Let of ruffles many a row
Guard her elbows, white as snow;
Knots below, and knots above,
Emblems of the ties of love.

Let her hoop, extended wide,
Show what petticoats should hide,
Garters of the softest silk,
Stockings whiter than the milk;
Charming part of female dress,
Did it show us more or less.

Let a pair of velvet shoes Gently press her petty-toes, Gently press, and softly squeeze, Tottering like the fair Chinese, Mounted high, and buckled low, Tott'ring every step they go.

Take these hints, and do thy duty, Fashions are the tests of beauty; Features vary and perplex, Mode's the woman and the sex.

ODE XXIX.

BATHYLLUS.

Now, illustrious artisan,
Paint the well-proportion'd man;
Once again the tints prepare,
Paint Bathyllus young and fair.

Draw his tresses soft and black,
Flowing graceful down his back,
Auburn be the curl'd extremes,
Glowing like the solar beams;
Let them negligently fall,
Easy, free, and artless all.

Let his bright cerulean brow
Grace his forehead white as snow.

Let his eyes, that glow with fire, Gentlest, mildest love inspire; Steal from Mars the radiant mien, Softness from th' Idalian queen; This, with hope the heart to bless, That, with terrour to depress.

Next, his cheeks with roses crown, And the peach's dubious down;

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And, if art can this bestow,
Let the blush ingenuous glow.

But description would be faint,
Teaching you his lips to paint:
There let fair Persuasion dwell,
Let them gently, softly swell,
Seem in sweetest sounds to break
Willing air, and silent speak.

Now you've finish'd high the face,
Draw his ivory neck with grace;
All the charms and beauty add,
Such as fair Adonis bad.

Let me, next, the bosom see
And the hands of Mercury.
But I'll not presume to tell,
Artist, you who paint so well,
How the foot should be exprest,
How to finish all the rest.

I the price you ask will give,
For the picture seems to live:
Gold's too little, view this piece,
'Tis the pictur'd pride of Greece:
This divine Apollo take,
And from this Bathyllus make.
When to Samos you repair,
Ask for young Bathyllus there,
Finest figure eye e'er saw,
From Bathyllus Phoebus draw.

ODE XXX.

CUPID TAKEN PRISONER. LATE the Muses Cupid found And with wreaths of roses bound, Bound him fast, as soon as caught, And to blooming Beauty brought.

9, 10. Let them negligently fall, Easy, free, and artless all.]

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40

Ode XXIX.-7, 8. Auburn be the curl'd extremes,

Glowing like the solar beams;] Anacreon describes the hair of Bathyllus black towards the head, but lower down gradually inclining to a yellow. Horace calls this colour myrrheus, Myrrheum nodo cohibere crinem, b. 3, ode 14. On which an ancient critic remarks, Colorem myrrheum in crinibus hodie quoque dicunt, qui medius est inter flavum et nigrum; "Even at this day they call that hair of a myrrh colour, which is between black and yellow." Ovid describes the colour of his mistress's hair thus, Amor. 1. 1. Eleg. 14.

Nec tamen ater erat, nec erat color aureus illis;
Sed quamvis neuter, mistus uterque color:
Qualem clivosæ madidis in vallibus Idæ

Ardua, direpto cortice, cedrus habet.
Nor of a black, nor of a golden hue
They were, but of a dye between the two:
Such as in rindless cedar we behold,
The black confounded with the dusky gold.

25. There let fair Persuasion dwell,] Meleager as Longepierre observes, calls his mistress, godoy wides, The sweet rose of persuasion. Anthologia.

43, 44. This divine Apollo take,

And from this Bathyllus make.] The poet could not give us a more perfect idea of the beauty of this young Samian: he tells the painter, "If he would draw a good likeness of the most beautiful of the gods; and if he would Bathyllus, he must copy the portrait of Apollo, make a good picture of Apollo, he must paint Bathyllus."

