But if dark hues his tongue and palate stain,
Drive him far distant from thy spotless train,
Lest the dim blemish that the sire defiled
Infect the fleece, and taint the motley child.
Thus Pan, Arcadia's god—if yet believed—
Thee, Luna, once with snowy fleece deceived:
Nor didst thou scorn, incautiously betray'd,
To meet the wooer in the sylvan glade.

Is milk thy care? the frequent lotus fling,

And fragrant cytisus, that breathes of spring;

315

320

Salt the full crib; large draughts shall swell the breast, And the salt yield the milk a hidden zest.

Some from their dams the suckling kids restrain,

And round their lips the iron muzzle chain.

326

Milk, that the dawn and daily hours afford,

331

Crowns, press'd at night, the shepherd's frugal board:
From nightly milk fresh cheeses made at morn,
Are to the neighb'ring towns in baskets borne;
Or placed apart, and slightly salted o'er,
For wintry feasts provide a plenteous store.

315 Aristotle affirms that the lambs will be white, or black, or red, according to the color of the veins under the tongue of the ram.

Palladius also affirms that if the tongue of the ram is spotted, the same defect will appear in his offspring.-Martyn.

319 Martyn says that the fable to which Virgil alludes was what Philargyrius and some others have related, that Pan changed himself into a ram as white as snow, by which the Moon was deceived, as Europa was by Jupiter in the form of a white bull.

331 The Italian peasants carry the curdled milk to market in baskets closely woven of green rushes: hence a country treat is called juncata;' and hence the English 'junket.' Note, in the Remarks on the writings of the poet Ramsay, the following beautiful lines from Tasso's Amynta,

Egli rivolse

I cupidi occhi in quelle membri belle,
Che, come suole tremolare il latte
Ne' giunche, si parean morbide e bianche.

Nor slight thy dogs; on whey the mastiffs feed, 335 Molossian race, and hounds of Spartan breed: Beneath their care, nor wolves, nor thieves by night, Nor wild Iberian shall thy fear excite.

340

345

Go, the fleet hare, wild ass, and hind pursue,
Roused from deep fens the bristly boar subdue,
Urge the tall stag along th' aërial height,
And, shouting, press within thy toils his flight.
With galbanum and cedar scent the walls,
And drive the serpents from th' infected stalls.
Beneath the crib, unseen of every eye,
There, death to touch, insidious vipers lie;
There lurks, familiar to the household sheds,
The snake on herds and flocks that poison spreads.
Now, while he threats, and swells his hissing crest,
Crush with huge stones and clubs th' envenom'd pest.
Lo! where the monster, in wild terror fled,
While earth has closed on his inglorious head,
Slacks his mid folds, and, length'ning all his spires,
With gradual trail the last loose coil retires.

336 Molossia, a city of Epirus.

My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flew'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
Crook-knee'd, and dew-lap'd like Thessalian bulls;
Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,
Each under each.

351

Shakspeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. 343 The cedar of the Greek and Roman writers is not the cedar of Lebanon, but a sort of juniper. Palladius says that serpents are driven away by burning cedar, or galbanum, &c.-Martyn.

Galbanum is the concreted juice of a plant called ferula. Dioscorides says that it grows in Syria; that it has a strong smell, and drives away serpents by its fume.-Martyn.

348 The serpent here meant is that which Pliny calls boa. This author affirms that they grow sometimes to a prodigious size, and that a child was found in the belly of one, in the reign of Claudius.-Martyn.

Beneath the covert of Calabria's shade
A baleful serpent haunts the woodland glade,
High rolls his scaly back, and many a stain
Spots his long paunch that trails along the plain :
While founts o'erflow, and vernal floods descend,
The pools with frogs and fish his maw distend:
But when the dusty fen's wide clefts expand,
Wild with fierce thirst he leaps upon the land,
Lashes the earth beneath his iron fold,
And glares with flaming eye in frenzy roll'd.
Then couch'd on grass, beneath the day, asleep
Ne'er may
I lie upon the woodland steep,
When, cast his slough, regardless of his young,
Radiant in prime of life he rolls along,

Or tow'ring to the sun, erect in ire,

355

360

365

Vibrates his triple tongue, that streams with fire. 370
Now learn the cause and sign of each disease.
The loathsome itch thy tainted flock shall seize,
When pierces to the quick the icy shower,
Sharp frost or festering thorns the flesh devour,
Or sweat, unwash'd, adhesive crusts all o'er
The new-shorn skin, and cakes th' obstructed pore.
Hence swains oft bathe their flock, and down the tide
Hurl the bold ram to float his fleecy pride.
Oft too with litharge and with oily lees

