Ver. 9. Hence Apollo, from the Greeks, had the appellation of Fies anikixanos, (deus malorum depulfor), bestowed on him; as the Latins called hi Averruncus.

Ver. 10. All expiations and " purgamenta" were, by the ancients, performed either on the brink of a river, or on the fea-fhore: this practice continued long after the introduction of Chriftianity, for we are informed by Petrarch, that he faw the women of Cologne, with garlands on their heads, wash their arms in the Rhine, while they muttered fome foreign charm. The poet, wondering both at the crowd and the action, inquired the reafon, and was told, that it was a very ancient rite, the common people believing that all the calamities of the enfuing year were prevented by the folemu ablution of that day. Vide lib i. Ep. 4.

Petrarch flourished in the fourteenth century, and was no less eminent for his Latin (infomuch that he obtained the appellation of the reftorer of that language), than for his Italian compofitions. In propriety, exactnefs, elegance, and melody he furpaffed all his poétic predeceffors; and fo much was he esteemed, that a man, for having fhot, out of wantonness, at his ftatue in Padua, and broke its nofe, was hanged by the Venetians. Vindelino Spira published the first edition of his Rime, at Venice, A. D. 1479.

of her poetical endowments, than fhe modeftly might,

Primaque Romanos docui contendere graiis.

That the Romans fhould have produced not one poetefs before Sulpicia, to put them more upon a level with the Greeks, is matter of no fmall aftonishment; fince, as Cato obferved, the Romans governed the world, but the women governed the Romans. How many fair poeteffes has this island produced? and in particular, how many does Britain at prefent boast of, whofe writings, both in profe and verfe, may be compared, much to their advantage, with all the female productions of antiquity?

Befides Sulpicia, the poets mention Perilla and Theophila. Perilla lived in the Auguftan age, and is praised by Ovid, Trift. lib. iii. el. 7. The other was a cotemporary of Martial's, who celebrates her, lib. 7. ep. 68. Their works, if ever they published any, are now loft. But we have a Virgilian canto on the life of our Saviour, written in the reign of Theodofius and Honorius, by Proba Falconia. This poetess, who was married to a person of proconfular dignity, is accufed by fome of having betrayed Rome into the hands of Alaric the Goth; but Cæfar Baronius has fully cleared her from that disloyal imputation.

Juvenal, Boileau, and others, have expressed, in their writings, a vaft averfion to learned women; and indeed were all of the fex, who have learn

Ver. 27. This is an elegant compliment on the profeffors of medicine.

POEM V.

Ver. 19. In this manner he prayed, left any of the auditors fhould envy him, fay the commentators; or left a fafcinating tongue (lingua fafcinatrix)" fhould prevent the completion of his prayers. None, add they, chofe in an audible voice to lay open their real wants to the gods, left the bystanders fhould overhear them; and therefore, all thofe, who defired of the gods what was extravagant, or what was immodeft, or in fhort what they did not choose to own, either muttered their vows, or whispered them in the ear of their deity. And thus the ancients, as Seneca expreffes it, told that to God, which they were ashamed a mortal fhould he made privy to. “Quanta dementia eft hominum? turpiflima vota Diis infufurrant: fi quis admoverit aurem contifcefcent; et quod fcire hominem nolunt, Deo narrant." Ep. 10. See this impiety feverely treated by Perfius, in his fecond fatire.

POEM VI.

Ver. 2. Sulpicia had a good title to that epi

tor would heartily join with the fatirifts: but how can he do it, whilft he has the honour to know fome ladies, who poffefs as great a fund of erudition, as moft men are enriched with, and who, nevertheless, are entirely free from all those difagreeable concomitants, with which those poets have loaded their armed women? In fhort, when we confider in what manner the welfare of fociety depends upon the fair fex, we cannot but own, that their understandings ought to be cultivated with much affiduity: a fine woman, with a good heart, and an improved head, is the loveliest object

in the creation.

Ver. 9. The word componere, in the original, is a metaphor taken from gladiators, who were then faid componi, when they fought together, and were well matched. VULPIUS.

Ver. 3.-in purple pomp appear.] That is, in a palla of purple; which not only Apollo and his votaries, with Ofiris, wore, but in which alfo Bacchus, Mercury, Pallas, Night, the Furies, Difcord, and even rivers were habited. "Adeo femper," fays Macrobius," ita fe et fciri et coli numina maluerunt, qualiter in vulgus antiquitas fabulata eft; quæ et imagines et fimulacra formarum talium prorfus alienis, et ætates tam incrementi quam diminutionis ignaris, et amicus ornatufque varios corpus non habentibus adfignavit." BROEKH.

Ver. 16. Vulpius retains the old reading,

jam fua mente rogat,

That bear him vengeful o'er th' embattled plain Relents, and fooths his own fierce heart to ease. Dodley's Collect vol. vi. While such imitations make it doubtful to whom the palm of preference fhould be given, all complaints of decay of poetical genius among us, muft be imputed, either to ignorance or malice.

Ver. 8. Andreas Schottus makes our authoref indebted to Euripides for this thought; and yet what he quotes from that excellent tragic poet, has little or no reference to the text. The words are,

Έρως έρως, ὁ κατ' ομμάτων

Στάξεις πεθον, εισάγων γλυκείαν

Ψυχα χαριν, ως επισράτευση. Hippol. ver. 525. Broekhufius has collected most of the paffages from the ancient and modern (Latin) poet, where love is either faid to lurk in the eye, or baik in the cheek of a fine woman, but gives juftly the preference to the text. Thoughts of this kind, however, are now-a-days too threadbare even to please a chambermaid,

Ver. 9. Cardinal Bembow and Count Caftiglione have both imitated this paffage. The latter inferted his imitation in a poem he addreffed to his wife Elizabeth Gonzaga, on her finging, and is as follows:

Quidquid agit, certant pariter componere furtim Et Decor & charitis, & pudor ingenuus. Elizabeth had a fine genius for poetry.

