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"MEEK honour, female shame,

O! whither, sweetest offspring of the sky,
From Albion dost thou fly;

Of Albion's daughters once the favourite fame?
O Beauty's only friend,

Who giv'st her pleasing reverence to inspire;

Who, selfish, bold desire

Dost to esteem and dear affection turn;

Alas! of thee forlorn,

NOTES

ON

THE TWO BOOKS OF ODES.

Book I. Ode XVIII. Stanza II. Line 19.] Lycurgus the Lacedæmonian law-giver, brought into Greece from Asia Minor the first complete copy of Homer's works.-At Platæa was fought the decisive battle between the Persian army and the united militia of Greece, under Pausanias and Aristides. -Cymon the Athenian erected a trophy in Cyprus for two great victories gained on the same day over the Persians by sea and land. Diodorus Siculus has preserved the inscription which the Athenians affixed to the consecrated spoils, after this great success; in which it is very remarkable, that the greatness of the occasion has raised the manner of expression above the usual simplicity and modesty of all other ancient inscriptions. It is this:

ΕΞ, ΟΥ, Γ. ΕΥΡΩΠΗΝ. ΑΣΙΑΣ. ΔΙΧΑ. ΠΟΝΤΟΣ. ENEIME.

KAI. ΠΟΛΕΑΣ, ΘΝΗΤΩΝ. ΘΟΥΡΟΣ. ΑΡΗΣ. ENEXEI.

ΟΥΔΕΝ. ΠΩ. ΤΟΙΟΥΤΟΝ. ΕΠΙΧΘΟΝΙΩΝ. ΓΕΝΕΤ'. ΑΝΔΡΩΝ.

ΕΡΤΟΝ. ΕΝ. ΗΠΕΙΡΩΙ, ΚΑΙ, ΚΑΤΑ. ΠΟΝΤΟΝ. AMA.

ΟΙΔΕ. ΓΑΡ. ΕΝ ΚΥΠΡΩΙ. ΜΗΔΟΥΣ. ΠΟΛΛΟΥΣ. ΟΛΕΣΑΝΤΕΣ.

ΦΟΙΝΙΚΩΝ. ΕΚΑΤΟΝ. ΝΑΥΣ. ΕΛΟΝ. ΕΝ. ΠΕΛΑΓΕΙ.

What joy, what praise, what hope can life pretend ? | ΑΝΔΡΩΝ, ΠΛΗΘΟΥΣΑΣ. ΜΕΓΑ. Δ'. ΕΣΤΕΝΕΝ. ΑΣΙΣ.

"Behold; our youths in vain

Concerning nuptial happiness inquire:

Our maids no more aspire

The arts of bashful Hymen to attain ;

But with triumphant eyes

And cheeks impassive, as they move along,
Ask homage of the throng.

The lover swears that in a harlot's arms
Are found the self-same charms,

And worthless and deserted lives and dies.

"Behold; unbless'd at home,

The father of the cheerless household mourns:
The night in vain returns,

For Love and glad Content at distance roam;
While she, in whom his mind
Seeks refuge from the day's dull task of cares,
To meet him she prepares,

Through noise and spleen and all the gamester's art,
A listless, harass'd heart,

Where not one tender thought can welcome find."

'Twas thus, along the shore

Of Thames, Britannia's guardian Genius heard,
From many a tongue preferr'd,
Of strife and grief the fond invective lore:
At which the queen divine

ladignant, with her adamantine spear

Like thunder sounding near,

Smote the red cross upon her silver shield,

And thus her wrath reveal'd.

(I watch'd her awful words and made them mine.)

ΥΠ'. ΑΥΤΩΝ.

ΠΛΗΓΕΙΣ. ΑΜΦΟΤΕΡΑΙΣ ΧΕΡΣΙ. ΚΡΑΤΕΙ. ΠΟ

ΛΕΜΟΥ.

