Where you the way with magic power beguile, Nor borne along the fav'ring tide, Bassora's deep, or Lybia's deserts smile. My full sails swell with bloating pride.

Foes of thy worth, that, insolent and vain, Let me from wealth but hope content, Deride thy maxims, and reject thy reign, Rememb'ring still it was but lent; The frantic tribe of virtue shall depart,

To modest Merit spread my store ;
And make no more their ravage in my heart. Unbar my hospitable door!
Away “ The tears that pity taught to flow !" Nor feed, for pomp, an idle train,
Away that anguish for a brother's woe!

While Want unpity'd pines in vain.
Adieu to these, and ev'ry tiresome guest,
That drain'd my fortunes, or destroy'd my rest!

If Heav'n, in ev'ry purpose wise,
Ah, good Avaro! could I thee despise?

The envy'd lot of wealth denies;
Thee., good Avaro: provident and wise?

If doom'd to drag life's painful load
Plutus, forgive the bitter things I've said ! Thro' poverty's uneven road,
I love Avaro; poor Avaro's dead.

And, for the due bread of the day,
Yet, yet I'm thine; for Fame's unerring tongue Destin'd to toil as well as pray;
In thy sooth'd ear thus pours her silver song,

To thee, Humanity, still true,
Immortal Plutus ! god of golden ease!

I'll wish the good I cannot do ;
Form'd ev'ry heart, and ev'ry eye to please !

And give the wretch that passes by, For thee Content her downy carpet spreads,

A soothing word—a tear—a sigh.
And rosy Pleasure swells her genial beds.

Howe'er exalted, or deprest,
*Tis thine to gild the mansions of Despair, De ever mine the feeling breast.
And beam a glory round the brows of Care; From me remove the stagnant mind
To cheat the lazy pace of sleepless hours Of languid indolence, reclin'd;
With marble fountains, and ambrosial bowers." The soul that one long Sabbath keeps,

O grant me, Plutus, scenes like those 1 sung, And thro' the Sun's whole circle sleeps;
My youthful lyre when vernal fancy strung. Dull Peace, that dwells in Folly's eye,
Por me their shades let other Studleys rear, And self-attending Vanity.
Tho' each tree's water'd with a widow's tear. Alike, the foolish, and the vain,
Detested god !--forgive me! I adore.

Are strangers to the sense humane.
Great Plutus, grant me one petition more,
Shoald Delia, tender, gen'rous, fair and free,

0, for that sympathetic glow Leave love and truth, and sacrifice to thee,

Which taught the holy tear to flow, I charge thee, Plutus, be to Delia kind,

When the prophetic eye survey'd And make her fortunes richer than her mind.

Sion in future ashes laid; Be her's the wealth all Heaven's broad eye can

Or, rais'd to Heav'n, implor'd the bread

That thousands in the desert fed !
view;
Grant her, good god, Don Philip and Peru.

Or when the heart o'er Friendship's grave
Sigh'd,--and forgot its power to save

O, for that sympathetic glow,
HYMN TO HUMANITY.

Which taught the holy tear to Aow!

It comes: it fills my labouring breast ! PARENT of Virtue, if thine ear

I feel my beating heart opprest. Attend not now to Sorrow's cry ;

Oh! hear that lonely widow's wail ! If now the pity-streaming tear

See her dim eye! her aspect pale ! Should haply on thy cheek be dry;

To Heav'n she turns in deep despair, Indalge my votive strain, Osweet Humanity. Her infants wonder at her prayer, Come, ever welcome to my breast,

And, mingling tears they know not why, A tender, but a cheerful guest;

Lift up their little hands and cry. Vor always in the gloomy cell

O God! their moving sorrows see! Of life-consuming sorrow dwell;

Support them, sweet Humanity. For sorrow, long-indulg'd and slow,

Life, fill'd with grief's distressful train, Is to humanity a foe;

For ever asks the tear humane. And grief, that makes the heart its prey,

Behold in yon unconscious grove Wears sensibility away.

The victims of ill-fated love! Then comes, sweet nymph, instead of thee, Heard you that agonizing throe? The gloomy fiend Stupidity.

Sure this is not romantic woe! O may that fiend be banish'd far,

The golden day of joy is o'er; Though passions hold eternal war!

And now they part-to meet no more. Nor ever let me cease to know

Assist them, hearts from anguish free! The pulse that throbs at joy or woe.

Assist them, sweet Humanity. Nur let my vacant cheek be dry,

Parent of Virtue, if thine ear When sorrow fills a brother's eye;

Attend not now to Sorrow's cry; Nor may the tear that frequent flows

If now the pity-streaming tear From private or from social woes,

Should haply on thy cheek be dry, F'er make this pleasing sense depart;

Indulge my votive strain, O sweet Humanity. Ye cares, O barden not my heart.

