Earth rarifies to dew; expanded more,
The subtle dew in air begins to soar;
Spreads, as she flies, and weary of her name
Extenuates still, and changes into flame;
Thus having by degrees perfection won,
Restless they soon untwist the web they spun,
And fire begins to lose her radiant hue,
Mix'd with gross air, and air descends to dew;
And dew condensing, does her form forego,
And sinks a heavy lump of earth below.

Thus are their figures never at a stand,
But changed by Nature's innovating hand;
All things are alter'd, nothing is destroyed,
The shifted scene for some new show employ'd.
Then, to be born is to begin to be
Some other thing we were not formerly:
And what we call to die, is not to appear,
Or be the thing that formerly we were.
Those very elements, which we partake
Alive, when dead, some other bodies make:
Translated grow, have sense, or can discourse;
But Death on deathless substance have no force.

The face of places, and their forms decay; And that is solid earth that once was sea: Seas in their turn retreating from the shore, Make solid land, what ocean was before; And far from strands are shells of fishes found, And rusty anchors fix'd on mountain ground: And what were fields before, now wash'd and

worn

By falling floods from high, to valleys turn,
And crumbling still descend to level lands;
And lakes, and trembling bogs, are barren sands;
And the parch'd desert floats in streams unknown,
Wondering to drink of waters not her own.

A race of men there are, as fame has told, Who shivering suffer Hyperborean cold, Till nine times bathing in Minerva's lake, Soft feathers, to defend their naked sides, they take.

'Tis said, the Scythian wives (believe who will) Transform'd themselves to birds by magic skill; Smear'd over with an oil of wondrous might, That adds new pinions to their airy flight.

But this by sure experiment we know, That living creatures from corruption grow: Hide in a hollow pit a slaughter'd steer, Bees from his putrid bowels will appear;

The cubs of bears a living lump appear, When whelp'd, and no determined figure wear. Their mother licks them into shape, and gives As much of form, as she herself receives.

The grubs from their sexangular abode Crawl out unfinish'd, like the maggot's brood: Trunks without limbs; till time at leisure brings, The thighs they wanted, and their tardy wings. The bird, that draws the car of Juno, vain Of her crown'd head, and of her starry train; And he that bears the artillery of Jove, The strong-pounced eagle, and the billing dove; And all the feather'd kind, who could suppose (But that for sight, the surest sense, he knows) They from the included yolk, not ambient white, arose?

There are, who think the marrow of a man, Which in the spine, while he was living, ran, When dead, the pith corrupted will become A snake, and hiss within the hollow tomb.

All these receive their birth from other things;

Cut from himself the phoenix only springs:
Self-born, begotten by the parent flame
In which he burn'd, another and the same;
Who not by corn, or herbs his life sustains,
But the sweet essence of amomum drains;
And watches the rich gums Arabia bears,
While yet in tender dew they drop their tears.
He, (his five centuries of life fulfill'd,)
His nest on oaken boughs begins to build,
Or trembling tops of palm; and first he draws
The plan with his broad bill, and crooked
claws,

Nature's artificers; on this the pile

Is form'd, and rises round, then with the spoil
Of cassia, cinnamon, and stems of nard,
(For softness strew'd beneath,) his funeral bed
is rear'd:

Funeral and bridal both; and all around
The borders with corruptless myrrh are crown'd,
On this incumbent, till ethereal flame
First catches, then consumes the costly frame:
Consumes him too, as on the pile he lies;
He lived on odours, and in odours dies.

An infant phoenix from the former springs,
His father's heir, and from his tender wings
Shakes off his parent dust, his method he pur-
sues,

spring.

The warlike steed is multiplied, we find,
To wasps, and hornets of the warrior kind.
Cut from a crab his crooked claws, and hide
The rest in earth, a scorpion thence will glide,
And shoot his sting; his tail in circles toss'd,
Refers the limbs his backward father lost.
And worms, that stretch on leaves their filmy loom,
Crawl from their bags, and butterflies become.
E'en slime begets the frog's loquacious race:
Short of their feet at first, in little space
With arms, and legs endued, long leaps they take,
Raised on their hinder part, and swim the lake,
And waves repel; for nature gives their kind,
To that intent, a length of legs behind.

renews.

