With eager haste they rush the gulf within,
And their whole souls are center'd in their sin.
But, oh, great Jove! by whom all good is given!
Dweller with lightnings, and the clouds of heaven!
Save from their dreadful error lost mankind!
Father! disperse these shadows of the mind!
Give them thy pure and righteous law to know;
Wherewith thy justice governs all below.
Thus honour'd by the knowledge of thy way,
Shall men that honour to thyself repay;
And bid thy mighty works in praises ring;
As well befits a mortal's lips to sing:
More blest, nor men, nor heavenly powers, can be,
Than when their songs are of thy law and thee!

Rhianus.

RHIANUS.

Bef. Ch. 200.

FRAGMENTS. EPIGRAMS.

RHIANUS was a native of Bena in the island of Crete. He was, originally, master of the Palæstra, or circus of gymnastic exercises; but was afterwards distinguished as a poet and grammarian. He wrote a history of Messene in verse, of which the accuracy is praised by Pausanias ; and composed similar historic poems, on different Grecian states. Suetonius relates that Tiberius was particularly partial to the poems of Rhianus; and that he placed his bust in the public

libraries, among those of the most eminent poets. There is dignity in his moral fragments; but his epigrams, although elegant, are tainted with the depravity of his times.

ON HUMAN FOLLY.

STILL err our mortal souls: nor wisely bear
The heaven-dealt lots, that still depress the scale
From side to side. The man of indigence
Loads with his bitter blame the Gods; and, stung
With discontent, neglects his mental powers,
And energies; nor dares, courageous, aught
Of speech or action; trembling, when the rich
Appear before him: sadness and despair
Eating his very heart. While he, who swells
With proud prosperity, whom Heaven endows
With riches, and with power above the crowd;
Forgets his being's nature; that his feet

Tread the low earth, and that himself was born
Of mortal parents; but, with puff'd up mind,
Sinful in haughtiness, like Jove, he wields
The thunder; and, though small in stature, lifts
The neck, with high-rein'd head, as though he wooed
Fair-arm'd Minerva; and had cleft a way
To high Olympus' top; that with the Gods
There number'd, he might feast in blessedness.