The beatification of HYLAS is well described in the Argonautics of Orpheus. (1. 641.) What ideas ORPHEUS had conceived of a happy immortality, may be seen in his very beautiful portrait of the Macrobii, all fmiling ferenity and peace, and mutually reflecting felicity on each other, amidst their ambrofial feasts. (1. 1110.) IDYLLIUM the FOURTEENTH. IN this Idyllium we find nothing paftoral; not even a trace of the ruftic life. "Tis all in the ftrain of comic humour, and feftivity. Neither the perfons, nor subjects, nor conversation, have any thing bucolic in them. WARTON. Certainly nothing bucolic was ever intended. No one will doubt Mr. WARTON's affertion, whofe head is free from conjectural perplexity. LINE 9. A beggar from Athens, in leanness your brother. Thus ARISTOPHANES (Nub. 103) ridicules the difciples of SOCRATES: Do you fay, that they were palefaced and bare< foot?' THEOCRITUS hath more than once feized an opportunity of afperfing the manners of the Athenians, who, indeed, by no means correfponded with the people of Sicily, in respect to national habits or character. Their drefs was fordid, and their manner of living abftemious, compared with Sicilian luxuries. WARTON. LINE 23. While fragrant and brifk was the juice of the grape. Tho' four years old, yet fragrant as from the wine-prefs.' LINE 26. And now with our toafts the full bumpers were crown'd. REISKE has published a facetious epigram, by POSIDIPPUS, that will illuftrate the custom of toast-drinking among the ancients. See Comment. ad Antholog. REISKE, p. 246. Ναννες και Λύδης επιχει δύο, καὶ φερ', εκας8, Μιμνέρμο, και το σώφρονος Αντιμαχε. Ηλιόδως, είπας osις ερων ετυχεν. έκας, Τον δ' ενατον Μέσων, Μνημοσυνης δεκατον. Navia fex cyathis; septem Justina, &c. is known to every school-boy. LINE 44. ερωτες my fears? And mischief!' (said I) was I right in Αλλος τοι γλυκίων ΥΠΟΚΟΛΠΙΟΣ• αλλον ιοισα The literati are not unacquainted with the circumstances attending Mr. ToUPE's note on the word uxoλios. The offence it gave to a learned dignitary of the church was surely not without reafon; if any regard to decency or decorum be thought neceffary in a critical annotator. The sheet where the obnoxious note appeared, was cancelled; though a few copies of WARTON'S THEOCRITUS were in circulation, before the Bishop of Oxford had an opportunity of interpofing. If the tranflator have been rightly informed, Mr. WARTON alledged in his vindication, that the note in queftion had entirely escaped him,' which (as he was the publisher of TOUPE's communications) hath been thought a very unfatisfactory excufe. The tranflator is of a different opinion. opinion. A fingle note might have been eafily overlooked, amidst a vast variety of voluminous annotation; especially as Mr. WARTON had no fufpicion of any thing improper in his friend's criticisms. The fubftance of the cancelled sheet was republished in TOUPE'S Cura Pofteriores five Appendicula Notarum utque • Emendationum in Theocritum.' In the preface to this publication TOUPE obferves: Quod vero fcripfimus ad XIV. 37. de verbo Yonoλmios, verum eft et honeftum. Sed rem pro fingulari fuâ fagacitate minus ceperunt nonnulli OxONIENSES; qui et me fugillare haud erubuerunt, homunculi eruditione mediocri, ingenio nullo; qui in Hebraicis per omnem fere vitam turpiter volutati, in literis elegantioribus plane hofpites funt. Sed de hoc viderit Academia. Nos uberius infra et in fuo loco. Let us turn to the note, page 24th.—At the conclufion of it, we meet with the fame contemptuous language: • Idem autem υποκολπιος et εν τω κόλπω. Quomodo locutus eft D. JOANNES XIII. 23. Ην δε ανακειμενος εις των μαθητων αυτε ΕΝ ΤΩ ΚΟΛΠΩ, &c. In gremio vocat JUVENAL, II. 120. ingens Cana fedet, GREMIO jacuit nova nupta mariti. Quod perinde eft. Sed de toto hoc commercio, quod antiquiffimum eft, et neutiquam indecorum, confulendus omnino vir illuftriffimus et cui fexcenti Hebræculi non funt pares, eruditiffimus Potterus in Archæol. Græc. Lib. IV. cap. 20. Quod in primis notabit homo male fedulus, et qui nec me nec mea fatis intellexit. Sed parco homini, qui nemini pepercit. In apology for TOUPE's offenfive commentaries (for he frequently indulged his vitiated imagination in a difplay even of the groffeft obfcenities) it hath been intimated, that he was not writing ad populum-that he was employing a language underflood (comparatively speaking) but by a few; and that those few were not in danger of corruption. But let it be confidered, that he was addreffing himself to the guardians of morality and religion religion-to the most eminent characters in the church-to the higheft of the epifcopal order. In confequence of one of his dedications to the Archbishop of Canterbury, it was fhrewdly faid, that he had hung up the enfigns of PRIAPUS in the chapel at Lambeth.' An epigram on this idea (of which Dr. Lowтн is the reputed author) hath been for fome time circulated in MS. among the literati. The tranflator may, perhaps, gratify fome of his readers, by the insertion of it in this place. Ανάθημα. Λείψανα και κακα λυμαθ, άπαν ξύπον, ευτελές έργον, Ευρώτα, φαλλόντε, καὶ ιμερόεντα κιναιδων Ασματα, και μέσης παιγνία (ωταδίκης, Τουπιος αισχρολογος θήκατο γραμματικων. For complete information in refpect to the public exhibition of the Eupura paλλovre in the facrifices to PRIAPUS, fee MONFAUCON's Antiquities. In his Notes on LONGINUS' (as well as THEOCRITUS, SUIDAS, &c.) Mr. TOUPE hath discovered the fame prurient fancy-the fame indecency of allufion. See page 287, where he quotes what he calls an elegant paffage from the Satyricon of PETRONIUS, full of libidinous description-and then places by the fide of it (in pursuance of his illustration) a verse from St. John's Gospel. LINE 45. A curfe on thy tears! By μaha REISKE understands valdè—abundè—not poma, as it is commonly tranflated. LINE 48. She gather'd her vest in a knot. -Nodoque finus collecta fluentes. VIRGIL. Both Both APOLLONIUS and VIRGIL have happily imitated the fimile of the fwallows, which we meet with in the next line. LINE 59. Regardless of me, a poor fhade, or the gulf The tranflator hath here introduced an idea not in the original; omitting at the fame time, the Aesavo Meyapnes. Such liberties are, in his opinion, admiflible in a poetical tranflation, provided they occur but rarely; and that, without destroying any characteristic beauty. IDYLLIUM the FIFTEENTH. EISKE very juftly obferves, that, in regard to sweetness pleasantry, few of the Idyllia can be compared with the Syracufian Goffips. And the poet (he adds) hath reprefented, in the most lively manner, the garrulity, levity, trifling, malignity-but we must not translate all. LINE 4.. But, EUNÖE, fee for a chair and a cushion. See for a chair, EUNOE'-fays TOUPE-quod amicitiæ et obfervantiæ fignum. And get a cushion too,' quod mollitiei et elegantia muliebris eft.' |