NOT E S
TE

O N THE

HYMN TO THE NAIAD S.

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Elder than Chaos.] Hefiod, in his Theogony, gives a different account, and makes Chaos the eldest of beings; though he affigns to Love neither father nor fuperior: which circumftance is particularly mentioned by Phædrus, in Plato's Banquet, as being obfervable not only in Hefiod, but in all other writers both of verse and prose: and on the fame occafion he cites a line from Parmenides, in which Love is expressly ftiled the eldest of all the gods. Yet Ariftophanes, in The Birds, affirms, that "Chaos, and

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Night, and Erebus, and Tartarus, were firft; and "that Love was produced from an egg, which the "fable-winged night depofited in the immenfe bofom "of Erebus." But it must be observed, that the Love defigned by this comic poet was always diftinguished from the other, from that original and felf-exiftent being the TO ON or AгA ON of Plato, and meant only the ΔΗΜΙΟΥΡΓΟΣ Οr fecond perfon of the old Grecian trinity; to whom is infcribed an hymn among those

which pafs under the name of Orpheus, where he is called Protogonos, or the firft-begotten, is faid to have been born of an egg, and is reprefented as the principal or origin of all thefe external appearances of nature. In the fragments of Orpheus, collected by Henry Stephens, he is named Phanes, the difcoverer or difclofer; who unfolded the ideas of the fupreme intelligence, and expofed them to the perception of inferior beings in this vifible frame of the world; as Macrobius, and Proclus, and Athenagoras, all agree to interpret the feveral paffages of Orpheus, which they have preserved.

But the Love defigned in our text, is the one selfexiftent 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 differ from them in this particular; though, in other refpects, he profeffeth to imitate their manner and conform to their opinions. For, in these great points of natural theology, they differ no lefs remarkably among themselves; and are perpetually confounding the philofophical relations of things with the traditionary circumstances of mythic history: upon which very account, Callimachus, in his hymn to Jupiter, declareth his diffent 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, afcribed to Orpheus, it is faid, that " Love, whom mortals in latter times call Phanes,

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"Phanes, was the father of the eternally begotten "Night;" who is generally represented by these mythological poets, as being herfelf the parent of all things; and who, in the Indigitamenta, or Orphic Hymns, is faid to be the fame with Cypris, or Love itself. Moreover, in the body of this Argonautic poem, where the perfonated Orpheus introduceth himfelf finging to his lyre in reply to Chiron, he celebrateth "the obfcure memory of Chaos, and the na"tures which it contained within itself in a state of "perpetual viciffitude; how the heaven had its boun"dary determined; the generation of the earth; the depth of the ocean; and also the fapient Love, the "most ancient, the self-sufficient; with all the beings "which he produced when he feparated one thing "from another." Which noble paffage is more directly to Ariftotle's purpose in the first book of his metaphyfics than any of those which he has there quoted, to fhew that the ancient poets and mythologists agreed with Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and the other more fober philofophers, in that natural anticipation and common notion of mankind concerning the neceffity of mind and reafon to account for the connexion, motion, and good order of the world. For, though neither this poem, nor the hymns which pass under the fame name, are, it should feem, the work of the real Orpheus ; yet beyond all queftion they are very ancient. The hymns, more particularly, are allowed to be older than the invafion of Greece by Xerxes; and were probably a fet of public and folemn forms of devotion; as appears

pears by a paffage in one of them, which Demofthenes hath almost literally cited in his firft oration against Ariftogiton, as the faying of Orpheus, the founder' of their most holy myfteries. On this account, they are of higher authority than any other mythological work now extant, the Theogony of Hefiod himself not excepted. The poetry of them is often extremely noble; and the mysterious air which prevails in them, together with its delightful impreffion upon the mind cannot be better expreffed than in that remarkable defcription with which they infpired the German editor Efchenbach, when he accidentally met with them at Leipfic: "Thefaurum me reperiffe credidi," fays he, " & profecto thefaurum reperi. Incredibile dictu quo "me facro horrore afflaverint indigitamenta ifta deorum: nam et tempus ad illorum lectionem eligere cogebar, quod vel folum horrorem incutere animo poteft, nocturnum; cum enim totam diem confum"ferim in contemplando urbis fplendore, & in adeun

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dis, quibus fcatet urbs illa, viris doctis; fola nox "reftabat, quam Orpheo confecrare potui. In abyf"fum quendam myfteriorum venerandæ antiquitatis "defcendere videbar, quotiefcunque filente mundo, "folis vigilantibus aftris et luna perampares iftos "hymnos ad manus fumfi."

1. 1. Chaos.] The unformed, undigested mafs of Mofes and Plato: which Milton calls

"The womb of nature."

1. 1. Love, the fire of Fate.] Fate is the univerfal fyftem of natural caufes; the work of the Omnipotent

Mind, or of Love; fo Minucius Felix: "Quid aliud " eft fatum, quam quod de unoquoque noftrum deus "fatus eft." So alfo Cicero, in The First Book on Divination : "Fatum autem id appello, quod Græci "EIPMAPMENHN; id eft, ordinem feriemque caufa❝rum, cum caufa caufæ nexa rem ex fe gignat-ex quo "intelligitur, ut fatum fit non id quod fuperftitiofe, "fed id quod phyfice dicitur caufa æterna rerum.” To the fame purpofe is the doctrine of Hierocles, in that excellent fragment concerning Providence and Destiny. As to the three Fates, or Deftinies of the poets, they represented that part of the general fyftem of natural caufes which relates to man, and to other mortal beings for fo we are told in the hymn addreffed to them among the Orphic Indigitamenta, where they are called the daughters of Night (or Love) and, contrary to the vulgar notion, are distinguished by the epithets of gentle, and tender-hearted. According to Hefiod. Theog. ver. 904, they were the daughters of Jupiter and 'Themis; but in the Orphic Hymn to Venus, or Love, that Goddess is directly ftiled the mother of Neceffity, and is reprefented, immediately after, as governing the three Deftinies, and conducting the whole fyftem of natural caufes.

1. 2. Born of Fate was Time] Cronos, Saturn, or Time, was, according to Apollodorus, the fon of Colum and Tellus. But the author of the hymns gives it quite undisguised by mythological language, and calls him plainly the offspring of the earth and the starry heaven; that is, of Fate, as explained in the preceeding note.