If the fair star of fortune smile, Let not its flatt'ring power beguile :

469

TRANSLATIONS.

Stretch'd on this mountain thy torn lover lies: THE DEATH OF ADONIS.

Weep, queen of beauty ! for he bleeds—be

dies. FROM THE GREEK OF BION".

Ah! yet behold life's last drops faintly flow, 1759.

In streams of purple, o'er those limbs of snow !

From the pale cheek the perish'd roses fly ; DOSIS dead, the Muse of woe shall mourn; And death dims slow the ghastly gazing eye. donis dead, the weeping Loves return.

Kiss, kiss those fading lips, ere chill'd in death; The queen of beauty o'er his tomb shall shed

With soothing fondness stay the fleeting breath. Her flowing sorrows for Adonis dead;

'Tis vain-ah! give the soothing fondness o'er! For earth's cold lap her velvet couch forego, Adonis feels the warm salute no more.

And robes of purple for the weeds of woe. Adonis dead the Muse of woe shall mourn ! donis dead, the Muse of woe shall mourn; Adonis dead the weeping Loves return. idonis dead, the weeping Loves return.

His faithful dogs bewail their master slain,

And mourning dryads pour the plaintive strain. * Bion, the pastoral poet, lived in the time of Not the fair youth alone the wound opprest, Ptolemy Philadelphus. By the epithet Epuprása The queen of beauty bears it in her breast. avery where applied to him, it is probable that Her feet unsapdal'd, floating wild her hair, he was born at Smyrna. Moschus confirms this, Her aspect woeful, and her bosom bare, when he says to the river Meles, which had be- Distrest she wanders the wild wastes forlorn, fore wept for Homer,

Her sacred limbs by ruthless brambles torn. -Νυν σαλιν αλλον

Loud as she grieves, surrounding rocks com'Ties daxputos

plain,

And Echo thro' the long vales calls her absent It is evident, however, that he spent much of

swain. bis time in Sicily, Moschus, as he tells us, was Adonis hears not : life's last drops fall slow, his scholar; and by him we are informed, that In streams of purple, down his limbs of snow. his master was not a poor poet. “ Thou hast left The weeping Cupids round their queen deplore, to others thy riches, " says he,“ but to me thy And mourn her beauty, and her love no more. poetry." It appears from the same author, Each rival grace that glow'd with conscious that he died by poison. The best edition of his

pride, works, is that of Paris, by M. de Louge-Pierre, Each charm of Venus, with Adonis dy'd. with a French translation.

Adonis dead, the vocal hills bemoan, Adonis dead, &c.] Adonis, the favourite of Ve. And hollow groves return the sadd’ning groan. nus, was the son of Cynaras, king of Cyprus. His The swelling floods with sea-born Venus weep, chief employment was hunting, though he is re- And roll in mournful murmurs to the deep: presented by Virgil as a Shepherd, Oves ad flumina pavit Adonis.

His faithful dogs, &c.—The queen of beauty,

&c.] 'The lines in the original run thus : He was killed by a wild boar, if we may believe Propertius, in Cyprus:

Αγριν αγριον έλκ© έχει κατά μήρον Αδωνις.

Μείζον δ'&' Κυθερεια φερει ποτι καρδιον όλα
Percussit Adonim

Κείνον μεν περι πάιδα φιλοι κυνες ώρυσαντο,
Venantem Idalio vertice durus Aper.

Και Νυμφαι κλαιυσιν όρειαδες. The anniversary of his death was celebrated The two first of these lines contain a kind of throngh the whole Pagan world. Aristophanes, witticism, which it was better to avoid. - The in his Comedy of Peace, reckons the feast of Ado author had, however, too much true genius to be nis among the chief festivals of the Athenians. fond of these little affected turns of expression, The Syrians observed it with all the violence of which Musæus and others have been industrious grief, and the greatest cruelty of self-castigation. to strike out. It was celebrated at Alexandria in St. Cyril's These four verses are transposed in the transtime; and when Julian the apostate made his lation for the sake of the connection. entry at Antioch, in the year 362, they were ce

Distrest, she wanders, &c.] This image of lebrating the feast of Adonis,

the sorrow of Venus is very affecting,and is introThe ancients differ greatly in their accounts of this divinity. Athenæus says, that he was the duced in this place with greato:uty and propriefavourite of Bacchus. Plutarch maintains, that ty: Indeed, most modern puets seem to have he and Bacchus are the same, and that the Jews observed it, and have profited by it in their abstain'd from swine's flesh because Adonis was

scenes of elegiac woe. killed by a boar. Ausonius, Epig. 30, affirms The swelling floods, &c ] When the poet makes that Bacchus, Osiris, and Adonis, are one and the rivers mourn for Venus, he very properly the same.

calls her Appodira; but this propriety perhaps In melting tears the mountain-springs comply; Far other sport might those fair limbs essay, The flowers, low drooping, blush with grief, Than the rude combat, or the savage fray." and die.