Deaf to the harmless kid, that, ere he dies,
All method to procure thy mercy tries,
And imitates in vain thy children's cries?
Where will he stop, who feeds with household
bread,

Then eats the poultry which before he fed?
Let plough thy steers, that when they lose their
breath,

To nature, not to thee, they may impute their death.

Let goats for food their loaded udders lend,
And sheep from winter cold thy sides defend;
But neither springes, nets, nor snares employ,
And be no more ingenious to destroy.
Free as in air, let birds on earth remain,
Nor let insidious glue their wings constrain;
Nor opening hounds the trembling stags affright,
Nor purple feathers intercept his flight:
Nor hooks conceal'd in baits for fish prepare,
Nor lines to heave them twinkling up in air.
Take not away the life you cannot give;
For all things bave an equal right to live:
Kill noxious creatures, where 'tis sin to save;
This only just prerogative we have:
But nourish life with vegetable food,
And shun the sacrilegious taste of blood.

STORY OF LUCRETIA.

MEANTIME the tardy siege's long delay
Round Ardea's bulwarks wear their hours away;
And while within their foes beleaguer'd lie,
All in the camp is sport and revelry.

There, while his friends partake the monarch's wine,

Thus spoke the youngest of the royal line:
"In this dull war, while Ardea yet detains
Our trophies destined for the Roman fanes,
Think ye our wives a mutual feeling share,
And still are faithful, and partake our care?"
Each on his own the meed of praise bestows;
Wine fires the tongue, with love the bosom glows.
"The prize of virtue," Collatinus cried,
"Words can bestow not; be their actions tried!
Mount, and the city seek while night remains"-
They mount, and to the city turn their reins.
First, as they came the royal domes before,
No porter watch'd the unregarded door;
Her heated brows with rosy wreaths entwined
Sportive o'er wine young Tarquin's bride they
find.

Not so Lucretia, where her couch beside
The wool's soft thread her slender fingers guide;
By the small taper's low and frugal light
Her busy maidens toil the livelong night.

Haste ye;" her gentle accents thus she pour'd, "The scarf these hands have woven for their lord,

And tell, for you, far more than I, are told,
How wears the siege, how long will Ardea hold.
Fall, hated city!-why this long delay?
Why from my bosom tear its lord away?
Ah, may he soon return, and calm the fear
His thoughtless valour ever causes here!
Grief chills my breast, and terror dims my sight,
When fancy paints an image of the fight."

Tears check'd her voice; she loosed her half-spun thread,

Droop'd on her breast, and hid her languid head.
How well her tears become her as they roll!
How pure her cheek, how worthy of her soul!
"Fear not," her husband cried; then up she

sprung,

And on his neck-how sweet a burden!-hung.
Meanwhile in Tarquin glows a guilty flame,
And love unhallow'd kindles in his frame;
Her snow-white skin, and locks of tangled gold,
Her glowing cheek, which love's chaste passion
told;

Her form, which borrow'd no false grace from art;
Her voice, her tear, her smile, subdue his heart;
Her look of purity awakes new fires,

And Hope's decay but strengthens his desires.

When the shrill cock foretold approaching day, Back to the camp the youths pursued their way. Fresh was the form Remembrance pictured there, And Fancy dwelt, though absent, on the fair. Thus on her neck her careless locks reclined, Thus the soft wool her slender hands entwined; Such was her look, and thus her accents flow'd, So beam'd her eye, her lip of coral glow'd.

The morning rose-her locks are scatter'd wild, Like some pale mother mourning for her child. Then from the camp her messengers require With sorrowing haste her husband and her sire. They haste away, and whence these sighs of woe, And why such garb of sadness seek to know. Then burst the tear, then shame's hot blushes dyed

The matron cheek she strove in vain to hide. Still utterance fail'd her, and with eager fear Her sire and husband dread, yet wish to hear. Thrice from her lip the unwilling murmur broke, Her eye still linger'd downward while she spoke: "This too," she cried, "to Tarquin shall we owe?

