Great Hercules, who with misfortune strove Long, is rewarded with a virtuous love, Hebe, the daughter of the thund'ring god, By his fair consort Juno golden shod; Thrice happy he safe from his toils to rise, And ever young a god to grace the skies.

From the bright Sun, and thee, Perseïs, spring, Fam'd offsprings, Circe, and Æetes king.

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Hetes thee, beauteous Idya, led,
Daughter of Ocean, to the genial bed; [crown'd;
And with th' applause of Heav'n your loves were
From whom Medea sprung, a fair renown'd.

All hail, olympian maids, harmonious Nine,
Daughters, of Ægis-bearing Jove, divine,
Forsake the land, forsake the briny main,
The gods and goddesses, celestial train;
Ye Muses, each immortal fair record
Who deign'd to revel with a mortal lord,
In whose illustrious offsprings all might trace
The glorious likeness of a godlike race.

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Cadmus Harmonia lov'd, the fair and young, A fruitful dame, from golden Venus sprung; Ino, and Simele, Agave fair,

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And thee, Autonoë, thy lover's care,
(Young Aristaus with his comely hair,)
She bore; and Polydore completes the race,
Born in the walls of Thebes, a stately place.
The brave Chrysaor thee, Calliroe, led,
Daughter of Ocean, to the genial bed;
Whence Geryon sprung fierce with his triple head;
Whom Hercules laid breathless on the ground,
In Erythia which the waves surround;
By his strong arm the mighty giant slain,
The hero drove his oxen cross the main.`
Two royal sons were to Tithonus born,
Of thee, Aurora, goddess of the morn;
Hemathion from whom and Memnon spring,
Known by his brazen helm was Æthiop's king.
Pregnant by Cephalus the goddess proves,
A son of high renown rewards their loves;
In form like the possessors of the skies,
Great Phaeton; whom with desiring eyes
Fair Aphrodite views: in blooming days
She to her sacred fane the youth conveys;
Inhabitant divine he there remain'd,
His task nocturnal by the fair ordain’d.
When Pelies, haughty prince of wide command,
Of much th' achiever with an impious hand,
Success attending his injurious mind,
Gave the swell'd sails to fly before the wind,
Esonides, such gods were thy decrees,
The daughter of etes cross the seas
Rap'd from her sire; the hero much endur'd
Ere in bis vessel he the fair secur'd;
Her to Iolcus, in her youthful pride,

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He bore, and there possess'd the charming bride:
To Jason, her espous'd, the lovely dame
Medeus yields, pledge of the monarch's flame;
Whom Chiron artful by his precepts sway'd:
Thus was the will of mighty Jove obey'd.
The Nereid Psamathe did Phocus bear
To Eacus, herself excelling fair.

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To Peleus Thetis, silver-footed dame, Achilles bore, in war a mighty name.

Fair Cytherea, ever flush'd with charms, Resign'd them to a mortal hero's arms: To thee, Anchises, the celestial bride Æneas bore high in the shades of Ide.

Circe, the daughter of the Sun, inclin'd To thee, Ulysses, of a patient mind; Hence Agrius sprung, and hence Latinus came, A valiant hero, and a spotless name: 1391 The sacred isles were by the brothers sway'd; And then the Tyrrhenes, men renown'd obey'd. Calypso with the sage indulg'd her flame; From them Nausithous and Nausinous came. Thus each immortal fair the Nine record Who deign'd to revel with a mortal lord; In whose illustrious offsprings all might trace The glorious likeness of a god-like race: And now, olympian maids, harmonious Nine, Daughters, of Egis bearing Jove, divine, [1401 In lasting song the mortal dames rehearse; Let the bright belles of Earth adorn the verse.

A DISCOURSE ON THE THEOLOGY AND MYTHOLOGY OF THE ANCIENTS.

IN the following discourse I shall confine myself to the theology and mythology of the ancient Greeks, shewing their rise and progress, with a view only to the theogony of Hesiod, intending it but as an appendix to the notes.

The Greeks doubtless derived great part of their religion from the Egyptians; and though Herodotus tells us, in one place, that Hesiod, with Homer, was the first who introduced a theogony among the Grecians, and the first who gave names to the gods, yet he contradicts that opinion in his second book, where he says Melampus seems to have learned the stories of Bacchus from Cadmus and other Tyrians which came with him from Phoenicia to the country now called Boeotia; he must therefore mean that Hesiod and Homer were the first who gave the gods a poetical dress, and who used them with more freedom in their writings than preceding authors.

Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and Pausanias, all mention Cadmus settling in Boeotia, and Egyptian colonies in other parts of Greece; and Herodotus says almost all the names of the gods in Greece were from Egypt; to enforce which I have translated the following account from Diodorus Siculus.

