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"We've read of three Graces attending on Venus,

But, here, have we four, who, t' attend them, convene us.
I saw them, this morn, as I walk'd on the Stene,
To the billiard room trip it;-I follow'd them in;
I was curious to fee if a little fair hand

Could handle the mace or the kew at command:
But when I beheld them, oh! how I did ftare :-
:-
They handled the sticks with a grace! and an air!
And guided the balls with fuch judgment and art!-
The white little things, Sir, ran quite to my heart.
Henceforward I'll vouch it, no man of us all
Like woman can play with a mace and a ball,

As here I ftood pleas'd with a paftime so rare,
And wondering, Sir, gaz'd at the game of the fair,
Some ladies did make me an offer most hearty,
To go to the fea, on a fnug failing party.
The offer was friendly,-I took it as kind,
But failing e'er fills my poor ftomach with wind.
Now, thin guts, like mine, with rich foop should be fed,
Not emptied at fea, like a fick man's in bed,
Or river-gods, fpouting a muddy cafcade.
The ladies I told, then, if e'er they did choose,
In their frolicks, my flender affistance to use,
Employ they muft give me on fafe folid ground,
For, at sea I was fick, and my head it went round;
So refusing to go, I return'd them my thanks,

And beg'd on dry ground, Sir, to play my own pranks.
Befides, as this day was the day of the ball,
I chofe to be there,-if I could be at all ;-
When one is at fea, tho' to land he's inclin'd,
His return is uncertain, you know, as the wind,

The balls in this land are so much of a kin,-
Save fome are more crowded and fome are more thin,-
Tho' on Monday we had one,-(perhaps I'm to blame,)
I never once thought, Sir, to mention it's name.
At thefe Brighton balls, as at all public places,
When people are pleas'd you'll not know by their faces;
They hop down a dance, or fit out a droll farce,
With the fame vacant look, and fame ftupid grimace.
To fee them so ferious affords me great sport;
I'm fure they ne'er learnt it at George's gay court.
To laugh when one's pleas'd, they may think it is common;
But laughter's a gift to the fon of a woman,

Diftinguishes moft from a four-legged brute;
So when I'm diverted I roar myself mute;

My foul I dare fhew ;-at my mirth they may scoff;
They may call me a vulgar afs, goofe, or a calf;-
But I laugh in the mode !-for their majefties laugh.

A party next offer'd of just half a score,
To poft it to Lewes, which fuited me more;
I went then ;-but as to my fortune it fell,
The mirth of the day in a ballad to tell;
My friend I'll tranfcribe it, to fave me the pain
Of rhiming to please you, that story again.

But, a poem or book, my own words here to quote,
Should be underitood without comment or note;
I therefore premife, the Italian you'll read,
Please thus to tranflate :-If not true what is faid,
'Tis at least well imagin'd ;—If here we agree,
For curing your vapours you'll owe me a fee.'-

}

VII. Ionian Antiquities, published with Permiffion of the Society of Dilettanti. By R. Chandler, M. A. F. S. A. N. Revett, Architect; W. Pars, Painter. Fol. Pr. 1l. 111. 6d. Dodsley.

A Society of noblemen and gentlemen, entitled by rank,

and enabled by fortune to pursue the most refined luxuries of life, places at the head of their enjoyments the cultivation of the fine arts, and of those they give the preference to the revival of Greek architecture in its pureft ftile. They dedicate a fum of money to that noble purpose, and in this work they exhibit to the public the fruit of their researches. They had refolved, That a perfon, or perfons, properly qua1 fied, fhould be fent, with fufficient appointments, to certain parts of the Eaft, to collect informations relative to the former ftate of thofe countries, and particularly to procure exact defcriptions of the ruins of fuch monuments of antiquity as are yet to be seen in those parts.'

Three perfons were elected for this undertaking. Mr. Chandler, of Magdalen College, Oxford, editor of the Marmora Oxonienfia, was appointed to execute the claflical part of the plan. The province of architecture was affigned to Mr. Revett, who had already given a fatisfactory fpecimen of his accuracy and diligence, in his measures of the remains of antiquity at Athens. The choice of a proper perfon for taking views, and copying bafs reliefs, fell upon Mr. Pars, a young painter of promifing talents. A committee was appointed to

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fix their falaries, and draw up their inftructions; in which, at the fame time that the different objects of their respective departments were diftin&ly pointed out, they were all strictly enjoined to keep a regular journal, and hold a conftant correfpondence with the fociety.

They embarked on the ninth of June, 1764, in the Anglicana, captain Stewart, bound for Conftantinople, and were put on fhore at the Dardanelles on the twenty-fifth of Auguft. Having visited the Sigéan Promontory, the Ruins of Troas, with the Iflands of Tenedos and Scio, they arrived at Smyrna on the eleventh of September. From that city, as their head quarters, they made feveral excurfions. On the twentieth of Auguft, 1765, they failed from Smyrna, and arrived at Athens on the thirty-firft of the fame month, touching at Sunium and Ægina in their way. They ftaid at Athens till the eleventh of June, 1765, vifiting Marathon, Eleufis, Salamis, Megara, and other places in the neighbourhood. Leaving Athens, they proceeded, by the little ifland of Calauria, to Trazene, Epidaurus, Argos, and Corinth. From this they vifited Delphi, Patræ, Elis, and Zante, whence they failed, on the thirty-firft of Auguft, in the Diligence brig, captain Long, bound for Briftol, and arrived in England the fecond of November following.'