From mine own lips mine own dishonour know."
Then what she could she told, the guilty rest
Her crimson'd cheek and glistening eye confess'd.
Vain from her sire the voice of solace flows,
Vain the free pardon which her lord bestows:
She pluck'd a dagger from her robe, and cried-
"I to myself all pardon have denied!"
Then at her father's feet she fell; the knife
Drank to its haft the current of her life;
And e'en in death with modest care she tries
To fall with limbs composed in honourable guise.
Lo! on her corpse her sire and husband lie,
Mourning their loss in grief's mute agony.
Not so with Brutus: kindling at the view,
The blood-stain'd dagger from her breast he
drew,

swore

"Here, by thy blood, thine injured blood, I vow, By thy pure shade which hovers o'er me now, No incomplete revenge, while thus I wake

Still I complain, and still I love him more.
Have pity, Cupid, on my bleeding heart,
And pierce thy brother's with an equal dart.
I rave: nor canst thou Venus' offspring be,
Love's mother could not bear a son like thee.

take."

How grateful this, her dying signs declare; She roll'd her sightless eye, and shook her clotted hair.

Borne to the tomb, the immortal matron lies, While tears and envy crown her obsequies. Brutus her wound, no speechless mouth, displays, And tells the prince's crime, and adds her praise. Kings are no more-the race of Tarquin fly, And Consuls, yearly named, their place supply.

THE EPISTLE OF DIDO TO ÆNEAS. NEAS, the son of Venus and Anchises, having, at the destruction of Troy, saved his father and son from the flames, puts to sea with twenty sail of ships; and after a long struggle with tempests, is at length cast on the Libyan shore, where Queen Dido is occupied in building the city of Carthage. She entertains the hero with great hospitality, which is succeeded by a more tender attachment; till Mercury, admonishing Eneas to depart in quest of Italy, a kingdom promised to him by the gods, he readily promises to obey him.-Dido soon perceives his design; and having exhausted all other means to arrest his intended voyage, at last in despair writes to him as follows.

So, on Meander's banks, when death is nigh,
The mournful swan sings her own elegy.
Not that I hope (for oh, that hope were vain!)
By words your lost affection to regain :
But having lost whate'er was worth my care,
Why should I fear to lose a dying prayer?
'Tis then resolved poor Dido must be left,
Of life, of honour, and of love bereft!
While you, with loosen'd sails, and vows, prepare
To seek a land that flies the searcher's care.
Nor can my rising towers your flight restrain,
Nor my new empire, offer'd you in vain.
Built walls you shun, unbuilt you seek; that land
Is yet to conquer; but you this command.
Suppose you landed where your wish design'd,
Think what reception foreigners would find.
What people is so void of common sense,
To vote succession from a native prince?
Yet there new sceptres and new loves you seek;
New vows to plight, and plighted vows to break.
When will your towers the height of Carthage
know?

Or when your eyes discern such crowds below?
If such a town and subjects you could see,
Still you would want a wife who loved like me.
For, oh, I burn, like fires with incense bright;
Not holy tapers flame with purer light;
Eneas is my thoughts' perpetual theme:
Their daily longing, and their nightly dream.
Yet he's ungrateful and obdurate still;
Fool that I am, to place my heart so ill!

Or from some cruel tigress thou art come,
Or, on rough seas, from their foundation torn,
Got by the winds, and in a tempest born:
Like that which now thy trembling sailors fear:
Like that, whose rage should still detain thee
here.

Behold how high the foamy billows ride!
The winds and waves are on the juster side.
To winter weather and a stormy sea
I'll owe, what rather I would owe to thee.
Death thou deservest from Heaven's avenging
laws;

But I'm unwilling to become the cause.
To shun my love, if thou wilt seek thy fate,
'Tis a dear purchase, and a costly hate.
Stay but a little, till the tempest cease,
And the loud winds are lull'd into a peace.
May all thy rage, like theirs, inconstant prove!
And so it will, if there be power in love.
Know'st thou not yet what dangers ships sustain?
So often wreck'd, how darest thou tempt the main?
Which, were it smooth, were every wave asleep,
Ten thousand forms of death are in the deep.
In that abyss the gods their vengeance store,
For broken vows of those who falsely swore.
Their winged storms on sea-born Venus wait,
To vindicate the justice of her state.

