here I cannot omit to pay a particular regard to my dear and worthy friend the reverend Mr. Parkhurst, who has furnished me with many excellent remarks, and from whofe found judgment, enlarged understanding, unwearied application, and generous openness of heart, the world has great and valuable fruits to expect: Dr. R. SCHOMBERG too has, with abundant civility, favoured me with his obfervations; and it gives me pleasure thus to acknowledge his learned and friendly afliftance. To Maurice Johnfon, Efq; I am indebted for the head of Callimachus, prefixed to this volume, which is taken from a curious drawing by that celebrated antiquary Beauprè Bell, Efq; copied from a fine antique. And very many particular kindneffes I have received from various other friends, whofe names I efteem not more an honour to my lift, than the friendship they are pleafed to favour me with, an happiness to my life. The original proposals promised head and tail-pieces; but the tail-pieces, I found, depended entirely upon chance, according as there was room left at the end of each hymn or not: and for this reafon, I threw all into one, placing the antiques intended, for the tail-pieces in the head-pieces; by which means, there are the fame number of figures, and the fame expence to me-nay, indeed, the head at the beginning, as well as the Select Epigrams are more than were at first propofed---but it was my defire to please and fatisfy my fubfcribers. Each plate contains fomewhat explanatory of paffages in the author, or in the notes, and every piece is copied from the remains of antiquity, found either in Montfauçon, or Spence's Polymetis, which book will beft fhew the ufe of fuch antient remains for the explanation of the poets. Callimachus has been happy in the regard of great and learned men: the Variorum edition of his works prefents us with all their labours together: there we fee Grævius, Stephans, Frifchlinus, Voet, Faber, and his ingenious daughter Madam Dacier, Dr. Bentley, and, above all, Spanheim, uniting their endeavours to set forth the beauties and excellencies of our poet: and fuch names, I hope, will be fufficient to juftify my choice. I can never too largely commend the observations of Spanheim upon Callimachus, which are a rich fund of learning, and discover at once the most ingenious, and the most cultivated mind: I have gathered plentifully from them; and had formerly digested many more of his remarks into my own; which are in a great measure dropped, as I have omitted most part of my critical notes, my fondness for that fort of writing being confiderably abated. I have fubjoined the Life of Callimachus, as compiled by Bafil Kennet, which is very exact and impartial: and thus have, to the utmost of my ability, endeavoured to make the work as perfect as I was able. THE LIFE of CALLIMACHUS C ALLIMACHUS was born in Cyrene, the famous city of antient Libya. His common title of Battiades makes the grammarians ufually affign one Battus for his father: but, perhaps, he may as well derive that name from king Battus, the founder of Cyrene, from whofe line, as Strabo † affures us, he declared himself to be defcended. We are not informed of the particular year of his birth; though few of the poets have been forgotten by Eufebius. However, it's agreed, that he commenced his fame under the patronage of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and continued it in the reign of his fucceffor Ptolemy Euergetes; whofe queen Berenice having confecrated her locks in the temple of Venus, and a cunning mathematician having stolen them thence to tranflate them to heaven, gave occafion to the fine elegy of this poet, which we have now only in the Latin of Catullus. Whoever was his father, the poet has paid all his duties and obligations to him in a moft delicate epitaph, which we find in the Anthologia, and which fhews, that Martial had good reafon to affign him the crown among the Grecian writers of the epigram. The old gentleman is fuppofed thus to addrefs the vifitants at his tomb: Whoe'er thou art, that to this tomb draw'ft nigh, Of a Callimachus: illuftrious name, By each ennobled, and renown'd in fame : Nor is it ftrange; for whom the Nine behold, Before Callimachus was recommended to the favour of the court, he taught school in Alexandria, and had the honour of educating Apollonius, the author of the Argonautics who making him but an unkind requital for his labour, provoked Callimachus to vent his paffion in an invective poem, levelled against his ungrateful scholar, under the reproachful name of IBIS; which furnished Ovid with a pattern and a title for his biting piece of the fame nature. How capable foever our poet might be of the highest attainments in verfe, he feems to have had a particular fancy for fhort copies. And when his envious rivals ufed to alledge this as their main objection against his Mufe, that he could not attempt any thing of bulk; he gave them the ingenious anfwer at the end of the hymn to Apollo, which feems to be compofed and introduced with all that art, which Ovid makes the great excellency of Callimachus. Strab. 1. 