Euncta revolvuntur: nosti quo tempore pontus
Fuderit elatas scopulis stagnantibus undas :
Quis Phaetonteis erroribus arserit annus.
Et clades Te nulla rapit, solusque superstes
Edomita tellure manes: non stamina Purcæ
In Te dura legunt, non jus habuere nocendi.

De Phonice CLAUD.

A godlike bird! whose endless round of years
Outlasts the stars, and tires the circling spheres ;—'
Begot by none himself, begetting none,

Sire of himself he is, and of himself the son;
His life in fruitful death renews its date,
And kind destruction but prolongs his fate.-
O thou, says he, whom harmless fires shali burn,
Thy age the flanie to second youth shall turn,
An infant's cradle is thy fun'ral urn.
Thrice happy Phenix! Heav'n's peculiar care
Has made thyself thyself's surviving heir.
By death thy deathless vigour is supply'd,
Which sinks to ruin all the world beside.
Thy age, not thee, assisting Phoebus burns,
And vita! flames light up thy fun'ral urns.
Whate'er events have been, thy eyes survey,
And thou art fix'd while ages roll away.

Thou saw'st when raging Ocean burst his bed,
O'er-topp'd the mountains, and the earth o'erspread ;
When the rash youth inflam'd the high abodes,
Scorch'd up the skies, and scar'd the deathless gods.
When nature ceases, thou shalt still remain,

Nor second Chaos bound thy endless reign;

Fate's tyrant laws thy happier lot shall brave,
Baffle destruction, and elude the grave.

The circle of rays that you see round the head of the Phenix, distinguish him to be the bird and offspring of the sun.

Solis avi specimen—

Una est quæ reparet seque ipsa reseminet ales;
Assyrii Phonica vocant: non fruge neque herbis,
Sed Thuris lacrymis, et succo vivit amomi.
Hæc ubi quinque suæ complevit secula vitæ,
Ilicis in ramis, tremuleve cacumine palmæ,
Unguibus et duro sibi nidum construit ore }

Quo simul ac casias, ac nardi lenis aristas
Quassaque cum fulvâ substravit cinnama myrrhâ,
Se super imponit, finitque in odoribus ævum.
Inde ferunt totidem qui vivere debeat annos
Corpore de patrio parvum Phænica renasci.
Cum dedit huic ætas vires, onerique ferendo est,
Ponderibus nidi ramos levat arboris altæ,

Fertque pius cunasque suas, patriumque sepulchrum,
Perque leves aureas Hyperionis urbe potitus

Ante fores sacros Hyperionis æde reponit. Ov. Met. lib. 15.

-Titacius ales. CLAUD. de Phoenice.

From himself the Phenix only springs :
Self-born, begotten by the parent flame
In which he burn'd, another and the same.
Who not by corn or herbs his life sustains,
But the sweet essence of Amomum drains:
And watches the rich gums Arabia bears,
While yet in tender dew they drop their tears.
He (his five centuries of life fulfill'd)

His nést on oaken boughs begins to build,
Or trembling tops of palm, and first he draws
The plan with his broad bill and crooked claws,
Nature's artificers; on this the pile

Is form'd, and rises round; then with the spoil

Of cassia, cinnamon, and stems of nard,

(For softness strew'd beneath) his fun'ral bed is rear'd: Fun'ral and bridal both; and all around

The borders with corruptless myrrh are crown'd,

On this incumbent; till ethereal flame

First catches, then consumes the costly frame ;
Consumes him too, as on the pile he lies:
He liv'd on odours, and in odours dies.
An infant Phenix from the former springs,

His father's heir, and from his tender wings

Shakes off his parent dust, his method he pursues,

And the same lease of life on the same terms renews.

When grown to manhood he begins his reign,

And with his stiff pinions can his flight sustain,

He lightens of its load the tree, that bore
His father's royal sepulchre before,
And his own cradle: this (with pious care,
Plac'd on his back) he cuts the buxom air,

Seeks the sun's city, and his sacred church,
And decently lays down his burthen in the porch.

Mr. DRYDEN.

Sic ubi facundâ reparavit morte juventam,
Et patrios idem cineres, collectaque portat
Unguibus ossa piis, Nilique ad littora tendens
Unicus extremo Phanix procedit ab Euro :
Conveniunt Aquila, cunctæque ex orbe volucres
Ut Solis mirentur avem-CLAUD. de Laud. Stil. lib. 2.

