The Poetical Works of Edward Young Part 40

And the Egyptians, in regard to its swiftness, made it their symbol for the wind; for which reason we may suppose the hawk, as well as the crow above, to have been a bird of note in Egypt.

35 The eagle is said to be of so acute a sight, that when she is so high in air that man cannot see her, she can discern the smallest fish under water. My author accurately understood the nature of the creatures he describes, and seems to have been a naturalist as well as a poet, which the next note will confirm.

36 The meaning of this question is, Knowest thou the time and circ.u.mstances of their bringing forth? For to know the time only was easy, and had nothing extraordinary in it; but the circ.u.mstances had something peculiarly expressive of G.o.d's providence, which makes the question proper in this place. Pliny observes, that the hind with young is by instinct directed to a certain herb called Seselis, which facilitates the birth. Thunder also (which looks like the more immediate hand of Providence) has the same effect. Ps. xxix. In so early an age to observe these things, may style our author a naturalist.

37 Pursuing their prey by night is true of most wild beasts, particularly the lion. Ps. cvi. 20. The Arabians have one among their five hundred names for the lion, which signifies "the hunter by moons.h.i.+ne."

38 Cephissi glaciale caput, quo suetus anhelam Ferre sitim Python, amnemque avertere ponto.

Stat. Theb. vii. 349.

Qui spiris tegeret montes, hauriret hiatu Flumina, &c. Claud. Pref. in Ruf.

Let not then this hyperbole seem too much for an eastern poet, though some commentators of name strain hard in this place for a new construction, through fear of it.

39 The taking the crocodile is most difficult. Diodorus says, they are not to be taken but by iron nets. When Augustus conquered Egypt, he struck a medal, the impress of which was a crocodile chained to a palm-tree, with this inscription, Nemo antea religavit.

40 This alludes to a custom of this creature, which is, when sated with fish, to come ash.o.r.e and sleep among the reeds.

41 The crocodile's mouth is exceeding wide. When he gapes, says Pliny, sic totum os. Martial says to his old woman,

c.u.m comparata rictibus tuis ora Niliacus habet crocodilus angusta.

So that the expression there is barely just.

42 This too is nearer the truth than at first view may be imagined. The crocodile, say the naturalists, lying long under water, and being there forced to hold its breath, when it emerges, the breath long represt is hot, and bursts out so violently, that it resembles fire and smoke. The horse suppresses not his breath by any means so long, neither is he so fierce and animated; yet the most correct of poets ventures to use the same metaphor concerning him:

Collectumque premens volvit sub naribus ignem.

By this and the foregoing note I would caution against a false opinion of the eastern boldness, from pa.s.sages in them ill understood.

43 "His eyes are like the eyelids of the morning." I think this gives us as great an image of the thing it would express as can enter the thought of man. It is not improbable that the Egyptians stole their hieroglyphic for the morning, which is the crocodile's eye, from this pa.s.sage, though no commentator, I have seen, mentions it. It is easy to conceive how the Egyptians should be both readers and admirers of the writings of Moses, whom I suppose the author of this poem.

I have observed already that three or four of the creatures here described are Egyptian; the two last are notoriously so, they are the river-horse and the crocodile, those celebrated inhabitants of the Nile; and on these two it is that our author chiefly dwells. It would have been expected from an author more remote from that river than Moses, in a catalogue of creatures produced to magnify their Creator, to have dwelt on the two largest works of his hand, viz.

the elephant and the whale. This is so natural an expectation, that some commentators have rendered behemoth and leviathan, the elephant and whale, though the descriptions in our author will not admit of it; but Moses being, as we may well suppose, under an immediate terror of the hippopotamus and crocodile, from their daily mischiefs and ravages around him, it is very accountable why he should permit them to take place.

44 Though the report was propagated without the least truth, it may be sufficient ground to justify a poetical fancy's enlarging on it.

45 Lord Aubrey Beauclerk was the eighth son of the Duke of St. Albans, who was one of the sons of King Charles the Second. He was born in the year 1711; and, being regularly bred to the sea service, in 1731 he was appointed to the command of his majesty's s.h.i.+p the Ludlow Castle; and he commanded the Prince Frederick at the attack of the harbour of Carthagena, March 24, 1741. This young n.o.bleman was one of the most promising commanders in the king's service. When on the desperate attack of the castle of Bocca Chica, at the entrance of the said harbour, he lost his life, both his legs being first shot off. The prose part of the inscription on his monument was the production of Mrs. Mary Jones of Oxford; who also wrote a poem on his death, printed in her Miscellanies, 8vo, 1752.-_R._

46 Lord Sommers procured a pension for Mr. Addison, which enabled him to prosecute his travels.-_R._

47 The publication of his Works.

48 The invader affects the character of Charles XII. of Sweden.

49 Mrs. M--.

50 Whilst the author was writing this, he received the news of Mr.

Samuel Richardson's death, who was then printing the former part of the poem.

51 Mrs. Montague.

52 Mrs. Montague.

53 Mrs. Montague. Mrs Carter.

54 Candide.

55 Second Part.

56 Ephes. vi. 17.

57 Which his romance ridicules.

58 Isaiah lvii. 15.

59 Letter to Lord Lyttelton.

60 Alluding to Prussia.

61 Knight of the Bath, and then of the Garter.

62 An ancestor of the Duke of Shrewsbury, who conquered France, drawn by Shakespeare.-Young.

63 See his lords.h.i.+p's tragedy ent.i.tled "Heroic Love." -Young.

64 His lords.h.i.+p's nephew, who took orders.-Young.

65 The author here bewails that most ingenious gentleman, Mr. William Harrison, fellow of New-College, Oxon.-Young. [See a more particular account of him in the Supplement to Swift.]

66 His late majesty's benefaction for modern languages.

67 Boileau.

68 A Poetical Epistle from the late Lord Melcombe to the Earl of Bute, with corrections by the author of the Night Thoughts, was published in 4to, 1776.

69 See Mr. Cust's Life of Young.