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Cannot, in all his course, behold
FROM THE HIGH PRIEST OF APOLLO, TO

Such eyes of fire, such hair of gold!
A VIRGIN OF DELPHI.'

Tell her, he comes, in blissful pride,

His lip yet sparkling with the tide,
Cum digno digna.-Sulpicia.

That mantles in Olympian bowls,

The nectar of eternal souls ! “Who is the maid, with golden hair,

For her, for her he quits the skies, With eyes of fire and feet of air,

And to her kiss from nectar flies. Whose harp around my altar swells

Oh! he would hide his wreath of rays, The sweetest of a thousand shells ?"

And leave the world to pine for days, 'Twas thus the deity, who treads

Might he but pass the hours of shade, The arch of heaven, and grandly sheds

Imbosom’d by his Delphic maidDay from his eye-lids !-thus he spoke,

She, more than earthly woman blest, As through my cell his glories broke.

He, more than god on woman's breast !" “Who is the maid, with golden hair,

There is a cave beneath the steep,' With eyes of fire and feet of air,

Where living rills of crystal weep Whose harp around my altar swells,

O’er herbage of the loveliest hue The sweetest of a thousand shells ?"

That ever spring begem'd with dew :

There oft the green bank's glossy tint Aphelia is the Delphic fair,2

Is brighten'd by the amorous print With eyes of fire and golden hair,

Of many a faun and naiad's form, Aphelia's are the airy feet,

That still upon the dew is warm, And hers the harp divinely sweet;

When virgins come, at peep of day, For foot so light has never trod

To kiss the sod where lovers lay! The laureld caverns of the god,

“ There, there,” the god, impassion'd, said, Nor harp so soft has ever given

“Soon as the twilight tinge is fled, A strain to earth or sigh to heaven:

And the dim orb of lunar souls2 “Then tell the virgin to unfold,

Along its shadowy path-way rollsIn looser pomp, her locks of gold,

There shall we find our bridal bed,

And ne'er did rosy rapture spread,
And bid those eyes with fonder fire
Be kindled for a god's desire;-

Not even in Jove, voluptuous bowers,

A bridal bed so blest as ours !"
Since He, who lights the path of years-
Even from the fount of morning's tears,

“Tell the imperial God, who reigns, To where his sitting splendours burn

Sublime in oriental fanes, Upon the western sea-maid's urn

Whose towering turrets paint their pride

Upon Euphrates' pregnant tide;3 1 This poem requires a little explanation. It is well Tell him, when to his midnight loves known that, in the ancient temples, whenever a reverend priest, like the supposed author of the invitation before us,

In mystic majesty he moves, was inspired with a tender inclination towards any fair visitor of the shrine, and, at the same time, felt a diffidence 1 The Corycian Cave, which Pausanias mentions. The in his own powers of persuasion, he had but to proclaim inhabitants of Parnassus held it sacred to the Corycian that the God himself was enamoured of her, and had signi- nymphs, who were children of the river Plistus. fied his divine will that she should sleep in the interior of 2 See a preceding note, page 119. It should seem that the temple. Many a pious husband connived at this divine lunar spirits were of a purer order than spirits in general, as assignation, and even declared himself proud of the selec- Pythagoras was said by his followers to have descended from tion, with which his family had been distinguished by the the regions of the moon. The heresiarch Manes too imadeity. In the temple of Jupiter Belus, there was a splendid gined that the sun and moon are the residence of Christ, bed for these occasions. In Egyptian Thebes the same and that the ascension was nothing more than his flight to mockery was practised, and at the oracle of Patara in Ly- those orbs. cia, the priestess never could prophesy till an interview with 3 The temple of Jupiter Belus at Babylon, which conthe deity was allowed her. The story which we read in sisted of several chapels and towers. " In the last tower Josephus (Lib. xviii. cap. 3.) of the Roman matron Paulina, (says Herodotus) is a large chapel, in which there lies a bed, whom the priests of Isis, for a bribe, betrayed in this manner very splendidly ornamented, and beside it a table of gold; to Mundus, is a singular instance of the impudent excess to but there is no statue in the place. No man is allowed to which credulity suffered these impostures to be carried. sleep here, but the apartment is appropriated to a female, This story has been put into the form of a little novel, under whom, if we believe the Chaldean priests, the deity selects the name of "La Pudicitia Schernita,” by the licentious from the women of the country, as his favourite."-Lib. i. and unfortunate Pallavicino. See his Opere Scelte, tom. i. cap.

