The fam'd Theorian veffel, that defies The pow'r of time, for ages ftill the fame. THEE, ever honour'd ifle, what veffel dares Sail by regardless? 'twere in vain to plead 430 Ver. 433. Thee, &c.] Here we have a remarkable inftance of the veneration paid to Delos, which was univerfal, and of which Eneas Speaks Huc feror: hæc feffos tuto placidiffima portu Accipit: egreffi veneramur Apollinis urbem. EN. iii. 78. See too Cicero's Oration pro Lege Manilia. Nos quoque, &c But the ceremony, which Callimachus fpeaks of, is very peculiar: the fcholiaft fays, "That it was a custom in Delos to run round the altar of Apollo, and to ftrike it with a whip, TURTHI μzçıyı, and with their hands or arms bound behind them, to bite the olive." The first part of the ceremony is plain enough, and easy to be understood by referring to the hymn to Apollo,note II. and I think the second particular is of the fame nature with what we read in 1 Kings xviii. of the priests of Baal, who leapt upon the altar they had made (which the LXX render dergixov, run round, the exact import of our author's phrafe :) and they cried aloud, and cut themselves, after their manner, with knives and lancers, till the blood gushed out upon them. The conteft here was, whether Baal, the light, or the operation of the air could confume the facrifice or not; fo that the idol worshipped was plainly the fame with Apollo or the Sun, See note 408. The running round the altar imported the motion and action of the folar light; the ftriking with a whip the altar, or cutting themselves with knives, (a more cruel custom) mean while praying to their God, which they did (and they cried aloud and cut themfelves, &c.) was a fymbolical action, denoting their defire, that he would by the action of his rays, frike, pervade, and cut (as it were) or fhew forth his power upon all nature in general, and that facrifice in particular now before him and to this, as was obferved, hymn to Apollo, note 34 and 142. refers the Exclamation Strong Io Paan: Theocritus fpeaks of the like cuftom, which was used by the Arcadians, to their God Pan, who was the univerfal nature, and to be ftruck, pervaded, and cut by these lashes or darts of the Sun : Κην μιν ταυθ' ερδοις, ωπαν φιλε, μη το τι παίδες Αρκαδικοι σκιλλαισιν υπο πλευρας τε και ωμες Τανικα μαςισδοιεν οτε κρέα τυτθα wagain, &c. See Idyllium 7. ver. 106. In the account of the Dodonean kettles there is mention of a whip of brass, which I fuppofe refers to the fame: and in the Orphic hymns, we read, in the hymn to the Sun, - ὦ ελασιππε, ΜΑΣΤΙΓΙ συν λιγυρῃ τετραόρον αρμα διωκών, Oh charioteer With founding WHIP driving thy fplendid car Drawn by four horfes. which feems fully to confirm what has been advanced above: and having thus furrounded the altar of Apollo, and by this fymbolical action declared their belief in his univerfal power, they were to bend their own arms behind them, and fo to take the facred olive in their mouths; thereby declaring, that not from their own arm or power, which was bound, but from his, whofe altar they furrounded, they expected to attain and lay hold of that peace, whereof the olive was always a fymbol, fee Gen. viii. 11. and which, though peculiarly the gift of the true light, St. John xv. 27. was yet by the heathens fuppofed the gift of their material light: the arm is known always to denote power, as fcripture and profane writers fully prove, thus it appears, the heathens by this ceremony expreffed their belief of obtaining peace and worldly fecurity, by his power, who pervad th all things, and not by any arm or frength of theirs. There are fome plain allufions, to this R 2 abomi Strong driving gales, or, ftronger ftill than they, Swift-wing'd neceffity: their swelling fails Till round thy altar, ftruck with many a blow, The maze they tread, and, backward bent their arms, The facred olive bite: for fuch the sports, 435 To please thy infant fancy, and divert 440. With youthful mirth, the Delian nymph devis’d. HAIL Vefta of the ifles, the middle place For abomination, in the S.S. particularly in the lated the laft line of the hymn agreeable to the prophet Micah, who fays, Thus faith the Lord opinion of Spanheim and many other learned concerning the prophets, that make my people commentators, who can never think that the err: that bite with their TEETH, and cry poet would addrefs Diana (for fome have PEACE. chap. iii. 5. and in Zechariah we read, applied the words to her) after the clofe of And a baftard fhall dwell in ASHDOD (the a hymn, where fhe has been fcarcely mentioned. beloved fire) and I will cut off the pride of the The learned and attentive reader cannot but have Philifiines and I will take away his blood out obferved, that this hymn, facred to the birth of of his mouth, and his ABOMINATIONS from the God of light, refers immediately to the fift between his TEETH. chap. ix. 6, 7. Atdod production of things; and though there are fome here is remarkable, 178, for, from WN, ftrange fables intermixed, yet we must look afb, or