Of Jove's immortal courfers; and fupply

In golden buckets cool refreshing draughts

Of heaven's pure water; to her father's court
When moves the Goddefs: all the heavenly guests

At her approach rise graceful: while her seat
She takes sweet-fmiling by APOLLO's fide.
THAT hallow'd day when on Inopus' banks
The Goddess leads the choir, when reign her sports

for the air is the fine qua non, the pabulum, food, pillar, fupport, and nourishment of all things. Callimachus fpeaks in this manner, fays Spanheim, quod ab aeris temperie, &c. "because on the temperature of the air, as the produce and fertility of all fruits and feeds, fo alfo of all pabulum, of all food and pafturage depends." From whence Anaxagoras (as The phraftus informs us) affirmed, that the air had the feed of all things in it, from which, mixed with water, he held that all plants arofe. Add to this the words of Claudian concerning these ftags of Diana.

Cervi currum fubiere jugales, Quos decus effe Dea primi fub lumine cæli, Rofcida foecundis concepit Luna cavernis. and Petronius, Luna innumerabilibus comitata fideribus etiam feras ducit ad pabulum, &c. See Spanheim's note.

Ver. 236. All the heavenly guests, &c.] We may have a beautiful idea of this approach of Diana into her father's court, when we behold the moon afcending from the hills, and all the Hoft of Heaven, all the ftars arifing with her, faluting her on her entrance into their courts; while turning to her brother the fun, her face is enlightned, and conftantly directed to, and receiving light from him, he walketh along in majefty and brightness through the skies. See Job xxxi. 26.

Ver. 239. That hallow'd day, &c.] Here the poet begins another part of the hymn: "Having

235

240 At

thus treated of the majefty and divine authority
of the celeftial Diana, he now proceeds (fays
Frifchlinus) to thofe feasts and anniversary rites,
which were celebrated to her honour amongst
all nations: but first he exhorts his country-
men and hearers to a religious obfervance of her
worship; advising them, by fetting before them
an example in himself to reft from their labours,
and to celebrate her honour, denouncing punish-
ments on such as neglect them."

Luce facra requiefcat humus, requiefcat arator,
Et grave fufpenfo vomere ceffet opus.

TIBULLUS.

This doubtlefs was the reafon why our pious poet would not fuffer his oxen to work, and herein perhaps he may rife up in judgment against many a Chriftian, who during that hollowed fabbath, that divine day of reft, when the praises of their God are fung in the great Congregation, are far differently employed; and without mercy to themfelves or their beasts, are wearied in a bufy toil of pleasure. Our nation too loudly witneffes this truth, and what will. be the confequence of fo univerfal a breach of the fabbath, I dare not even hint in this place. That great man Sir William Temple hath fully declared it, and a much greater than he, hath denounced. a certain deftruction upon every land, where his. fabbath is thus profaned! May we be more wife than to run with our eyes open into fuch ruin.

At Pitane or Limna; when the groves

Of Ale Araphenides rejoice.

From Scythian Taurus to receive their queen :
That day my oxen fhall from labours cease:

For tho' Tymphæan, and of ftoutest breed

245

To turn the mellow foil, needs must they drag

Their limbs o'erlabour'd, weary to the stall,
When Sol himself ftands ftill: and from his car
Hangs smiling to behold the lovely choirs,
Gives time a pause, and lengthens out the day.
SAY Goddess; (for from thee my foul receives
The heavenly inspiration, which to men
Lefs favour'd it reports-) fay, what blest isle,
What city, mountain, port and nymph obtains

250

248. When, &c.] "This fays Frischlinus, is to be understood of the fun, who, after the vernal equinox (for at that time, as appears from Dionyfius, these feasts were celebrated at Delos) continues longer above the horizon: whence the days are lengthened, and the further he recedes from the fouth towards Delos, the longer they continue to be, till the folftice." This feems highly reasonable, and the paffage in this view has all the graces of poetry: but I am apt to imagine with fome able commentators, that we have here an imperfect tradition of the great miracle recorded in Joshua, and which must have been well known to the whole world. "Sun, fand thou ftill [be filent, marg.] upon Gibeon, and thou Moon in the valley of Ajalon.

Thy

And the Sun ftood still, &c." See Joshua x. 12.
How fatisfactorily this miracle is explained to us,
when we confider that the word for Sun
Shemesh, is very different from that used for the
body of the Sun, and fignifies only the folar
light, by the motion and action of which in
irradiation, the planetary orbs are all moved and
all perform their feveral revolutions-this light
was commanded to be filent 17, dum, to
cease to act, and to exert no more
its
power:
which once filent and ceafing all must neceffarily
land ftill, and no revolution be performed, till it
fhould again begin to act, and to use its influ-
ence. And this confideration will explain every
thing of the like fort in the Sacred Scripture.