Thus Venus griev'dmthe Cupids round Cythera's groves with strains of sorrow rin g;

deplore ; The dirge funereal her sad cities sing.

And mourn her beauty, and her love no more. Hark! pitying Echoes Venus' sighs return; Now flowing tears in silent grief complain, When Venus sighs, can aught forbear to Mix with the purple streams, and flood the mour ?

plain.. Bat when she saw her fainting lover lie, Yet not in vain those sacred drops shall flow, The wide wound gaping on the with’ring thigh; The purple streams in blushing roses glow: But streaming when she saw life's purple tide, And catching life from ev'ry falling tear, Stretch'd her fair arms, with trembling voice Their azure heads anemonies shall rear. she cry'd :

But cease in vain to cherish dire despair, “ Yer stay,lor'd youth ! a moment ere we part, Nor mourn unpitied to the mountain-air; O let me kiss thee !-hold thee to my heart ! The last sad office let thy hand supply, A little moment, dear Adonis ! stay !

Stretch the stiff limbs, and close the glaring And kiss thy Venus, ere those lips are clay.

eye. Let those dear lips by mine once more be prest, That form repos'd beneath the bridal vest "Till thy last breath expire into my breast; May cheat thy sorrows with the feint of rest. Then, when life's ebbing pulse scarce, scarce For lovely smile those lips, tho' void of breath, can move,

And fair those features in the shade of death. I'll catch thy soul, and drink thy dying love. Haste, fill with flowers, with rosy vreaths his That last-left pledge shall sooth my tortur'd

bed. breast,

Perish the flowers ! the prince of beauty's " When thou art gone

dead. When, far from me, thy gentle ghost explores Round the pale corse each breathing essence Infernal Pluto's grimly-glooming shores.

strew, “ Wretch that I am ! immortal and divine, Let weeping myrtles pour their balmy dem. In life imprison'd whom the Fates confine. Perish the balms, unable to restore He comes ! receive him to thine iron-arms; Those vital sweets of love that charm no more. Blest queen of death! receive the prince of 'Tis done. --Behold, with purple robes archarms.

ray'd, Farhappier thou, to whose wide realms repair In mournful state the clay-cold limbs are laid. Whatever lovely, and wbatever fair.

The Loves lament with all the rage of woe, The smiles of joy, the golden hours are fled :

Stamp on the dart, and break the useless bor, Grief, only grief, survives Adonis dead."

Officious these the wat'ry urn supply. The Loves around in idle sorrow stand, Unbind the buskin'd leg, and wash the bleed. And the dim torch falls from the vacant hand.

ing thigh. Hence the vain zope! the myrtle's flow'ry O'er the pale body those their light wings ware, pride!

As yet, tho' vain, solicitous to save. Delight and beauty with Adonis djed.

All, wild with grief, their hapless queen de"Why didst thou, vent'rous, the wild chase

plore, explore,

And mourn her beauty and her love no more. From his dark lair to rouse the tusky boar ?

Dejected Hymen droops his head forlorn,

His torch extinct, and flow'ry tresses torn : was merely accidental, as he has given her the

For nuptial airs, and songs of joy, remain same appellation when she wanders the desert.

The sad slow dirge, the sorrow-breathing strain. The flowers, low-drooping, blush, &c.]

Who wou'd not, when Adonis dies, deplore? Ανθεα δ' εξ οδιναι ερυθραινεται..

Who wou'd not weep when Hymen smiles no

more; Paleness being the known effect of grief, we The Graces mourn the prince of beauty slain, do not at first sight accept this expression; but Loud as Dione on her native main : when we consider that the first emotions of it The Fates relenting join the general woe, are attended with blushes, we are pleased with And call the lover from the realms belove the observation.

Vain, hopeless grief! can living sounds pervade Cythera's groves, &c.]

The dark, dead regions of eternal shade?

Spare, Venus, spare that loo luxuriant tear άδι Κυθήρη

For the long sorrows of the mournful year. Παντας ανα κναμώ και άαντιόλιν διαθρον άιιδει.

This passage the scholiasts have entirely mis- For the long, &c.] Numa seems to have børunderstood. They make Kobúpn Venus, for rowed the custom he instituted of mourning a which they have neither any authority, the Do- year for the deceased, from the Greeks. For ric name she borrows from that island heing al- though it is said only ten months were set apart, ways Kutepeia, nor the least probability from yet ten months were the year of Romulus, till rethe connection

gulated by his successor, This proves that the island Cythera was the place where Adonis perished, notwithstanding the opinion of Propertius and others to the contrary.