The following translation is almost literal:

Since first the sea from Asia's hostile coast
Divided Europe, and the god of war
Assail'd imperious cities; never yet,
At once among the waves and on the shore,
Hath such a labour been achiev'd by men
Who Earth inhabit. They, whose arms the Medes,
In Cyprus felt pernicious, they, the same
Have won from skilful Tyre an hundred ships
Crowded with warriors. Asia groans, in both.
Her hands sore smitten, by the might of war.

Stanza II. Line 24.] Pindar was contemporary with Aristides and Cymon, in whom the glory of ancient Greece was at its height. When Xerxes invaded Greece, Pindar was true to the common interest of his country; though his fellow citizens, the Thebans, had sold themselves to the Persian king. In one of his Odes he expresses the great distress and anxiety of his mind, occasioned by the vast preparations of Xerxes against Greece. (Isthm. 8.) In another he celebrates the victories of Salamis, Platæa, and Himera. (Pyth. 1.) It will be necessary to add two or three other particulars of his life, real or fabulous, in order to explain what follows in the text concerning him. First then, he was thought to be so great a favourite of Apollo, that the priests of that deity allotted him a constant share of their offerings. It was said of him,

Ode XIII.] In the year 1751, appeared a very splendid edition, in quarto, of "Memoires pour servir à l' Histoire de la Maison de Brandebourg, à Berlin et à la Haye;" with a privilege signed FREDERIC; the same being engraved in imitation of hand-writing. In this edition, among other extraordinary passages, are the two following, to which the third stanza of this ode more particularly refers:

as of some other illustrious men, that at his birth a swarm of bees lighted on his lips, and fed him with their honey. It was also a tradition concerning him, that Pan was heard to recite his poetry, and seen dancing to one of his hymns on the mountains near Thebes. But a real historical fact in his life is, that the Thebans imposed a large fine upon him, on account of the veneration which he expressed in his poems for that heroic spirit, shown by the people of Athens in defence of the common "Il se fit une migration" (the author is speakliberty, which his own fellow-citizens had shame-ing of what happened of the revocation of the edict fully betrayed. And as the argument of this ode of Nantes) "dont on n'avoit guere vu d'exemples implies, that great poetical talents, and high senti- dans l'histoire: un peuple entier sortit du royaume ments of liberty, do reciprocally produce and assist par l'esprit de parti en haine du pape, et pour reeach other, so Pindar is perhaps the most exemplary cevoir sous un autre ciel la communion sous les proof of this connection, which occurs in history. denx especes: quatre cens mille ames s'expatrieThe Thebans were remarkable, in general, for a rent ainsi et abandonnerent tous leur biens pour slavish disposition through all the fortunes of their detonner dans d'autres temples les vieux pseaumes commonwealth; at the time of its ruin by Philip; de Clement Marot." P. 163. and even in its best state, under the administration of Pelopidas and Epaminondas: and every one knows, they were no less remarkable for great dulness, and want of all genius. That Pindar should have equally distinguished himself from the rest of his fellow-citizens in both these respects seems somewhat extraordinary, and is scarce to be accounted for but by the preceding observation.

Stanza III. Line 28.] Alluding to his "Defence of the People of England" against Salmasius. See particularly the manner in which he himself speaks of that undertaking, in the introduction to his reply to Morus.

Stanza IV. Line 33.] Edward the Third; from whom descended Henry Hastings, third earl of Huntingdon, by the daughter of the duke of Clarence, brother to Edward the Fourth.

Stanza V. Line 36.] At Whittington, a village on the edge of Scarsdale in Derbyshire, the earls of Devonshire and Danby, with the lord Delamere, privately concerted the plan of the Revolution. The house in which they met is at present a farmhouse; and the country people distinguish the room where they sat, by the name of "the plotting parlour."

Book II. Ode VII. Stanza II. Line 5.] Mr. Locke died in 1704, when Mr. Hoadly was beginning to distinguish himself in the cause of civil and religious liberty: lord Godolphin in 1712, when the doctrines of the Jacobite faction were chiefly favoured by those in power: lord Somers in 1716, amid the practices of the non-juring clergy against the protestant establishment; and lord Stanhope in 1721, during the controversy with the lower house of convocation.

