tom of the Greeks to adorn the doors of the persons they love, on the first of May, is derived. They sing and walk before the houses of their fair mistresses, to draw them to their windows; and such were the gallantries they practised in the days of Horace. The young maidens dressed their heads with natural flowers, with which, too, they made themselves garlands; and the young men, who wished to be thought gallant, did the same.

See Sentimental Journey through Greece, by Mr. Guys.

P. 13, l. 31.

Full oft hath love with wild disorder sway'd
The roving consort, and the frensied maid!
Venom'd alike, the dark contagion spreads
Through Virgin chambers, er through bridal beds.

Παρθενον εκ θαλαμοιο.

aλapo signifies the inner chambers, appropriated to unmarried ladies. The rooms, where Priam's daughters lived, were called Tɛɛol @aλaμol-the uppermost rooms in the house. The Europa of Moschus is described in one of the upper chambers of the dome.

The men and women among the modern Greeks have separate apartments, called Andronitis and Gynæconitis. The latter, for the security of the women, is always in the interior quarter of the building. From such prisons the modern ladies of Turkey very frequently make their escape, actuated by the same phrensy, and the same roving disposition, that our poet hath described. The consequences of this passion, Baron de Tott hath strikingly represented. It is impossible (says

he) to consider, without horror, the dismal conse quences of the blind passions to which the Turkis women are sometimes a prey. I do not speak here of those women who so frequently sell their charms, and whose mutilated dead bodies I have often seen in the environs of Constantinople; but of others, of a more exalted rank, whom an irre sistible fury overpowers, and who escape secretly from their prisons. These unfortunate creature always carry off with them their jewels, and think nothing too good for their lovers. Blinded b their unhappy passion, they do not perceive that this very wealth becomes the cause of their de struction. The villains to whom they flee, never fail, at the end of a few days, to punish their teme rity, and ensure the possession of their effects, by a crime, which, however monstrous, the govern. ment is least in haste to punish. The bodies of these miserable women, stripped and mangled, are frequently seen floating in the port, under the very windows of their murderers; and these dread. ful examples, so likely to intimidate the rest, and prevent such madness, neither terrify nor amend.'

IDYLLIUM

THE THIRD.

Page 15, line 19.

-Through its fern and ivy creep.

The ancient shepherds had a notion that the smell of fern was offensive to serpents: hence they made themselves beds of this weed, for their greater security. Neither snakes nor adders, however, have at present any antipathy to fern; since they have been often observed lying in the midst of it. P. 16, l. 7.

Sweet smiling nymph, whose ebon eye-brows own.

The fair-ones in Theocritus are often characterized by the sable eye-brow, as the most distinguishing feature of female beauty. Fawkes hath translated xvavo@gu black-eyed.

P. 16, l. 15.

This wreath of ivy pale, and parsley wove.

Floribus atque apio crines ornatus amaro.

The ancients attributed to ivy and parsley the virtue of dissipating the fumes of wine.

P. 16, I. 19.

Where, yonder, Olpis, on the rocky steep,

His tunnies marks, reflected from the deep.

In order to catch tunnies, (which were very frequent on the coasts of Sicily) the fishermen were used to place a sort of specule on the highest rocks that projected over the sea, whence they might observe them in the water. Strabo calls it Ovyνοσκοπεια. And Oppian gives us a very parti cular description of it.

See Wart. Theocr. vol. 2. p. 48.

For the history of Tunnies, see Pliny and Ælian. Var. Hist. B. ix. c. 42. and B. xiii. c. 16. Of the Tunny-fishery Mr. Swinburne gives the following description:

The nets are spread over a large space of sea, by means of cables fastened to anchors, and are divided into several compartments. The entrance is always directed, according to the season, towards that part of the sea, from which the fish are known to come. A man, placed upon the summit of a rock high above the water, gives the signal of the fish being arrived; for he can discern from that elevation what passes under the waters, infinitely better than any person nearer the surface. As soon as notice is given that the shoal of fish hath penetrated as far as the inner compartment, or the chamber of death, the passage is drawn close, and the slaughter begins."

Lycidas, in the first eclogue of Sannazarius, appears to have been fishing for tunnies.

Mirabar vicina, Mycon, per littora, nuper,

Dum vagor, expectoque leves per pabula thynnos

The above descriptive passage of our poet, Virgil hath thus imitated:

Præceps aerii speculû de montis, in undas
Deferar.

This (among many other instances of Virgil's copies) is very inferior to its archetype. It is general, indeterminate imagery. Our Sicilian, like a true original as he is, always presents us with real places and customs. The translator here takes an opportunity of remarking, that he hath seldom noticed the Virgilian copies from Theocritus, merely with a view of pointing out the imitation. Every school-boy, in his perusal of our author, recalls those imitative passages to memory. Mr. Martyn might have spared himself the pains of collecting them; and Mr. Fawkes, of transcribing the collection.

This species of divination was called KooxOμαντεία.

Mr. Douglas, in his 'Nenia Britannica,' mentions a perforated spoon, ornamented with garnets, which was found in one of the tumuli.

This perforated spoon appears to have been a magical implement, and to have answered the use seof the sieve and sheers, described in the third Idyllium of Theocritus. It was suspended by a string, pwhich perforated the hole at the handle.

Subsequent discoveries in these kind of tumuli will show the sheers, another specimen of the sieve of a different form, and various other implements