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N° CLI.

Mufa dedit fidibus Divos, puerofque Deorum,
Et pugilem victorem, et equum certamine primum,
Et juvenum curas, et libera vina referre.

(HORAT.)

N times of very remote antiquity, when men

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were not fo lavish of their wit as they have fince been, Poetry could not furnish employment for more than Three Mufes; but as bufinefs grew upon their hands and departments multiplied, it became neceffary to enlarge the commiffion and a board was conftituted confifting of Nine in number, who had their feveral prefiden cies allotted to them, and every branch of the art poetic thenceforth had its peculiar patroness and fuperintendant.

As to the precife time when these three fenior goddeffes called in their fix new affeffors it is matter of conjecture only; but if the poet Hefiod was, as we are told, the firft, who had the honour of announcing their names and characters to the world, we may reafonably suppose this was done upon the immediate opening of their new commiffion, as they would hardly enVOLI V. T

ter

ter upon their offices without apprifing all thofe, whom it might concern, of their acceffion.

Before this period the three eldest fifters condefcended to be maids of all work; and if the work became more than they could turn their hands to, they have nobody but themselves and their fellow deities to complain of; for had they been content to have let the world go on in its natural courfe, mere mortal poets would not probably have overburthened either it or them; but when Apollo himself (who being their prefident fhould have had more confideration for their ease) begot the poet Linus in one of his terref trial frolics, and endowed him with hereditary genius, he took a certain method to make work for the mufes: Accordingly we find the chafte Calliope herself, the eldest of the fisterhood, and who should have fet a better example to the family, could not hold out against this heavenly bastard, but in an unguarded moment yielded her virgin honours to Linus, and produced the poet Orpheus: Such an inftance of celeftial incontinence could not fail to fhake the morals of the moft demure; and even the cold goddess Luna caught the flame, and finuggled a bantling into the world, whom maliciously enough the named Mafaus, with a fly defign no doubt of laying

her

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her child at the door of the Parnaffian nun

nery.

Three fuch high-blooded bards as Linus, Orpheus and Mufæus, so fathered and fo mothered, were enough to people all Greece with poets and muficians; and in truth they were not idle in their generation, but like true patriarchs Ipread their families over all the fhores of Ionia and the islands of the Archipelago: It is not therefore to be wondered at, if the three fifter muses, who had enough to do to nurse their own children and defcendants, were difpofed to call in other helpmates to the task, and whilft Greece was in its glory, it may well be fuppofed that all the nine fifters were fully employed in bestowing upon every votary a portion of their attention, and answering every call made upon them for aid and inspiration: Much gratitude is due to them from their favoured poets, and much hath been paid, for even to the prefent hour they are invoked and worshipped by the fons of verse, whilst all the other deities of Olympus have either abdicated their thrones, or been difmiffed from them with contempt; even Milton himself in his facred epic invokes the heavenly mufe, who inspired Mofes on the top of Horeb or of Sinai; by which

he afcribes great antiquity as well as dignity to the character he addreffes.

The powers afcribed to Orpheus were under the veil of fable emblems of his influence over favage minds, and of his wifdom and eloquence in reclaiming them from that barbarous state: Upon these impreffions civilization and fociety took place: The patriarch, who founded a family or tribe, the legiflator, who established a ftate, the priest, prophet, judge or king, are characters, which, if traced to their first fources, will be found to branch from that of poet: The first prayers, the first laws and the earliest prophecies were metrical; prose hath a later origin, and before the art of writing was in existence, poetry had reached a very high degree of excellence and fome of it's nobleft productions were no otherwise preserved than by tradition. As to the facred quality of their firft poetry the Greeks are agreed, and to give their early bards the better title to inspiration they feign them to be defcended from the Gods; Orpheus must have profited by his mother's partiality, and Linus may well be supposed to have had some interest with his father Apollo. But to dwell no longer on these fabulous legends of the Greeks, we may refer to the books of Mofes for the earliest

and

and most authentic examples of facred poetry:" Every thing that was the immediate effufion of the prophetic spirit seems to have been chaunted forth in dithyrambic measure; the valedictory bleffings of the Patriarchs, when dying, the fongs of triumph and thanksgiving after victory are metrical, and high as the antiquity of the facred poem of Job undoubtedly is, fuch nevertheless is its character and conftruction as to carry ftrong internal marks of its being written in an advanced state of the art.

The poet therefore, whether Hebrew or Greek, was in the earliest ages a facred character, and his talent a divine gift, a celeftial inspiration: Men regarded him as the ambaffador of Heaven and the interpreter of it's will.. It is perfectly in nature and no less agreeable to God's providence to fuppose that even in the darkest times fome minds of a more enlightened fort should break forth, and be engaged in the contempla. tion of the universe and its author: From meditating upon the works of the Creator the tranfition to the act of praise and adoration follows as it were of course: These are operations of the mind, which naturally infpire it with a certain portion of rapture and enthusiasm, rushing upon the lips in warm and glowing language, and difT3 daining

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