375

Smear the shorn sheep, and tame the new disease, 380

379 Voici l'explication des mots qui composent cette recette contre les maladies des troupeaux. Amurca est la lie de l'huile les anciens en faisoient un grand usage en médecine. On peut lire dans Dioscorides l'énumeration de toutes les vertus qu'on lui attribuoit. Spumis argenti' n'est point le vif-argent, comme quelques traducteurs l'ont prétendu : c'est l'écume de l'argent qu'on épure! Scilla, ou l'oignon de mer, est une plante bulbeuse, qui ressemble à un oignon, mais qui est beaucoup plus grosse: l'ellébore est blanc ou noir; on se sert de l'ellébore blanc pour les maladies de la peau. Le bitume est une substance grasse, sulfureuse, tenace,

Mix'd with dark pitch from Ida's piny wood,
Asphaltus floating on the slimy flood,
Strong hellebore, .live sulphur, sea-born squills,
And molten wax that drop by drop distils.
Yet better far who dares with knife profound
Search the deep sore, and bare the hidden wound;
Conceal'd, it gathers strength, while pity spares,
And wearies heaven with unavailing prayers.
When torture strikes the bones, and feverish fires
Scorch, as the bleating animal expires,
Lance, where beneath the foot wild pulses beat,
The throbbing vein, and cool th' internal heat;
Hereditary art, from sire to son,

By fierce Bisaltæ and Geloni known,

385

390

When the wild hordes, o'er Thracia's waste pursued, Drink, mix'd with curdled milk, their horses' blood. 396 Soon as thou view'st a sheep that haunts the shade,

400

Or crops with lazy tongue the topmost blade,
Or stretch'd at length with listless leisure feeds,
And late and lonely quits at night the meads,
Slay with swift knife, th' invading plague restrain
Ere wing'd contagion wastes th' unwary train.
Less frequent tempests swell th' infuriate deep
Than pest on pest invades the ravaged sheep:
Fate strikes not here and there some lonely head; 405
Herds, and their hopes alike, the race are dead.

et inflammable, qui sort de la terre, ou qui flotte sur l'eau.De Lille.

394 Bisaltæ, a people of Macedon.

Getæ, or Dacians, near the Danube.

The custom of drinking horses' blood is ascribed to the Massagetæ, a people of Scythia, by Dionysius. Pliny says the Sarmatæ mixed millet with the milk of mares, or the blood drawn out of their legs. Several northern nations at this day practise it. The Tartars, in their pastoral state, are known to use it.-Stawell.

Cast o'er Timavus' meads thy mournful sight,

O'er Alps, and forts that crown the Noric height, How wide the waste! where flocks and shepherds spread,

The cot unpeopled, and the lawn unfed.

Here once the tainted air contagion cast,

410

And fired with gather'd strength th' autumnal blast,
Smote all that grazed the field, or ranged the wood,
Scorch'd every plain, and poison'd every flood.
Dire was the death; for when th' internal flame
Had shrunk the veins, and parch'd the shrivell'd frame,
Infected moisture flow'd, and day by day

Sapp'd the soft bones, that piece-meal ooz'd away.
Oft, while the snowy fillet wreathed his head,
The bullock dropt, 'mid lingering flamens, dead :
Or if the priest preventive struck the wound,
No altars blazed with hallow'd entrails crown'd.
In vain pale supplicants the gods revere,
In vain th' inquirer seeks the speechless seer.
The steel with blood was scarcely purpled o'er,
Scarce streak'd the topmost sand with pallid gore.
The calves amid luxuriant herbage fall,

415

420

425

Loathe the full crib, and perish in the stall;
Dire coughing racks the swine's obstructed breath,
And the fond dog, infuriate, foams in death.
Forgetful of his fame, the victor steed

430

Loathes the translucent rill and flow'ry merd:

Low drop his ears, his hoof oft beats the ground,

His wasted limbs in fitful sweats are drown'd;

Sweats that, as dying pangs the victim seize,

435

With clammy chillness life's slow current freeze.
On his dry skin the hairs in bristles stand,
Rise to the touch, and roughen on the hand.

407 Timavus, a river of Carniola.

Noricum, a region of Germany, bordering on the Alps.