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The bard is yet, and still shall be unborn: Who can a Jove with worthy ftrains adorn ?

"That Callimachus probably wrote and, as in the preceding verfe. The particle x is certainly improperly joined with an indicative mood; and therefore I fhould chose either aidos or asion. But BIO (which fome one perhaps may be for reading) I entirely difapprove." Whether you read τις κεν αείσει, τις κεν αεισῃ, Οι τις κεν αεισοι, you read a folecifm. The first expreffion the learned commentator obferves is faulty, on account of x being joined with an indicative mood. But not accurately enough; for the fault dos not lie in that it is joined with an indicative mood, but that it is joined with a future indicative; fince the paft tenfes of that mood, as well imperfect as perfect, as also both aorifts often have that particle joined with them. That the fecond expreffion is abfolutely contrary to the genius of the Greek language-nos primi monemus. The third Stephens entirely difapproves, but is filent, for what reafons. We muft obferve (what, indeed, feems to have mifled many very learned men) that verbs of that form (of which is a) are never used in an optative fenfe, or joined with the particle x or av; but used in the paft tenfes in a future fignification. Ariftophanes.

Εγω γαρ ως μειραικιον ΗΠΕΙΛΗΣ στι
Εις τες Δικαίες και σοφες και κοσμιες
Μονας Βαιδοίμην.

And again,

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† ΑΚΗΚΟΕΙΣ γαρ ΩΣΑΘΗ ναίοι ποτε ΔΙΚΑΣΟΙΕΝ επι ταις οικίαισι τας δίκας Καντοις προθύροις ανοικοδομήσει [1. ΑΝΟΙΚΟΔΟ

ΜΗΣΟΣ] πας ανηρία

Hail,

like it can fcarce be found. They muft neceffarily fill it up thus: "Non fuit quifquam qui celebrare potuiffet, non erit qui celebrare poterit." We are not fo difficult, as to condemn this: Permit it then: But fince by this, a moft full anfwer is given to the queftion-reα d'efface τις κεν αείδος - tua vero opera quifnam celebret? Who can endure a repetition of the fame queftion immediately after it has been answered? for my part I never met with any thing so jejune, abfurd and idle. That of Ovid concerning Callimachus every one knows.

Battiades toto femper cantabitur orbe

Quamvis ingenio non valet, arte valet. What induced Ovid to write this, I leave to the difcretion of others. But be that as it will, one thing I know, that Callimachus never would have wrote this paffage, if he had not wanted art as well as genius. Lucretius has a paffage much of the same kind.

Quis potis eft dictum pollenti pectore carmen Condere pro rerum majeftate, hifque repertis ? Quis ve valet verbis tantum, qui fundere laudes Pro meritis ejus poffit, qui talia nobis Pectore parta fuo, quæfitaq; præmia liquit ? Nemo ut opinor erit mortali corpore cretus. This indeed is elliptical, but nothing like Callimachus. If you fill up this- Nemo erit, qui dignum carmen condere poffit, &c. you fufficiently anfwer the questions found in the foregoing lines: But if immediately after the 6th you was to repeat the 5th foregoing, I need not fay how abfurd and ridiculous you would render the paffage. But this very abfurdity, except that the words repeated are fewer, is the very fame in ftore fo embaraffed and incurable a paffage.' Callimachus." Will you then attempt to reYes-and that I think may be done without .

And now having established, as the very learned
perfon conjectured, the and in the place of the
other, let us confider the fentence. In the La-
tin tranflations we find it thus. Tua vero opera
quis celebret? Non fuit: non erit: quis Jovis
opera celebret? Where first, that expreffion non
fuit: non erit, is fo elliptical, that an example
+ L. 908.

*Plut. L. 88.

great difficulty. Thus I would understand it.

D 2

Τεα δ' εργματα τις κεν αιδοι

Οι γενετ', εδ' εςαι τις, οκεν Διος εργματ' καδος.

Vefp. 796.

Tua

Hail, father! tho' above all praises, hear;

Grant wealth and virtue to thy fervant's prayer:

150

Tua vero opera quis tandem celebraverit? non natus eft, non erit quifquam, qui Jovis opera celebrare poterit."I believe the criticism, severe as it feems, to an impartial enquirer, is almost its own answer. As to the ellipticalness of the expreffion, few in every part of study and of life, but meet with many of the fame kind. For how is it poffible for the author to have expreft himself otherwife? How jejune indeed would it have been had he faid, Who could fing thy praise, there never was a man who could, there never will be a man who can, &c. How much morę noble- Who can fing thy praise? The man is not born nor ever will, for what man can ever fing the praife of Jupiter? There I imagine the ftrefs and emphafis is to be layed on AIOE gara, which Mr. Dawes ΔΙΟΣ εργματα, feems not aware of, when he fays the very fame question is repeated. There is peculiar beauty in that noble repetition. For who can fing the praise of a Jupiter? and had the ingenious critic been much converfant in the works of antient and modern poets, he would have found emphatical repetitions of this kind extremely frequent. The poet in the first question is fpeaking to the God ria gyμara: raptured as it were, he elegantly and very properly burfts out into the great impoffibility of worthily praifing his fupreme. "There never was nor ever will be a man born fufficient to praife him;" for, recollecting and fpeaking to himself, perhaps, or elfe to the hearers he cries out, "How is it poffible they fhould? for, who can fing the praise of Jupiter, the great fon of Saturn, the fupreme and fovereign of all the Gods? whom he had juft honoured with the moft exalted epithet πανυπέρτατε exfuperanti fime.