Ode X. Stanza V.] During Mr. Pope's war with Theobald, Concanen, and the rest of their tribe, Mr. Warburton, the present lord bishop of Gloucester, did with great zeal cultivate their friendship; having been introduced, forsooth, at the meetings of that respectable confederacy: a favour which he afterwards spoke of in very high terms of complacency and thankfulness. At the same time, in his intercourse with them, he treated Mr. Pope in a most contemptuous manner, and as a writer without genius. Of the truth of these assertions his lordship can have no doubt, if he recollects his own correspondence with Concanen; a part of which is still in being, and will probably be remembered as long as any of this prelate's writlogs,

"La crainte donna le jour à la credulité, et l'amour propre interessa bientôt le ciel au destin des hommes." P. 242,

HYMN TO THE NAIADS,

M.DCC.XLVI.

THE ARGUMENT.

THE nymphs, who preside over springs and rivulets, are addressed at day-break, in honour of their several functions, and of the relations which they bear to the natural and to the moral world. Their origin is deduced from the first allegorical deities, or powers of Nature; according to the doctrine of the old mythological poets, concerning the generation of the gods and the rise of things. They are then successively considered, as giving motion to the air and exciting summerbreezes; as nourishing and beautifying the vegetable creation; as contributing to the fullness of navigable rivers, and consequently to the maintenance of commerce; and by that means, to the maritime part of military power. Next is represented their favourable influence upon health, when assisted by rural exercise: which introduces their connection with the art of physic, and the happy effects of mineral medicinal springs. Lastly, they are celebrated for the friendship which the Muses bear them, and for the true inspiration which temperance only can receive: in opposition to the enthusiasm of the more licentious poets.

O'En yonder eastern hill the twilight pale
Walks forth from darkness; and the god of day,
With bright Astræa seated by his side,
Waits yet to leave the ocean. Tarry, Nymphs,
Ye Nymphs, ye blue-ey'd progeny of Thames,
Who now the mazes of this rugged heath
Trace with your fleeting steps; who all night long
Repeat, amid the cool and tranquil air,
Your lonely murmurs, tarry: and receive
My offer'd lay. To pay you homage due,
I leave the gates of Sleep; ner shall my lyre

10

Too far into the splendid hours of morn
Engage your audience: my observant hand
Shail close the strain ere any sultry beam
Approach you. To your subterranean haunts
Ye then may timely steal; to pace with care
The humid sands; to loosen from the soil
The bubbling sources; to direct the rills
To meet in wider channels; or beneath
Some grotto's dripping arch, at height of noon 20
To slumber, shelter'd from the burning heaven.
Where shall my song begin, ye Nymphs? or end?
Wide is your praise and copious-First of things,
First of the lonely powers, ere Time arose,
Were Love and Chaos. Love the sire of Fate;
Elder than Chaos. Born of Fate was Time,
Who many sons and many comely births
Devour'd, relentless father: till the child
Of Rhea drove him from the upper sky,
And quell'd his deadly might. Then social reign'd
The kindred powers, Tethys, and reverend Ops,
And spotless Vesta; while supreme of sway
Remain'd the cloud-compeller. From the couch
Of Tethys sprang the sedgy crowned race,
Who from a thousand urns, o'er every clime,
Send tribute to their parent: and from them
Are ye, O Naiads: Arethusa fair,
And tuneful Aganippe; that sweet name,
Bandusia; that soft family which dwelt
With Syrian Daphne; and the honour'd tribes
Belov'd of Pæon. Listen to my strain,
Daughters of Tethys: listen to your praise.

