FROM THE LITHICS.

TH' immortal Gods will view thee with delight,
If thou should'st hold the agate, branching bright
With veins, like many a tree, that rears its head
In some fair garden, with thick boughs bespread :
As the tree-agate, thus, to mortals known,

In part a branchy wood; in part a stone.
If on thy oxen's horns this gem be bound,
When with the cleaving share they turn the ground;
Or on th' unwearied ploughman's shoulder borne,
Then shall thy furrows spring with thickening corn:
Full-bosom❜d Ceres, with the wheaten crown,

Shall lean from Heaven, and scatter harvests down.

Bacchylides.

BACCHYLIDES.

Bef. Ch. 450.

LYRICAL FRAGMENTS.

BACCHYLIDES was the nephew of Simonides, and was born in the Isle of Cos. He was a writer of hymns and odes. Hiero, king of Sicily, is said to have esteemed his Pythian odes above those of Pindar. Longinus however asks, “Had you rather be Bacchylides than Pindar, in lyric poetry; and Ion, in tragedy, rather than Sophocles; because Bacchylides and Ion are faultless, florid, and elegantly phrased; while Pindar and Sophocles set every thing in a flame by the burst of their enthusiasm, but often end absurdly in smoke, and have

an unhappy fall?" The censure mixed with this commendation of Sophocles and Pindar seems built upon the vulgar notion that all the passages in a tragedy or poem should be equally sublime. It is somewhere said, that a palace must have its passages: a poem, in the same manner, must have its inequalities; which are not only unavoidable and necessary, but contribute by their relief to the effect of the whole. Yet I have heard an entire epic poem condemned, without further investigation, on the ground, that a single verse was, as it is senselessly termed, prosaic. The critical decisions of Longinus are not always philosophical; but his judgment of Bacchylides, as a sweet and flowery writer, seems to be confirmed by the fragments. Ammianus Marcellinus relates that Bacchylides was a favourite poet with the emperor Julian.

BACCHYLIDES.

ANACREONTIC.

A

THE goblet's sweet compulsion moves
The soften'd mind to melting loves.
The hope of Venus warms the soul,
Mingling in Bacchus' gifted bowl;
And buoyant lifts in lightest air
The soaring thoughts of human care.
Who sips the grape, with single blow
Lays the city's rampire low;

Flush'd with the vision of his mind
He acts the monarch o'er mankind.
His bright'ning roofs now gleam on high,
All burnish'd gold and ivory:
Corn-freighted ships from Ægypt's shore
Waft to his feet the golden ore:

Thus, while the frenzying draught he sips
His heart is bounding to his lips.

PEACE.

PEACE upon men abundant showers
Riches of Plenty; honey-breathing flowers
Of song; on sculptured altars rise
The yellow fires of sacrifice

From woolly sheep, and oxen's savoury thighs.
The youths in sports of naked strength re-

joice,

Mingle in social feast, and give the flute a

voice.

Round the rings of iron mail

Their webs the blackening spiders trail; And the red rust with eating canker wears

The two-edged swords, and pointed spears.

The hollow brazen tubes no longer fill
The air with clanging echoes shrill:
Nor soul-embalming slumber flies

Despoil'd from human eyes:
Slumber, that only can impart
Soft refreshing to the heart.