Saving, some flighty fragments of the world,
With such gigantic, godly swiftness whirl'd

By turns they sink, by turns their music raise,
And blend, with equal skill, harmonious lays.

Among the rest, with plumes of various dyes,
And purple beak, a beauteous songster flies;
Wondrous to tell, with human speech endu'd,
He fills with vocal strains the blissful wood:
The birds attentive close their silent wings,
While thus the fair, the soothing charmer sings.
Behold how lovely blooms the vernal rose,
When scarce the leaves her early bud disclose :
When, half inwrapt, and half to view reveal'd,
She gives new pleasure from her charms conceal'd.
But when she shows her bosom wide display'd,
How soon her sweets exhale, her beauties fade!
No more she seems the flower so lately lov'd,
By virgins cherish'd, and by youths approv'd!
So, swiftly fleeting with the transient day,
Passes the flower of mortal life away!

In vain the spring returns, the spring no more
Can waining youth to former time restore :
Then crop the morning rose, the time improve,
And, while to love 'tis given, indulge in love!

He ceas'd th' approving choir with joy renew
Their rapturous music, and their loves pursue.
Again in pairs the cooing turtles bill:

The feather'd nations take their amorous fill.
The oak, the chaster laurel seems to yield,
And all the leafy tenants of the field:

The earth and streams one soul appears to move,
All seem impregnate with the seeds of love.

Through these alluring scenes of magic power
The virtuous warriors pass'd, and pass'd secure :
When 'twixt the quivering boughs they cast their sight,
And see the damsel and the Christian knight.
There sate Armida on a flowery bed ;
Her wanton lap sustain'd the hero's head:
Her opening veil her ivory bosom show'd;
Loose to the fanning breeze her tresses flow'd;

Off in a tangent;

Made such a harem,
Random scare'em,

Centrifugal range on't;

A langour seem'd diffus'd o'er all her frame,
And every feature glow'd with amorous flame.
The pearly moisture on her beauteous face
Improv'd the blush, and heighten'd every grace
Her wandering eyes confess'd a pleasing fire,
And shot the trembling beams of soft desire.
Now, fondly hanging o'er with head declin'd,
Close to his cheek her lovely cheek she join'd;
While o'er her charms he taught his looks to rove,
And drank, with eager thirst, new draughts of love,
Now, bending down, enraptur'd as he lies,
She kiss'd his vermil lips and swimming eyes;
Till from his inmost heart he heav'd a sigh,
As if to hers his parting soul would fly!

All this the warriors from the shade survey,
And mark, conceal'd, the lovers' amorous play.
Dependent from his side (unusual sight!)
Appear'd a polish'd mirror, beamy bright:
This in his hand the enamour'd champion rais'd ;
On this, with smiles, the fair Armida gaz'd.
She in the glass her form reflected 'spies :
And he consults the mirror of her eyes :
One proud to rule, one prouder to obey;
He bless'd in her, and she in beauty's sway.
Ah! turn those eyes on me (exclaims the knight)
Those eyes that bless me with their heavenly light!
For know, the power that every lover warms,
In this fond breast Armida's image forms.
Since I, alas! am scorn'd! here turn thy sight,
And view thy native graces with delight:
Here on that face thy ravish'd looks employ,
Where springs eternal love, eternal joy!
Or rather range through yon celestial spheres,
And view thy likeness in the radiant stars

They lost the centripetal action
Of earth, for Luna's soft attraction :

The lover ceas'd; the fair Armida smil'd,
And still with wanton toys the time beguil❜d.
Now in a braid she bound her flowing hair;
Now smooth'd the roving locks with decent care :
Part, with her hand, in shining curls she roll'd,
And deck'd with azure flowers the waving gold,
Her veil compos'd, with roses sweet she dress'd
The native lilies of her fragrant breast.

Not half so proud, of glorious plumage vain,
The peacock sets to view his glittering train :
Not Iris shows so fair, when dewy skies
Reflect the changeful light with various dies.
But o'er the rest her wond'rous cestus shin'd,
Whose mystic round her tender waist confin'd.
Here unembody'd spells th' enchantress mix'd,
By potent arts, and in a girdle fix'd ;

Repulses sweet, soft speech, and gay desires,
And tender scorn that fans the lover's fires;
Engaging smiles, short sighs of mutual bliss,
The tear of transport, and the melting kiss.
All these she join'd, her powerful work to frame.
And artful temper'd in th' annealing flame.

