But all was cover'd with the flimy brood,
The fnaily offspring of the unctuous flood.
And now obedient to his dreadful fire,

High o'er the wave his brawny arms aspire;
To his black mouth his crooked shell applied,
The blaft rebellows o'er the ocean wide:

Wide o'er their fhores, where'er their waters flow,
The watery powers the awful summons know;
And instant darting to the palace hall,

Attend the founder of the Dardan 8 wall.

Thus rendered by Fanshaw,

He had (for a montera) on his crown

The fhell of a red lobster overgrown.

The defcription of Triton, who, as Fanfhaw says,

Was a great nafty clown

Old

is in the style of the claffics. His parentage is differently related. Hefiod makes him the son of Neptune and Amphitrité. By Triton, in the physical fense of the fable, is meant the noise, and by Salacé, the mother by fome afcribed to him, the falt of the ocean. The origin of the fable of Triton, it is probable, was founded on the appearance of a sea animal, which, according to fome ancient and modern naturalifts, in the upward parts resembles the human figure. Paufanias relates a wonderful story of a monftrously large one, which often came afhore on the meadows of Boetia. Over his head was a kind of finny cartilage, which, at a distance, appeared like hair, the body covered with brown fcales; and nose and ears like the human, the mouth of a dreadful width, jagged with teeth like those of a panther; the eyes of a greenish hue; the hands divided into fingers, the nails of which were crooked, and of a shelly substance. This monster, whose extremities ended in a tail like a dolphin's, devoured both men and beasts as they chanced in his way. The citizens of Tanagra, at laft, contrived his deftruction. They fet a large veffel full of wine on the fea fhore. Triton got drunk with it, and fell into a profound fleep, in which condition the Tanagrians beheaded him, and afterwards, with great propriety, hung up his body in the temple of Bacchus; where, says Pausanias, it continued a long time.

g Neptune.

* Montera, the Spanish word for a huntsman's cap. VOL. II.

H

Old father Ocean, with his numerous race
Of daughters and of fons, was first in place.
Nereus and Doris, from whose nuptials sprung
The lovely Nereid train for ever young,
Who people every fea on every strand,
Appear'd, attended with their filial band;
And changeful Proteus, whose prophetic 1 mind
The fecret caufe of Bacchus' rage divined,
Attending, left the flocks, his scaly charge,
To graze the bitter weedy foam at large.
In charms of power the raging waves to tame,
The lovely spouse of Ocean's sovereign 1 came:
From heaven and Vesta sprung the birth divine;
Her fnowy limbs bright through the vestments shine.
Here with the dolphin, who persuasive * led
Her modeft fteps to Neptune's spousal bed,
Fair Amphitrité moved, more sweet, more gay,
Than vernal fragrance and the flowers of May;
Together with her fifter spouse she came,

The fame their wedded lord, their love the same;

The

And changeful Proteus, whose prophetic mind. -The fulleft and beft account of the fable of Proteus is in the fourth Odyffey.

i Thetis.

k Here with the dolphin. -Castera has a most curious note on this paffage. "Neptune, (fays he) is the vivifying spirit, and Amphitrité the humidity of the fea, which the Dolphin, the divine intelligence, unites for the generation and nourishment of fishes. Who, fays he, cannot but be ftruck with admiration to find how confonant this is to the facred Scripture; Spiritus Domini fertur fuper aquas; The spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."

The fame the brightnefs of their fparkling eyes,
Bright as the fun and azure as the skies.
She who the rage of Athamas to 1 shun
Plunged in the billows with her infant son;
A goddess now, a god the smiling boy
Together sped; and Glaucus lost to " joy,
Curft in his love by vengeful Circe's hate,
Attending wept his Scylla's hapless fate.

m

And now affembled in the hall divine,
The ocean gods in folemn council join;
The goddeffes on pearl embroidery fate,
The gods on fparkling crystal chairs of state;
And proudly honour'd on the regal throne,
Befide the ocean's lord, Thyoneus " fhone.

n

High

She who the rage of Athamas to fhun-Ino, the daughter of Cadmus and Hermione, and second spouse of Athamas, king of Thebes. The fables of her fate are various. That which Camoëns follows is the most common. Athamas, feized with madness, imagined that his spouse was a lionefs, and her two fons young lions. In this frenzy he flew Learchus, and drove the mother and her other fon Melicertus into the fea. The corpfe of the mother was thrown afhore on Megaria, and that of the fon at Corinth. They were afterwards deified, the one as a fea goddess, the other as the god of harbours.

m

and Glaucus loft to joy

fays the fable, who, on Circe was enamoured of

A fisherman, eating a certain herb, was turned into a fea god. him, and in revenge of her flighted love, poisoned the fountain where his mistress usually bathed. By the force of the enchantment the favoured Scylla was changed into an hideous monster, whose loins were furrounded with the ever-barking heads of dogs and wolves. Scylla, on this, threw herself into the fea, and was metamorphofed into the rock which bears her name. The rock Scylla at a distance appears like the statue of a woman: the furious dashing of the waves in the cavities which are level with the water, resembles the barking of wolves and dogs. Hence the fable.

Thyoncus, a name of Bacchus.

High from the roof the living amber glows,
High from the roof the ftream of glory flows,
And richer fragrance far around exhales
Than that which breathes on fair Arabia's gales.

Attention now in liftening filence waits: The power, whofe bofom raged against the fates, Rifing, cafts round his vengeful eyes, while rage Spread o'er his brows the wrinkled seams of age; O thou, he cries, whose birthright fovereign fway, From pole to pole the raging waves obey; Of human race 'tis thine to fix the bounds, And fence the nations with thy watery mounds: And thou, dread power, O father Ocean, hear, Thou, whose wide arms embrace the world's wide fphere, 'Tis thine the haughtieft victor to restrain,

And bind each nation in its own domain :

And you, ye gods, to whom the feas are given,

Your juft partition with the gods of heaven;

You who, of old unpunish'd never bore

The daring trefpass of a foreign oar;

You who beheld, when Earth's dread offspring ftrove

To scale the vaulted sky, the feat of Jove:

• High from the roof the living amber glows

From the arched roof,

Pendent by fubtle magic, many a row
Of starry lamps, and blazing creffets, fed
With naphtha and afphaltus, yielded light
As from a sky.

MILTON.

Indignant

Indignant Jove deep to the nether world

The rebel band in blazing thunders hurl'd.
Alas! the great monition loft on you,
Supine you flumber, while a roving crew,
With impious fearch, explore the watery way,
And unrefifted through your empire stray:
To feize the facred treasures of the main
Their fearless prows your ancient laws difdain :
Where far from mortal fight his hoary head
Old Ocean hides, their daring fails they spread.
And their glad fhouts are echoed where the roar
Of mounting billows only howl'd before.

In wonder, filent, ready Boreas fees

Your paffive languor, and neglectful ease;
Ready with force auxiliar to restrain

The bold intruders on your awful reign;
Prepared to burft his tempefts, as of old,
When his black whirlwinds o'er the ocean roll'd,
And rent the Mynian P fails, whofe impious pride
First braved their fury, and your power defied.
Nor deem that, fraudful, I my hope deny;
My darken'd glory fped me from the sky.
How high my honours on the Indian shore!
How foon these honours must avail no more!
Unless these rovers, who with doubled fhame
To ftain my conquefts, bear my vaffal's name,

9

Unless

P And rent the Mynian fails-The fails of the Argonauts, inhabitants of

Mynia.

9 See the first note on the first book of the Lufiad,