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VER. 345-347.

"Inter quas curam Clymene * narrabat inanem "Vulcani, Martisque dolos, et dulcia furta,

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Atque Chao densos Divûm numerabat amores."

*The Poet seems here to intimate, that when ladies meet, the common topic of discourse amongst them is love-intrigue: at least, that it was so in former days.

+ Virgil mentions this, as the most noted among all the stories, told by the water-nymphs in Cyrene's grotto.

The water-nymphs, telling this kind of stories together, was so known a thing, that it was a subject even for statuary too: "Illic adspicias scopulis haerere sorores; "Et canere antiqui dulcia furta Jovis:

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"Ut Semele est combustus, ut est deperditus Iö; Denique ut ad Trojae tecta volarit avis." Propertius, lib. II. xxiii. ver. 20.

Leuconoë and her sisters divert themselves in the same manner whilst they are at work; and Leuconoë, in particular, tells this very story of Mars and Venus. Ovid often calls it "the most "trite story among the Gods." Met. IV. ver. 189.-Art. Am. II. ver. 563.-Amor. lib. I. El. ix. ver. 40.

Both Virgil and Propertius call the subjects of these stories, Dulcia: and the latter uses the word, Canere, for the manner of telling them; as the former says, "Carmine quo captae. The subjects in general agree with those most used in our novels and romances: and they were told, either in verse, or in an affected poetical kind of prose; for Carmen is used indifferently for the one or the other. Propertius might have an eye to this affected style, in those expressions of his relating to Jupiter's

amours:

"Ut Semele est combustus, ut est deperditus Iö."

Apuleius makes use of this affected, lulling style, in his romance: as one may see, by his very proposition itself; which ought to be plain and easy, even in a poem. He begins thus: "At ego tibi, sermone isto Milesio, varias fabulas conseram; "auresque tuas benevolas lepido susurro permulceam: mox, si papyrum Aegyptiam argutiâ Nilotici calami inscriptam non "spreveris inspicere, figuras fortunasque hominum in alias "imagines conversas, et in se rursum mutuo nexu refectas, ut "mireris, exordior." Exord. to his Asinus Aureus.

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VER. 358-362,

"Duc, age, duc ad nos; fas illi limina Divûm
66 Tangere, ait. Simul alta † jubet discedere late

"Flumina, quà juvenis gressus inferret: ad illum
"Curvata in montis faciem circumstetit unda;

Accepitque sinu vasto, misitque sub amnem."

+ Thus Ovid says, very strongly, of another river-god:

"Cedere jussit aquam; jussa recessit aqua.
Lib. III. El. vi. ver. 44.

This is represented sometimes in antiques; as particularly on a gem in Maffei's collection (Vol. II. pl. 34.), where you see Neptune beneath the water; which hangs suspended, in a sort of arch, over his head.

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VER. 363-373.

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"Jamque domum mirans genetricis et humida regna,
Speluncisque lacus clausos, lucosque ** sonantes,
"Ibat; et ingenti motu stupefactus aquarum,
"Omnia sub magnâ labentia flumina terrâ
"Spectabat diversa locis; Phasimque, Lycumque *3,
"Et caput, unde altus primum se erumpit Enipeus;
"Unde pater Tiberinus, et unde Aniena fluenta,
"Saxosumque sonans Hypanis, Mysusque ** Caïcus;
"Et gemina auratus taurino cornua vultu

“** Eridanus, quo non alius * per pinguia culta
"In mare purpureum * violentior influit amnis."

*' Virgil does not mean here rivers in general, but such only as run under ground and hide themselves part of their course. **Ruaeus's interpretation of this passage seems very forced: Virgil certainly means groves, echoing with falls of water; his nymphs being partly wood, and partly water-nymphs, as appears both by their names, and by the following verses:

"Nymphasque sorores,

"Centum quae sylvas, centum quae flumina servant.

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Ver. 383.

*Pliny, speaking of rivers which run partly under ground, and burst forth again, names first the Lycus in Asia. Nat. Hist. lib. II. c. 103.

"Ubi terreno Lycus est epotus hiatu
"Existit procul hinc, alioque renascitur ore."

Ovid. Met. lib. XV. 273. ·

**Et Mysum capitisque sui ripaeque prioris
"Poenituisse ferunt, aliâ nunc ire, Caïcum."

Ovid, ibid. ver. 277.

*Padus è gremio Vesuli montis celsissimum in cacumen "elati, finibus Ligurum Vagiennorum visendo fonte profluens, "condensque sese cuniculo, et in Forovibiensium agro iterum exoriens, nulli amnium claritate inferior. Graecis dictus "Eridanus." Pliny, lib. III. c. xvi.

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* See Pol. p. 232.

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* This may be understood of the Po emptying itself by very strong currents into the sea. I was assured by boatmen, as I sailed before the mouths of the Po, that the water continues fresh three or four miles into the sea; and, I observed, as I sailed by the embouchures, that the water looked white and muddy (as the Po is), as far as I could see. But without restraining it to this sense, Virgil may be understood by Violentior to mean the damages done by the overflowing of the Po all along its course, of which he himself must frequently have been an eyewitness. Pliny, lib. III. c. xvi. speaking of the overflowing of the Po, says, that it is " Agris quàm navigiis torrentior;" meaning, I suppose, in his outre style, that it carries countries and fields with it rather than ships.