Ver. 151. Virtue, wealth.] Callimachus here proves himself a very excellent moralift, and plainly hints at the principle of the Stoics, who maintained that virtue was avтapens, entirely fufficient to a happy life: He knew better, and found each one, virtue and riches, abfolutely neceffary for the obtaining true happiness. Virtue

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*Few can bear the whips and fcorns of time, Th' oppreffor's wrong, the proud man contumely,

The infolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes:Without finking beneath the burden; but if wealth and power is united with virtue, what a field is there to act in, to diffuse good and happiness to ourselves and all mankind? There never was a more wife petition from a heathen. Riches without virtue are a firebrand in the hand of a mad-man; given only, as a great writer expreffes himfelf," As a confpicuous proof and example of how small eftimation exorbitant wealth is in the fight of God, when he bestows it on the most worthlefs of mankind." The celebrated prayer of the wife Agur is nearly of the fame import with this of our poets : « Give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with food convenient for me; left I be full, and deny thee, and fay, who is the Lord? or, left I be poor and steal, and take the name of my God in vain." Proverbs xxx. 8. But in the 7th chapter of Ecclefiaftes, ver. 11. we have the immediate obfervation" Wisdom is good with an inheritance, and by it there is profit to them that fee the Sun. For wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence: but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it." The conclufion of this hymn is most noble; the elegance and fweetnefs of the poetry, joined with the intrinfic grandeur and beauty of the thought, prefent us with the most elevated ideas. I must obferve, Homer concludes two of his fhort hymns with the fame petition as our poet. That to Vulcan-with

Αλλ' ιλαθ' Ηφαισε, διδιαρετην τε καὶ ολβον,

• Hamlet.

That

Wealth without virtue but enhances fhame,

And virtue without wealth becomes a name:

Send wealth, fend virtue then: for join'd they prove

The blifs of mortals, and the gift of Jove.

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155

great and material ingredient, fince fame and
merit alone are not able to feed a man :

So prayfen babes the peacock's fpotted traine
And wondren at bright Argus blazing eye;
But who rewards him ere the more for thy?
Or feedes him once the fuller by a graine?
Sike praise is fmoke, that sheddeth in the skye,
Sike wordes beene winde and wasten soon in
vaine.

SPENSER'S Calendar, 10th ECLOGUE. They have, I fay, conceived his cafe fomething like this of poor complaining Spenser's, who felt too truly, what he hath fo beautifully expreft: but with regard to Callimachus it may be hard to fay any thing certain of this matter, as we are ignorant of his fituation with respect to his great benefactor at the time of writing this hymn; but fince it is most probable that he was then high in favour, and in the mufaum, he had certainly no occafion to hint any thing of this kind. Such far-fetched and over-ftrained conjectures should not be indulged, when the whole tenor of an author's thoughts feems too nobly elevated to be capable of mean infinuations like thefe.

End of the Hymn to JUPITER..

GENERAL REMARK.

Hymn to APOLLO.] "The task you injoined me (obferves an ingenious friend) of taking a closer and more accurate view of this hymn, has brought its own reward with it. I take it to be one of the most valuable remnants of antiquity; because it informs us, in fome measure, how general and deep an impreffion the tradition of a Redeemer had made on the minds of men. I think, we need not at all fcruple to fay, that in this poem we may fee fome of the great outlines of HIS character, though corrupted with foreign mixtures and attributed to a wrong object. But even these very mistakes, will not appear furprizing upon the then received principles of mankind, and may fo eafily be accounted for from Divine Revelation, as to serve in fomet degree to confirm the truth of it. When the heathens had once fallen into that grand apoftacy of fetting up the heavens for their God, and worshipping it as a felf-exiftent independent being, it is no wonder they attributed to their arch-idol, what was only due, and what was originally acknowledged to belong to the True God. Nay, I cannot think it at all wonderful, even upon a fuperficial view (and the more clearly we examine this matter, the more thoroughly, I am perfuaded, we shall be convinced) that they affigned diftinct offices to their trinity (fire, light and spirit) in the fame manner nearly as the true believers did to theirs (Father, Son and Holy Ghoft, of whom these material agents are the emblems or reprefentatives.) Of this numberless inftances might be given. But as the following hymn will fhew us, how they atttributed the fame offices to the material Sun, which were only due, and which throughout the Old Teftament are claimed for, or foretold of, the Sun of righteousness, that true light, which lighteth every man, that cometh into the world, I fhall at prefent confine myfelf to that; but here I must beg leave to remind you of an obfervation, which in this fort of enquiries ought never to ip out of our memories; namely, that before the revelation of literal writing, men had no other way of preferving the knowledge they had, and of conveying it to pofterity, fo certain and infallible, as taking fome animal or tree, that did, in fome refpect, refemble the material or fpiritual object they would defcribe; and making it the reprefentative or fymbol of that object; or, as it has fince been called, making fuch fymbol (whether tree or animal) facred to that object. And it requires no great fkill in antiquity to prove, that this method of communicating knowledge, efpecially in religious matters, was continued long after the use of letters was firft difcovered to mankind." The reader is defired to bear thefe remarks in mind, during the course of the notes on the following hymn.

T.
Jefferys saulp

THE

Second HY M N of CALLIMACHUS. HYMN

* To APOLLO.

EE, how the laurels hallow'd branches:

wave;

Hark, founds tumultuous shake the trembling

cave!

Far,

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Scarce had I faid, he fhook the holy ground,
The laurels and the lofty hills around:
And from the tripods rufh a bellowing
found.

Ver. 1. Laurels branches.] It was ufual not only to adorn every part of the temple of Apollo with laurel branches, the pofts of the doors, the innermost parts of the temple, the altar, tripods, &c. but the priesteffes themselves alfo delivered their oracles, holding laurel branches in their hands whence our poet fpeaks not of a tree (as Mr. Prior tranflates it) but of the branches daquivos ogπn) thus adorning the temple: And, It hath escaped the obfervation of no critic, how exactly Virgil hath herein imitated our author

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