"Take their advice-" and pointed to the throng

That urg'd the spinning top with smacking thong:
Attentive to their words the youth drew nigh

And oft, "Take one, one equal," heard them cry:
Whence warn'd he fled the loftier beauty's charms,
And took the equal maiden to his arms.

A choice like his in wisdom wou'd you make,

So you, my friend, to wife an equal take.

S

II.

A Y, honest Timon, now escap'd from light,

Which do you most abhor, or that or night ? “Man, I most hate these gloomy fhades below, "And that because in them are more of you."

HI.

From ev'ry ftroke flies humming o'er the ground,

And gains new fpirit as the blows

go round. PITT. Martial has an Epigram (lib. 8. 12.) to the fame purpose with our author:

You afk, why I refuse to wed,
Good friend, a very wealthy maid?
Because to my own wife, d'ye fee,
On no account I'd married be:
For fure, unless inferior is the fair,
The wife and husband never equal are.

Callimachus feems to advise rather more wifely than Martial: fince, why men fhould marry equally, is plain and reafonable enough; but why the wife fhould be inferior, is not eafy to determine. See the Chiliads of Erafmus, p. 1146.

III.

A

SHELL, bright VENUS, wonder of the sea,

Fair Selenæa dedicates to thee:

And the first tribute, which the maid cou'd give,
Me, little Nautilus, dread queen, receive :
Who o'er the waves, when blew propitious gales,
With my own cable ftretch'd my proper fails :
"My legs as oars extending on each fide,
“Hence call'd a Polyp in my pearly pride :"

Epigram III.] For the tranflation of this Epigram, and the remarks upon it, I am obliged to my worthy friend, that curious antiquary, Maurice Johnson, Efq; "Oppian's defcription of this fifh referred to by Mr. Pope in his Efay on Man,

(Learn of the little Nautilus to fail,

Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale)

may fomewhat illuftrate this Epigram.

Within a curious concave fhell conceal'd
There lies a fish, whose wond'rous form re-
veal'd,

The Polyp much resembleth; rightly he's
A failor call'd, by fuch as ufe the feas:
Refiding on the fand at bottom there,
Yet rifing fometimes to the open air:
Seeking the furface quick reverts his fhell,
Left wat'ry weight his energy repel;
But foon as, Amphitrite, he can gain
The wave fuperior in thy noify main,
Inftant he turns himfelf and fwims no more,
But feems as failing wafted tow'rds the fhore:
Stretches his limbs, like tackling fome applies,
With fome the stream like bufy oars he plies:

The

Expands his membranes as a gath'ring fail,
(So fpread our oars, and fo we catch the gale)
The Sun thro' thinner medium views more fair,
And for variety takes fresher air..

But if o'er head the hov'ring ofprey fly,
Or other danger threaten, e'er too nigh
The wary nautil ftrait with prudent speed,
Draws in his tackle, weightier d: ops fucceed,
And filling fave fecure the fubtile fish,
Him finking downward to his deep abyfs:
Hence were we told in hollow barks to fail,
And learn to fpread the oars, and catch the
gale."

Mr. Johnson refers to Dr. Grew, in his catalogue
of the Royal Society's Mufaum, and to Al-
drovandus, as moft full of any author, on this
moft curious article.

The fubject of this Epigram, we are to obferve, is the dedication of a Nautilus taken in the island Cos by Selenea, daughter of Clinias, a nobleman of Smyrna, to Venus Zephyritis, that is, Arfinoë, the mother of Berenice, who had divine honours paid to her, and was called Venus, Zephyritis, Cypris, &c. See Coma Berenices, and Encomium of Ptolemy.

Z 2

The cabinet of Arfinoë to adorn

I to the Coan coaft at length was borne.

No more for me to fkim the filent flood,
O'er thy calm offspring, gentle Halcyon, brood:
But be that grace for Clinias' daughter found;
;
The maid is worthy, and from Smyrna bound.

IV.

YOUTH, who thought his father's wife

Had loft her malice with her life,

Officious with a chaplet grac'd

The statue on her tomb-ftone plac'd :
When, fudden falling on his head,

With the dire blow it ftruck him dead :
Be warn'd from hence, each fofter-fon,

Your step-dame's fepulchre to fhun.

W

VI.

HAT mortal of the morrow can be fure,

So frail is man, and life fo infecure?
But yesterday we faw our living friend;
And on the morrow to the grave attend :
A heavier loss hath never parent known,

For never parent had a better fon.

VII.

OU'D God, no fhips had ever croft the sea,

WOU'D

Then, Sopolis, we had not wept for thee : Then no wild waves had tost thy breathless frame, Nor we on empty tombs engrav'd thy name.

VIII,

W

HOE'ER thou art, that to this tomb draw nigh,

Know, here interr'd the fon and fire I lie

Of a CALLIMACHUS : illuftrious name,

By each ennobled, and renown'd in fame :

The fire was glorious 'midst the warlike throng,
The fon fuperior to all envy fung:

Nor is it ftrange, for whom the Nine behold,

When young with favour, they regard when old.

IX.

H Sun, faid fam'd Cleombrotus, adieu,

And from the rock himself triumphant threw :
Not courting death, by burd'ning ills oppreft,
But reading Plato, his enlarged breast

Long'd to partake his foul's immortal rest.

O Violanta conftant love

То

X.

Fond Callignotus fighing swore :

He vow'd that none his heart fhou'd move,

His heart, that ne'er fhou'd vary more.

Epigram VIII.] See the account of the author's life.

He