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40

You, Nymphs, the winged offspring, which of old Aurora to divine Astræus bore,

50

Owns; and your aid beseecheth. When the might
Of Hyperion, from his noontide throne,
Unbends their languid pinions, aid from you
They ask: Favonius and the mild South-west
From you relief implore. Your sallying streams
Fresh vigour to their weary wings impart.
Again they fly, disporting; from the mead
Half ripen'd and the tender blades of corn,
To sweep the noxious mildew; or dispel
Contagious streams, which oft the parched Earth
Breathes on her fainting sons. From noon to eve,
Along the river and the paved brook,
Ascend the cheerful breezes: hail'd of bards
Who, fast by learned Cam, the Æolian lyre
Solicit; nor unwelcome to the youth
Who on the heights of Tibur, all inclin'd
O'er rushing Anio, with a pious hand
The reverend scene delineates, broken fanes,
Or tombs, or pillar'd aqueducts, the pomp
Of ancient Time; and haply, while he scans
The ruins, with a silent tear revolves
The fame and fortune of imperious Rome.

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And o'er the vale of Richmond, where with Thames Ye love to wander, Amaithea pours

90

Well-pleas'd the wealth of that Ammonian horn,
Her dower; unmindful of the fragrant isles
Nysæan or Atlantic. Nor canst thou,
(Albeit oft, ungrateful, thou dost mock
The beverage of the sober Naiad's urn,
O Bromius, O Lenæan) nor canst thou
Disown the powers whose bounty, ill repaid,
With nectar feeds thy tendrils. Yet from me,
Yet, blameless Nymphs, from my delighted lyre,
Accept the rites your bounty well may claim,
Nor heed the scoffings of the Edonian band.
For better praise awaits you. Thames your sire,
As down the verdant slope your duteous rills
Descend, the tribute stately Thames receives,
Delighted; and your piety applauds ;
And bids his copious tide roll on secure,
For faithful are his daughters; and with words
Auspicious gratulates the bark which, now
His banks forsaking, her adventurous wings
Yields to the breeze, with Albion's happy gifts
Extremest isles to bless. And oft at morn,
When Hermes, from Olympus bent o'er Earth
To bear the words of Jove, on yonder hill
Stoops lightly-sailing; oft intent your springs
He views and waving o'er some new-born stream
His blest pacific wand, "And yet," he cries, 109
Yet," cries the son of Maia, "though recluse
And silent be your stores, from you, fair Nymphs,
Flows wealth and kind society to men.

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By you my function and my honour'd name
Do I possess; while o'er the Boetic vale,

Or through the towers of Memphis, or the palms
By sacred Ganges water'd, I conduct

The English merchant: with the buxom fleece
Of fertile Ariconium while I clothe
Sarmatian kings; or to the household gods
Of Syria, from the bleak Cornubian shore,
Dispense the mineral treasure which of old
Sidonian pilots sought, when this fair land
Was yet unconscious of those generous arts
Which wise Phoenicia from their native clime
Transplanted to a more indulgent Heaven."

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120

Such are the words of Hermes: such the praise, O Naiads, which from tongues celestial waits Your bounteous deeds. From bounty issueth power: And those who, sedulous in prudent works, 60 Relieve the wants of nature, Jove repays

70

You too, O Nymphs, and your unenvious aid
The rural powers confess; and still prepare
For you their choicest treasures. Pan commands,
Oft as the Delian king with Sirius holds
The central heavens, the father of the grove
Commands his Dryads over your abodes
To spread their deepest umbrage. Well the god
Remembereth how indulgent ye supplied

Your general dews to nurse them in their prime.
Pales, the pasture's queen, where'er ye stray,
Pursnes your steps, delighted; and the path
With living verdure clothes. Around your haunts
The laughing Chloris, with profuseth hand,
Throws wide her blooms, her odours. Still with you
Pomona seeks to dwell: and o'er the lawns,

