rifm. It has a general fimplicity, and often a native strength, of colouring; nor is it tinctured, except by the casual innovation of grammarians, with those fophiftications both of sentiment and expreffion, which afterwards of courfe took place among the Roman poets, and which would have betrayed a recent forgery. It seems to be the work of a young poet: but its digreffions and descriptions which are often too prolix, are not only the marks of a young poet, but of early poetry. It is interspersed with many lines, now in the Eclogues, Georgics, and Eneid. Here is an argument which seems to affign it to Virgil. A cotemporary poet would not have ventured to steal from poems fo well known. It was natural, at least allowable, for Virgil to fteal from a performance of his youth, on which he did not fet any great value, and which he did not fcruple to rob of a few ornaments, deferving a better place. This confideration excludes Cornelius Gallus, to whom Fontanini, with much acute criticism, has ascribed the CEIRIS. Nor, for the reafon given, would Virgil have ftolen from Gallus. The writer has at least the art of Virgil, in either fuppreffing, or throwing into shade, the trite and uninteresting incidents of the common fabulous history of Scylla, which were incapable of decoration, or had been preoccupied by other poets. The dialogue between the young princess Scylla, who is deeply in love, and her nurse, has much of the pathos of Virgil. There are fome traces which discover an imitation of Lucretius: but on the whole, the structure of the verses, and the predominant cast and manner of the compofition, exactly resemble the ARGONAUTICA of Catullus, or the EPITHALAMIUM of PELEUS AND THETIS. I will inftance. in the following paffage, in which every thing is distinctly and. circumftantially touched, and in an affected pomp of numbers. He is alluding to the ftole of Minerva, interwoven with the battle of the giants, and exhibited at Athens in the magnificent Panathenaic feftival. The claffical reader will perceive one or two interpolations: and lament, that this rich piece of embroi dery dery has fuffered a little from being unfkilfully darned by another and a more modern artificer. Sed magno intexens, fi fas eft dicere, peplo, The same stately march of hexameters is obfervable in Tibullus's tedious panegyric on Meffala: a poem, which, if it should not be believed to be of Tibullus's hand, may at least, from this reasoning be adjudged to his age. We are fure that Catullus could not have been the author of the CEIRIS, as Meffala, to whom it is infcribed, was born but a very few years before the death of Catullus. One of the chief circumstances of the story is a purple lock of hair, which grew on the head of Nifus king of Megara, and on the preservation of which the fafety of that city, now befieged by Minos, king of Crete, entirely depended. Scylla, Nifus's daughter, falls in love with Minos, whom she fees from the walls of Megara: fhe finds means to cut off this facred ringlet, the city is taken, and she is married to Minos. I am of opinion that Tibullus, in the following paffage, alludes to the CEIRIS, then newly published, • Ver. 21. feq. and and which he points out by this leading and fundamental fiction of Nifus's purple lock. Pieridas, pueri, doctos et amate poetas ; Aurea nec fuperent munera Pieridas! CARMINE PURPUREA eft Nifi coma: carmina ni fint, Tibullus here, in recommending the ftudy of the poets to the Roman youth, illuftrates the power of poetry; and, for this purpose, with much address he selects a familiar inftance from a piece recently written, perhaps by one of his friends. Spenser seems to have shewn a particular regard to these two little poems, supposed to be the work of Virgil's younger years. Of the CULEX he has left a paraphrase, under the title of VIRGIL'S GNAT, dedicated to lord Leicester, who died in 1588. It was printed without a title page at the end of the "TEARES "OF THE MUSES, by Ed. Sp. London, imprinted for Wil"liam Ponsonbie dwelling in Paules church-yard at the fign of "the bishops head, 1591." From the CEIRIS he has copied a long paffage, which forms the first part of the legend of Britomart in the third book of the FAIRY QUEEN. Although the story of MEDEA existed in Guido de Columna, and perhaps other modern writers in Latin, yet we seem to have had a verfion of Valerius Flaccus in 1565. For in that year, I know not if in verse or prose, was entered to Purfoote, "The ftory of Jafon, how he gotte the golden flece, and howe he " did begyle Media [Medea], oute of Laten into Englisshe by "Nycholas Whyte "." Of the tranflator Whyte, I know nothing more. Of Ovid's METAMORPHOSIS, the four firft books were tranflated by Arthur Golding in 1565*. "The fyrst fower bookes "of the Metamorphofis owte of Latin into English meter by ELEG. Lib. i. iv. 61. "In quarto. White Let. Containing twenty-four leaves. VOL. III. REGISTR. STATION. A. fol. 134. a. * Lond. Bl. Lett. 4to. 3 F * Arthur "Arthur Golding, gentleman, &c. Imprinted at London by Willyam Seres 1565"." But foon afterwards he printed the whole, or, "The xv. Bookes of P. Ouidius Nafo enty tuled METAMOR"PHOSIS, tranflated out of Latin into English meetre, by Ar"thur Golding Gentleman. A worke uery pleasant and delec"table. Lond. 1575." William Seres was the printer, as before. This work became a favorite, and was reprinted in 1587, 1603, and 1612. The dedication, an epistle in verse, is to Robert earl of Leicester, and dated at Berwick, April 20, 1567. In the metrical Preface to the Reader, which immediately follows, he apologises for having named fo many fictitious and heathen gods. This apology feems to be intended for the weaker puritans ". His style is poetical and spirited, and his verfification clear his manner ornamental and diffuse, yet with a fufficient observance of the original. On the whole, I think him a better poet and a better translator than Phaier. This will appear from a few of the first lines of the second book, which his readers took for a description of an enchanted castle. The princely pallace of the Sun, ftood gorgeous to behold, It is entered "A boke entituled Ovi"dii Metamorphofes." REGISTR. STATION. A. fol. 117. b. 2 Bl. Lett. 4to. It is fuppofed that there were earlier editions, viz. 1567, and 1576. The laft is mentioned in Coxeter's papers, who faw it in Dr. Rawlinson's collection. All in Bl. Lett. 4to. That of 1603, by W. W. Of 1612, by Thomas Purfoot. ⚫ Afterwards he says, of his author, And now I have him made fo well acquainted with our toong, As that he may in English verfe as in his owne be foong, Wherein although for plefant ftile, I cannot make account, &c. Embrace Embrace the earth with winding waves, and of the stedfast ground, And of the heauen itself also, that both encloseth round. And first and foremost of the sea, the gods thereof did stand, Loude-founding Tryton, with his fhrill and writhen trumpe in hand, Unstable Protew, changing aye his figure and his hue, From shape to shape a thousand fights, as lift him to renue.- There stood the SPRINGTIME, with a crowne of fresh and fra- There wayted SUMMER naked ftarke, all faue a wheaten hat: vat: And lastly, quaking for the colde, ftood WINTER all forlorne, But I cannot refift the pleasure of transcribing a few more lines, from the transformation of Athamas and Ino, in the fourth book. Tifiphone addreffes Juno ‘. The hatefull hag Tifiphone, with hoarie ruffled heare*, Remouing from her face the snakes, that loosely dangled theare, He proceeds, The furious fiend Tifiphone, doth cloth her out of hand, garment ftreaming gory blood, and taketh in her hand In |