17. p. 838: † pag. 837. Suid. in Callim. Envy Envy, grown pale with felf-confuming cares, "Not from each ftream, but from the pureft fpring; Hail king, once more thy conqu'ring arm extend, The fcholiaft on this place obferves, that to ftop the mouths of thefe detractors, the poet compofed his Hecate, a work of a large fize; now loft, but frequenly cited by Grecian and Roman authors. Those few perfons who have a right taste, and a just esteem for these smaller com. pofitions, will think that Callimachus needed nothing elfe to enfure his reputation. And if it be true, what Suidas reports, that he wrote above eight hundred pieces, he will stand free enough from the imputation of laziness, though he have no unwieldy labour to produce in his own defence. What we now have under his name are a few hymns and epigrams: the first of which, as they make far the larger part of his remains, fo they are of the greatest credit, and feem the main foundation of his fair character amongst his modern friends. It looks a little strange that Ovid *, when he gives him a place in his fine catalogue of poets, fhould pronounce him immortal, barely upon account of his art, and at the fame time, exprefsly deny his title to wit. Indeed, we have ftill many prodigious inftances of his art, as (befides the apology already fet down) the manner of bringing king Ptolemy's praifes into the hymns to Jupiter, the making Apollo, while yet in his mother's belly, prophefy the fame prince's victories; and the like. Yet it will be a difficult matter to perfuade any one, who has confidered the furprizing delicacy of his thought and turn, to compound for half his applaufe, and to quit the credit of his invention, for that of his judgment. Both the talents feem fo happily tempered together, that it is hard to give an inftance of one virtue, without difplaying the other in the fame view. What can be a nobler proof of both, than the gracefulness of thofe transitions, where, while he is commending one Deity, he draws in another with fo gentle force. as not to wrong the firft fubject by obliging a new one? Of this kind is that almired ftroke on Hercules, in the hymn to Diena: Thy approach At heaven's eternal portals Phabus waits * Bartiades toto femper cantabitur orbe, 2 Am. El. 15. 1. 1. With With Acacefian Hermes, this thy arms, And that the produce of thy fports to take: 6.6 "Suffer the harmless goat, the timid hare "Secure to range; ought injure they mankind? "Poor is the triumph there: the wild boars waste, "The wild bulls level all the blooming year : "These are man's foes: pour all thy rage on thefe." His burden, labouring. What can be a fairer argument for the union of the fame talents, than those wife and delicious fentences, which, ftriking us fuddenly in a work where one would not expect them, look as much like inspiration as any thing that poefy can produce? Two of thefe, in the very first hymn, may vie with the entire labours of more bulky authors. The first of them is a fine answer to the modern libertines, who, from the fanfied uncertainty of a future ftate, take occafion to live and die at a venture, and expect as good a chance as their neighbours. The poet is fpeaking of Jupiter's title to the empire of heaven, as a thing acknowledged and unenvied by his two brothers; and hence he reflects on the folly of the antient ftory-tellers, who would make the three fons of Saturn divide the three realms by lot : Vain bards of old, to fiction that incline, The other is the concluding ftrain of the hymn, where he makes his farewelprayer to the Deity: Hail, father- tho' above all praises, hear; Send Send wealth, fend virtue then; for join'd, they prove Some learned men have endeavoured to make Ovid's judgment fpeak a more favourable fenfe. But whoever cafts his eyes on what Heinfius has performed in that cause, and confiders how he is gravelled in the impoffible attempt, will be apt to imagine, that Ovid intended his words fhould be understood according to their natural import, but that through a spirit of envy and emulation, he has wilfully contracted his rival's praises. It is plain, he had no higher ambition than to be thought to be fuperior to Callimachus; and he declares he fhould admire a mistress who would honour him with that preference †. But the greateft teftimonies of Callimachus's worth, and the foundation of his character with the antients, were his numerous pieces in the elegiac ftrain. Of these, we have only the hymn on Minerva's bath, and Catullus's tranflation of the copy on queen Berenice's hair. The former feems, like his other hymns, to incline moft to the free spirit of lyrics; the curious ftory of Tirefias making the greater part of the poem. The other is more agreeable to our common notions of elegy; and, as it is commonly printed with the works of Tibullus and Propertius in the fame ftrain, fo it may vie with the sweetest and most exact of their pieces. For instance, they have nothing of a more natural turn, than that thought, which makes it a greater honour to belong to the queen's head, than to have a place among the constellations : the ftar is fuppofed to speak, and thus compliments its mistress: But tho' fuch honour and fuch place is mine, - Not tho' enrag'd the pow'rs on high fhou'd rife, Take heav'n who wou'd, were that wifh'd pleasure mine, } This fpecimen (which to be fure has loft nothing in the Latin verfion) is of itfelf almost enough to justify Quintilian ‡, when he gives Callimachus the crown in elegy, *Prolegom. in Hefied. + Eft que Callimachi præ noftris ruftica dicit Carmina; cui places, protinus ipja placet. Lib. 10. c. 1. Amor, 1. 2. El. 4. and |