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With noble wealth, and his own seat on Earth,
Fit judgments to pronounce, and curb the might
Of wicked men. Your kind unfailing urns
Not vainly to the hospitable arts
Of Hermes yield their store. For, O ye Nymphs,
Hath he not won the unconquerable queen
Of arms to court your friendship? You she owns
The fair associates who extend her sway
Wide o'er the mighty deep; and grateful things
Of you she uttereth, oft as from the shore 140
Of Thames, or Medway's vale, or the green banks
Of Vecta, she her thundering navy leads
To Calpe's foaming channel, or the rough
Cantabrian surge; her auspices divine
Imparting to the senate and the prince
Of Albion, to dismay barbaric kings,
The Iberian, or the Celt. The pride of kings
Was ever scorn'd by Pallas: and of old
Rejoic'd the virgin, from the brazen prow
Of Athens o'er Ægina's gloomy surge,
To drive her clouds and storms; o'erwhelming all

150

The Persian's promis'd glory, when the realms Of Indus and the soft Ionian clime,

160

When Libya's torrid champain and the rocks
Of cold Imaüs join'd their servile bands,
To sweep the sons of Liberty from Earth.
In vain: Minerva on the bounding prow
Of Athens stood, and with the thunder's voice
Denounc'd her terrours on their impious heads,
And shook her burning ægis. Xerxes saw:
From Heracleum, on the mountain's height
Thron'd in his golden car, he knew the sign
Celestial; felt unrighteous hope forsake
His faultering heart, and turn'd his face with shame.
Hail, ye who share the stern Minerva's power;
Who arm the hand of Liberty for war:
And give to the renown'd Britannic name
To awe contending monarchs: yet benign,
Yet mild of nature: to the works of peace
More prone, and lenient of the many ills
Which wait on human life. Your gentle aid
Hygeia well can witness; she who saves
From poisonous cates and cups of pleasing bane,
The wretch devoted to the entangling snares
Of Bacchus and of Comus. Him she leads
To Cynthia's lonely haunts. To spread the toils,
To beat the coverts, with the jovial horn
At dawn of day to summon the loud hounds,
She calls the lingering sluggard from his dreams:
And where his breast may drink the mountain breeze,
And where the fervour of the sunny vale
May beat upon his brow, through devious paths
Beckons his rapid courser. Nor when ease,

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Cool ease and welcome slumbers have becalm'd
His eager bosom, does the queen of health
Her pleasing care withhold. His decent board
She guards, presiding; and the frugal powers
With joy sedate leads in: and while the brown
Ennæan dame with Pan presents her stores;
While changing still, and comely in the change,
Vertumnus and the Hours before him spread 191
The garden's banquet; you to crown his feast,
To crown his feast, O Naiads, you the fair
Hygeia calls: and from your shelving seats,
And groves of poplar, plenteous cups ye bring,
To slake his veins: till soon a purer tide
Flows down those loaded channels; washeth off
The dregs of luxury, the lurking seeds
Of crude disease; and through the abodes of life
Sends vigour, sends repose. Hail, Naiads: hail,
Who give, to labour, health; to stooping age,
The joys which youth had squander'd. Oft your
Will I invoke; and, frequent in your praise, [urns
Abash the frantic Thyrsus with my song.

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211

For not estrang'd from your benignant arts Is he, the god, to whose mysterious shrine My youth was sacred, and my votive cares Belong; the learned Pæon. Oft when all His cordial treasures he hath search'd in vain; When herbs, and potent trees, and drops of balm Rich with the genial influence of the Sun, (To rouse dark Fancy from her plaintive dreams, To brace the nerveless arm, with food to win Şick appetite, or hush the unquiet breast Which pines with silent passion) he in vain Hath prov'd; to your deep mansions he descends, Your gates of humid rock, your dim arcades, He entereth; where empurpled veins of ore Gleam on the roof; where through the rigid mine Your trickling rills insinuate. There the god 220) From your indulgent hands the streaming bowl

Wafts to his pale-ey'd suppliants; wafts the seeds
Metallic, and the elemental salts
[soon

Wash'd from the pregnant glebe. They drink: and
Flies pain; flies inauspicious care: and soon
The social haunt or unfrequented shade
Hears lo, lo Paæan; as of old,

250

When Python fell. And, O propitious Nymphs,
Oft as for helpless mortals I implore
Your salutary springs, through every urn
Oh shed your healing treasures. With the first
And finest breath, which from the genial strife
Of mineral fermentation springs, like light
O'er the fresh morning's vapours, lustrate then
The fountain, and inform the rising wave.

