I. I. · Sleep'ft thou, fair maid, Æolian Virgin, sleep'st thou in the cave In indolence fupine ? Does liftlefs Morpheus wave His torpid-striking wand thy brows around, Arife, fair maid, arife! Shake off the tardiness of dull delay; Rhimes difpofed in this ftraggling manner lofe all effect, as the most attentive ear is not able to preserve the correspondence, by retaining the one found until the return of the other.. But if there is nothing to please in the disposition of the rhimes, there is much to difguft in the inequality of the verses. Our language is not fufceptible of the mixt measures of Pindar and the antient lyrifts. Such is the peculiar happiness of their numbers, that each verfe is in itself harmonious; but with us, all harmony arises from the juft proportion of one line to another, because the ear naturally expects a return of the rhime upon an equal number of fyllables. And accordingly upon inspection it will appear, that in our most perfect lyric measures, the corref ponding lines are of the fame length, and the rhimes at juft and stated distances. Were we further to examine thefe odes by the rules of those who write dull receipts how poems are to be made," we might say they have not that "wild enthusiasin and rapturous tranfition" which are thought to be indifpenfible ingredients of lyric poetry. But not to exact requifites from these pieces, which most modern attempts of the fame nature are found to want, we could difpenfe being transported by them as odes, did they please us as poetic compofitions. In this we are constrained to own they are defective: their expreffion is neither fufficiently polished nor fufficiently animated, and their verfification is broken and uneven. This cenfure, however, muft not be extended to all the odes equally; and to fhew that our author was capable of writing in a fuperior ftrain, we gladly quote the following stanzas from his Address to the Lyric Muse. • By I. 1. By force exil'd, ah! where The youth beholds his fun-burnt maid; II. 2. There too the heavenly Muse Showers perchance her kindly dews, My fenfes float in terrors vain, "My blood retreats and comes again; "The tears steal down my cheeks, and say, In his elegies Mr. Downman is fometimes deftitute of that cafe which should speak the language of the heart. • But still my shorten'd breath faft went and came, My heart throbb'd strong, and shook my lab'ring frame, And fometimes his attempts to catch it have led him into expreffions the most profaic. • She whether unobservant all the while, But I to what she said no heed could give.' Ibid. This is not poetry, but prattling; not fimplicity, but nakedness. 0 3 We We shall conclude this account with defiring our young poet to beware of affectation, which is too often found to fmother every feeling of tafte, and filence every dictate of judgment. Of his tendency this way, were there no other marks, his attempts to revive the antiquated fonnet, would be convincing evidence. Upon these we fhall only obferve, that he could not hope to fucceed where Milton failed; and that he might safely have concluded them to be difagreeable to our language, from their having been tried and rejected. VII, Annotations on the Pfalms. By James Merrick, M. A. late Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. 4to. Pr. 10s. 6d. Newbery and Carnan. HE Pfalms, if confidered merely as human compofitions, Tdefervedly claim our admiration. They are in general written with a noble spirit of poetry, and abound with fentiments and defcriptions more beautiful and fublime than the higheft and happieft flights of Pindar and Horace. But they are tranfmitted down to us under fome particular disadvantages. The language in which they are written is only understood by a fmall number of learned men; the original is in many places evidently corrupted; and, as they were the productions of different perfons in different ages, it is fometimes very difficult to difcover the occafion on which they were compofed, or the circumftances to which the authors allude. Tranflators and commentators have attempted to remove these difficulties; but many of them have only contributed to obfcure and debase the genuine beauties of the facred text. Mr. Merrick, however, is not of that number. His late poetical verfion is perhaps the best that has appeared in any language; and the annotations which he now prefents to the public are learned and judicious. Befides his own remaiks, he has given us a great number, which were communicated to him by the prefent bishop of Oxford, by a gentleman whofe name is concealed, and by Dr. Kenpicott. The notes for which he is indebted to thefe learned writers principally relate to the establishment of the Hebrew text; and contain many plaufible conje&tures, and ingenious remarks on that fubject. In the