Ver. 13. "Comæ," arO TY κοσμείν, "dicuntur Capilli aliqua cura compofiti; tefte Fefto." And Servius adds, that " coma" belongs to women's, as "cæfariis" does to men's hair: but this distinction is too refined; Tibullus hinfelf applies" coma" to the hair of a boy. Vide Book i. El. 10. Ver. 17. Lord Lanfdown has fome thoughts analogous to these of our poetefs.

When Myra walks, fo charming is her mien,
In every motion every grace is feen.
And again,

With charms fo numerous Myra can furprise
The gazer knows not by what darts he dies;
So thick the volley, and the wound fo fure,
No flight can fave, no remedy can cure.

Ovid's Vertumnus is a masterpiece. See Metamorphofis, lib. 14.

Ver. 21. This and the remainder of the poem are also imitated by Caftiglione; and though he hath well performed, yet Francius, who has alfo adopted the fentiments of our author, hath furpaffed the Count in a poem addreffed to that great 1cholar, but middling poet, Monf. Menage.

Ver. 23. It was fo commonly believed, in the time of Auguftus, that Arabia, befides fpices, contained immenfe quantities of gold, that the em peror marched thither a confiderable army, A U. C. 729. which perished by fickness. A like fate attend every army, which invades any country on fuch an account.

POEM II.

Ver. 3. The Cerinthus whom Horace mentions, was a beautiful flave from Chalcis: and under this name, applied only to the handsome, Sulpicia probably veiled her regard for fome young perfon of fashion..

Ver. 4. Mr. Gay, in his fine ballad, intituled William and Sufan, has the following pretty if not true thought,

Love will ward off the bullets as they fly,
Left precious drops fhould fall from Sufan's eye.

Ver. 11. However disagreeable field-sports were to the amiable Sulpicia, yet to have the pleasure of Cerinthus's company, fhe was willing to undergo all the fatigues and dangers of boar-hunting. Such is the nature of love:

Had Guarini our Sulpicia in his mind, when he made Dorinda thus addrefs Sylvio?

Te feguiro compagna

Del tuo fido, Melampo affai piu fida:
E quando farai ftanco
Taufchiugerò la fronte :

E fovra quefto fianco,

Che per ti mai non pofa, havrai ripofɔ.

It is thus that Prior describes the disguises which Henry affumed, in order to obtain the affection of the beautiful Emma :

When Emma hunts, in huntfman's habit drest,
Henry on foot pursues the bounding beaft;
In his right hand his beachen pole he bears,
And graceful at his fide his horn he wears, &e.
Again,

A falc'ner Henry is, when Emma hawks;
With her of tarfels and of lures he talks;
Upon his wrift the towering merlin ftands,
Practis'd to run, and stoop, at her commands, &c.
Again,

A fhepherd now along the plain he roves,
And with his jolly pipe delights the groves:
The neighbouring fwaine around the ftranger
throng,

Or to admire, or emulate his fong, &c.
And lastly,

A frantic gypsy, now, the houfe he haunts,
And in wild phrates fpeaks diffembled wants:
With the fond maids in palmeftry he deals;
They tell the fecret first, which he reveals, &c.

POEM III.

Ver. 1. Would not a long enumeration of the epithets of Apollo have been extremely improper here? and does not his inmediate call for afliftance fhow the greatnefs of the writer's concern?

When Laura was at the point of death, how very coldly does Petrarch place her next to Jupiter, inftead of breaking forth into paffionate exclamations? and how poorly confolitary is his vifion? Prim. Part. Canzon. 12, 13, 14, &c,

et arbitrii," of age, and fit to make vows for herfelf; but had that ingenious commentator attended to the words" clam et tacita" in the fame line, he would have seen that the true reading was that which is retained in the text.

Ver. 17. Menage obferves of the original of this paffage, that an active fhould not follow a paffive verb; and therefore contends that the urunt" fhould be "uruntur:" and yet we know that the contrary practice is warranted by fome of the pureft writers of the Auguftan age; and, if the tranflator is not mistaken, that learned grammarian himself has, in his Latin poems, fallen into the mode of expreffion, which he here condemns in Sulpicia.

POEM VII.

Ver. 2. The villa, mentioned in the original, is Eretum, now Monte Ritondo. It was fituated upon a high hill, not far from the banks of the Tiber, and was therefore cool, even in the midst of fummer. Cluverius places it at the distance of fourteen miles from Rome; but Holftenius, in his Annot. Geogr. on the authority of Antoninus's Itinerary, and Ferrarius removes it four miles farther off.

POEM IX.

Ver. 1. From the original, the commentators conclude, that Sulpicia was the daughter of that famous Servius Sulpicius, who died at Modena, whilft he was engaged in an embassy to Antony, which he had undertaken at the request of the confuls Hirtius and Pansa, and of the fenate: but then they feem to forgot that Servius was a prænomen common to all the males of the Sulpician family and therefore not diftinguishingly characteristic of any one of them. Those who fuppofe that Tibullus wrote these poems, and believe he was born in 710, make him a poet before his birth; for, says Brockhufius, Sulpicia speaks of her parents as if both were alive. Although the tranflator is perfuaded that the pieces in this book are not Tibullus's, yet he can fee nothing in the poem to fupport this affertion. Sure Sulpicia might call herself the daughter of Servius Sulpicius, notwithstanding her father's death; and the two laft lines of the original may be applied to her nearest relations or guardians, with as much propriety as to her parents.

ib.

136

137

139