a magazine for 1797, and 1798, will be accommodated to my purpose, as it may be found expedient. Beside what has been already said, it may be proper to add, that two or three of the smaller poems, contained in the preceding volume, have appeared in The Gentleman's and Lady's Magazines some years ago, and the Ode on Independence in Mr. Aspland's Theological Repository, though generally, if not always, with my name. I may, perhaps, collect two or three little pieces, that are floating about somewhere; but it may be prudent to add, that whatever is designed for the remaining part of this work will not be communicated to any other publication. III. **In consequence of the new arrangement, vol. POETICAL DISQUISITIONS. BOOK THE FIRST. CHAPTER THE FIRST. ON THE CONNECTION AND THE MUTUAL ASSISTANCE OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES, AND THE RELATION OF POETRY TO THEM ALL. Ir is elegantly observed by Cicero," that all the arts which relate to human life have a sort of common chain, and by a kind of relationship are allied to each other *." No less elegant was the illustration of this union by the ancient mythologists, according to whom, the nine Muses were represented as gliding in harmonious dance, sometimes preceded by the queen of love, sometimes accompanied by the god of wisdom: and the three Graces they described as each with her right hand locked in the * Omnes artes, quæ ad humanitatem pertinent, habent quod. dam commune vinculum, et quasi cognatione quadam inter se continentur.-Oratio pro Archia Poetâ, sub initio : in like manner he speaks in his book De Oratore, lib. i. other's; a symbolic representation of most intimate con.cord*. Proclus, in his Scholia on Plato's Cratylus, describes the world united in Apollo and the Muses; in Apollo, as conducting intellectual and musical harmony; in the Muses, as giving harmony to the soul; in Apollo, as representing the essence and indivisibility of harmony; and in the Muses, as distributing its different parts, according to their respective emblems and harmonic numbers. the In like manner, according to the same mythology, origin of the Muses,-for they were born of Jupiter and Mnemosyne ;-their number, nine, being a complete and perfect number, produced by three multiplied into itself; their appropriate names; and their different employments; all implied, not only the divinity of their origin and the agreeableness of their manners, but their combining together in the sweetest union, and their comprehension of all the variety of natural and celestial wisdom †. The passage Quales decet esse sorores.-Ars Poet. "As sisters should be ever." more particularly alluded to, is that in Horace:Jam Cytherea choros ducit Venus, imminente Luna, Junctæque nymphis Gratia decentes, Alterno terram quatiunt pede. Hor. Od. lib. i. 4. Venus by moonlight leads along The Muses in concordant song, And Graces join'd with Nymphs advance, And foot it in harmonious dance. ** Ουράνια δε εσιν, η περί τα ερανια και την των όλων φυσιν επίσημη. i. e. It is called Urania, as being the knowledge which respects heavenly matters and the nature of all things.-Suidas. |