Where with stretch'd wing swift Scylla cuts the skies,

Behind, on rustling plume, fierce Nisus flies;

And where swift Nisus tow'rs, her forward flight, 455 Darts far away, and cleaves th' aerial height.

Hush'd their hoarse pipe, and press'd to clearer notes,

Rooks to redoubled echoes strain their throats;
Oft, wild with rapture, on the woodland height
Mingle the murmur of confused delight,
Sport in the foliage, and the storm at rest,
Revisit their young brood and blissful nest.
Not that I think their sense divinely giv'n,

460

Or prescience theirs, to mark the will of Heav'n:
But still through Nature's vast and varied range, 465
The air's vicissitudes, and season's change,
New instincts sway, and their inconstant mind
Shifts with the clouds, and varies with the wind:
Hence frisk the kine, mirth swells the woodland
\ notes,

475

And rooks, exulting, strain their gurgling throats. 470
But if you watch the sun's revolving speed,
And moons, that moved in order'd course, succeed,
Then no vain signs shall mark the treacherous day,
Nor the fair night shall flatter and betray.
If, when the moon renews her refluent beam,
Through the dark air her horns obscurely gleam,
Along the wasted earth and stormy main,
In torrents drives the congregated rain.
Or if with virgin blush young Cynthia blaze,
Tempestuous winds succeed the golden rays; 480

hair, on which depended the security of the state. Scylla, his daughter, enamoured of Minos, who had laid siege to Megara, cut off the fatal lock. Minos rejected her advances, and sailed to Crete without her. She plunged after him, and clung to the vessel that conveyed him, till her father, changed into a seaeagle, hovered over her to tear her into pieces, when she loosed her hold, and was changed into a ciris, supposed to be a lark. Ovid's Metam. book viii.-Stawell.

But if (unerring sign) the orb of night

Clear wheel through heav'n her fourth increasing

light,

Rain nor rude blast shall vex that hallow'd day,
And thus the month shall glide serene away,
While rescued sailors on their native shore
With votive gifts the ocean gods adore.

485

Alike, with orient beams or western rays, The prescient sun each future change displays: Signs, that can ne'er deceive, the sun attend At day's first dawn, or when the stars ascend. When many a spot his rising lustre shrouds, Half-hid the disk beneath a vale of clouds, Beware the show'rs, that from the south wind

sprung,

490

Foam the strown corn, and herds, and woods among.
If dull at morn, with many a scatter'd beam, 495
Through the dense clouds the rays diversely gleam,
Or if Aurora, with dank mists o'erspread,
Leave with pale brow Tithonus' saffron bed,
Ill shall the leaf the ripening grapes surround,
While rattling hailstones from the roof rebound. 500
But most at sunset mark what tints prevail;
If dusky, dread the rain; if red, the gale:
If spots immingle, streak'd with gleans of fire,
Rain and fierce wind to vex the world conspire:
On that dread night let none my sail allure,
Or my firm cable from the land unmoor.
But if the orb, at dawn that brightly rose,
With radiant beam its course of glory close,
The threatening clouds thy fear shall vainly move,
And the clear north shall rock the sounding

grove.

505

510

Last, what late eve shall bring, what winds prevail,
And all that Auster plans with humid gale,
Behold the sun's prophetic signs display;

Who dares mistrust the god that gives the day?
He, too, with frequent portent deigns presage
Blind tumult, treasons, and intestine rage.

515

520

He, too, when Rome deplored her Cæsar's fate,
Felt her deep wo, and mourn'd her hapless state;
While in dark clouds, he veiled his radiant light,
And impious mortals fear'd eternal night.
Nor less dread signals shook the earth and wave,
Birds of ill note, and dogs dire omens gave;
How oft we view'd, along th' expanse below,
Wide seas of fire down bursting Etna flow,
While globes of flame the red volcano cast,
And molten rocks that blazed beneath the blast.
Germania heard all heaven with battle bray;
Alps reel'd with all her mounts in strange dismay:
Shapes wondrous pale by night were seen to rove,
A voice terrific fill'd the silent grove :

The rivers stop, earth opes, and brutal herds,
Tremendous portents! utter human words.
The ivory weeps 'mid consecrated walls,
Sweat in big drops from brazen statues falls;

52.

550

519 Plutarch says that this obscurity continued for a year after the death of Julius; and that the fruits rotted, withous coming to maturity, for want of the heat of the sun.-Stawell.

522 Ovid mentions the dogs howling in the forum, and about houses, and in the temples.-Stawell.

526 The academy of Naples confirms the propriety of the poet's description of a volcanic eruption, in the account published of the eruption from Vesuvius in 1737, when the rocks were melted. Stawell. L

527 Appian speaks of the din of arms, the shouting of men, and the trampling of horses being heard, though nothing could be seen. Appian, lib. iv.-Stawell.

