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By weight of years, by pregnancy or pangs
Of foon-approaching child-birth, but attend.
Far as their feeble knees permit : on fuch
CERES as richly will her bleffings pour,
As if they reach'd her temple! Goddess hail,
In concord and prosperity preserve

This ftate: and from the fertile fields return
Matureft plenty. Feed our flocks and herds;
Bring forth the corn, and happy harvests give ;
And peace, fair peace support, that the glad hand
Who fow'd may reap his labour's happy fruit.

190

195

Ver. 197. And peace, &c.] Ceres is no Goddefs without peace, war levels all her productions, her gifts then are destroyed, and the ceafes to bless mankind. So that no wonder the poet prays to fuch a Goddess for peace: It is obfervable that Bacchus too, or the Sun under this character, is applied to by the heathens for peace: nay, and is faid to love it.

Φιλει δ' ολβιοδότειραν Ειρήνην, καροτροφων Θεαν

He loves wealth-giving Peace, a Goddess the nourisher of men, fays Euripides: and on fome antient coins we find Peace herfelf represented with the infignia of Ceres, with ears of corn round her head, in her breast, and hand to which Tibullus doubtlefs alludes, when he fays, At nobis pax alma veni, fpicamque teneto. Lib. 1. El. 10. See Spanheim's note. It hath been well obferved, that the words following in our author, that the glad band, &c. are agreeable to Scripture, and many profane writers, "They fhall

ON

build houfes and inhabit them: and they fhall
plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them, Ifai.
Ixv. 2. Comp. Amos ix. 14. and Ezekiel xxxiv.
26.

Impius hæc tamen culta, &c.
Says Virgil in his first Eclogue.

Did we for these barbarians plant and fow,
On thefe, on these our happy fields be-
ftow?

Good heav'n, what dire effects from civil difcord flow!

DRYDEN.

Here are the reafons why the poet begs the
Goddefs to give peace;

Pace Ceres læta eft: & vos orate coloni
Perpetuam pacem, pacificumque ducem.
OVID. Faft. lib. 4.
Of this we fhall fee more in the Orphic hymn to
Ceres.
3.

ON me propitious fimile, queen thrice ador'd,

Great emprefs, of all female pow'rs fupreme!

Ver. 199. On me, &c.) Callimachus concludes his hymns with a prayer to the Goddefs Ceres for himself, Inadi pos, be propitious to me; have mercy on me. Ihan po, the words of the publican's prayer in Luke xviii. 13. and this phrafe Ιλαθι μοι, was very common with the heathens. The poet honours his Goddefs with very high appellations,

ναικών,

Τρίλλισε, μεγα κρείσσα θεαων.

Thrice adored, great queen of the Goddeffes: which expreffion Spanheim thinks means no more than great queen of the number of the Goddeffes by a like manner of fpeaking with Aa yuJaneta dearum, &c. and yet he produces a remarkable paffage from Euripides, where the poet calls her, Eα aдartwy avaσσα, Goddess the queen of all; with remarkable fimilitude to our author. Hence he is always Marng, mother, Anw axμunterpa, Ceres the mother of all, as in the

200

Orphic hymn to her, to which I refer the reader; observing laftly, that she was called riist, thrice adored, quæ ter vocata audis (fays Horace) in reference to that threefold power of which I fpoke, note 10. Hence in ode 22. lib. 3. Horace calls her Diva triformis, and Virgil,

Tergeminamque Hecaten, tria virginis ara

Diana.

Hence the old epigram,

Terret, luftrat, agit, Proferpina, Luna, Diana, Ima, fuprema, feras: fceptro, fulgore, fagittâ.

No wonder Callimachus, upon this view, calls her μ av, great queen of the Goddeffes; fince into this power, as it seems, well nigh all the other Goddeffes may be refolved, who are only parts and attributes of this great triform Diana.

End of the Hymns of CALLIMACHUS.

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SELECT

EPIGRAMS.

I.

F

OR counsel fage to Pittacus the wife

With doubts perplext an am'rous youth applies :

"Dread fire, two virgins covet my embrace,

"The first my equal both in wealth and race :

"In each fuperior fhines the fecond fair :

"Which fhall I wed-where fix, oh tell me, where ?" He fpoke; the fage, his footsteps faithful friend Uprcaring, cry'd, "Lo thofe thy doubts will end,

Select Epigrams, &c.] I have given the reader a few of our author's Epigrams, as they are excellent in their kind, and as a fpecimen of the fimplicity of the Greek Epigram: which we are to remember in its firft original intent was no more than pappa, an infcription, "De hiftoria Epigrammatis & origine tum rei tum vocis, hæc accepimus, confueffe antiquos ftatuis Deorum & heroum infcriptiones quafdam breves infculpere, qua myfaçaι & siypappaтa nominabantur, &c." Thus Dr. Trapp, in his Prælect. Poetice,

"Take

Pral. 12ma; where the reader will find a complate differtation on the fubject. The word Epigram, and the fpecies of poetry going under that name, rendered it neceflary to obferve this, at the entrance of thefe little poems of our author, which moderns would rather call mifcellaneous, than epigrammatical. There is a remarkable paffage quoted by Madam Dacier from the fcholiaft upon Eschylus, which would almoft incline one to believe, that this first Epigram of our author's was founded on a real story. The Ꮓ

reader

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