The fociety directed them to publish what they had found moft worthy of their attention in Ionia, a country in many refpecs curious, and, perhaps, after Attica, the most deferving the attention of a claffical traveller. Our editors question, whether upon the whole, letters and arts do not owe as much to Ionia, and the adjoining coaft, as to any country of antiquity?

The knowledge of nature, fay they, was firft taught in the Ionic fehool and as geometry, astronomy, and other branches of the mathematics, were cultivated here fooner than in other parts of Greece, it is not extraordinary that the first Greek navigators, who paffed the Pillars of Hercules, and extended their commerce to the Occan, fhould have been Ionians. Here history had its birth, and there it acquired a confiderable degree of perfection. The first writer, who reduced the knowledge of medicine, or the means of preferving health, to an art, was of this neighbourhood: and here the father of poetry produced a standard for compofition, which no age or country have dared to depart from, or have been able to furpass. But architecture belongs more particularly to this country than to any other; and of the Greek orders it feems juftly entitled to the honour of having invented the two firft, though one of them. only bears its name; for though the Temple of Juno at Argos

fug

fuggefted the general idea of what was after called the Doric, its proportions were first established here. As to the other arts which alfo depend upon defign, they have flourished no where more than in Ionia; nor has any spot of the fame extent produced more painters and sculptors of distinguished talents.'

Our editors, with great judgment, dedicated their labours in this claffical country to the structures, sanctified by the approbation of Vitruvius and other antient writers, for their elegance and magnificence; a circumftance of rare felicity, as it gave them an opportunity of vindicating the taste of that standard writer upon architecture by actual inspection and menfuration, without trufting to the heightnings of imagination, or hazarding the uncertainty of conjecture. The three capital works they examined were the temple of Bacchus at Teos, the country of Anacreon; the temple dedicated to Minerva, at Priene, by Alexander of Macedon; and the famous temple of Apollo Didymæus, near Miletus.

We are forry to obferve that our editors have been able to give us only one elevation, which is the front of the temple of Bacchus; but it exhibits a specimen of what we may call magnificent fimplicity. This they have been enabled to do, partly from the ruins, and partly from Vitruvius, who, in defcribing the euftylos, gives this temple as an example, calling it the oftoftylos, by which he means the dypteros, fpecified by the number of columns in the front.

To defcribe defcription is an abfurdity, and therefore we muft refer our reader to the original plates of this superb publication. He will confult them with a mixture of concern and pleasure. The members, which taken feparately, are elegant and beautiful, lie in heaps, and form a rudes indigeftaque moles. The fculptures are executed to great advantage, but the more exquifite the objects are, our regret rifes in proportion. The cornices, architraves, capitals, volutes, bafes, triglyphs, flutings, and other architectural ornaments, are here to be seen in the highest perfection, and the moft lamentable diforder. Every member is twice exhibited, firft in an outline, and then in that outline fhaded.

We are not to confider this work as merely architectural. The fecret relation which runs through all the liberal arts and fciences has connected it with the moft curious parts of antient history.

The fcite of Teos, (fays he, fpeaking of that temple) is now called Bodrun; is uninhabited and the port choaked up; fo that the veffels and fmall craft, employed in carrying on the flight commerce of these places, frequent Gerefticus alone.

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And here the claffical reader will perhaps recollect, that a Roman admiral with a powerful fleet was once in imminent danger of being surprised by the enemy in this port. The relation given by the hiftorian Livy is too minutely connected with the view not to be inferted.

In the war between Antiochus and the Romans, L. Æmilius Regillus the prætor, who commanded with eighty ships in these feas, fuddenly fteered for Teos, on intelligence the city had fupplied the royal fleet with provifions; and moreover promifed to furnish, for its ufe, five thousand veffels of wine. He ranged his fhips in this port, behind the town, and disembarked his troops with orders to lay waste the territory about the city.

The Teians, beholding the ravages thus begun, fent forth orators with the facred fillets and veils, as fuppliants, to the prætor; but he refufed to recall the party, unless the citizens would afford to the Romans the fame aid, they had fo readily bestowed on the enemy. The orators returned, and the magiftrates affembled the people to confult.

In the mean time, Polyxenidas, admiral of the royal fleet, had failed from Colophon with eighty-nine fhips, and being informed of these motions of the prætor, and that he occupied this port, conceived great hopes of attacking the Roman fleet now, in the fame manner he lately did the Rhodian at Samos, where he befet the mouth of the port Panormus, in which it lay; this refembling that fpot, the promontories approaching each other, and forming an entrance fo narrow that two fhips could fcarcely pafs through together. His defign was to feize on this ftrait, which is feen in the view, by night, and fecure it with ten fhips, to attack the adverfary on either fide on coming out; and by fetting an armed force afhore from the remaining fleet, to overpower him at once by fea and land.

This plan, the hiftorian remarks, would have fucceeded; but, the Teians complying with his demand, the prætor put round into the port before the city, which was deemed more commodious for fhipping the ftores. Eudamus too, who commanded the squadron from Rhodes, was faid to have pointed out the peril of their ftation; two fhips entangling and breaking their oars in the ftrait. The prætor had also a farther reafon for bringing his fleet round, being infecure from the continent, as Antiochus had a camp in the neighbourhood. On gaining the port, both foldiers and failors, quitting their veffels, were bufied in dividing the wine and provifions, when a peafant informed the prætor, that Polyxenidas approached. The fignal was inftantly founded for reimbarking immediately, Tumult and confufion followed, each fhip haftening out of

port,

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