181. I have made my priest here prefer a cave to the temple. The poem now before the reader, and a few more in the

2 In the 9th Pythic of Pindar, where Apollo, in the same present collection, are taken from a work, which I rather manner, requires of Chiron some information respecting the prematurely announced to the public, and which, perhaps very fair Cyrene, the Centaur, in obeying, very gravely apolo-luckily for myself, was interrupted by my voyage to Amerigizes for telling the god what his omniscience must know so ca. The following fragments from the same work describe perfectly already:

the effect of one of these invitations of Apollo upon the Ει δε γε κρη και παρ σοφον αντιφεριξαι

mind of a young enthusiastic girl:Egswo

Delphi heard her shrine proclaim, 3 Αλλ' εις δαφνωδη γυαλα βησομαι ταδε. Εuripid. In oracles, the guilty flame. Ion. v. 76.

Apollo lov'd my youthful charms, 4 Ne deve partorir ammiratione ch' egli si pregiasse di Apollo woo'd me to his arms !-haver una Deità concorrente nel possesso della moglie; Sure, sure when man so oft allows mentre, anche, nei nostri secoli, non ostante così rigorose Religion's wreath to blind his brows, egge d'onore, trovasi chi s'ascrive à gloria il veder la mo- Weak wondering woman must believe, glie honorata da gl'amplessi di un Principe.--Pallavicino.

Where pride and zeal at once deceive,

Lighted by many an odorous fire,

In every kiss shall stamp on thee And hymn'd by all Chaldea's choir

A seal of immortality! Oh! tell the godhead to confess,

Fly to the cave, Aphelia, fly; The pompous joy delights him less,

There lose the world, and wed the sky! (Even though his mighty arms enfold

There all the boundless rapture steal
A priestess on a couch of gold)

Which gods can give, or woman feel !
Than, when in love's unholier prank,
By moonlight cave or rustic bank,
Upon his neck some wood-nymph lies,

WOMAN.
Exhaling from her lips and eyes
The flame and incense of delight,

Away, away-you're all the same,
To sanctify a dearer rite,

A fluttering, smiling, jilting throng! A mystery, more divinely warm'd

Oh! by my soul, I burn with shame, Than priesthood ever yet perform’d!”

To think I've been your slave so long ! Happy the maid, whom Heaven allows

Slow to be warm’d, and quick to rove, To break for Heaven her virgin vows!

From folly kind, from cunning loath, Happy the maid !-her robe of shame

Too cold for bliss, too weak for love, Is whiten’d by a heavenly flame,

Yet feigning all that 's best in both. Whose glory, with a lingering trace,

Still panting o'er a crowd to reign, Shines through and deifies her race!

More joy it gives to woman's breast Oh, virgin! what a doom is thine!

To make ten frigid coxcombs vain,
To-night, to-night a lip divine?

Than one true, manly lover blest !
When flattery takes a holy vest,

Away, away-your smile 's a curse-
Oh! 'tis too much for woman's breast !

Oh! blot me from the race of men,

Kind pitying Heaven ! by death or worse,
How often ere the destin'd time,
Which was to seal my joys sublime,

Before I love such things again!
How often did I trembling run
To meet, at morn, the mounting sun,
And, while his fervid beam he threw
Upon my lips' luxuriant dew,

BALLAD STANZAS.
I thought-alas! the simple dream-
There burn'd a kiss in every beam;

I KNEW by the smoke that so gracefully curl'd
With parted lips inhal'd their heat,
And sigh’d, “oh god! thy kiss is sweet!"

