fuppofe the hawk, as well as the crow abovementioned, to have been a bird of note in Egypt. Ver. 227.] The eagle is faid to be of fo acute a fight, that, when she is so high in air that man cannot fee her, fhe can difcern the smallest fifh under water. My author accurately understood the nature of the creatures he defcribes, and feems to have been a Naturalist as well as a Poet, which the next note will confirm. Ver. 231.] The meaning of this question is. Knowest thou the time and circumftances of their bringing forth? For to know the time only was easy, and had nothing extraordinary in it; but the circumftances had fomething peculiarly expreffive of God's Providence, which makes the question proper in this place. Pliny observes, that the hind with young is by instinct directed to a certain herb called Sefelis, which facilitates the birth. Thunder alfo (which looks like the more immediate hand of Providence) has the fame effect. Pf. xxix. In fo early an age to obferve these things, may ftyle our author a Naturalift. Ver. 259.] The description of the horse is the most celebrated of any in the poem. There is an excellent critique on it in the Guardian. I shall therefore only obferve that in this defcription, as in other parts of this fpeech, our vulgar tranflation has mnch more fpirit than the Septuagint; it always takes the original in the most poetic and exalted fenfe, fo that most commentators, even on the Hebrew itfelf, fall beneath it. Ver. 289.] Pursuing their prey by night is true of most wild beasts, particularly the lion. Pf. cvi. 20. The Arabians have one among their 500 names for the lion, which fignifies "the hunter by "moonshine." Ver. 332.] Cephefi glaciale caput quo fuctos " anhelam "Ferre fitim Python, amnemque avertere ponto." STAT. Theb. v. 349. Qui fpiris tegeret montes, hauriret hiatu "Flumina, &c." CLAUD. Pref. in Ruf. Let not then this hyperbole feem too much for an eastern poet, though fome commentators of name strain hard in this place for a new construction, through fear of it. Ver. 323.] The taking of the crocodile is most difficult. Diodorus fays, they are not to be taken but by iron nets. When Auguftus conquered Egypt, he struck a medal, the imprefs of which was a crocodile chained to a palm-tree, with this infcription, "Nemo antea religavit." Ver. 339.] This alludes to a cuftom of this creature, which is, when fated with fifh, to come afhore and fleep among the reeds. "fit totum os." Ver. 353. The crocodile's mouth is exceedingly wide. When he gapes, fays Pliny, Martial fays to his old woman, "Cùm comparata riĉtibus tuis ora "Niliacus habet crocodilus angusta ;” fo that the expreffion here is barely just. Ver. Ver. 364.] This too is nearer truth than at first view may be imagined. The crocodile, say the naturalifts, lying long under water, and being there forced to hold its breath, when it emerges, the breath long repreft is hot, and burfts out fo violently, that it refembles fire and fmoke. The horfe fuppreffes not his breath by any means fo long, neither is he fo fierce and animated; yet the most correct of poets ventures. to use the same metaphor concerning him: "Collectumque premens volvit fub naribus ignem." By this and the foregoing note I would caution against a falfe opinion of the eastern boldnefs, from paffages in them ill understood. Ver. 377.] "His eyes are like the eye-lids "of the morning." I think this gives us as great an image of the thing it would exprefs, as can enter the thought of man. It is not improbable that the Egyptians ftole their hieroglyphic for the morning, which is the crocodile's eye, from this paffage, though no commentator, I have seen, mentions it. It is cafy to conceive how the Egyptians fhould be both readers and admirers of the writings of Mofes, whom I fuppofe the author of this poem. I have observed already that three or four of the creatures here defcribed are Egyptian; the two last are notoriously fo, they are the river-horfe and the crocodile, thofe celebrated inhabitants of the Nile; and on these two it is that our author chiefly dwells. It would have been expected from an author more remote from that river than Mofes, in a catalogue of creatures proQ4 duced duced to magnify their Creator, to have dwelt on the two largeft works of his hand, viz. the elephant and the whale. This is fo natural an expectation, that fome commentators have rendered Behemoth and Leviathan, the elephant and whale, though the defcriptions in our author will not admit of it: but Mofes being, as we may well fuppofe, under an immediate terror of the Hippotamus and crocodile, from their daily mifchiefs and ravages around him; it is very accountable why he should permit them to take place. MISCEL MISCELLANIES. On MICHAEL ANGELO's famous Piece of the CRUCIFIXION; Who is faid to have ftabbed a Perfon that he might draw it more naturally *. W HILST his Redeemer on his canvas dies, Stabb'd at his feet his brother weltering lies: The daring Artift, cruelly ferene, Views the pale check and the distorted mien; He studies torment, dives in mortal woe, *Though the report was propagated without the leaft truth, it may be fufficient ground to justify a poetical fancy's enlarging on it. То |