaphorically affociated with a non-abstract term. There is a paffage in HOMER'S Odyssey that seems to have given occafion to this expreffion :

Ηςαι νευςαζων κεφαλη μέθυοντι εοικως.

LINE 168.

His hands he lifted, to renounce the fight.

WARTON.

In contests of this nature, the vanquished perfon was accuftomed to ftretch out his hands, fignifying that he declined the battle, &c.

POTTER.

FAWKES hath tranflated a curious Greek epigram of LUCILLIUS, on a conqueror in the Ceftus.

This victor, glorious in his olive-wreath,

Anthol. b. 2.

Had once eyes, eye-brows, nose, and ears and teeth;
But turning ceftus-champion, to his coft,

Thefe-and (fill worse) his heritage he loft.

For, by his brother fued, difown'd, at last

Confronted with his picture, he was caft.

IDYLLIUM the TWENTY-THIRD.

LINE

14.

Death was in her look.

NSTEAD of exev, HEINSIUS reads edev avaynav, she looked

INSTEAD

neceffity. Thus EURIPIDES: An avάyun, and PINDAR EXŶęz αναγκα. -It is unneceffary to inform the claffical reader, that HORACE hath used the word neceffitas, in the fame manner.

LINE 30.

Where lovers drink oblivion of their woe.

Borrowed

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