Above the green elms, that a cottage was near,

And I said, “ if there's peace to be found in the world,
Oft too, at day's meridian hour,

A heart that was humble might hope for it here!"
When to the naiad's gleamy bower
Our virgins steal, and, blushing, hide
Their beauties in the folding tide,

It was noon, and on flowers that languish'd around
If, through the grove, whose modest arms

In silence repos’d the voluptuous bee;
Were spread around my robeless charms, Every leaf was at rest, and I heard not a sound
A wandering sunbeam wanton fell
Where lover's looks alone should dwell,

But the wood-pecker tapping the hollow beech-tree.
Not all a lover's looks of flame
Could kindle such an amorous shame.

And“ Here in this lone little wood,” I exclaim'd,
It was the sun's admiring glance,

“ With a maid who was lovely to soul and to eye, And, as I felt its glow advance

Who would blush when I prais'd her, and weep if I
O'er my young beauties, wildly flush'd
I burn'd and panted, thrill'd and blush'd!

blam’d,

How blest could I live, and how calm could I die! No deity at midnight came

“ By the shade of yon sumach, whose red berry dips The lamps, that witness'd all my shame, Reveal'd to these bewilder'd eyes

In the gush of the fountain, how sweet to recline,
No other shape than earth supplies ;

And to know that I sigh'd upon innocent lips,
No solar light, no nectar'd air,

Which had never been sigh'd on by any but mine!"
All, all, alas! was human there :
Woman's faint conflict, virtue's fall,
And passion's victory-human all!
How gently must the guilt of love

TO
Be charm'd away by Powers above,
When men possess such tender skill
In softening crime and sweetening ill!

ΝΟΣΕΙ ΤΑ ΦΙΛΤΑΤΑ. Euripides.
'Twas but a night, and morning's rays
Saw
me,
with fond forgiving gaze,

1803.
Hang o'er the quiet slumbering breast
Of him who ruin'd all my rest;

COME, take the harp—'tis vain to muse
Him, who had taught these eyes to weep

Upon the gathering ills we see;
Their first sad tears, and yet could sleep!

Oh! take the harp, and let me lose 1 Fontenelle, in his playful rifacimento of the learned

All thoughts of ill in hearing thee! materials of Van-Dale, has related in his own inimitable manner an adventure of this kind, which was detected and of the Isle Jonquille, assert this privilege of spiritual beings exposed at Alexandria. See l'Historie des Oracles, se- in a manner very formidable to the husbands of the island, conde dissertat. chap. vii. Crebillon, too, in one of his most He says, however, “Les maris ont le plaisir de rester tou

" amusing little stories, has made the Génie Mange-Taupes, I jours dans le doute; en pareil cas, c'est une ressource."

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

Sing to me, love!-though death were near, Thy song could make my soul forgetNay, nay, in pity dry that tear,

All may be well, be happy yet!

Let me but see that snowy arm

Once more upon the dear harp lie, And I will cease to dream of harm,

Will smile at fate, while thou art nigh! Give me that strain of mournful touch,

We us'd to love long, long ago, Before our hearts had known as much As now, alas! they bleed to know!

Sweet notes! they tell of former peace,
Of all that look'd so rapturous then:
Now wither'd, lost-oh! pray thee, cease,
I cannot bear those sounds again!

Art thou too, wretched? yes, thou art;
I see thy tears flow fast with mine-
Come, come to this devoted heart,
"Tis breaking, but it still is thine!

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As oft the spirit of the good man hears,
Prelusive to the harmony of heaven,
When death is nigh!2 and still, as he unclos'd
His sacred lips, an odour, all as bland
As ocean-breezes gather from the flowers
That blossom in elysium,3 breath'd around!
With silent awe we listen'd, while he told
Of the dark veil, which many an age had hung
O'er Nature's form, till by the touch of Time
The mystic shroud grew thin and luminous,
And half the goddess beam'd in glimpses through it!
Of magic wonders, that were known and taught
By him (or Cham or Zoroaster nam'd)

