of Europa should, at first, have precluded utterance and, when she began to speak, she ought to have spoken in terms of extreme agitation and distress. She seems, however, quite at her ease-at leisure for similies and conjectures; and, in the midst of her pretty sailing expedition, indulges her more excursive fancy with the prospect of an aërial route. Claudian's Proserpine, on her way to the infernal regions, begins her speech, somewhat to the purpose. Her oration, however, is much too long; and, at its close, degenerates into bombastic description. P. 166, I. 27. Courage, dear nymph-- Pluto's consolatory address to Proserpine, in Claudian, (see 2d book) is one of the finest passages in all his works. See 'Poems by Gentlemen of Devonshire and Cornwall,' where is a translation of Claudian's Rape of Proserpine. Vol. ii. p. 115. IDYLLIUM THE THIRD. Page 168, line 7. Ye flowers, breathe sickly sweets o'er Bion's grave! THE distress of a modern Greek lady, on the death of her brother, is finely represented in M. Guy's entertaining Memoirs. Her expressions of sorrow are in the same romantic strain with the elegy before us but they affect us with all the force of genuine pathos. The reason is-the Greek lady's elegy contains particular allusions. The flowers, &c. which she invokes (in fact every thing around her) have an obvious reference to the person she laments. The garden of the deceased is thus described: The sea was seen from this garden, which was ornamented by beautiful flowers, fruit-trees, and an area full of birds. There was likewise a reservoir of water recruited by the sea, in which all sorts of fish were kept. This garden, these birds and fish, were the amusement of the sage, who had been just torn from his sister and friends. "Where is my brother?" (said this depairing sister, as her eyes wandered over the garden) "He is gone-has passed away like a shadow. Ye flowers which he cultivated with so much pleasure; ye have already lost the freshness his hand bestowed! perish with him! droop and wither, even to the root!-Ye fish, since ye have no longer a master nor a friend, to watch over your preservation, return ye to the great waters! return and seek uncertain life! And ye little birds, if ye may survive your grief, accompany my sighs with your plaintive songs! thou peaceful ocean, whose surface begins to be disturbed, art thou also sensible to my sorrows?" Then turning towards her slaves, she said: "Weep, my children, weep! ye have lost one who was kinder than a father to you! my brother is no more! these haunts, which his presence rendered so delightful, must now become the residence of gloom and affliction !" P. 168, 1. 9. Expand, pale hyacinth, thy letter'd leaf. Ovid's fable of Hyacinthus is well known. ja j Flos habet inscriptum, &c. &c. The hyacinth bewrays the doleful Ai, Still on its bloom the mournful flower retains P. 169, I. 27, Lusiad. b. ix. Not with such grief the dolphin fill'd the seas. It is among the stories of ancient naturalists, as well as poets, that the dolphin is delighted with music. The fiction was not only admitted into poetry, but natural history. Pliny hath recorded several examples of the dolphin's musical ear, and benevolent feelings: see book ix. c. 8. Elian hath given us, in his lively manner, many little detached histories of the dolphin. He relates in his 12th book, c. 45, the well-known story of Arion. In respect to this passage, Schottus assures us, that he saw a similar instance of fishes being allured by music. Quod oculis meis spectavi. In the Electra' of Sophocles, dolphins are described as gamboling round the Grecian ships. The passage in our anthor alludes (according to Longepierre) to the story of Hesiod, which is recorded in Plutarch. We are there informed, that a gang of assassins, having dispatched the poet, threw his body into the sea, which was received by a shoal of dolphins, and, on the festival of Neptune, conveyed by them to the shore, near the city of Molicria. Hence the murderers were discovered, and brought to condign punishment. P. 169, l. 31. Or faithful Cerylus—— The Cerylus was a very extraordinary bird of antiquity-much celebrated for conjugal affection. It is said, that when he grew old and feeble, his spouse was accustomed to carry him about on her wings; and that on the death of either, the survivor was observed to hover over the spot where the dead bird lay, uttering the most miserable cries. HESKIN. P. 170, l. 1. Or Memnon's screaming birds For an account of these birds, see Pliny, b. x. c. 36, and Ovid, Metam. b. xiii. fab. 3. Terque rogum lustrant, et consonus cxit in auras LONGEPIERRE. The introduction of the feathered race, mourning the death of Bion, reminds the translator of a very singular idea in one of the Gothic poets. His blood-thirsty hero, who had been a liberal benefactor to the birds of prey, was fallen in the field of battle-and for him' (cries the poet)— Mourned all the hawks of heaven. P. 170, l. 19. And Galatea too bewails thy fate The poet here alludes, perhaps, to Bion's Idyll on Galatea; of which we have only a small frag ment. LONGEPIERRE. The discerning reader will see frequent allusions in this Idyllium to that of Bion, on the death of Adonis. P. 171, l. 1. -Meles, musical in woe. Meles, a river of Ionia, washes the walls of Smyrna, where Bion was born. Here also was supposed to have been the birth-place of Homer. P. 171, 1. 25. --and every swain, &c. &c. This and the five following lines are a translation VOL. II. |