courfe of this work the emendations of bishop Hare, and Pere Houbigant, are particularly confidered; and the expreffions of the facred writers illuftrated by fimilar paffages in the Greek and Roman claffics. * See Crit. Rev. Vol. XX. p. 208. The The following extract will shew the author's extensive erudition, and the industry with which he has compiled his annotations. Pfal. xxix. 9. The voice of the Lord maketh the binds to calve, and difcovereth the forefts: Dr Lowth, in a note on his 27th Prelection, has given a very different interpretation of the former part of the verse. He thinks the word here capable of fignifying an oak, and renders in not parturire facit cervas, but dolore afficit, or tremefacit, quercus, obferving at the fame time that the form Piel does not neceffarily reftrain him? to the fignification of threes or pangs of labour. See Ifaiah li. y. referred to by this learned gentleman: accordingly, in his own poetical verfion of this pfalm, exhibited in the fame prelection, he tranflates the whole verse thus: Sylva gemit: querceta laborant; My verfion, as it ftood at firft, expreffed the fame fenfe, without any mention of the bind. What Dr. Lowth obferves with re gard to correfponds with the ufe of the Greek word dive in Sophocles, who, though it properly relates to pangs of child-bitth, applies it to pains in general. Καὶ μὴν θυραίος, ὥτε μ' ὠδίνειν, Eft ille quidem jam foris, adeo ut doleam, Soph. Aj. v. 805. See also Euripides, Heraclid. v. 644. And farther, the phrafe dolore afficit quercus feems little, if at all, different from an expreffion used by Aratus in speaking of the harvest as injured by drought. Ερχομένω θέρεος χαίρει· περιδείδιε δ' αἰνῶς Αμήτῳ, μη οἱ κενεὸς καὶ ἀχυρμιὸς ἔλθη Arat. p. 141. ed. Oxon. At the fame time that thefe expreffions, used by Heathen wri. ters, seemed to favour the application of the pfalmift's words to the oaks, (or rather perhaps to the terebinths; another kind of tree fee Celfius's Hierobotanicon, Vol. 1. p. 34. and J. D Michaelis's Recueil de Questions, &c. Qu. 44.) I could not find any inftance produced by Bochart (who, in his Hierozoicon, takes the binds to be meant by ) of abortion occafioned in brutes by the terror of thunder or lightning: but the follow ing paffage in Plutarch fo clearly afferts it, that I have chofen to adhere to the common rendering of the words in the text, (agreeably to Job xxxix 1.) maketh the binds to calve; I have how 04 ever ever taken the liberty, as a paraphraft, to retain the mention of the oaks, as what (if does not really exprefs them) may be included in the forefts, which are faid to be discovered or laid bare. The words of Plutarch relating to brutes cafting their young through fear, (and that on account of thunder) are thefe : Καὶ γὰρ τὰ θρέμματα διδάσκεσι βροντῆς γενομένης οἱ ποιμένες εἰς ταὐτὸ συνθεῖν καὶ συννεύειν· τὰ γὰρ σποράδην ἀπολειφθένα δια Tòv póßor ExTilewox. Plutarch. Sympos. 4. Quæft. 2. Pliny (as I have fince learned from Geierus) mentions the fame fact. Tonitrus folitariis ovibus abortus inferunt; Remedium eft congregare eas, ut cætu juventur. Plin. N. H. 8. 47. Now, though the authority of Plutarch and of Pliny is perhaps to be refolved into that of Ariftotle (who is cited by Harduin, in his notes on Pliny, as affirming that the fhepherds, when it thunders, make their fheep ftand clofe' together, in order to leffen their fear and fo to prevent abortion,) yet I fee no fufficient reafon for rejecting the teftimony of fo inquifitive a writer; who, while feveral thousands of men were employed by Alexander the Great in all the parts of Afia and Greece, (fee Plin. N. H. 8. 16.) in affiftance to his refearches into nature, was not likely to be negligent in points fo eafy to be afcertained as the practice of fhepherds with regard to their flocks. I am informed that cattle, with us, will discover great confusion in the time of a thunderforin; and, as I am farther informed that ewes, when frightened and driven about by dogs, have caft their lambs, I think it poffible that the cafe which here feems mentioned by the Pfalmift might fometimes happen in England, were it not that, in this country, the ewes breed in the cold feafon of the year. But, as Ariftotle, if I rightly remember, fomewhere affirms that abortions are more frequent in fouthern than in colder climates, (perhaps from the fame circumstance that occafions more eafy births in thofe climates: fee Ludolfus, Comm, ad Hift. Æthiop. p. 198. and Thevenot's Travels, part. 3. B. 1.) it is the more likely to happen in Judea; where lightnings are alfo, in all probability, the more terrifying as they are lefs frequent, according to the account given by Cotovicus in his very valuable Itinerary, p. 303. With regard to the Eaft Indies, my ingenious correfpondent, George Vanfitiart, |