My lyre shall pay your bounty. Scorn not ye That humble tribute. Though a mortal band Excite the strings to utterance, yet for themes Not unregarded of celestial powers,

250

260

I frame their language; and the Muses deign 240
To guide the pious tenour of my lay.
The Muses (sacred by their gifts divine)
In early days did not my wondering sense
Their secrets oft reveal: oft my rais'd ear
In slumber felt their music: oft at noon
Or hour of sunset, by some lonely stream,
In field or shady grove, they taught me words
Of power, from death and envy to preserve [mind,
The good man's name. Whence yet with grateful
And offerings unprofan'd by ruder eye,
My vows I send, my homage, to the seats
Of rocky Cirrha, where with you they dwell:
Where you their chaste companions they admit
Through all the hallow'd scene: where oft intent,
And leaning o'er Castalia's mossy verge,
They mark the cadence of your confluent urns,
How tuneful, yielding gratefullest repose
To their consorted measure: till again,
With emulation all the sounding choir,
And bright Apollo, leader of the song,
Their voices through the liquid air exalt,
And sweep their lofty strings: those powerful strings
That charm the mind of gods: that fill the courts
Of wide Olympus with oblivion sweet
Of evils, with immortal rest from cares:
Assuage the terrours of the throne of Jove;
And quench the formidable thunderbolt
Of unrelenting fire. With slacken'd wings,
While now the solemn concert breathes around,
Incumbent o'er the sceptre of his lord
Sleeps the stern eagle; by the number'd notes,
Possess'd; and satiate with the melting tone:
Sovereign of birds. The furious god of war,
His darts forgetting, and the winged wheels
That bear him vengeful o'er the embattled plain,
Relents, and sooths his own fierce heart to ease,
Most welcome ease. The sire of gods and meu,
In that great moment of divine delight,
Looks down on all that live; and whatsoe'er
He loves not, o'er the peopled earth, and o'er 280
The interminated ocean, he beholds
Curs'd with abhorrence by his doom severe,
And troubled at the sound. Ye Naiads, ye
With ravish'd ears the melody attend
Worthy of sacred silence. But the slaves
Of Bacchus with tempestuous clamours strive
To drown the heavenly strains; of highest Jove
Irreverent, and by mad presumption fir'd
Their own discordant raptures to advance
With hostile emulation. Down they rush
From Nysa's vine-empurpled cliff, the dames

270

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Of Thrace, the Satyrs, and the unruly Fauns,
With old Silenus, reeling through the crowd
Which gambols round him, in convulsions wild
Tossing their limbs, and brandishing in air
The ivy-mantled thyrsus, or the torch
Through black smoke flaming, to the Phrygian pipe's
Shrill voice, and to the clashing cymbals, mix'd
With shrieks and frantic uproar. May the gods
From every unpolluted ear avert
Their orgies! If within the seats of men,
Within the walls, the gates, where Pallas holds
The guardian key, if haply there be found
Who loves to mingle with the revel-band
And hearken to their accents; who aspires
From such instructors to inform his breast
With verse; let him, fit votarist, implore
Their inspiration. He perchance the gifts
Of young Lyæus, and the dread exploits,
May sing in aptest numbers: he the fate
Of sober Pentheus, he the Paphian rites,
And naked Mars with Cytherea chain'd,
And strong Alcides in the spinster's robes,
May celebrate, applauded. But with you,
O Naiads, far from that unhallow'd rout,
Must dwell the man whoe'er to praised themes
Invokes the immortal Muse. The immortal Muse
To your calm habitations, to the cave
Corycian or the Delphic mount, will guide
His footsteps; and with your unsullied streams
His lips will bathe: whether the eternal lore
Of Themis, or the majesty of Jove,
To mortals he reveal; or teach his lyre
The unenvied guerdon of the patriot's toils,
In those unfading islands of the bless'd,
Where sacred bards abide. Hail, honour'd Nymphs;
Thrice hail. For you the Cyrenaïc shell
Behold, I touch, revering. To my songs
Be present ye with favourable feet,
And all profaner audience far remove.