1 In Plutarch's Essay on the Decline of the Oracles, Cleombrotus, one of the interlocutors, describes an extraordinary man whom he had met with, after long research, upon the banks of the Red Sea. Once in every year this supernatural personage appeared to mortals, and conversed with them; the rest of his time he passed among the Genii and the Nymphs. Περί την ερυθρών θαλασσαν ευρόν, αν θρώποις ανα παν ετος απαξ εντυγχάνοντα, ταλλα δε συν ταις νυμφαις, νομασι και δαίμοσι, ως εφασκε. He spoke in a tone not far removed from singing, and whenever he opened his lips, a fragrance filled the place: yoμevou δε τον τόπον ευωδια κατείχε, του στόματος ήδιστον αποπνεOVTOS. From him Cleombrotus learned the doctrine of a plurality of worlds.

2 The celebrated Janus Dousa, a little before his death, imagined that he heard a strain of music in the air. See the poem of Heinsius "in harmoniam quam paulo ante obitum audire sibi visus est Dousa." Page 501.

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Who mus'd amid the mighty cataclysm,
O'er his rude tablets of primeval lore,'
Nor let the living star of science2 sink
Beneath the waters which ingulf'd the world!—
Of visions, by Calliope reveal'd

To him,3 who trac'd upon his typic lyre
The diapason of man's mingled frame,
And the grand Doric heptachord of Heaven!
With all of pure, of wondrous and arcane,
Which the grave sons of Mochus, many a night,
Told to the young and bright-hair'd visitant
Of Carmel's sacred mount !4-Then, in a flow

1 Cham, the son of Noah, is supposed to have taken with him into the ark the principal doctrines of magical, or rather of natural, science, which he had inscribed upon some very durable substances, in order that they might resist the ravages of the deluge, and transmit the secrets of antediluvian knowledge to his posterity.-See the extracts made by Bayle, in his article Cham. The identity of Cham and Zoroaster depends upon the authority of Berosus, or the impostor Annius, and a few more such respectable testimonies. See Naude's Apologie pour les Grands Hommes, etc. Chap. 8, where he takes more trouble than is necessary in refuting this gratuitous supposition.

2 Chamum à posteris hujus artis admiratoribus Zoroastrum, seu vivumi astrum, propterea fuisse dictum et pro Deo habitum.-Bochart. Geograph. Sacr. lib. iv. cap. i.

3 Orpheus.-Paulinus, in his Hebdomades, Cap. ii. Lib. iii. has endeavoured to show, after the Platonists, that man is a diapason, made up of a diatesseron, which is his soul, and a diapente, which is his body. Those frequent allusions to music, by which the ancient philosophers illustrated their sublime theories, must have tended very much to elevate the character of the art, and to enrich it with associations of the grandest and most interesting nature. See a preceding note, page 107, for their ideas upon the harmony of the spheres. Heraclitus compared the mixture of good and evil in this world to the blended varieties of harmony in a musical instrument: (Plutarch de Anima Procreat.) and

Euryphamus the Pythagorean, in a fragment preserved by Stobæus, describes human life, in its perfection, as a sweet and well-tuned lyre. Some of the ancients were so fanciful as to suppose that the operations of the memory were regulated by a kind of musical cadence, and that ideas occurred to it "per arsin et thesin ;" while others converted the whole man into a mere harmonized machine, whose motion depended upon a certain tension of the body, analogous to that of the strings in an instrument. Cicero indeed ridicules Aristoxenus for this fancy, and says, "let him teach singing, and leave philosophy to Aristotle;' but Aristotle himself, though decidedly opposed to the harmonic speculations of the Pythagoreans and Platonists, could sometimes condescend to enliven his doctrines by reference to the beauties of musical science; as, in the treatise Iep xoμov, attributed to him, Καθαπερ δε εν χορώ, κορυφαίου κατάρξαντος. . . .

The Abbé Batteux, upon the doctrine of the Stoics, attributes to those philosophers the same mode of illustration. "L'ame était cause active, ELY TIOs, le corps cause passive de Tou σx. L'une agissant dans l'autre; et y prenant, par son action même, un caractère, des formes, des modifications, qu'elle n'avait pas par elle-même: à peu près comme l'air, qui, chassé dans un instrument de musique, fait connaitre par les differens sons qu'il produit, les differentes modifications qu'il y reçoit." See a fine simile of this kind in Cardinal Polignac's Poem, Lib. 5. v. 734.