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+ I have, on another occasion, formerly (Essay on the Odyssey, Dial. V. p. 309.) taken notice of the beautiful contrast in the run of that couplet,

"Unde pater Tiberinus," etc.

the former line of which is one of the most soft-flowing verses, and the latter one of the roughest and most embarrassed, of any in the Georgics.

I have since been sometimes apt to imagine, that Virgil inserted the second of these lines, after the first writing of this. passage, on purpose to make this contrast: because, if you leave out that line in the reading of it, the whole passage would be much more regular and exact than it is.

As it stands now, all the rivers seem to be named in disorder; but, omitting it, they will each follow the other, in an exact geographical order, from east to west: the first mentioned being the farthest east, in Armenia; the second, another Asiatic river, but nearer Greece; the third, in Greece; and the three others all in Italy, each lying farther and farther west, the Tiber, the Anio, and the Po.

VER. 374.

"Postquam est in thalami pendentia † pumice tecta "Perventum."

The roofs of the great apartments in the old Thermae (as appears in those of Caracalla at Rome at this day) were chiefly composed of Pumice-stone, for lightness.

They were used too for grottoes: Erosa saxa (pumices) "in aedificiis, quae Musea vocant, dependentia; ad imaginem 66 specus arte reddendam." Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. XXXVI. c.

21. p.

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503.

"Antra subit tophis laqueata et pumice vivo."

Ov. Fast. II. 313. (Herc.)

VER, 382, 383.

"Simul ipse precatur

"Oceanumque patrem rerum, nymphasque sorores,
"Centum quae sylvas, centumque flumina servant.”

+ Virgil calls Oceanus, Pater rerum, tery world" whereas Juvenal calls Aegei, or, "Lord of all the inland seas."

VER. 425-429.

"Lord of all the waNeptune only Pater Sat. XIII. ver. 81.

"Jam † rapidus torrens sitientes Sirius Indos
"Ardebat caelo, et medium sol igneus orbem
"Hauserat: arebant herbae, et 1 cava flumina siccis
“** Faucibus ad limum radii tepefacta coquebant:
"Cum Proteus consueta petens è fluctibus antra
"Ibat.".

So Manilius ;

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Subsequitur rapido contenta Canicula cursu."

I. ver. 386. He is represented as running rapidly after the hare, in the Farnese globe; Pol. pl. xxiv. and with rays of fire on his head. * Shallow, low within the banks, almost dry. ** In allusion to throats parched with thirst.

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VER. 465, 466.

"Te, dulcis conjux, te solo in litore secum,

Te, veniente die, te decedente canebat."

+ Mr. Benson, who studied versification so particularly, used to call this, "The softest couplet that ever was writ.”

VER. 471, 472.

"At cantu commotae + Erebi de sedibus imis

"Umbrae ibant tenues, simulacraque luce carentum." +The artist who designed the pictures for the famous manuseript Virgil in the Vatican, probably mistook the word Erebus here, if Erebus properly means the first region in Hades. He

represents Ixion on his wheel, as drawn out of Tartarus, quite to the inner bank of Styx, by the music of Orpheus.

VER. 511-515.

"Qualis populeâ moerens Philomela sub + umbra
"Amissos queritur foetus, quos durus arator
"Observans nido implumes detraxit; at illa

"Flet noctem, ramoque

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sedens miserabile carmen

Integrat, et moestis late loca questibus implet.

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+ Mons. Huet makes a very indifferent objection to this passage. Comment," says he, " peuvent se rencontrer ensemble "la nuit et l'ombre du peuplier?" Huetiana, § xlv.

"Tectae fronde queruntur aves."

VER. 563, 564.

Ov. Ep. X.

"Illo Virgilium me tempore dulcis alebat
"Parthenope, studiis florentem ignobilis otî."

+ There may be a propriety in this that is not generally remarked. Naples was a place of pleasure and indolence: and it was therefore (as some suppose; Addison's Travels, p. 128.) said to have been founded by Parthenope, one of the Sirens; who were Goddesses of Indolence and Pleasure.

"Desidia.".

"Improba Siren

Hor. lib. II. Sat. iii.

"Otiosa Neapolis." Id. Epod. v.

Statius agrees with Virgil, in the character of his own city Naples. Sylv. lib. III. Eleg. ult.

"Pax secura locis, et desidis otia vitae." Ver. 85. etc. And Silius Italicus:

"Molles urbi ritus, atque hospita musis
L. XII. 31.

"Otia."

See the other quotations in Mr. Addison, ibid.

This idea too makes the contrast here, between Augustus and Virgil, the stronger.

* Pausanias, speaking of Troezene, says; "Musarum tem"plum est; et prope templum ara perantiqua visitur. Ad hanc "Musis immolant, et Somno. Somnum etenim ex Diis maxi"me Musis charum esse dicunt,"-Upon which place there is a note, observing very justly: "Per somnum non desidiam et

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