vy, oh, the folar fire, and, to daw upon it in this light, if we would in any degree ut, comes Delos; as will appear more fully comprehend the author's defign; and this I fughereafter and in the fourth verfe of the fame gefted in a general note 81. Since the printing chapter of Zechariah, it is said, she shall be cat of which, a work of fingular learning hath up,, comedetur, in fire ; from which fallen into my hands called Originals by the reword we must remember comes Eria, Vefta, verend Mr. Holloway, in the 34th page of whofe mentioned in the next note: who obtained the 2d volume, where he is confidering the word middle place, as there obferved from this folar, Lôt, Myrrh, I was greatly pleafed to read. ASH or orb, which fhe represented, From the Hebrew, Lôt, or, laat, to the mother of Apollo and Diana; that is, of the lie lid, the heathens derived their Antw, Latona, light in its mixed or confufed flate, before the fourth day of creation, when it was fet up in the orbs of the Sun, Moon and Stars: and this Lot, myrrh, was facred for the ufe of a fumigation to the idol Lat:na; doubtless from fome imagined refemblance betwixt the lurking virtue of the gum, and that concealed flate of the Goddefs, before fhe was delivered of the Sun and Moon and what might that be, but that, as the virtue of the gum is brought to light out of its For thou obtain'ft well-station'd; DELOS hail, its folution by water, fo the Sun and Moon were born of Latona, or fetched out of their diffufion through the watery chaos, in which they had before lain hid, &c." See the whole curious chapter. May not this concealment, &c. remarked by Mr. Holloway tend to explain what Juno fays of Latona's fecret coition with Jupiter, and fecret bringing forth γαμεοισθε ΛΑΘΡΙΑ και TIXTOITE KEKPYMMENA, ver. 321? And in this folution of the matter there is nothing new, as the learned reader is well informed: Phurnutus hints the fame: E or (namely Jupiter) un Amoλ λων και Αρτεμις εγενήθησαν δια της Λητές: Λητω γαρ την ΝΥΚΤΑ ονομάζεσι κατα μεταθεσεν τε δασεως θ εις το χίλον αυτό τ Ληθη τις εσα, chap. 2. where obferve, he gives the fame derivation of Latona as was given note 81. and refers to the original chaotic night and darkness (for fo he must be understood) whence fprung the Sun and Moon. And Macrobius, Sat. lib. 1. p. 240. fays directly the fame; I fhall only give his explication of the fable: "Quod ita intelligendum naturalis ratio demonftrat namque poft Chaos ubi primum capit confufa deformitas in rerum formas & elementa nitefcere, terraque adhuc humida fubftan tia molli atque inftabili fede mutaret convalefcente paulatim atherio calore, atque inde feminibus in eam igneis defluentibus hæc fidera edita effe creduntur: & Solem quidem maxima vi Caloris in Superna raptum, Lunam vero hum diore & velut famineo fexu naturali quodam pressam tepore inferiora tenuiffe: tanquam ille magis fubftantia PATRIS conftaret, HEC MATRIS. Siquidem Latonam phyfici volunt terram videre: cui diu intervenit Juno, ne numi a, que diximus, ederen ur: hoc eft, aer, qui tunc humidus adhuc gravifque obftabat ætheri, ne fulgor luminum per humofi aeris denfitatem,tanquam e cujufdam partus progrefione, fulgeret." Whence we fee that Macrobius explains the fable alfo in reference to the beginning of things: when the earth, in its first fluid, formless, and moift ftate-humida adhuc fubflantia, as he calls it, was impregnated by the therial heat, or Jupiter, and fo, thro' the refiftance and chftruction of the dense, thick, and dark air brought forth with much flruggling, the Sun and Moon. Nothing will better explain this than the first chapter of Genefis. It may be worth while to remark in confirmation of what is faid with regard to Juno, or the air's refiflance and conflict with Latona, against whom her ha Hail tred was principally on account of Apollo, or the light, according to the Fable, (See ver. 67. of this hymn) that DP, the word ufed for the heavens, clouds, or skies, properly fignifies the strugglers, or the two great agents air and light in conftant conflict and struggle together. I now proceed according to my promife, note 392. to give you an extract from the Mythological notes of Turner, whose book was printed in 1687, is very rare to be met with, and a work of great erudition; it is dedicated to the lord high chancellor Jeffreys, and was defigned by the author as an introduction to a larger work, which whether he ever printed or not, I am unacquainted: he produces the fcholiaft tranflated in my note, and makes these remarks upon him, page 69. "In these words are several things very remarkable: first, if we admit a very fmall anachronism in the Greek ftory, then it is true of Noah, what Thrafybulus in this relation afcribes to Deucalion-parteveto ev tn Aqui, that he preached or prophefied, by or under an oak or tree, not after the flood, as this story would have it, but before it, for fo St. Peter exprefly calls him a preacher of righteousness. 