4 Pythagoras is represented in Jamblichus as descending with great solemnity from Mount Carmel, for which reason the Carmelites have claimed him as one of their fraternity. This Mochus or Moschus, with the descendants of whom Pythagoras conversed in Phoenicia, and from whom he derived the doctrines of atomic philosophy, is supposed by some to be the same with Moses. Huett has adopted this idea, Démonstration évangélique, Prop: iv. chap. 2. §7; and Le Clerc, amongst others, has refuted it. See Biblioth. choisie, tom. i. p. 75.-It is certain, however, that the doctrine of atoms was known and promulgated long before Epicurus. "With the fountains of Democritus," says Cicero, "the gardens of Epicurus were watered;" and indeed the learned author of the Intellectual System has shown, that all the early philosophers, till the time of Plato, were atomists. We find Epicurus, however, boasting that his tenets were new and unborrowed, and perhaps few among the

Of calmer converse, he beguil'd us on
Through many a maze of garden and of porch,

Through many a system, where the scatter'd light
Of heavenly truth lay, like a broken beam

ancients had a stronger claim to originality; for, in truth, very flattering analogy, that the Deity is as incapable of vir if we examine their schools of philosophy, notwithstanding tue as of'vice: Kzo yao wote Oudev Ingrou soti xaxoc, oud' the peculiarities which seem to distinguish them from each agern, OUTWş ouds Seou.- Ethic. Nicomach. lib. vii. cap. 1. other, we nay generally observe that the difference is but In truih, Aristotle, upon the subject of Providence, was little verbal and tritling, and that, among those various and learn more correct than Epicurus. He supposed the moon to be the ed heresies, there is scarcely one to be selected, whose opi- limitof divine interference, excluding of course this sublunary nions are its own, original, and exclusive. The doctrine of world from its influence. The first definition of the world, the world's eteruity may be traced through all the sects. in his treatise Ilsçı xoo hou, (if this eatise be really the The continual metem psychosis of Pythagoras, the grand work of Aristotle,) agrees, almost verbum verbo, with that periodic year of the Stics, (al the conclusion of which the in the letter of Epicurus to Pythocles; they both omit the universe is supposed to return to its original order, and mention of a deity; and, in his Ethics, he iniimates a doubt commence a new revolution,) the successive dissolution and whether the gods feel any interest in the concerns of mancombination of atoms maintained by the Epicureans, all kind. Ει γαρ τις επιμέλεια των ανθρωπινων υπο θεων these tenets are but different intimations of the same gene-7'VET. It is true, he adds, '.20788 doxes, but even this is ral belief in the eternity of the world. As St. Austin ex- very sceptica). plains the periodic year of the Stoics, it disagrees only so far In these erroneous conceptions of Aristotle, we trace the with the idea of the Pythagoreans, that instead of an endless cause of that general neglect, which his philosophy expetransmission of the soul through a variety of bodies, it re- rienced among the early Christians. Plato is seldom much stores the same body and soul to repeat their former round more orthodox; but the obscure enthusiasm of bis style alof existence, and "that identical Plato, who lectured in the lowed them to interpret all his tancies to their purpose; such Academy of Athens, shall again and again, at certain inter- glowing steel was easily moulded, and Platonism became a vals during the lapse of eternity, appear in the same academy sword in the hands of the fathers. and resume the same functions".... sic eadem tempora The Providence of the Stoics, so vaunted in their school, temporaliumque rerum volumina repeti, ut v.g. sicut in isto was a power as contemptibly inefficient as the rest. Ali sæculo Plato philosophus in urbe Atheniensi, in ea schola was fate in the system of the Portico. The chains of destiny quæ Academia dicta est, discipulos docuit, ita per innume- were thrown over Jupiter himself, and their deity was like rabilia retro sæcula, multum plexis quidem intervallis, sed Borgia, et Cæsar et nibil. Not even the language of Seneca certis, et idem Plato, et eadem civitas, eademque schola, can reconcile this degradation of divinity: * Ille ipse omniiidemque discipuli repetiti et per innumerabilia deinde sæcula um conditor ac rector scripsit quidam fata, sed sequitur; repetendi sint-de Civitat. Dei. lib. xii. cap. 13. Vanini, semper paret, semel jussit.” Lib. de Providentid, Cap. 5. in his dialogues, has given us a similar explication of the With respect to the difference between the Stoics, Peripaperiodic revolutions of the world. "Ea de causa, qui nunc tetics, and Academicians, the following words of Cicero, sunt in usu ritus, centies millies fuerunt, totiesque renascen-prove that he saw but little to distinguish them from each tur quoties ceciderunt.”—52.