| Thus, I to thee the means of safety show,
And, lost myself, would still preserve my foe.
False as thou art, I not thy death design:
Oh rather live, to be the cause of mine!
Should some avenging storm thy vessel tear,
(But Heaven forbid my words should omen bear!)
Then, in thy face thy perjur'd vows would fly,
And my wrong'd ghost be present to thy eye.
With threat'ning looks, think thou behold'st me
stare,

Gasping my mouth, and clotted all my hair;
Then should fork'd lightning and red thunder fall;
What couldst thou say, but I deserved them all?
Lest this should happen, make not haste away;
To shun the danger will be worth thy stay.
Have pity on thy son, if not on me:
My death alone is guilt enough for thee.
What has his youth, what have thy gods, deserved,
To sink in seas, who were from fires preserved?
But neither gods nor parent didst thou bear;
(Smooth stories all, to please a woman's ear;)
False was the tale of thy romantic life;
Nor yet am I thy first deluded wife.
Left to pursuing foes Creusa stay'd,
By thee, base man, forsaken and betray'd.
This, when thou told'st me, struck my tender
heart,

That such requital follow'd such desert.
Nor doubt I but the gods, for crimes like these,
Seven winters kept thee wand'ring on the seas.
Thy starved companions, cast ashore, I fed,
Thyself admitted to my crown and bed.

The same, I doubt not, thy departure steers, Who kept thee out at sea so many years; Where thy long labours were a price so great, As thou to purchase Troy would not repeat. But Tiber now thou seek'st, to be, at best, When there arrived, a poor precarious guest. Yet it deludes thy search: perhaps it will To thy old age lie undiscover'd still.

stands,

The pious monument of artful hands:

Last night, methought he call'd me from the dome, And thrice, with hollow voice, cried, "Dido, come."

She comes; thy wife thy lawful summons hears; But comes more slowly, clogg`d with conscious fears.

Forgive the wrong I offer'd to thy bed,

misled.

His goddess mother, and his aged sire,
Borne on his back, did to my fall conspire.
Oh such he was, and is, that were he true,
Without a blush I might his love pursue.
But cruel stars my birthday did attend:
And, as my fortune open'd, it must end.
My plighted lord was at the altar slain,
Whose wealth was made my bloody brother's
gain:

Friendless, and follow'd by the murd'rer's hate,
To foreign countries I removed my fate;
And here, a suppliant, from the natives' hands,
I bought the ground on which my city stands;
With all the coast that stretches to the sea;
E'en to the friendly port that shelter'd thee:
Then raised these walls, which mount into the air,
At once my neighbours' wonder, and their fear.
For now they arm; and round me leagues are
made,

My scarce establish'd empire to invade.
To man my new-built walls I must prepare,
A helpless woman, and unskill'd in war.
Yet thousand rivals to my love pretend,
And for my person would my crown defend:
Whose jarring votes in one complaint agree,
That each unjustly is disdain'd for thee.
To proud Iarbas give me up a prey-
(For that must follow if thou goest away:)
Or to my husband's murderer leave my life;
That to the husband he may add the wife.
Go then; since no complaints can move thy mind:
Go, perjur'd man, but leave thy gods behind.
Touch not those gods by whom thou art forsworn;
Who will in impious hands no more be borne:
Thy sacrilegious worship they disdain,
And rather would the Grecian fires sustain.
Some god, thou say'st, thy voyage does command;
Would the same god had barr'd thee from my
land!

And thy dead father's bones in peace remain;
As thou hast pity on unhappy me,

Who know no crime, but too much love of thee.
I am not born from fierce Achilles' line,
Nor did my parents against Troy combine:
To be thy wife, if I unworthy prove,
By some inferior name admit my love.
To be secured of still possessing thee,
What would I do, and what would I not be!
Our Libyan coasts their certain seasons know,
When free from tempests passengers may go.
But now with northern blasts the billows roar,
And drive the floating seaweed to the shore.
Leave to my care the time to sail away;
When safe, I will not suffer thee to stay.
Thy weary men would be with ease content;
Their sails are tatter'd, and their masts are spent.
If by no merit I thy mind can move,
What thou deniest my merit, give my love.
Stay, till I learn my loss to undergo;
And give me time to struggle with my woe.
If not: know this, I will not suffer long,
My life's too loathsome, and my love too strong.
Death holds my pen, and dictates what I say,
While cross my lap the Trojan sword I lay.
My tears flow down; the sharp edge cuts their

flood,

And drinks my sorrows, that must drink my blood.
How well thy gift does with my fate agree!
My funeral pomp is cheaply made by thee.
To no new wounds my bosom I display:
The sword but enters where love made the way.
But thou, dear sister, and yet dearer friend,
Shalt my cold ashes to their urn attend.
Sichæus' wife, let not the marble boast,
I lost that title when my fame I lost.
This short inscription only let it bear:
"Unhappy Dido lies in quiet here.
The cause of death, and sword by which she died
Æneas gave; the rest her arm supplied."