Thy love's pre-eminence? What fairs divine
Of birth immortal triumph in thy choir?
HAIL Doliche of ifles, of cities chief
Hail Perga-Hail of mounts Taygetus:
Of ports Boeotian Euripus! But how

To Cretan Britomartis fhall I speak

Thy boundless love, unerring huntress, she?

With whofe bright beauties fir'd, nine tedious months,
O'er Creta's mountains royal Minos rov❜d,

Raging with wild defire: From whom she fled,

255

260

And

Ver. 258. Perga.] From this metropolis of Pamphilia, where Diana was particularly worfhipped, and which as our author tells us was her most favoured city, fhe had the name of Pergaia; many coins are extant with the infcription of Περγαίας Αρτεμιδος upon them.

Ver. 263. Minos.] It has been a circumftance of all others moft perplexing in the more antient hiftory, that the actions of different men with the fame names, have been all either applied to one, or wrongly transferred from one to the other. Of this there are numberlefs inftances; among which this of Minos is not the leaft ftriking; for there were two princes of that name, entirely different in character, the one a wife prince, and a great lawgiver, infomuch that he was feigned to have been one of the judges of hell: the other, which is the perfon meant by our author, a warrior, and an inhuman tyrant. Even Plato and Socrates confound the two Minos's, afcribing to the firft what Homer fays of the fecond: -" Meurfius and Marfham (fays the ingenious Abbé Banier) and feveral others are of opinion that Minos the fecond, was the lawgiver and judge of hell; two titles which I have taken from him and affigned to his grandfather-" and he goes on" It is no wonder that the antients fell into this mistake

3.

fince almost all of them have confounded the two princes I have spoken of, as alfo their adventures. As they knew but one Minos, they were obliged to make him judge of hell and legiflator, and the fubject of the fables of the Minotaur."-Hence came all the inconfiftences in. the history of Minos, and thus the deeds of the tyrant were charged upon the pious legiflator: hence he was called by Homer Ohoo@fav; injuftus rex, by Catullus; and by Philoftratus faid to have exceeded all men in cruelty: things incompatible with a character fo elevated as that of the infernal judge, and wife lawgiver-The whole matter is elegantly and judiciously fet right by Banier in the 3d vol. 2d book, and 8th chapter of his Mythology of the Antients.→→ Virgil in his Ciris mentions this ftory:

And in receffes fecret mock'd his chace:

265

O'er precipcies rough, o'er rugged rocks

Nine tedious months he rang'd; nor ceas'd pursuit,
Till on a mountain's fummit, ready now

To feize his prey-She sprung from off its brow,
Down to the ocean plunging: Friendly nets
Of fishers caught, and fav'd the panting nymph;
Hence call'd Di&ynna: and the mountain hence
Dictaan: where in memory of the deed

Due rites Cydonians pay: thy chaplets wove
With, or the pine-tree's, or the mastic's boughs,

Britomartis is properly fpeaking, no more than a common compound fignifying Virgo dulcis, from Bprus, dulcis, and μapris, virgo; words of Cretan extraction: the latter of which, as the excellent Bochart has obferved, feems derived from the Arabick, marath-fo that the author never means to fay, that Diana was called Britomartis from the nymph (as fome have thought) but Dictynna. See Banier's Mythology, note 2. book 1. chap. 15.

ge

Ver. 273. Di&taan, &c.] Callimachus is nerally thought guilty of a miftake in his account of these mountains; Dite and Dictynna being two, at different parts of the island of Crete, from the first of which the Cydonians are very far remote. To clear up the difficulty fome have imagined that Kudwves, Cydonians in the author, means all the Cretans in general, becaufe Cydonia was the metropolis of that ifle. So Cydonia Tela are used for Cretan darts. The reading, fay they, fhould be Aixrvator not Axror. Dictynæus is not Dietaus, fays Cellarius, after Strabo. The mountain. Dictynna was indeed facred to Diana, but Diete to Jupiter.

270

275

Unhallow'd

See Hymn to Jupiter, ver. 5.-Virgil, on the
fame fubject in his Ciris commits the fame
mistake,

Gnoffia neu Partho contendens fpicula cantu
Dictas ageres ad gramina nota capellas.

It is plain in both places it fhould be Dic-
tynnean, as well in our author as in Virgil, and
indeed the analogy, as has been observed, be-
tween Δικτυα, the nets, Δικτυνα, and Δικτυναιον,
is much more exact than between AixTM” and
Aixtatov.
Δικταίον. Some derive the name of DiЯyn-
na from the rays which the moon cafts forth,
or because her power pervades all things-à
dixen pro Barnew, jacere vel jaculare for the
firft and from Siaxeiodas, permeare, for the

latter.

Unhallow'd myrtle there: The flying nymph
Its branches caught, and hence incurr'd her hate.
Thee too, fair Upis, light-dispensing queen,
Dictynna, from the nymph the Cretans call.