other: “Peripateticos et Academicos, nominibus differentes, The paradoxical notions of the Stoics, upon the beauty, re congruentes; a quibus Stoici ipsi verbis magis quam the riches, the dominion of their imaginary sage, are among sententiis dissenserunt.” Academic. lib. ii. 5., and perhaps the most distinguishing characteristics of the school, and, what Reid has remarked upon one of their points of controaccording to their advocate Lipsius, were peculiar to that versy might be applied as effectually to the reconcilement sect. "Priora illa (decreta) que passim in philosophantium of all the rest: "The dispute between the Stoics and scholis fere obtinent, ista quæ peculiaria huic seciæ et ha- Peripatetics was probably all for want of definition. The bent contradictionem: i e. paradoxa.”—Manuduct ad one said they were good under the control of reason, the Stoic. Philos. lib. iii. dissertat. 2. But it is evident (as other that they should be eradicated.” Essays, vol. iii. the Abbé Garnier has remarked, Mémoires de l'Acad. tom. In short, from the little which I know upon the subject, it 35.) that even these absurdities of the stoics are borrowed, appears to me as difficult to establish the boundaries of and that Plato is the source of all their extravagant para- opinion between any two of the philosophical sects, as it doxes. We find their dogma, "dives qui sapiens," (which would be to fix the land-marks of those estates in the moon, Clement of Alexandria has transferred from the Philosopher which Ricciolus so generously allotted to his brother asto the Christian, Pædagog. lib.iii. cap. 6.) expressed in the tronomers. Accordingly we observe some of the greatest prayer of Socrates at the end of the Phædius.$.ie II«v men of antiquity passing without scruple from school to τε και αλλοι οσοι τη δε θεοι, δοιητε μοι καλω γενεσθαι ταν- school, according to the fancy or convenience of the modo sv• TEJEV de 004 EX*, TOIS EVTOS E VCE MOQiiomoment. Cicero, the father of Roman philosophy, is some#astron de vono coopeo TOV Oopov. And many other instances times an Academician, sometimes a Stoic; and, more than might be adduced from the Artspxotxo, the lonotoxos, etc. once, he acknowledges a conformity with Epicurus: "non to prove that these weeds of paradox, were gathered among sine causa igitur, Epicurus ausus est dicere semper in pluthe bowers of the Academy. Hence it is that Cicero, in the ribus bonis esse sapientem, quia semper sit in voluptatibus.” preface to his Paradoxes, calls them Socratica; and Lipsius, Tusculan. Quæst. lib. v.-Though often pure in bis theoexulting in the patronage of Socrates, says, “Ille totus esi logy, he sometimes smiles at futurity as a fiction; thus, in noster." This is indeed a coalition which evinces as much his Oration for CI entius, speaking of punishments in ih as can be wished the confused similitude of ancient philo- life to come, he says, " Quæ si falsa sunt, id quod omnes sophical opinions: the father of scepticism is here enrolled intelligunt, quid ei tandem aliud mors eripuit, præter sensum amongst the founders of the Portico; he, whose best know- doloris ?" though here perhaps we should do him justice by ledge was that of his own ignorance, is called in to authorize agreeing with his commentator Sylvius, who remarks upon the pretensions of the most obstinate dogmatists in all an- this passage, “ Hæc autem dixit, ut causæ suæ subserviret." tiquity.