Now with a kiss, the balmy pledge of love,
She left her knight, and issu'd from the grove.

[12]" There's Captain Jason had some pulls," &c.-See p. 42.

Jason, commander of the Argonautæ, a name given to those ancient heroes who went with him on board the ship Argo to Colchis, about seventy-nine years before the taking of Troy, or B. C. 1263. The causes of this expedition arose from the following circumstance :-Athamas, king of Thebes, had married Ino, the daughter of Cadmus, whom he divorced to marry Nephele, by whom he had two children, Phryxus and Helle. As Nephele was subject to certain fits of madness, Athamas repudiated her, and took a second time Ino, by whom he had soon after two sons, Learchus and Melicerta. As the children of Nephele were to succeed to

So took up lodgings at the moon ;
Hence at night's noon,

their father by right of birth, Ino conceived an immortal hatred against them, and she caused the city of Thebes to be visited by a pestilence, by poisoning all the grain which had been sown in the earth. Upon this the oracle was consulted, and as it had been corrupted by means of Ino, the answer was, that Nephele's children should be immolated to the gods. Phryxus was apprised of this, and he immediately embarked with his sister Helle, and fled to the court of Etes, king of Colchis, one of his near relations. In the voyage Helle died, and Phryxus arrived safe at Colchis, and was received with kindness by the king. The poets have embellished the flight of Phryxus, by supposing that he and Helle fled through the air on a ram which had a golden fleece and wings, and was endowed with the faculties of speech. This ram, as they say, was the offspring of Neptune's amours, under the form of a ram, with the nymph Theophane. As they were going to be sacrificed, the ram took them on his back, and instantly disappeared in the air. On their way Helle was giddy, and fell into that part of the sea which from her was called the Hellespont. When Phryxus came to Colchis, he sacrificed the ram to Jupiter, or, according to others, to Mars, to whom he also dedicated the golden fleece. He soon after married Chalciope the daughter of Etes; but his father-in-law envied him the possession of the golden fleece, and therefore to obtain it he murdered him. Some time after this event, when Jason the son of Æson, demanded of his uncle Pelias the crown which he usurped, Pelias said that he would restore it to him, provided he avenged the death of their common relation Phryxus, whom Ætes had basely murdered in Colchis. Jason, who was in the vigour of youth, and of an ambitious soul, cheerfully undertook the expedition, and embarked with all the young princes of Greece in the ship Argo. They stopped at the Island of Lemnos, where they remained two years, and raised a new race of men from the Lemnian women who had murdered their husbands. After they had left Lemnos, they visited Samothrace, where they offered sacrifices to the gods, and thence passed to Troas and to Cyzicum. Here they met

At even your optic glasses end,
If you attend,

with a favourable reception from Cyzicus the king of the country. The night after their departure, they were driven back by a storm again on the coast of Cyzicum, and the inhabitants and the Argonauts, taking each other for enemies, furiously attacked each other. In this unfortunate nocturnal engagement, the slaughter was great; and when morning showed them their irretrievable mistake, their reciprocal lamentations were equally so the king Cyzicus was among the slain-his queen immediately followed, by a violent death from her own hand. The funeral obsequies and inconsolable grief, is described most pathetically, and given in the notes following the text, in the Chapter of Laments, where the tears of those who weep are turned into perpetual streamlets, as in the case of Niobe, petrified to marble,

"Where fix'd she stands upon a bleaky hill,

And down her marble cheeks eternal tears distil."

From Cyzicum they visited Bebrycia, otherwise called Bithynia, where Pollux accepted the challenge of Amycus king of the country, in the combat of the cestus, and slew him. They were driven from Bebrycia by a storm, to Salmydessa, on the coast of Thrace, where they delivered Phineus, king of the place, from the persecution of the Harpies. Phineus directed their course through the Cynean rock or the Symplegades, and they safely entered the Euxine sea. They visited the country of the Mariandinians, where Lycus reigned, and lost two of their companions, Idmon, and Tiphys their pilot. After they had left this coast, they were driven upon the Island of Arecia, where they found the children of Phryxus; whom Etes their grandfather had sent to Greece to take possession of their father's kingdom. From this Island they at last arrived safe in Æa, the capital of Colchis. Jason explained the cause of his voyage to Etes; but the conditions on which he was to recover the golden fleece, were so hard, that the Argonauts must have perished in the attempt, had not Medea, the king's daughter, fallen in love with their leader. She had a conference with Jason, and after mutual oaths of fidelity in the temple of Hecate, Medea