WORKS.
I.
Come, Muses! ye, that from Pieria raise
The song of glory, sing your father's praise.
By Jove's high will th' unknown and known of fame
Exist, the nameless and the fair of name.
'Tis He with ease the bowed feeble rears,[1]
And casts the mighty from their highest spheres:
Come, Muses! ye, that from Pieria raise
The song of glory, sing your father's praise.
By Jove's high will th' unknown and known of fame
Exist, the nameless and the fair of name.
'Tis He with ease the bowed feeble rears,[1]
And casts the mighty from their highest spheres:
- ↑ The bowed feeble rears.] This proem was wanting in the leaden-sheeted copy, seen by Pausanias in Bœotia. The affinity with scriptural language is remarkable. “The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich: he bringeth low and lifteth up. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dung-hill to set him among princes.” Samuel v. 1, ch. 2. “God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another. The Lord upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up them that be bowed down. The Lord lifteth up the meek: he casteth the wicked down to the ground.” Psalms 75, 145, 147. I was originally led to suspect that this introduction had been ingrafted on the poem by one of the Alexandrian Jews; who were addicted to this kind of imposture; but it is probably more ancient than the establishment of the Jewish colony at Alexandria, under the Ptolemies. There is nothing conclusive to be drawn from coincidences of this sort between ancient writings. The first princi-
