To the small rill, that weeps along
Murmuring o'er beds of pearl;
From the rich sigh

Of the sun's arrow through an evening sky,*
To the faint breath the tuneful osier yields
On Afric's burning fields; †

Oh! thou shalt own this universe divine
Is mine!

That I respire in all and all in me,

One mighty mingled soul of boundless harmony!

Welcome, welcome mystic shell!
Many a star has ceased to burn, S
Many a tear has Saturn's urn

* HERACLIDES, upon the allegories of HOMER, conjectures that the idea of the harmony of the spheres originated with this poet, who, in representing the solar beams as arrows, supposes them to emit a peculiar sound in the air.

In the account of Africa which d'ABLANCOURT has translated, there is mention of a tree in that country, whose branches when shaken by the hand produce very sweet sounds. "Le même auteur (ABENZÉGAR) dit, qu'il y a un certain arbre, qui produit des gaules comme d'osier, et qu'en les prenant à la main et les branlant, elles font une espèce d'harmonie fort agréable," etc. etc.—L'Afrique de MARMOL.

§ Alluding to the extinction, or at least the disappearance, of some of those fixed stars, which we are taught to consider as suns, attended each by its system. DESCARTES thought tha our earth might formerly have been a sun, which became ob

O'er the cold bosom of the ocean wept,*

Since thy aerial spell

Hath in the waters slept!

I fly,

With the bright treasure to my choral sky,
Where she, who waked its early swell,
The syren, with a foot of fire,

Walks o'er the great string of my Orphic Lyre,†
Or guides around the burning pole

The winged chariot of some blissful soul !§
While thou!

Oh, son of earth! what dreams shall rise for thee!
Beneath Hispania's sun,

scured by a thick incrustation over its surface. This probably suggested the idea of a central fire.

* PORPHYRY says, that PYTHAGORAS held the sea to be a tear. Την θάλατταν μεν εκαλει είναι δακρυον.—De Vit. And some one else, if I mistake not, has added the Planet Saturn as the source of it. EMPEDOCLES, with similar affectation, called the sea" the sweat of the earth" para tys yys.

See RITTERSHUSIUS upon PORPHYRY, Num. 41.

The system of the harmonised orbs was styled by the ancients the Great Lyre of Orpheus, for which LUCIAN accounts, ή δε Λυρῃ ἑπταμιτος ε8σα την των κινεμένων αερών αρμονίαν συνεβαλλετο. κ. 7. λ. in Astrolog.

§ Διειλε ψυχας ισαριθμός τοις αςροις, ενειμε ν' εκασην προς εκαςον, και εμβίβασας ‘ΩΣ ΕΙΣ ΟΧΗΜΑ. PLATON. Timæus.

Thou❜lt see a streamlet run,

Which I have warm'd with dews of melody;
Listen!-when the night wind dies

Down the still current, like a harp it sighs!
A liquid chord is every wave that flows,
An airy plectrum every breeze that blows!†
There, by that wondrous stream,

Go, lay thy languid brow,

And I will send thee such a god-like dream,
Such-mortal! mortal! hast thou heard of him, §
Who, many a night, with his primordial lyre, **
Sate on the chill Pangæan mount,††

* This musical river is mentioned in the romance of Achilles Tatius. Επει ποταμε *** yv δε ακέσαι θέλης Ty udaros daλgyros. The Latin version, in supplying the hiatus, which is in the original, has placed the river in Hispania. "In Hispania quoque fluvius est, quem primo aspectu," etc. etc.

+ These two lines are translated from the words of Achilles

Tatius. Εαν γαρ ολιγος ανεμος εις τας δίνας εμπεση, το μεν ύδωρ ως χορδη κρέεται. το δε πνευμα τ8 ύδατος πληκτρον γινεται. το ρευμα δε ὡς κιθαρα λαλει. Lib. 2. § Orpheus.

** They call his lyre αρχαιότροπον ἑπταχορδον Ορφεως. See a curious work by a professor of Greek at Venice, intitled "Hebdomades, sive septem de septenario libri.” Lib. 4. cap. 3. p. 177.

++ ERATOSTHENES, telling the extreme veneration of Orpheus for Apollo, says that he was accustomed to go to the Pangaan mountain at day-break, and there wait the rising of the sun,

And, looking to the orient dim,

Watch'd the first flowing of that sacred fount,
From which his soul had drunk its fire!
Oh! think what visions, in that lonely hour,
Stole o'er his musing breast!

What pious ecstasy*

Wafted his prayer to that eternal Power,
Whose seal upon this world imprest +
The various forms of bright divinity!

Or, dost thou know what dreams I wove, 'Mid the deep horror of that silent bower, S

that he might be the first to hail its beams. Επεγειρομένος τε της νυκτος, κατα την έωθινην επι το ορος το καλο μενον Παγγαίον, προσέμενε τας ανατολας, ίνα ίδη τον Ηλιον πρωτον. Κατατερισμ. 24.

* There are some verses of ORPHEUS preserved to us, which contain sublime ideas of the unity and magnificence of the Deity. As those which JUSTIN MARTYR has produced:

Ουτος μεν χαλκείον ες ἔρανον εστηρίκται

Χρυσείω εν θρόνω, κ. τ. λ. Ad Græc. cohortat.

It is thought by some, that these are to be reckoned amongst the fabrications which were frequent in the early times of Christianity. Still it appears doubtful to whom we should impute them; they are too pious for the Pagans, and too poetical for the Fathers.

In one of the Hymns of ORPHEUS, he attributes a figured seal to Apollo, with which he imagines that deity to have stamped a variety of forms upon the universe.

§ Alluding to the cave near Samos, where Pythagoras de

Where the rapt Samian slept his holy slumber?

When, free

From every earthly chain,

From wreaths of pleasure and from bonds of pain,

His spirit flew through fields above,

Drank at the source of Nature's fontal number, And saw, in mystic choir, around him move The stars of song, Heaven's burning minstrelsy! Such dreams, so heavenly bright,

I swear

By the great diadem that twines my hair,
And by the seven gems that sparkle there, †

*

voted the greater part of his days and nights to meditation and the mysteries of his philosophy. Jamblich. de Vit. This, as HOLSTENIUS remarks, was in imitation of the Magi.

* The tetractys, or sacred number of the Pythagoreans, on which they solemnly swore, and which they called αɣαv aɛvaɣ Quoras, “the fountain of perennial nature." LUCIAN has ridiculed this religious arithmetic very finely in his Sale of Philosophers.

+ This diadem is intended to represent the analogy between the notes of music and the prismatic colours. We find in Plutarch a vague intimation of this kindred harmony in colours and sounds. Οψις τε και ακον, μετα φωνης τε και φωτος την άρμονιαν επιφαινεσι. De Musica.

CASSIODORUS, whose idea I may be supposed to have bor rowed, says, in a letter upon music to Boetius, " Ut diadema oculis, varia luce gemmarum, sic cythara diversitate soni, blanditur auditui." This is indeed the only tolerable thought in the letter. Lib. 2. Variar.