So little is known of this poet, that the critics have not yet been able to determine even his real name, some calling him Manilius, others Manlius, and others again varying it to Mallius. Equal doubt also prevails as to the country which gave him birth; and all that we can aver with any degree of certainty respecting him, is that he wrote in the age of Augustus. This, indeed, seems evident from several passages of his work, more especially from his dedication of it to that monarch, and from his allusions in it to Tiberius's retirement at Rhodes.

The title of his poem is "Astronomicon," though it might, with greater propriety, have been entitled Astrologicon; but the distinction between astronomy and astrology was unknown in that day. With all its faults, however, it is a work

of considerable merit. The physical part of it is luminous, and its philosophy often sublime. He adopts the Ptolemaic hypothesis, that the earth is immoveably suspended in the centre of the universe; but his general notions of the nature and position of the stars are consistent with astronomical science; and he supposes, with the Pythagoreans, that the phenomenon of the Milky Way is but the undistinguished lustre of unuumbered stars-a conjecture which the modern telescope has confirmed.

The system of Manilius is interwoven with the stellar fatality of the Stoics, and contains, likewise, a complete scheme of ancient astrology.-The "Astronomicon" was discovered in a German monastery, during the fifteenth century, by the learned Poggio Bracciolini.

CONNEXION OF THE UNIVERSE. NATURE instinct with mind, my theme shall be, And God infused in sky, and earth, and sea: Tempering the mighty mass with equal laws, Alternate harmony creation draws:

A reason deep-instilled within it moves:
Through all its parts one ruling spirit roves:
Round the vast orb its irrigations roll,
The world the animal, and God the soul.
Unless the mass, of kindred parts combined,
Were moved beneath a master's ruling mind,
Unless an all-foreseeing wisdom reign'd,
And the vast sum of things in order chain'd,
Earth from its airy seat would start away,
And planets, reeling in their orbits, stray:
No more the darkness of alternate night
Would now avoid, and now pursue the light;
Showers nourish earth; winds ether; seas with

rain

Fill the swoln clouds; nor rivers feed the main;
Nor from the deep perennial fountains glide;
Nor this great whole, with equal parts allied,
From its just parent each proportion know,
That stars might ever shine, and waters flow,
And through their course the heavenly bodies fly,
Nor from their balanced orbit swim on high;
Not changed by motion, but sustained, they roll,
And ordered worlds pursue the leading soul.

This God, this ruling instinct, from on high
Rules earthly beings by the starry sky.
Though far removed by interval immense,
He makes the stars be felt: their orbs dispense
The death and life of all that live or die;
Each mind's peculiar bent, and quality.

Let me this truth by sure example prove : The heavens control the fields: bestow, remove

Earth's varying fruits: the rolling ocean sway;
Heave on the land, or snatch the waves away-
For lo! the seas, that in their rage rebel,
Now moved beneath the lunar planet swell,
Or foam with swift reflux; now ductile roll,
Following the sun, that yearly turns the pole.
So animals, that deep the waters range,
In shelly dungeons shut, their bodies change
With motions of the moon: so Luna! thou
Reveal'st thy forehead by thy brother's brow;
By his resum'st thy shining visage, bright
Or dim, as his clear aspect lends thee light:
And by another star thy star ascends to sight.
So beasts of earth, and reptiles mute below,
Unconscious of themselves, nor skill'd to know
What secret law their charm'd existence bind,
Are still uncall'd to heaven, their parent mind;
By guiding instinct lift their soul on high,
And keep the seasons of the stars and sky.
At the full moon their bodies cleanse : declare
The coming storm, and the serener air.

Who then shall doubt, that man's allied to