So when his parent's pile hath ceas'd to burn,
Tow'rs the young Phenix from the teeming urn:

And from the purple east, with pious toil
Bears the dear relics to the distant Nile ;
Himself a species! Then, the bird of Jove,
And all his plumy nation quit the grove;
The gay harmonious train delighted gaze,
Crowd the procession, and resound his praise.

The radiated head of the Phenix gives us the meaning of a passage in Ausonius, which I was formerly surprised to meet with in the description of a bird. But at present I am very well satisfied the poet must have had his eye on the figure of this bird in ancient sculpture and painting, as indeed it was impossible to take it from the life.

Ternova Nestoreos implevit purpura fusos,
Et toties terno cornix vivacior avo,
Quam novies terni glomerantem secula tractûs
Vincunt aripedes ter terno Nestore cervi,
Tres quorum ætates superat Phabeius oscen,
Quem novies senior Gangeticus anteit ales,

Ales cinnameo radiatus tempora nido. AusON. Eidyl. 11.
Arcanum radiant oculi jubar, igneus ora
Cingit honos, rutilo cognatum vertice sidus
Attollit cristatus apex tenebrasque serená
Luce secat-

-CLAUD. de Phon

His fiery eyes shoot forth a glittʼring ray,
And round his head ten thousand glories play :
High on his crest, a star celestial bright
Divides the darkness with its piercing light.

C.

-Procul ignea lucet

Ales, odorati redolent cui cinnama busti.

CL. de Laud. STIL. lib. 2.

If you have a mind to compare this scale of beings with that of Hesiod, I shall give it you in a translation of that poet.

Ter binos deciesque novem super exit in annos
Justa senescentum quos implet vita virorum.
Hos novies superat vivendo garrula cornix:
Et quater egreditur cornicis sæcula cervus.
Alipedem cervum ter vincit corvus: at illum
Multiplicat novies Phanix, reparabilis ales;
Quam vos perpetuo decies prævertitis ævo
Nymphe Hamadryades: quarum longissima vita est:
Hic cohibent fines vivacia fata animantum.

AUSON. Eidyl. 18.

The utmost age to man the gods assign

Are winters three times two, and ten times nine :

Poor man nine times the prating daws exceed :

Three times the daw's the deer's more lasting breed:

'The deer's full thrice the raven's race outrun :

Nine times the raven Titan's feather'd son:
Beyond his age, with youth and beauty crown'd
The Hamadryads shine ten ages round :

Their breath the longest is the fates bestow;
And such the bounds to mortal lives below.

His

A man had need be a good arithmetician, says Cynthio, to understand this author's works. description runs on like a multiplication table. But methinks the poets ought to have agreed a little better in the calculations of a bird's life that was probably of their own creation.

We generally find a great confusion in the traditions of the ancients, says Philander. It seems to me, from the next medal*, it was an opinion among them, that the Phenix renewed herself at the beginning of the great year, and the return of the Fig. 14.

*

golden age. This opinion I find touched

couple of lines in Claudian.

Quicquid ab externis ales longæva colonis
Colligit, optati referens exordia secli.

upon in a

CLAUD. de rapt. Pros. lib. 2,

The person in the midst of the circle is supposed to be Jupiter, by the author that has published this medal, but I should rather take it for the figure of Time. I remember I have seen at Rome an antique statue of Time, with a wheel or hoop of marble in his hand, as Seneca describes him, and not with a serpent as he is generally represented.

-properat cursu

Vita citato, volucrique die

Rota præcipitis volvitur anni.

HERC. fur. act. 1.

Life posts away,

And day from day drives on with swift career
The wheel that hurries on the headlong year.

As the circle of marble in his hand represents the common year, so this that encompasses him is a proper representation of the great year, which is the whole round and comprehension of time. For when this is finished, the heavenly bodies are supposed to begin their courses anew, and to measure over again the several periods and divisions of years, months, days, &c. into which the great year is distinguished.

-consumpto, Magnus qui dicitur, anno Rursus in antiquum venient vaga sidera cursum : Qualia dispositi steterant ab origine mundi.

AUSON. Eidyl. 18.

When round the great Platonic year has turn'd,
In their old ranks the wand'ring stars shall stand
As when first marshal'd by th' Almighty's hand.

To sum up, therefore, the thoughts of this medal.