45. When to Samos you repair,] Bathyllus had a celebrated statue erected to his honour at Samos by Polycrates. See Apuleius.

Ode XXX.-This ode is very fine; and the fic tion extremely ingenious. I believe, Anacreon would inculcate that beauty alone cannot long secure a conquest; but that when wit and beauty meet, it is impossible for a lover to disengage bimself. Madame Dacier.

THE PLEASING FRENZY.
INDULGE me, Stoics, with the bowl,
And let me gratify my soul;
Your precepts to the schools confine,
For I'll be nobly mad with wine.

Alemæon and Orestes grew

Quite mad when they their mothers slew:
But I, no man, no mother kill'd,
No blood but that of Bacchus spill'd,
Will prove the virtues of the vine,
And be immensely mad with wine.

When Hercules was mad, we know,
He grasp'd the Iphitean bow;
The rattling of his quiver spread
Astonishment around and dread.
Mad Ajax, with his sevenfold shield,
Tremendous stalk'd along the field,
Great Hector's flaming sword be drew,
And hosts of Greeks in fancy slew.

5, 6. Venus with large ransom strove To release the god of love]

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Moschus, in his Runaway Love, makes Venus offer a reward to any one who should only discover where he was.

Ο μανυτας γέρας έξει

Μισθος του το φιλάμα το Κυπριδος.. Whoe'er shall bring the news, his fee is this, I Venus will reward him with a kiss.

Ode XXXI.-5. Alcmæon and Orestes] Alcmæon was the son of Amphiaraüs and Eriphyle. His father had been put to death by the contrivance of his mother, whom on that account he slew. Orestes slew his mother Clytemnestra, to revenge the death of his father Agamemnon, who, at his return from the Trojan war, had been murdered by her and her lover Ægisthus. They were both tormented by the Furies.

12. The Iphitean bow] Iphitus was the son of Eurytus king of Oechalia, and slain by Hercules, who carried off his bow.

15. Mad Ajax with his sevenfold shield] When the armour of Achilles was adjudged to Ulysses, Ajax was so enraged at the affront, that he ran mad; and falling upon a flock of sheep, which he took for so many Grecians, first slew them, and then himself. Homer celebrates his shield for. its extraordinary size. Iliad, book 7.

Huge was its orb, with seven thick folds o'ercast Of tough bull-hides; of solid brass the last.

Pope. 17. Hector's sword] Hector and Ajax made an exchange of presents (see Iliad 7.) which gave birth to a proverb, "That the presents of enemies are generally fatal:" for Ajax with this sword afterwards killed himself; and Hector was dragged,

VOL. XX.

But I with no such fury glow,
No sword I wave, nor bend the bow:
My helmet is a flowery crown;

In this bright bowl iny cares I'll drown,
And rant in ecstacies divine,

Heroically mad with wine.

ODE XXXII.

THE NUMBER OF HIS MISTRESSES.

WHEN thou can'st fairly number all
The leaves on trees that fade and fall,
Or count the foaming waves that roar,
Or tell the pebbles on the shore;
Then may'st thou reckon up the names
Of all my beauties, all my flames.

At Athens, flames that still survive,
First count me only thirty-five.
At Corinth next tell o'er the fair,
Tell me a whole battalion there.
In Greece the fairest nymphs abound,
And worse than banner'd armies wound.
Count all that make their sweet abodes
At Lesbos, or delightful Rhodes.

Then Carian and Ionian dames,

Write me at least two thousand flames.

What! think'st thou this too large a sum? Egypt and Syria are to coine.

And Crete where Love his sway maintains, And o'er a hundred cities reigns.

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by the belt which Ajax gave him, at the chariot of Achilles.

There is an epigram to this purpose, Anthol. b. 3. c. 14.

