The boy knew nought of love, and touchit with fhame, He strove, and blusht, but still the blush became ;

In rifing blushes still fresh beauties rose ;
The funny fide of fruit fuch blushes shows,
And fuch the moon, when all her filver white
Turns in eclipfes to a ruddy light.

The nymph ftill begs, if not a nobler bliss,
A cold falute at leaft, a fifter's kifs:
And now prepares to take the lovely boy
Between her arms. He, innocently coy,
Replies, "Or leave me to myself alone,
“You rude uncivil nymph, or I'll be gone.”
"Fair stranger then," fays fhe," it shall be so;”
And, for the fear'd his threat, fhe feign'd to go;
But, hid within a covert's neighbouring green,
She kept him ftill in fight, herself unseen.
The boy now fancies all the danger o'er,
And innocently sports about the shore;
Playful and wanton to the stream he trips,
And dips his foot, and shivers as he dips.
The coolness pleas'd him, and with eager hafte
His airy garments on the banks he caft ;
His godlike features, and his heavenly hue,
And all his beauties, were expos'd to view.
His naked limbs the nymph with rapture spies,
While hotter paffions in her bofom rise,
Flush in her cheeks, and sparkle in her eyes.
She longs, fhe burns to clafp him in her arms,
And looks and fighs, and kindles at his charms.

Now all undrest upon the banks he stood,
And clapt his fides, and leapt into the flood:

}

His lovely limbs the filver waves divide,

His limbs appear more lovely through the tide ;
As lilies fhut within a crystal cafe,

Receive a gloffy luftre from the glass,

"He's mine, he's all my own," the Naïad cries;
And flings off all, and after him she flies.
And now the faftens on him as he fwims,
And holds him clofe, and wraps about his limbs.
The more the boy refifted, and was coy,
The more the clapt, and kift the struggling boy.
So when the wriggling fnake is fnatch'd on high
In eagle's claws, and hisses in the sky,

Around the foe his twirling tail he flings,

And twists her legs, and writhes about her wings.
The reftlefs boy ftill obftinately ftrove

To free himfelf, and still refus'd her love.
Amidst his limbs fhe kept her limbs intwin'd,
"And why, coy youth, fhe cries, why thus unkind?
"Oh may the gods thus keep us ever join'd!
"Oh may we never, never part again !”

So pray'd the nymph, nor did the pray in vain :
For now fhe finds him, as his limbs fhe preft,
Grow nearer ftill, and nearer to her breast;
Till, piercing each the other's flesh, they run
Together, and incorporate in one :

Laft in one face are both their faces join'd,
As when the stock and grafted twig combin'd
Shoot up the fame, and wear a common rind:
Both bodies in a fingle body mix,

A fingle body with a double fex.

N

W

The

The boy, thus loft in woman, now furvey'd
The river's guilty stream, and thus he pray'd,
(He pray'd, but wonder'd at his softer tone,
Surpriz'd to hear a voice but half his own)
You parent gods, whose heavenly names I bear,
Hear your Hermaphrodite, and grant my prayer;
Oh grant, that whomfoe'er these streams contain,
If man he enter'd, he may rise again

Supple, unfinew'd, and but half a man!

The heavenly parents answer'd, from on high,
Their two-fhap'd fon, the double votary;
Then gave a secret virtue to the flood,

And ting'd its fource to make his wishes good.

NOTES

NOTE S

ON SOME OF THE FOREGOING STORIES

IN OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

ON THE STORY OF PHAETON.

HE ftory of Phaeton is told with a greater air

and grandeurt any

Ovid. It is indeed the most important fubject he treats of, except the deluge; and I cannot but believe that this is the conflagration he hints at in the first book;

"Effe quoque in fatis reminiscitur affore tempus "Quo mare, quo tellus, correptaque regia coeli “ Ardeat, et mundi moles operofa laboret ;” (though the learned apply those verses to the future burning of the world) for it fully answers that defcription, if the

66

-Cœli miferere tui, circumfpice utrumque, "Fumat uterque polus—' "Fumat uterque polus”- -comes up to "correptaque "Regia cœli"-Befides, it is Ovid's custom to prepare the reader for a following ftory, by giving some intimations of it in a foregoing one, which was more particularly neceflary to be done before he led us into so strange a story as this he is now upon.

P. 106. l. 7. For in the portal, &c.] We have here the picture of the univerfe drawn in little.

"Balænarumque prementem

Ægeona fuis immania terga lacertis."

Ægeon makes a diverting figure in it. "-Facies non omnibus una,

"Nec diverfa tamen : qualem decet effe fororem." The thought is very pretty, of giving Doris and her daughters fuch a difference in their looks as is natural to different perfons, and yet fuch a likeness as showed their affinity.

"Terra viros, urbefque gerit, fylvafque, ferafque, "Fluminaque, et nymphas, et cætera numina ruris." The less important figures are well huddled together in the promiscuous description at the end, which very well reprefents what the painters call a groupe.

"Circum caput omne micantes

"Depofuit radios; propiufque accedere juffit.”

P. 107. 1. 27. And flung the blaze, &c.] It gives us a great image of Phœbus, that the youth was forced to look on him at a distance, and not able to approach him until he had lain afide the circle of rays that caft fuch glory about his head. And indeed we may every where obferve in Ovid, that he never fails of a due loftinefs in his ideas, though he wants it in his words. And this I think infinitely better than to have sublime expreffions and mean thoughts, which is generally the true character of Claudian and Statius. But this is not confidered by them who run down Ovid in the grofs, for a low middle way of writing. What can be more fimple and unadorned, than his description of Enceladus in the fixth book?

"Nititur