Horace roves like a butterfly through the schools, and now Rutilius, in his Itinerarium, has ridiculed the sabbath of wings along the walls of the Porch, and now basks among the Jews, as “lassati mollis imago Dei;" but Epicurus gave the Howers of the Garden ; while Virgil, with a tone of mind an eternal holiday to his gods, and, rather than disturb the strongly philosophical, bas left us uncertain of the sect Blumbers of Olympus, denied at once the interference of a which he espoused; the balance of opinion declares him an Providence. He does not, however, seem to have been sin- Epicurean, but the ancient author of his life asserts that he gular in this opinion. Theophilus of Antioch, if he deserve was an Academician, and we trace through bis poetry the any credit, in a letter to Autolycus, lib. iii. imputes a simi- tenets of almost all the leading sects. The same kind of lar belief to Pythagoras. φησί (Πυθαγορας) τε των παντων | electric indiference is observable in most of the Roman 9885cv Sewa wv podsv o porto (Evv; and Plutarch, though so writers. Thus Propertius, in the fine elegy of Cynthia, on hostile to the followers of Epicurus, has unaccountably his departure for Athens, adopted the very same theological error; having quoted the

Illic vel studiis animum emendare Platonis, cpinions of Anaxagoras and Plato upon divinity, he adds, Κοινως 8ν αμαρτανσιν αμφοτεροι, οτι τον θεον εποιησαν

Incipiam, aut hortis, docte Epicure, tuis.

Lib. iii. Eleg. 21. επιστεφομενον των ανθρωπινων. De Placit. Philosoph, lib. i. cap. 7.-Plato himself has attributed a degree of in- Though Broukhusius here reads, " dux Epicure," which difference to the gods, which is not far removed from the seems to fix the poet under the banners of Epicurus. Even apathy of Epicurus's heaven; as thus, in his Philebus, where the Stoic Seneca, whose doctrines have been considered so Protarchus asks, OuxBv eixos 78 878 %eo psov 9885, 8T8 TO orthodox, that St. Jerome has ranked him amongst the svartiov; and Socrates answers, II a vu rev ovv Evxor, 60%"- ecclesiastical writers, and Boccaccio, in his commentary teor your «UT.WV SX TEQOuglyvousvov EOTIV: while Aristotle upon Dante, has doubted, (in consideration of the philososupposes a still more absurd neutrality, and concludes, by nol pher's supposed correspondence with St. Paul,) whether

From the pure sun, which, though refracted all

TO
Into a thousand hues, is sunshine still,'
And bright through every change!-he spoke of Him,

The world had just begun to steal
The lone,” eternal One who dwells above,

Each hope that led me lightly on, And of the soul's untraceable descent

I felt not, as I us'd to feel, From that high fount of spirit, through the grades

And life grew dark and love was gone! Of intellectual being, till it mix

No eye to mingle sorrow's tear, With atoms vague, corruptible, and dark ;

No lip to mingle pleasure's breath, Nor even then, though sunk in earthly dross,

No tongue to call me kind and dear-Corrupted all, nor its ethereal touch

'Twas gloomy, and I wish'd for death!
Quite lost, but tasting of the fountain still!
As some bright river, which has roll'd along

But when I saw that gentle eye,
Through meads of flowery light and mines of gold, Oh! something seem’d to tell me then,
When pour'd at length into the dusky deep,

That I was yet too young to die,
Disdains to mingle with its briny taint,

And hope and bliss might bloom again! But keeps awhile the pure and golden tinge,

With every beamy smile, that cross'd The balmy freshness of the fields it left !3

Your kindling cheek, you lighted home And here the old man ceased—a winged train Some feeling which my heart had lost, Of nymphs and genii led him from our eyes.

And peace, which long had learn'd to roam The fair illusion tied; and, as I wak'd,

'Twas then indeed so sweet to live, I knew my visionary soul had been

Hope look'd so new, and love so kind, Among that people of aerial dreams

That, though I weep, I still forgive

I Who live upon the burning galaxy !

