FROM THE FIFTEENTH BOOK OF
The fourteenth Book concludes with the death and deification of Romulus; the fifteenth begins with the election of Numa to the crown of Rome. On this occafion, Ovid, following the opinion of fome authors, makes Numa the fcholar of Pythagoras; and to have begun his acquaintance with that philofopher at Crotona, a town in Italy; from thence he makes a digreffion to the moral and natural philofophy of Pythagoras: on both which our author enlarges; and which are the most learned and beautiful parts of the Metamorphofes.
A KING is fought to guide the growing
One able to fupport the public weight,
And fill the throne where Romulus had fate.
It is a fingular circumftance, that neither Lucretius nor Pope finished their philofophical poems. Ovid has not fet forth the Pythagorean philofophy fo well as Lucretius the Epicurean, Dr. J. WARTON.
Renown, which oft befpeaks the public voice,
Had recommended Numa to their choice:
A peaceful, pious prince; who, not content
To know the Sabine rites, his ftudy bent
To cultivate his mind: to learn the laws
Of nature, and explore their hidden caufe.
Urg'd by this care, his country he forfook, 10
And to Crotona thence his journey took.
Arriv'd, he first enquir'd the founder's name
Of this new colony; and whence he came.
Then thus a fenior of the place replies,
(Well read, and curious of antiquities)
"Tis faid, Alcides hither took his way
From Spain, and drove along his conquer'd prey;
Then, leaving in the fields his grazing cows,
He fought himself fome hofpitable house.
Good Croton entertain'd his godlike gueft; 20
While he repair'd his weary limbs with reft.
The hero, thence departing, blefs'd the place;
And here, he faid, in Time's revolving race,
A riling town fhall take its name from thee.
Revolving Time fulfill'd the prophecy:
For Myfcelos, the jufteft man on earth,
Alemon's fon, at Argos had his birth:
Him Hercules, arm'd with his club of oak,
O'erfhadow'd in a dream, and thus befpoke;
Go, leave thy native foil, and make abode 30
Where Efaris rolls down his rapid flood.
He faid; and fleep forfook him, and the god.
Trembling he wak'd, and rose with anxious
His country laws forbad him to depart:
What should he do? "Twas death to go away; 35
And the god menac'd if he dar'd to ftay:
All day he doubted, and, when night came on,
Sleep, and the fame forewarning dream, begun:
Once more the god flood threatning o'er his
head;
With added curfes if he difobey'd.
Twice warn'd, he study'd flight; but would con
At once, his person and his wealth away.
Thus while he linger'd, his defign was heard;
A fpeedy procefs form'd, and death declar'd.
Witness there needed none of his offence,
Against himself the wretch was evidence :
Condemn'd, and deftitute of human aid,
To him, for whom he fuffer'd, thus he pray'd.
O Power, who haft deferv'd in heaven a
Not given, but by thy labours made thy own, 50 Pity thy fuppliant, and protect his cause, Whom thou haft made obnoxious to the laws, A cuftom was of old, and ftill remains, Which life or death by fuffrages ordains; White ftones and black within an urn are cast, 55 The firft abfolve, but fate is in the last.
The judges to the common urn bequeath Their votes, and drop the fable figns of death; The box receives all black; but pour'd from thence
The ftones came candid forth, the hue of inno
Thus Alimonides his fafety won,
Preferv'd from death by Alcumena's fon:
Then to his kinfman god his vows he pays,
And cuts with profp'rous gales th' Jonian feas:
He leaves Tarentum, favour'd by the wind, 65
And Thurine bays, and Temises, behind ;
Soft Sibaris, and all the capes that stand
Along the fhore, he makes in fight of land;
Still doubling, and still coafting, till he found
The mouth of Æfaris, and promis'd ground: 70
Then faw where, on the margin of the flood,
The tomb that held the bones of Croton ftood:
Here, by the god's command, he built and wall'd
The place predicted; and Crotona call'd ;
Thus fame, from time to time, delivers down 75
The fure tradition of th' Italian town.
Here dwelt the man divine whom Samos
But now felf-banifh'd from his native fhore,
Because he hated tyrants, nor could bear
The chains which none but fervile fouls will
He, though from heaven remote, to heaven could move,
With ftrength of mind, and tread th' abyfs above;
And penetrate, with his interior light,
Those upper depths, which Nature hid from fight:
And what he had obferv'd, and learnt from thence,
Lov'd in familiar language to difpenfe.
The crowd with filent admiration ftand,
And heard him, as they heard their god's command;
While he difcours'd of heaven's mysterious
The world's original, and nature's cause ;
And what was God, and why the fleecy fnows
In filence fell, and rattling winds arofe;
What hook the ftedfaft earth, and whence
The dance of planets round the radiant fun;
If thunder was the voice of angry Jove,
Or clouds, with nitre pregnant, burst above:
Of these, and things beyond the common reach,
He fpoke, and charm'd his audience with his
fpeech.
He first the taste of flesh from tables drove, And argued well, if arguments could move. 100
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