Here India's fate, from darkest times of cold,
The wondrous artist on the stone inroll'd;
Here o'er the meadows, by Hydafpes' stream,
In fair array the marshall'd legions feem:

A youth of gleeful eye the squadrons led,
Smooth was his cheek, and glow'd with pureft red;

Around

Here India's fate. The defcription of the palace of the Zamorim, fituated among aromatic groves, is according to history; the embellishment of the walls is in imitation of Virgil's defcription of the palace of king Latinus:

Tectum auguftum, ingens, centum fublime columnis,
Urbe fuit fumma, &c.

The palace built by Picus, vaft and proud,

Supported by a hundred pillars ftood

...

And round encompass'd with a rifing wood.
The pile o'erlook'd the town, and drew the fight,
Surprised at once with reverence and delight.
Above the portal, carved in cedar wood,
Placed in their ranks their godlike grandfires stood.
Old Saturn, with his crocked fcythe on high;
And Italus, that led the colony:

And ancient Janus with his double face,
And bunch of keys, the porter of the place.
There ftood Sabinus, planter of the vines,
On a fhort pruning hook his head reclines;
And ftudiously furveys his generous wines.
Then warlike kings who for their country fought,
And honourable wounds from battle brought.
Around the posts hung helmets, darts, and spears;
And captive chariots, axes, fhields, and bars;

་

And broken beaks of fhips, the trophies of their wars.
Above the reft, as chief of all the band
Was Picus placed, a buckler in his hand;
His other waived a long divining wand.
Girt in his gabin gown the hero fate-

DRYU. En. VII.

}

}

Around his fpear the curling vine-leaves waived;
And by a streamlet of the river laved,

Behind her founder, Nyfa's walls were d rear'd;
So breathing life the ruddy god appear'd,
Had © Semele beheld the smiling boy,

The mother's heart had proudly heav'd with joy.
Unnumber'd here were feen th' Affyrian throng,
That drank whole rivers as they march'd along :
Each eye feem'd carrieft on their warrior queen,
High was her port, and furious was her mien;
Her valour only equall'd by her lust;

Fast by her side her courser paw'd the dust,
Her fon's f vile rival; reeking to the plain
Fell the hot fweat-drops as he champt the rein.
And here difplay'd, moft glorious to behold,
The Grecian banners opening many a fold,
Seem'd trembling on the gale; at distance far
The Ganges faved the wide-extended war.

Here

₫ Bebind her founder Nyfa's walls were rear’d-
at diftance far

The Ganges laved the wide-extended war—

This is in the perspective manner of the beautiful descriptions of the figures on the shield of Achilles. Il. xvIII.

• Had Semele bebeld the smiling boy-The Theban Bacchus, to whom the Greek fabulists afcribed the Indian expedition of Sesoftris or Ofiris king of Egypt.

← Her fon's vile rival." The infamous paffion of Semiramis for a ❝ horse, has all the air of a fable invented by the Greeks to fignify the "extreme libidiny of that queen. Her incestuous paffion for her fon “Nynias, however, is confirmed by the teftimony of the best authors. "Shocked at fuch an horrid amour, Nynias ordered her to be put to death.” Caftera.

Here the blue marble gives the helmet's gleam,
Here from the cuiras shoots the golden beam.
A proud-ey'd youth, with palms unnumber'd gay,
Of the bold veterans led the brown array;
Scornful of mortal birth enshrined he rode,
Call'd Jove his fathers, and affumed the god.

While dauntless GAMA and his train furvey'd
The fculptured walls, the lofty regent faid;
For nobler wars than these you wondering fee
That ample space th' eternal fates decree:
Sacred to these th' unpictured wall remains,
Unconscious yet of vanquish'd India's chains.
Affured we know the awful day fhall come,
Big with tremendous fate, and India's doom.
The fons of Brahma, by the god their fire
Taught to illume the dread divining fire,
From the drear manfions of the dark abodes

Awake the dead, or call th' infernal gods;

Then round the flame, while glimmering ghastly blue,
Behold the future fcene arife to view.