The ruin, which they've left behind! Dante should have placed him in Limbo with the rest of the I could have lov'd you—oh so well ;Pagans--the rigid Seneca has bestowed such commenda

The dream, that wishing boyhood knows, tions on Epicurus, that if only those passages of his works were preserved to us, we could not, I think, hesitate in pro

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Is but a bright beguiling spell, nouncing him an Epicurean. In the same manner we find Which only lives, while passion glows : Porphyry, in his work upon abstinence, referring to Epicurus as an example of the most strict Pythagorean temperance; But when this early flush declines, and Lancelotti, the author of Farfalloni degli antichi When the heart's vivid morning fleets, Istorici, has been seduced by this grave reputation of Epicurus into the absurd error of associating him with Chrysip

You know not then how close it twines pus, as a chief of the Stoic school. There is no doubt, Round the first kindred soul it meets indeed, that however the Epicurean sect might have relaxed from its original purity, the morals of its founder were as Yes, yes, I could have lov'd, as one correct as those of any among the ancient philosophers; and

Who, while his youth's enchantments fall, his doctrines upon pleasure, as explained in the letter to Menaceus, are rational, amiable, and consistent with our Finds something dear to rest upon, nature. M. de Sablons, in his Grands hommes vengés ex- Which pays him for the loss of all ! presses strong indignation against the Encyclopédistes for their just and animated praises of Epicurus, and discussing the question, "si ce philosophe était vertueux,” he denies it upon no other authority than the calumnies collected by Plutarch, who himself confesses that, on this particular subject, he consulted only opinion and report, without pausing

DREAMS. to investigate their truth. Αλλα την δοξανη ου την αλεθηκαν OXO TOUJyv. To the factious zeal of his illiberal rivals the

TO Stoics, Epicurus owed these gross misrepresentations of the In slumber, I prithee how is it life and opinions of himself and bis associates, which, notwithstanding the learned exertions of Gassendi, have still That souls are oft taking the air, left an odium on the name of his philosophy; and we ought And paying each other a visit, to examine the ancient accounts of Epicurus with the same

While bodies are—Heaven knows where? degree of cautious belief which, in reading ecclesiastical history, we yield to the declamations of the fathers against Last night, 'tis in vain to deny it, the heretics; trusting as little to Plutarch upon a dogma of this philosopher, as we would to St. Cyril upon a tenet of

Your soul took a fancy to roam, Nestorius. (1801.)

For I heard her, on tiptoe so quiet, The preceding remarks, I wish the reader to observe,

Come ask, whether mine was at home. were written at a time when I thought the studies to which they refer much more important and much more amusing And mine let her in with delight, than, I freely confess, they appear to me at present.

1 Lactantius asserts that all the truths of Christianity may And they talk'd and they kiss'd the time through; be found dispersed through the ancient philosophical

sects, For, when souls come together at night, and that any one who would collect these scattered fragments of orthodoxy, might form a code in no respect differ

There is no knowing what they may’nt do! ing from that of the Christian. “Si extitisset aliquis, qui And your little soul, Heaven bless her! veritatem sparsam per singulos per sectasque diffusam colligeret in unum, ac redigeret in corpus, is profecto non Had much to complain and to say, dissentiret a nobis."-Inst. lib. vi. c. 7.

Of how sadly you wrong and oppress her 2 TO MOVOV X6 Epirov. 3 This fine Platonic image I have taken from a passage

By keeping her prison'd all day. in Father Bouchet's letter upon the Metempsychosis, inserted in Picart's Cérém. Relig. tom. iv.

“ If I happen," said she," but to steal 4 According to Pythagoras, "the people of Dreams are souls collected together in the Galaxy. Anxos d's ove opww, Or to quiet the fever I feel,

For a peep now and then to her eye, κατα Πυθαγοραν, αι ψυχαι ας συναγεσθαι φησιν εις την gadagrav.- Porphyr. de Antro Nymph.

Just venture abroad on a sigh;

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