2 Pet. ii. 5. and in the first epistle iii. 19. fpeaking of the spirit of Chrift, he fays, " By which fpirit also he went and preached unto the fpirits in prifon, which fometime were disobedient, when once the long-fuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, when the ark was preparing.. which words are to be underflood of Noah's preaching by the fpirit of Chrift, to the fpirits in prison, that is, not which were fo then, but were fo for their difobedience when this epistle was written, and long before it, and continue fo ftill, &c.-Not that the prophetic fpirit of Noah is to be confined to the times before the flood-for in Genefis ix. 24. we find him prophesying upon Cham's difrefpectful treatment of him: fo that this is agreeable to the account of Deucalion given by Thrafybulus. Secondly, It is not faid in general of Deucalion, that he was a prophet, but that he did partsusodas en App, prophefy by, or under fome oak or tall fpreading tree-for the text tells us, that this happened while Noah was in his tent, Gen. ix, 20. Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine and was drunken, and he was uncovered within his tent. But what is fill more to the purpose, it is Hail PHOEBUS! and thou, Mother of the God. is faid of Abraham, Gen. xiii. 18, that he removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre (which is properly the oaks of Mamre, as appears from the original Hebrew and the LXX. The Hebrew Elon, an oak, is from El Deus, as much as to fay the tree of God, as Alah which is rendred by execratus eft, juravit, adjuravit, is from the fame root, &c. Hence the oak amongst the Greeks and Romans was arbor Jovi facra, dedicated and devoted to God, &c.-See the author. Thirdly, it is to be observed, that Thrafybulus also takes notice of the dove or pigeon, which was fo remarkable a circumftance in the hiftory of the flood. Nouh fent out his dove, Gen. viii. 7, &c. and her information well explains the oracle of the dove, Xpnjμer uns anhelados, which inftructed Deucalion. Fourthly, It is to be obferved, that Deucalion called this place where he and the reft came out of the ark, Dodona, which the fcholiaft informs us was fo named απο Διος και Δωδώνης - from Jupiter and Dodona: but why from Jupiter, I pray? Here we fee a manifeft inftance of the ignorance of the Greeks and their corrupting the traditions of the eaft, for want of understanding the language in which they were delivered: for it is true, as the Greeks did ftill retain a fmattering of the business, that Dodona was fo called απο το Διος, not from the word but the perfon fo called, who is in Hebrew called Adonai, and by the Carthaginians or Phoenicians, Donai, and the name refers to God's promife to Noah of not curfing the ground again, Gen. ix. 21. and is plainly as much as Doddonai, beloved of God, and that place, above all others, might well deferve fo to be called, in which God accepted fo graciously the first facrifice after the flood, and was reconciled to mankind upon it. Fifthly, As an indication that Dodona was, sx Aos, as I have explained, and that it was not a Greek but an exotic and eastern name, I obferve, that the fcholiaft faith of the nymph Dodona, that he was μsa Twy Sixɛavidwy, one of the Sea-nymphs or daughters of the Ocean, the meaning of which is, that the name travelled by fea into Greece, as all things that came that way, before navigation was known, were faid to be born of the fea, &c. Sixthly, Though Apus fignifies fometimes any tree, yet here the Apus of Deucalion, or Awdwrns, is the Hebrew Alah or Elon, the tree of God, or the oak under which the moft antient of the patriarchs were used to pitch their tents, &c.— The author mentions two more particulars of refemblance in Deucalion and Noah, the one the excellency of their characters-for the fcripture faith of Noah, that he was a just man and perfect, &c. and Ovid of Deucalion, Non illo melior quifquam, nec amantior æqui Vir fuit, aut illâ reverentior ulla Deorum. The moft UPRIGHT of mortal men was he: The most fincere and holy woman she; i. e. The fecond is, that the floods that happened in Pyrrha his wife. ticular judgments, for the fins and enormities of their times are faid to have been fent as parThe wickedness of man is very great, I will dethe age which fuffered by them. God faid,troy him, Gen. vi. 5. and Ovid of Deucalion's times, Contigerat noftras infamia temporis aures, The clamours of this vile degenerate age, Thus I have given you a fhort extract of what End of the Hymn to DELOS. The Bath for mighty PALLAS: hafte, come forth, The Goddess is at hand: hafte Argive nymphs, *Bath of Pallas.] The fubject of the present poem is a very celebrated ceremony, which was performed annually at Argos. "The Argive women, fays the fcholiaft, had a custom of taking on an appointed day the image of Minerva and of Diomede, which they brought to the river Inachus, and there wafbed." And this was Crown'd always performed before day-break: whence Ανωθεν δ' αμμες νιν αμα δρόσω αθρόαι εξω, &c. The Palladium dowires (which fell from heaven) have |