The fons of Brahma in the magic hour

Beheld the foreign foe tremendous lour;

Unknown their tongue, their face, and ftrange attire,
And their bold eye-balls burn'd with warlike ire:

They

& Call'd Jove his father.-The bon mot of Olympias on this pretenfion of her fon Alexander, was admired by the ancients. "This hot-headed youth, "forfooth, cannot be at rest unless he embroil me in a quarrel with Juno." QUINT. CURT.

They faw the chief o'er proftrate India rear
The glittering terrors of his awful spear.
But swift behind these wintery days of woe
A spring of joy arofe in livelieft glow,

Such gentle manners leagued with wisdom reign'd
In the dread victors, and their rage restrain'd:

Beneath their sway majestic, wife, and mild,

Proud of her victors' laws thrice happier India fmiled.
So to the prophets of the Brahmin train

h

The vifions rose, that never rose in vain.

The

The vifions rofe. -The pretenfions to, and belief in divination and magic, are found in the hiftory of every nation and age. The fources from whence thofe opinions fprung, may be reduced to thefe: The ftrong defire which the human mind has to pry into futurity: the consciousness of its own weakness, and the inflinctive belief, if it may be fo called, in invisible agents. On these foundations it is eafy for the artful to take every advantage of the fimple and credulous. A knowledge of the virtues of plants, and of fome chemical preparations, appeared as altogether fupernatural to the great bulk of mankind in former ages. And fuch is the proneness of the ignorant mind, to refolve, what it does not comprehend, into the marvellous, that even the common medicinal virtues of plants were esteemed as magical, and dependent upon the incantation which was muttered over the application of them. But we must not suppose that all the profeffors of magical knowledge were determined cheats, and confcious impoftors. So far from fuch idea of the futility of their pretended art, they themselves were generally the dupes of their own prejudices, of prejudices imbibed in their most early years, and to which the veneration of their oldest age was devoutly paid. Nor were the priests of favage tribes the only profeffors and ftudents of inchantment. The very greatest names of Pagan antiquity, during the first centuries of the Chriftian æra, firmly believed in divination, and were earnestly devoted to the purfuit of it. If Cicero, once or twice in his life, confulted the flight of birds, or the manner in which chickens picked up their corn; the great philofopher Marcus Aurelius Antoninus carried his veneration for the occult fciences much farther. When he might have attacked the Quadi and Marcomanni with every profpect of fuccefs,

M 3

The regent ceased; and now with folemn pace The chiefs approach the regal hall of grace.

The tapftried walls with gold were pictured 1 o'er,
And flowery velvet spread the marble floor.
In all the grandeur of the Indian ftate,
High on a blazing couch the monarch fate,
With ftarry gems the purple curtains shined,
And ruby flowers and golden foliage twined
Around the filver pillars: High o'er head
The golden canopy its radiance shed:

Of cloth of gold the fovereign's mantle shone,
And his high turban flamed with precious stone.
Sublime and awful was his fapient mien,
Lordly his posture, and his brow ferene.
An hoary fire fubmifs on bended knee,
(Low bow'd his head,) in India's luxury,
A leaf, all fragrance to the glowing taste,
Before the king each little while replaced.

The

Yet his devout obfervation of
And the enlarged and phi-

fuccefs, he delayed to do it, tiil the magical facrifice prefcribed by Alexander
of Pontus, the magician, could be performed. But when this was per-
formed, the barbarians happened to be greatly reinforced, and Antoninus
was defeated, with the lofs of 20,000 men.
fuch rites never fuffered the leaft abatement.
lofophical mind of the accomplished Julian, by fome called the Apostate,
was, amid all his other great avocations, most affiduously devoted to the
study of magic.

The tapfried walls with gold were pictured o'er,
And flowery velvet spread the marble floor-

According to Oforius.

k A leaf-The betel. This is a particular luxury of the Eaft. The Indians powder it with the fruit of Areca, or drunken date tree, and chew it,

fwallow