We learn from the Egyptians that many by nature mortal were honoured with immortality for their wisdom and inventions which proved useful to mankind, some of which were kings of Egypt; and to such they gave the names of the celestial deities. Their first prince was called H from the planet of that name the Sun, We are told that Hpas, or Vulcan, was the inventor of fire, that is the use of it, for seeing a tree on the mountains blasted from Heaven, and the wood burning, he received much comfort from the heat, being then winter; from this he fired some combustible matter, and preserved the use of it afterwards to men; for which reason he was made ruler of the people. After this Chronos, or Saturn, reigned, who married his sister Rhea, of whom five deities were born, whose names were Osiris, Isis, Typhon, Apollo, Aphrodite. Osiris is Bacchus, and Isis

Ceres or Demeter. Isis was married to Osiris, and, after she shared the dominion, made many discoveries for the benefit of life; she found the use of corn, which grew before neglected in the fields like other herbs; and Osiris begun to cultivate the fruit-trecs. In remembrance of these persons annual rites were decreed, which are now preserved; in the time of harvest they offer the first-fruits of the corn to Isis, and invoke her. Hermes invented letters, and the lyre of three chords; he first instituted divine worship, and ordained sacrifices to the gods.

The same historian proceeds to relate the expedition of Osiris, who was accompanied by his brother Apollo, who is said to be the first that pointed out the laurel. Osiris took great delight in music, for which reason he carried with him a company of musicians, among which were nine virgins eminent for their skill in singing, and in other sciences, whom the Greeks call the Muses, and Apollo they style their president. Osiris at his return was deified, and afterwards murdered by his brother Typhon, a turbulent and impious man. Isis and her son revenged themselves on Typhon and his accomplices.

Thus far Diodorus in his first book; and Plutarch, in his treatise of Isis and Osiris, seems to think the Grecian poets, in their stories of Jupiter and the Titans, and of Bacchus and Ceres, indebted to the Egyptians.

Diodorus, in his third book, tells us Cadmus, who was derived from Egypt, brought letters from Phoenicia, and Linus was the first among the Greeks who invented poetic numbers and melody, and who writ an account of the actions of the first Bacchus; he had many disciples, the most renowned of which were Hercules, Thamyris, and Orpheus. We are told by the same author that Orpheus, who was let into the theology of the Egyptians, applied the generation of the Osiris of old to the then modern times, and, being gratified by the Cadmeans, instituted new rites. Simele, the daughter of Cadmus, being defloured, bore a child of the same likeness, which they attributed to Osiris of Egypt; Orpheus, who was admitted into the mysteries of the religion, endeavoured to veil her shame by giving out that Simele conceived by Jove, and brought forth Bacchus. Hence men, partly through ignorance, and partly through the honour which they had for Orpheus, and confidence in him, were deceived.

says Plutarch, in his Inquiry after God, appears from his pouring down the waters which have the spermatic faculty, and Earth, the mother because she brings forth. This, according to the opinion of Plutarch and many more, was the origin of the multiplicity of gods, men esteeming those bodies in the heavens and on the earth, from which they received benefit, the immediate objects of their gratitude and adoration: the same were the motives afterwards which induced them to pay divine honours to mortal men, as we see in the ac count we have from Diodorus. The design of the poet was to give a catalogue of those deities who were, in any sense, esteemed as such in the times in which he lived, whether fabulous, histori cal, or physical; but we must take notice that even where a story had rise from fable, or history, he seems to labour at reducing it to nature, as ia that of the Muses: what was before of mean original from nine minstrels, slaves to a prince, is rendered great by the genius of the poet.

I shall conclude, thinking it all that is farther necessary to be said, and particularly on the my. thology, with the following translation from the preface of lord Bacon to his treatise on the Wisdom of the Ancients.

"I am not ignorant how incertain fiction is, and how liable to be wrested to this or that sense, nor how prevalent wit and discourse are, so as ingeniously to apply such meanings as were not thought of originally: but let not the follies and license of few lessen the esteein due to parables; for that would be prophane and bold, since religion delights in such veils and shadows: but, reflecting on human wisdom, I ingeniously confess my real opinion is, that mystery and allegory were from the original intended in many fables of the ancient poets: this appears apt and conspicuous to me, whether ravished with a veneration for antiquity, or because I find such coherence in the similitude with the things signified, in the very texture of the fable, and in the propriety of the names which are given to the persons or actors in the fable: and no man can positively deny that this was the sense proposed from the beginning, and industriously veiled in this manner. How can the conformity and judgment of the names be obscure any? Metis being made the wife of Jove plann signifies counsel. No one should be moved if he sometimes finds any addition for the sake of history, or by way of embellishment, or if chronology should happen to be confounded, or if part of one fable should be transferred to another, and a new allegory introduced; for these were all neces sary and to be expected, seeing they are the inventions of men of different ages, and who writ to different ends, some with a view to the nature of things, and other to civil affairs.

Hesiod begins his Theogony with the first principle of the heathen system, that Chaos was the parent of all, and Heaven and Earth the parents of all visible things. That Heaven is the father,

"We have another sign, and that no small one, of this hidden sense which we have been speaking of; which is, that some of these fables are in the nar

so foolish and absurd, that they seem to proclaim a parable at a distance. Such as are probable may be feigned for amusement, and in imitation of history; but where no such designs appear, but they seem to be what none would imagine or relate, they must be calculated for other uses. What a fiction is this! Jove took Metis for his wife, and as soon as he perceived her pregnant cat