tion, and presenting as they do no new nor striking beauties. If Claudian had it in view to insinuate, that like Orpheus, he could make the woods and rocks listen with rapture to his song, it is to be feared he would thus confirm his assertion in the preface to the first book: Præceps audacia crevit. In the beginning of the second book, the poet dwells with much minuteness on the dresses of the Goddesses, and of Proserpine. In describing the attire of Venus, the words "sudata marito fibula," sufficiently evince the poem to have been composed when Roman literature was fast in the decline. The strong term "sudata," seems to imply immense bodily labor, which Vulcan may have used when he wrought the shields of Achilles or Æneas, but not with any plausibility in the manufacture of an elegant locket for his wife. The Prosopopeia of Henna, and her address to Zephyr, to embellish the country for the gratification of Proserpine, is beautifully imagined, but afterwards follows a disagreeable collection of similes couched in the form of questions. The effects of Pluto's approach are finely conceived, and the coloring is very high; the description becomes the more striking, as it immediately follows the account of the peaceful occupation of Proserpine, and her attendant nymphs. The reader cannot help wondering that Claudian, having before him the manner in which Ovid has treated the same subject, and Virgil a somewhat similar one, should not have succeeded better in the words which he puts into Proserpine's mouth, while she is in the arms of Pluto. A poet of more genuine taste would have made her utter a few abrupt exclamations, instead of the prolix speech of "Cur non torsisti, &c ?" In spite of the splendid offers of her new husband, the description of the pleasures that await her in her future dominions, and the promise of a metallic tree as a bridal gift, one cannot help concluding, that the young girl had much rather be restored to Henna and her companions, than be engaged in the arduous duties of Minos, Eacus, and Rhadamanthus. Tu damnatura nocentes, Tu requiem latura piis, &c.— It will be acknowledged, I think, by those who have a taste for poetry, that the end of the second book is well imagined. The crowding together of the shades to hail their future queen, the suspension of the infernal punishments, as she enters her new dominions, and the lines "Pallida lætatur regio," &c. are conceived in the true spirit of poetry, and may perhaps be said to form the most striking features of the poem. In the third book, the return of Ceres to Henna, her stupefaction at no where discovering her daughter, her finding the needle-work torn and disfigured by the spider's web, and the beautiful simile of the shepherd, returning to his flock, and deploring the intrusion of the wolf during his absence, are ideas which will not escape the notice and applause of the true lover of poetry. Who does not enter into the feelings of the wretched mother Dum vacuas sedes et desolata pererrat Atria, semirutas confuso stamine telas, Atque interceptas agnoscit pectinis artes? The poet has not failed in keeping up the interest of the reader in Electra's disclosure of the circumstances of the rape to Ceres. The blasting of the fields of Henna by Pluto's presence is highly poetical: squalent rubigine prata, Et nihil afflatum vivit; pallere ligustra, And the spirit of Ovid is well imitated in the description of Cyane's Metamorphosis. We now come to the worst part of the whole poem, wherein the art of sinking is but too clearly exhibited. After the lines" Lucus erat prope flavum Acin," which are unquestionably beautiful, after the description of the religious horror of the wood where Jupiter erected his trophies, to commemorate the overthrow of the giants, our expectations become strongly excited. Ceres, agonised by grief and despair, after going through the duties of a wood-surveyor, and so far forgetting her divine dignity, as to proceed to fell timber, undergoes moreover the drudgery of a cart-horse, and tugs with her own hands the trees she has felled, to the crater of Ætna. She should have torn up the first branch she met, and the attention of the reader should not be called off by a dull account of the two cypresses she fixed on to serve as flambeaux. Claudian's chief defect is, that he sets out very brisk and full of fire, but presently flags like a person afflicted with an asthma.It is well observed by Dryden, that the versification and little variety of this poet, is included within the compass of four or five lines, and then he begins again in the same tenor, perpetually closing his sense at the end of a verse, which they commonly call golden, with two substantives and two adjectives, with a verb between them, to keep the peace. The metaphors are throughout the poem too much spun out in detail. This is an ordinary resource of inferior geniuses. How different is the great master of Roman poetry, who frequently betrays his talents by a single touch!-Claudian resembles those painters who endeavour to produce, by repeated strokes, what others of more skill have effected by a single movement of the pencil. The versification is very unequal. It sometimes harmonises very well with the sense, at others is below mediocrity. What can be worse than the arrangement of the following pauses? Præstantes olim pueros. Tu natus Amyclis. In spite of its defects, the De Raptu Proserpina will continue to be read with pleasure by those who consider that it was composed at a period, when the tide of Roman genius had been long upon the ebb, when they must naturally not expect to find the pure Latinity, and exquisite taste of the Augustan age. But whatever rank may be assigned to Claudian among poets, it will be universally agreed, that the inscription on his statue, which was erected in the Roman Forum, is hyperbolical. Albany. INTER CÆTER AS INGENTES ARTES SIR, SUPPLEMENT To a Dissertation on the 49th Chapter of Genesis, TO THE EDITOR OF THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL. ORIGEN, in his fifteenth Homily, makes mention of a little book, which, he tells us, contained the testaments of the twelve Patriarchs. This book appears to have been originally written in Hebrew, and to have been afterwards translated into Greek. The