Έκτωρ Αιαντι ξιφος ώπασεν Έκτορι δ' Αίας

Ζως ής, αμφοτέρων ή χάρις εις θανατον. Hector bestow'd on Telamon the brave A sword; the Greek to god-like Hector gave A radiant belt: each gift was stamp'd with woe, And prov'd alike destructive to the foe. Ode XXXII.-9. At Corinth next tell o'er the fair] Corinth, the metropolis of Achaia, was so famous for rich courtezans, who would only entertain the wealthy, that it occasioned the proverb, Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum, "Every man cannot go to Corinth." Lais asked Demosthenes a thousand drachms for one favour; to which he replied, "I will not buy repentance, at so dear a rate." Longepierre.

19. And Crete] Anacreon says of Crete, anav xs, abounding with all things, to express its fertility. Virgil says, it had a hundred cities:

Creta Jovis magni medio jacet insula ponto, Centum urbes habitant magnas, uberrima regna. Fair Crete sublimely towers amid the floods, -Proud nurse of Jove the sovereign of the gods; A hundred cities the blest isle contains, And boasts a vast extent of fruitful plains. Pitt. Homer, in the Iliad, gives Crete a hundred cities, b. 2.

Crete's hundred cities pour forth all her sons. But in the Odyssey, only ninety;

Crete awes the circling waves, a fruitful soil; And ninety cities crown the sea-born isle. B. 19. Therefore it is probable, that in the time of the Trojan war it had no more than ninety cities, but a hundred in the days of Homer. Да

Yet still unnumber'd, still remain
The nymphs of Persia and of Spain,
And Indians, scorch'd by Titan's ray,
Whose charms have burnt my heart away.

Dreadful torment I sustain,
What, alas! can ease my pain:
The vast flocks of Loves that dwell
In my breast no tongue can tell.

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ODE XXXIII.

THE SWALLOW.

LOVELY Swallow, once a year,
Pleas'd you pay your visit here;
When our clime the sun-bcams gild,
Here your airy nest you build;

And, when bright days cease to smile,
Fly to Memphis or the Nile:
But, alas! within my breast
Love for ever makes his nest;
There the little Cupids lie,
Some prepare their wings to fly,

Soine unlatch'd, some form'd in part,
Lie close nestling at my heart,
Chirping loud; their ceaseless noise
All my golden peace destroys:

Some, quite fledg'd and fully grown, Nurse the younglings as their own; These, when feather'd, others feed, And thus propagate their breed.

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Ode XXXIII.-5. And, when, &c.] It was an opinion generally received among the ancients, that swallows, and several other birds, crossed the sea, on the approach of winter, in search of warmer climates. Thus Virgil, Æneid 6. ver. 311.

Quam multæ glomerantur aves, ubi frigidus

annus

Trans pontum fugat, et terris immittit apricis. Thick as the feather'd flocks, in close array, O'er the wide fields of ocean wing their way, When from the rage of winter they repair To warmer suns and more indulgent air. Pitt. Others thought they hid themselves in the clefts of rocks. Thus Ovid, Cum glaciantur aquæ, scopulis se condit birundo.

Pecklinius, in his book De Aeris et Elementi de`fectu, et vitâ sub aquis, assures us, that swallows retire to the bottom of the water during the winter; and that it is common for the fishermen on the coasts of the Baltic to take them in their nets in large knots, clinging together by their bills and claws; and that, upon their being brought into a warm room, they will separate, and begin to flutter about as in spring. Kercher, in his book De mundo subterraneo, affirms the same, and that in the northern countries they hide themselves under ground in the winter, whence they are often dug out. Longepierre.

6. Memphis, or the Nile] Memphis was a city situated on the Nile, a little below Delta, and the residence of the kings of Egypt. By the Nile, Anaereon meaas Ethiopia, whence that river derives its source.

8. Love for ever makes his nest] Anacreon is not singular in representing Cupid as a bird, and with propriety, because he is furnished with wings, and his flight is surprisingly rapid. Bion speaks of Love as a bird: See his second Idyllium.