*The Scene changes, presenting Ludlow Town and the President's Castle; then come in Country - dancers, after them the Attendant Spirit, with the two Brothers and the Lady. * As the prototype of the Peer has been fixed about the middle of the course of the Amazon, looking north (vide fig. 181), we are there to look for Ludlow town (or the low plains) where the waters stagnate in the season which is free from the inundation: the country-dancers would seem to point to the multitude of rivers in the interior of South America when swelled by the melting of the ice from the Andes, the first cause of the inundations, which inundations, however, are afterwards extended immeasurably by the particular junction of the river Mamore (the Attendant Spirit) and the waters of the West India Gulf, (the Two Brothers and the Lady), probably through the medium of the several mouths of the river Oroonoko. Song. Spir. Back, shepherds, back, enough your play, Till next sunshine holiday; (968) This and the following lines of the second song allude to the recoil that takes place (further alluded to by the meaning of the Greek name of the God Mercury, εpuns, as derived from εpua a stop) when the West India Gulf will hold no more, (which may be one cause, perhaps, of the hurricanes to which that gulf is so remarkably subject) by which recoil, the union of the father and mother would take place with their children; the prototypes of all of them are assigned above, except that of the Peer's lady; she has hers, as drawn in Fig. 187, Here be without duck or nod Other trippings to be trod Of lighter toes, and such court guise As Mercury did first devise With the mincing Dryades On the lawns, and on the leas. 970 975 This second Song presents them to their Father and Mother. Noble Lord and Lady bright, Heaven hath timely tried their youth, 980 on the left bank of the river Amazon, looking south, and situate a little above the prototype of the Peer himself, as drawn in fig. 181. (976) From the brightness mentioned here, and the new delight of the next line, we are to understand that summer, with all its brilliancy, is now come. (980) This line implies that the brothers form a sign in the heavens, the Gemini. Their faith, their patience, and their truth, With a crown of deathless praise, To triumph in victorious dance O'er sensual folly and intemperance. (983) The crown alluded to here is drawn in Fig. 188, DO and comprizes (according to its prototype) the whole gulf of the West Indies; the children are sent with it, because their prototypes are constituted by the same identical space. 985 The Dances ended, the Spirit epiloguizes. Spir. To the ocean now I fly, And those happy climes that lie (986) As the fables mentioned in this epilogue of the Attendant Spirit have no absolute connection with that part of the subject of the poem, which has been mainly considered above, all that is necessary to observe upon the epilogue is, that besides the general reference which it undoubtedly has to South America, it seems also by the mention of gardens (as alluding obliquely to le Jardin de la Reine;) golden, (to the gold-producing country of Mexico;) flowers, (to the neighbouring country of Florida ;) ears, (to the ear-lac ;) queen (to the quina, or quinquina;) and by the mention of twins (as alluding to the sign of Gemini ;) to involve an artful and disguised recapitulation of all the principal subjects of the poem. To all the editions of this poem there is prefixed a letter of dedication (printed below)* as to which |