Perhaps this was some remarkable aurora-borealis seen abou that time in Germany. The learned M. Celsius, professor of astronomy at Upsal in Sweden, has assured me, that in those northern parts of the world, during the appearance of an aurora borealis, he has heard a rushing sound in the air, like the clap ping of a bird's wings.-Martyn.

529 Plutarch and Ovid mention ghosts appearing at night, be fore Cæsar's death. See Calphurnia's speech in Shakspeare' Julius Cæsar, Act ii. sc. 2.

530 Josephus, speaking of the prodigies that preceded the destruction of Jerusalem, says that the priests heard a voice i the night-time, saying, "Let us go hence."-Martyn.

533 Appian says that some statues sweated blood. Ovid and Tibullus mention the tears of the images of the gods.

Monarch of rivers, raging far and wide,
Eridanus pours forth his torrent tide,

535

540

Down the wide deluge whirls th' uprooted wood,
And swells with herds and stalls th' encumber'd flood.
That time nor ceased the wells with blood to flow,
Nor spotted entrails ceased foreboding wo;
Nor ceased loud echoes nightly to repeat
The wolf's fierce howl along th' unpeopled street
Such lightnings never fired th' unclouded air,
Nor comets trail'd so oft their blazing hair.
For this in equal arms Philippi view'd
Rome's kindred bands again in gore imbrued,

545

536 The Greek name of the Po, "the monarch" of the Italian rivers. Along the banks of this river are high dikes raised against its depredations: there are matted huts at every hundred or two hundred yards, with men stationed, called "Guardia di Po," ready to assist with their tools at a moment's warning, in case of a breach.-See Young's Tour, quoted by Stawell.

543 Thunder from a clear sky was always deemed a prodigy by the ancients. A comet appeared for seven nights after the death of Julius; which Pliny says was worshipped in a temple at Rome, as a sign that the soul of Cæsar was received into the number of the gods.

545 In the history of the two civil wars of Cæsar and Pompey, and of Augustus and the republicans under Brutus and Cassius, we shall find, as Mr. Martyn suggests, that they may be ascribed to the same country. Lucan speaks of Emathia, Thessaly, Hæmus, Pharsalus, and Philippi, being in the same country. Strabo tells us that some reckon Epirus a part of Macedon.

Pomponius Mela seems to speak of Thessaly also as a part of Macedon.

Ovid places Philippi in the Emathian territory, which comprised, probably, in the indistinctness of ancient geography, Macedon, Thessaly, and Epirus: there will appear therefore a very pardonable latitude in Virgil's calling these different subdenominations of country by the comprehensive description Emathian, including the extensive plains of Hamus in Thrace, to whose very confines the wreck of Pompey's army was pursued in the neighbourhood of Philippi.-Stawell.

Virgil means by his two battles of Philippi, not two battles on the same spot, but at two distant places of the same name: the former (that of Cæsar and Pompey) at Philippi (Theba Phthiæ), near Pharsalus, in Thessaly; the latter (that of Augustus against

Nor did the gods repent that twice our host,
Broad Hæmus fed, and bathed th' Emathian coast.
There, after length of time, the peaceful swain
Who ploughs the turf that swells o'er armies
slain,

550
Shall cast, half-gnaw'd with rust, huge pikes in air,
And hollow helms that clash beneath the share,
And 'mid their yawning graves amazed behold
Large bones of warriors of gigantic mould..
Ye native gods! ye tutelary pow'rs

Of Tuscan Tiber, and the Roman tow'rs;
Deign, Romulus! maternal Vesta! deign;
Oh! let this youth a prostrate world sustain !
Enough, enough of blood already spilt

555

Sates vengeful gods for Troy's perfidious guilt. 560

Brutus and Cassius) at Philippi, near the confines of Thrace.— Holdsworth.

549 The art of the poet, in returning to his subject by inserting the circumstance of the ploughman finding the old armour, cannot be sufficiently admired. Philips has finely imitated it in his Cyder," where, speaking of the destruction of old Ariconium, he adds:

upon that treacherous tract of land

There whilom stood: now, Ceres, in her prime,
Smiles fertile, and, with ruddiest freight bedeck'd,
The apple-tree, by our forefathers' blood
Improved, that now recalls the devious muse,
Urging her destined labours to pursue."

Philips's Cyder, b. i.- Warton.

553 What difficulty a poet so justly celebrated as De Lille should have found in rendering into French the original of this passage, I cannot conceive. His translation, and his note, I shall now transcribe.

"Et des soldats Romains les ossemens rouler."

"Je n'ai pu rendre ce mot 'grandia' (large), qui, si l'on er croit les commentateurs, fait allusion à une opinion particulière des anciens. Ils croyoient que les hommes dégénéroient de siècle en siècle: voilà de ces expressions qui sont intraduisibles, parce qu'elles tiennent aux préjugés et aux opinions des anciens "How strange!

560 Laomedon defrauded Apollo and Neptune of the reward promised them for building a rampart round Troy: to appease the wrath of the offended deities, he exposed his daughter Hesione to a sea-monster, whom Hercules released: but Her