321

pheus, where he is called Protogonos, or the firstbegotten, is said to have been born of an egg, and is represented as the principal or origin of all these external appearances of Nature. In the fragments of Orpheus, collected by Henry Stephens, he is named Phanes, the discoverer or discloser; who unfolded the ideas of the supreme intelligence, and exposed them to the perception of inferior beings in this visible frame of the world; as Macrobius, and Proclus, and Athenagoras, all agree to interpret the several passages of Orpheus, which they have preserved.

But the Love designed in our text, is the one selfexistent and infinite mind, whom if the generality of ancient mythologists have not introduced or truly described in accounting for the production of the world and its appearances; yet, to a modern poet, it can be no objection that he hath ventured to 510 differ from them in this particular; though, in other respects, he professeth to imitate their manner, and conform to their opinions. For, in these great points of natural theology, they differ no less remarkably among themselves, and are perpetually confounding the philosophical relations of things with the traditionary circumstances of mythic history: upon which very account, Callimachus, in his hymn to Jupiter, declareth his dissent from them concerning even an article of the-national creed; adding, that the ancient bards were by no means to be depended on. And yet in the exordium of the old Argonautic poem, ascribed to Orpheus, it is said, that "Love, whom mortals in latter times call Phanes, was the father of the eternally begotten Night;" who is generally represented by these mythological poets, as being herself the parent of all things; and who, in the Indigitamenta, or Orphic Hymns, is said to be the same with Cypris, or Love itself. Moreover, in the body of this Argonautic poem, where the personated Orpheus introduceth himself singing to his lyre in reply to Chiron, he celebrateth "the obscure memory of Chaos, and the natures which it contained within itself in a state of perpetual vicissitude; how the Heaven had its boundary determined; the generation of the Earth; the depth of the ocean; and also the sapient Love, the most ancient, the selfsufficient; with all the beings which he produced when he separated one thing from another." Which noble passage is more directly to Aristotle's purElder than Chaos.] Hesiod, in his The- pose in the first book of his metaphysics than any ogony, gives a different account, and make Chaos of those which he has there quoted, to show that the eldest of beings; though he assigns to Love the ancient poets and mythologists agreed with neither father nor superior: which circumstance is Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and the other more sober particularly mentioned by Phædrus, in Plato's Ban-philosophers, in that natural anticipation and comquet, as being observable not only in Hesiod, but in all other writers both of verse and prose: and on the same occasion he cites a line from Parmenides, in which Love is expressly styled the eldest of all the gods. Yet Aristophanes, in The Birds, affirms, that "Chaos, and Night, and Erebus, and Tartarus, were first; and that Love was produced from an egg, which the sable-winged Night deposited in the immense bosom of Erebus." But it must be observed, that the Love designed by this comic poet was always distinguished from the other, from that original and self-existent being the TO ON or AгA ON of Plato, and meant only the AHMIOTPгOs or second person of the old Grecian trinity; to whom is inscribed an hymn among those which pass under the name of Or

NOTES

ON

THE HYMN TO THE NAIADS.

VER. 25. ...... Love......

mon notion of mankind concerning the necessity of mind and reason to account for the connection, motion, and good order of the world. For, though neither this poem, nor the hymns which pass under the same name, are, it should seem, the work of the real Orpheus; yet beyond all question they are very ancient. The hymns, more particularly, are allowed to be older than the invasion of Greece by Xerxes; and were probably a set of public and solemn forms of devotion: as appears by a passage in one of them, which Demosthenes hath almost literally cited in his first oration against Aristogiton, as the saying of Orpheus, the founder of their most holy mysteries. On this account, they are of higher authority than any other mythological work now extant, the Theogony of Hesiod himself

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