For neither were ye playing on the steep,
Where your old bards, the famous druids, lie;
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,

Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizzard stream.”

By this group of poetical and romantic images Milton has furpaffed the author whom he imitated.

The apoftrophe to the winds in the opening of Darthula, bears fuch a remarkable refemblance to these addreffes that it is impoffible not to impute it to imitation: "But the "winds deceive thee, O'Darthula! and deny the woody Etha to thy fails. These are not thy mountains, Nathos;, nor is that the roar of thy climbing wave. Where have ye been, ye fouthern winds, when the fons of my love, "were deceived? But ye have been sporting on plains, and pursuing the thistle's beard. O that ye had been ruftling "in the fails of Nathos till the hills of Etha rofe; till they' "rofe in the clouds and faw their coming chief!"

The talents of Theocritus for rural defcription have been much admired; the following from his Seventh Idyllium, the "Harvest Feaft," is well tranflated.

Ifung, and (as, prefenting me his crook,
He fmil'd)-the hofpitable token took!
Then, parting to the left, for Pyxa's towers
He turn'd, while we to Phrafidamus' bowers
Slop'd o'er the right-hand path our speedy way,
And hair'd the pleasures of the feftal day!
There, in kind courtesy, our hoft had spread
Of vine and lentifk, the refreshing bed!
Their breezy coolness elms and poplars gave,
And rills their murmur, from the naids cave!
Cicadas now retiring from the fun,

Amid the fhady fhrubs, their fong begun.
From the thick copfe we heard, far off and lone,
The mellow'd fhrillness of the woodlark's tone!
Warbled the linnet and the finch more near,
And the foft-fighing turtle footh'd the ear!
The yellow bees humm'd fweetly in the fhade,
And round the fountain's flowery margin play'd.
All fummer's redolence effus'd delight!
All autumn, in luxuriant fruitage bright-
The pear's, the thick-ftrown apple's vermeil glow,
And bending plums, that kifs'd the turf below!
Our wines four years had mellow'd in the cafk;
And could Alcides boaft fo rich a flafk,
(Say, nymphs of Caftaly) when Chiron gave
The generous juice in Pholus' ftony cave?
Or did fuch nectar, at Anapus ftream,
Roufe to the dance the cyclops Polypheme

(Who

(Who hurls the mountain rocks across the brine)
As, nymphs, ye mix'd, at Ceres' glowing fhrine.
Oh! may I fix the purging fan again

(Delightful task!) amid her heaps of grain;
And, in each hand, the laughing goddess hold
The poppy's vivid red-the ears of gold!"

This forms a picturesque description; but these lines,

All fummer's redolence effus'd delight!
All autumn, in luxuriant fruitage bright,

though they may be admired by ordinary readers, are unfit for paftoral. That fpecies of poetry avoids abstract ideas, The fhepherd has not learned to generalize; all his conceptions are particular. In Virgil's defcription of fpring, nunc omnes parturit arbor, is natural and picturesque; but when he adds nunc formofiffimus annus, it is the poet, not the fhepherd, that fpeaks.

The Fifteenth Idyllium, or, "The Syracufian Goffips," "Cynifca's Love," and other Idyllia, where low humour is described, feem to mark a fpecies of compofition, fingular and unique, which hitherto has never been underflood or explained by the learned. The nature of it is a kind of Dutch painting, and confifts merely in throwing the manners and language of low life into verfe, like the petition of Frances Harris in Swift, and fome of his other performances. This furnishes a key to the humorous, or rather burlefque, Idyllia of Theocritus.

The fong of the Greek girl, introduced into it, forms the contraft with the vulgarity of the preceding converfation. Its fubject, the ftory of Venus and Adonis, was the favourite of the Grecian mufe, and has paffed into the poetry of modern times. As it is one of the moft finished and elegant pieces of Theocritus, and tranflated with fpirit, we shall tranfcribe it for the fatisfaction of the reader.

Sweet-fmiling arbitress of love,
Queen of the foft Idalian grove;
Whom Golgos and the Erycian height,
And thy fair fanes of gold delight!
How lov'd the down-thod Horæ led
Thy own Adonis from the dead;
To all thy ardent wishes dear,
Reftor'd to blefs the clofing year!
Still, tho' they move on lagging wing,
Some balm of life the Horæ bring!

