THE

EPIGRAM S.

EPIGRAM

I.

THA

LINE I.

Thefe dewy rofes.

PHAT the rofe was facred to the Mufes, appears alfo from ANACREON, ode 53, and SAPPHO, frag. 2.

LINE 8.

fo fnowy-white.

TOUPE interprets pay not villofus, fhaggy, but albus, white fnowy.

II.

BRODEUS (fays BLACKWALL) has quarrelled with the common reading in the fecond Epigram of THEOCRITUS.

Ο καλα (υριγγι ΜΕΡΙΣΔΩΝ

Βεκολικος Υμνος

Where he has peremptorily thrown out epicowy, and offered reafons why today fhould take place. But in my opinion his conjecture is spoiled, and the rejected reading ascertained by the authority of HORACE, who seems to have this paffage in viewGrataque fæminis,

Imbelli citharâ carmina divides.

Which our poet SPENCER imitates:

And all the while moft heavenly melody

About the bed fweet mufic did divide,
Him to beguile of grief and agony.

All this is ingenious enough. But BRODEUS is probably right. Μελισδων is more natural and eafy than Μερίσδων.

V. These

V.

Thefe infcriptions were not only to be met with on marbles, ftatues, &c. but were fometimes found on the ancient paintings. If we carry this idea along with us, we shall discover an elegance in thefe Epigrams that may have hitherto escaped us: in the mean time, much of their obfcurity will disappear. Here these fhepherds seem to have been painted in the act of playing their ruftic ditties; and at a little distance, PAN fleeping in a cave, near an aged oak. The Epigram is an explanation of the painting. WARTON.

We fee, that there was formerly a much more intimate correspondence between poets and painters than at present seems to exist. It is a known fact that they mutually copied from each other's works. In this connexion there was great elegance and beauty. Mr. HAYLEY hath been studious to revive it; and his Epistle to ROMNEY is a fine inftance of his taste and knowledge, in a province congenial with that on which he sheds such distinguished honor. The fubjects he recommends to his friend's attention, are very judiciously and happily chofen. Some are taken from MILTON and SHAKSPEARE. POLYGNOTUS, we know, copied from HOMER. After having mentioned the name of HAYLEY, it might be deemed prefumptuous in the translator to allude to any work of his own. It is with all diffidence, however, that he refers his readers to his "English Orator,” where, in the delineation of oratorical action, he hath given examples of pathetic oratory, drawn from fuch hiftorical fubjects, as either have been, or might, with propriety, be adopted by the hiftory-painter. Such is that of CESAR's dropping papers in extreme agitation, through the power of CICERO'S eloquence-the death of CHATHAM in the House of Lords, drawn by COPLEY-and the picture of MARIA-THERESA, in the midst of her Hungarian fubjects-the firft and the laft of which have never been (as far as the translator knows) exhibited in painting.

his

VI. LINE

VI.

LINE 6.

No-not a bone.

The tranflator could not introduce this term (though it appears eafy and natural) without fome violence to the original. He fufpected, however, fome corruption, and was happy to find the conjecture of REISKE Confirming his fufpicion. Ose de TEQga-the afbes of a bone. After all, it may be objected, that the clofing point does not suit the gravity of ancient Epigram.

IX.

In the common editions of THEOCRITUS we have only the first two lines of this Epigram. The other four were transcribed by GREVIUS, from a manufcript in the Palatine library. See the original lines in WARTON's edition, vol. ii. p. 318.

XIII.

According to PLATO, the celestial Venus was the daughter of Oupay or Heaven-hence called Urania. See his Sympof. Πρεσβύτερα Ουρανο Θυγάτης, ην και Ουρανίαν επονομαζομεν, η δε νεωτερα Δια καὶ Διώνης, ην δη πανδημον καλεμεν. This URANIAVENUS (PAUSANIAS tells us) had temples erected to her in Athens, Phenicia, &c. She was painted in complete armour. As the popular VENUS (fays XENOPHON) prefided over the pleasures of the body, the celestial prefided over the pleasures of the mind.

XVI.

JOSHUA BARNES informs us, that this Epigram exists at Venice, inscribed on an ancient marble, in the area of a palace belonging to one of the Venetian nobles. The tranflator remembers to have read somewhere, that a learned Venetian so enthusiastically preferred CATULLUS to MARTIAL, that he used to make an anniversary offering in his library, of a volume of MARTIAL'S Epigrams to the manes of his favorite epigrammatift.

VII. EPICHARMUS

XVII.

EPICHARMUS was a difciple of PYTHAGORAS, and the inventor of comedy. All his comic pieces (according to fome, thirty-five in number) are loft. He was brought to Sicily from the Isle of Cos, when an infant, and lived (as LUCIAN tells us) to the age of ninety-feven.

XIX.

ARCHILOCHUS was a Greek poet, born at PAROS, in the third Olympiad-the inventor of Iambic verfe.

Archilochum proprio rabies, &c.

XX.

See Univerfal History, b. ii. c. 1, for an account of PISANDER.

Many of these Epigrams of THEOCRITUS are inscriptions on ftatues. Whoever is acquainted with ancient hiftory, needs not be informed, that fcarce any thing was more common among the Greeks and Romans, than the erection of ftatues to the memory of diftinguished perfonages, at the expence of the public. Poets, orators, and hiftorians, statesmen and warriors, have been all honoured in their turn, by this confpicuous mark of public attention and gratitude. Statues have not only been erected to an EPICHARMUS, an ANACREON, or a PISANDER, but to an HORTENSIUS, a CATO, or a POLYBIUS.

XXI.

HIPPONAX was a fatirift of Ephesus-as remarkable for his wit as the deformity of his perfon. BUPALUS and ANTHERMUS, two eminent ftatuaries, caricatured him in a ftatue: On which he wrote fuch bitter invectives against them, that they both dif patched themselves-or (as others fay) left Ephefus on the

occafion.

Acer hoftis BUPALO, fays HORACE.

In the Anthologia, there are fome Epigrams on HIPPonax. We are, here, reminded of CHURCHILL and HOGArth.

NOTES