Greek translation is still extant; and I have been induced to peruse it, in order to ascertain whether, or not, it corroborated the statement which I have made in my Dissertation on the 49th chapter of Genesis. In that Dissertation I observed that the dying speech of Jacob is full of imagery, and that the prophecies, which it contains, are expressed by symbols chiefly taken from astronomy. The following words have been ascribed from very ancient times to the Patriarch— Ανέγνω ἐν τοῖς πλαξὶ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ὅσα συμβήσεται ὑμῖν καὶ τοῖς υἱοῖς ὑμῶν—He read in the tables of the heavens whatever shall befal you, and your sons.' But I concluded, that if I were right in my hypothesis concerning the symbolical language employed by Jacob, I should find similar imagery in the dying speeches, (for such in fact they are,) which the Jews attributed to the twelve Patriarchs. It would require much greater space than I can possibly allow myself in this article, to examine separately, and at length, each of these discourses. Some of them are crowded with moral re 1 These words are mentioned by Origen, as having been said of Joseph by Jacob. flections; but others contain much of that imagery, which, I pretend, could only be employed by those who were accustomed to read év Tois Thai Tou ougavou-in the tablets of the sky. If we consider, that, when the Patriarchs lived, the Orientalists were entirely addicted to Tsabaism and astrology, it will not appear extraordinary to us, that their symbolical language should refer as often to celestial as to terrestrial objects. I cannot help thinking it strange, that this has not occurred to the Commentators. If any person can make sense of the symbols employed in the 49th chapter of Genesis, without looking for them in the tables of the heavens,' I shall be ready to abandon my hypothesis. But Joseph pronounced himself to be a diviner. We have seen that he was called an astrologer. He compared his father and mother to the Sun and Moon, and his eleven brethren to the eleven Stars, or Constellations, of the Zodiac, and of course he likened himself to the twelfth. Now the Constellation of Taurus, as I have shown in the Dissertation, was assigned to Joseph. The eleven stars, his brethren, made obeisance to him. (Gen. 37.) When the book of Genesis was written, Taurus was the first of the signs according to the fixed zodiac. In the Targum of Jonathan, Laban does not accuse Jacob of having stolen his gods, but of having stolen his science. This science was probably nothing else than astrology. In fact, the Teraphim, or idols, which Rachel stole from her father, were instruments employed by astrologers. Aben Ezra says, that they (the Teraphim) were in i. e. for knowing the לדעת חלקי השעות,struments made of brass divisions of the hours. Tostatus affirms that they were heads of images made use of by astrologers. We cannot doubt then, that the family of Jacob were addicted to astrology, like the Chaldeans, Syrians, and Egyptians. It seems, therefore, very natural for the Patriarchs to make frequent references to their astrological pursuits. In order not to occupy too much of the time and attention of the reader, I shall confine my observations to the symbolical expressions which occur in the discourses of Reuben and Judah. Reuben is made to say—εἰ μὴ γὰρ εἶδον ἐγὼ Βάλλαν λουομένην ἔν σκεπηνῶ τόπω, οὐκ ἐνέπιπτον εἰς τὴν ἀνομίαν τὴν μεγάλην. For if I had not seen Balla (Bilhah) bathing in a covered place, I had not fallen into the great iniquity. It is stated in the Dissertation that Aquarius, according to the traditions, was the ensign of Reuben; that the orientalists call an asterism in that constellation Bula, and that this asterism rises (cosmically) when the Sun enters the constellation of Capricorn. Jacob accuses Reuben of having gone up to his bed. Now both Aquarius and Capricorn were domiciles of Saturn, and Saturn was the Star of Israel-Kgóvos Toivur, dv oi Poívixes Ἰσραὴλ προσαγορεύουσι, βασιλεύων τῆς χώρας καὶ ὕστερον μετὰ τὴν βίου τελευτὴν εἰς τὸν τοῦ Κρόνου αστέρα καθιερώθεις, &c. Saturn, therefore, whom the Phoenicians call Israel, reigning over the regions, and at his death consecrated in the planet Saturn, &c. From these words of Sanchoniatho, cited from Porphyry by Eusebius, it appears that I do not go too far in calling the planet Saturn the Star of Israel. But Reuben, whose constellation was Aquarius, had thus taken possession of Bula, or Bilhah, the Moon's mansion in that sign, which was the domicile of Saturn, who in some cities was called Il, in others Israel. (Scaliger, Note in Fragmenta, p. 39.) We see, then, pretty clearly, what is meant by Reuben's lying with Bilhah the concubine of Israel. Reuben says, that he fell into iniquity from having seen Bilhah bathing. This reminds me of the astronomical stories of Acteon and Diana, and Tiresias and Minerva. Tiresias was struck blind by Minerva, for having looked at her while she was bathing; and the goddess remarkably imputes this severity to the laws established by Saturn; Κρόνιοι δ ̓ ὧδε λέγοντι νομοί, *Ος κέ τιν' αθανάτων ὅκα μὴ θεὸς αὐτὸς ἕληται, ̓Αθρήση, μισθῶ τοῦτον ἰδεῖν μεγάλω.-CALLIM. Thus the Saturnian laws declare that whoever hath beheld an immortal, without the permission of the God himself, shall have seen the same at his great cost. Since Aquarius, or the Sun in that sign, was the symbol of Reuben, and since Saturn, the star of Israel, was domiciliated in Aquarius and Capricorn, in the former of which signs was the Moon's mansion Bula, we may expect to find some astrological explanations of the sin attributed to Reuben, who slept with Bilhah, his mother-in-law. The following passages may throw some light on this subject. The Moon having changed (literally dissolved) her phasis opposite the Sun, let her not occur to Saturn. Unfortunate he who shall then regard the light, &c. Αἰγόκερῳ Κύπρις καὶ Υδροχόῳ παρέουσα Σύντε Κρόνῳ καὶ Ζηνὶ κακὴ κατὰ πάντα τέτυκται. Venus being present to Capricorn and Aquarius, with Saturn and Jupiter, evil is produced in every shape. If she take conjunction with the primary hoary Saturn, Mars regarding together the Moon and Venus with noxious Saturn, those most wretched men mount the beds of their mothers. 1 Μανεθώνος Αποτελεσματικά. |