Hail! daughter of Dione, hail!
Whose power from dark Avernus' vale

Caught

Caught Berenice to the bleft,

And with ambrofia fill'd her breast!
For thee, bright goddess of the skies,
To whom a thoufand temples rife,
The child of Berenice comes
Arfinoe! (Helen-like the blooms)
With Nature's luxuries to adorn
Thy lov'd Adonis' feftal morn!
Lo! fruits whate'er creation yields!
Lo! the ripe produce of the fields
And gardens, mingling many a dye,
In filver baskets round him lie!
See, richly cas'd in glowing gold,
Yon' box of alabafter hold

The fweets of Syrian groves; and flor'd
With honey'd cakes the lufcious board!
Observe, whatever skims the air,
Or lives on earth, affembled there!
And green fhades, arch'd with anife, rise,
Where many a little Cupid flies,

Like the young nightingales that love,
New-fledg'd, to flutter thro' the grove-
Now perching, now with fhort effay
Borne on weak wing from fpray to spray!
Of gold-of ebon, what a ftore!
And fee two ivory eagles foar,
Swift carrying to the feats above
The blooming cupbearer of Jove!
• Behold that tapestry diffufe
The richness of the Tyrian hues!
Ev'n they who tend Milefian fheep
Would own 'tis fofter far than fleep!

Amid this bed's relieving fhade,
Mark rofy-arm'd Adonis laid!
And on that couch furvey the bride,
Rejoicing in the vernal pride

Of him, whose smooth and ruby kifs
Is bath'd in quinteffence of blifs!
Now let her joy-But ere the morn
Shall dry the dews that gem the thorn,
His image to the fhore we'll bear,
With robes unzon'd, and flowing hair-
With bofoms open'd to the day;
And warble thus the choral lay:

As Theocritus lived at the court of Ptolemy, he was acquainted with the mythology of the Egyptians, part of which is conveyed in this beautiful ode. The anniversary of the death of Adonis was obferved among the Greeks, Syrians, and all the nations who borrowed their religious rites from the Egyptians. The mystery of these lamentations may be thus explained: Adonis, in the Egyptian mythology, was the fun. The upper hemifphere of the earth was anciently called Venus; the under, Proferpine: when the fun, therefore, was in the fix inferior figns, they said he was with Proferpine; when in the fix fuperior, with Venus. By the boar that flew Adonis, they understood winter, not unaptly reprefented by fo fierce an animal. Hence Theocritus, in the ode, reprefents him not only as dying, but as returning to life*.

The Idyllia of Bion and Mofchus are more cafily tranflated than thofe of Theocritus. The following tranflation of a much-admired paffage from the epitaph of Bion is elegant and affecting.

Begin the plaintive ftrain, Sicilian mufe!
O'er Nature's fcene the softest fighs diffuse!
Tho' fades crifp anise, and the parsley's green,
And vivid mallows from the garden scene,
Ah! ah! the breath of Spring their life renews,
And bids them flourish in their former hues!

But we, the great,

the valiant, and the wife,

When once the feal of death hath clos'd our eyes,

Loft in the hollow tomb obfcure and deep,

Slumber, to 'wake no more, one long unbroken fleep!

Thou too, while many a fcrannel reed I hear

Grating eternal harshness on my ear

Thou too, thy charm of melting mufic o'er,

Shut in the filent earth, fhalt rife no more!

* Vide Jablonski, Theatr. Egyptiac.; and Savary's Letters on Egypt, Vol. II.

· Begin

Begin the plaintive ftrain, Sicilian mufe!
O'er Nature's fcene the fofteft fighs diffuse!
'Twas poifon gave thee to the grasp of death-
Ah! could not poison sweeten at thy breath?
Who for thofe lips of melody could dare

The venom'd chalice (murd'rous wretch !) prepare?
The second line in the burden of the fong,

O'er Nature's fcene the fofteft fighs diffufe,

is affected, and the exclamation, Ah! ah! improperly ins troduced; but the plaintive spirit of the original is well preferved.

The differtations and notes fubjoined to these translations contain just criticisms and ufeful learning. Our author's opinion, that Theocritus borrowed fome of his fineft images from the Song of Solomon, the Pfalms of David, and the Prophecies of Ifaiah, is too ridiculous to need refutation; as well as his fuppofition that the fuperftition of the English vulgar, who believe that when a horfe ftands ftill unexpectedly he has feen an apparition, is derived from the story of Balaam's afs. Thefe are tales for the nursery.

Upon the whole, this is the beft tranflation of Theocritus hitherto extant. There is an eafe, a fluency, and a harmony, in the verfification; but, like his model Langhorne, the author courts the ear and the fancy too much, and fometimes neglects the nobler appeal to the understanding and the heart.

ART. VI. Thoughts on the Mechanifm of Societies. By the Marquis de Cafaux, F. R. S. Tranflated from the French (under the Inspection of the Author) by Parkyns Mac Mahon. 8vo. 6s. boards. Robinfons. London, 1786.

OF

Fall fciences, that of political economy is perhaps the moft complicated, and demands not only rigorous inquiry, but an extensive fund of obfervation. The Marquis de Cafaux appears to have mistaken both his own genius and the nature of the subject when he hazarded the publication of his ideas on this arduous province of refearch. He is a writer of a lively imagination, brilliant in his thoughts, fuperficial in remark, and impatient to draw conclufions from too flight an attention to facts and circumftances. In confequence of this difpofition he is betrayed into an eccentricity of conduct, and fubftitutes the moft vifionary notions in the room of reality. That he might illuftrate his conceptions