Summa deum Pietas! cujus gratissima cœlo
Rara profanatas inspectant numina terras,
Huc vittata comam, niveoque insignis amictu,
Qualis adhuc prasens, nullâque expulsa nocentum
Fraude rudes populos atque aurea regna colebus,
Mitibus exequiis ades, et lugentis Hetrusci

Cerne pios fletus, laudataque lumina terge. STATIUS SIL. lib.3.

Chief of the skies, celestial Piety!

Whose godhead, priz'd by those of heavenly birth,

Revisits rare these tainted realms of earth,

Mild in thy milk-white vest, to sooth my friend,
With holy fillets on thy brows descend,
Such as of old (ere chac'd by Guilt and Rage)
A race unpolish'd, and a golden age,

Beheld thee frequent. Once more come below,
Mix in the soft solemnities of woe,

See, see, thy own Hetruscus wastes the day
In pious grief; and wipe his tears away.

The little trunk she holds in her left hand is the acerra that you so often find among the poets, in which the frankincense was preserved that Piety is here supposed to strew on the fire.

Dantque sacerdoti custodem thuris acerram..

Hæc tibi pro nato plena dut lætus acerrâ
Phabe-

Ov. Met. lib. 13.

MART. lib. 4. epig. 45.

The figure of Equity* differs but a little from that our painters make of her at present. The scales she carries in her hand are so natural an emblem of justice, that Persius has turned them into an allegory to express the decisions of right or wrong

-Quirites

Hoc puto non justum est, illud malè, rectius istud;
Scis etenim justum geminâ suspendere lance

Ancipitis Libra.

SOCRAT. ad Alcibiad. Sat. 4.

-Romans, know

Against right reason all your counsels go;
This is not fair; nor profitable that:

Nor t'other question proper for debate.

* Fig. 12.

But thou, no doubt, can'st set the business right,
And give each argument its proper weight:

Know'st with an equal hand to hold the scale, &c. Mr. DRYDEN.

The next figure I present you with is Eternity*. She holds in her hand a globe with a Phenix on it. How proper a type of Eternity is each of these you may see in the following quotations. I am sure you will pardon the length of the latter, as it is not improper to the occasion, and shows at the same time the great fruitfulness of the poet's fancy, that could turn the same thought to so many different ways.

Hæc æterna manet, divisque simillima forma est,
Cui neque principium est usquam, nec finis: in ipso
Sed similis toto remanet, perque omnia par est.

De Rotunditate Corporum. MANIL. Lib. 1.

This form's eternal, and may justly claim
'A godlike nature, all its parts the same;
Alike, and equal to its self 'tis found,
No end and no beginning's in a round:
Nought can molest its being, nought control,
And this ennobles, and confines the whole.

Par volucer superis: stellas qui vividus æquat
Durando, membrisque terit redeuntibus ævum.-
Nam pater est prolesque sui, nulloque creante
Emeritos artus fœcunda morte reformat,
Et petit alternam totidem per funera vitam.
O senium positure rogo, fulsisque sepulchris
Natales habiture vices, qui sæpe renasci
Exilio, proprioque soles pubescere letho
O felix, hæresque tui! quo solvimur omnes,
Hoc tibi suppeditat vires, præbetur origo
Per cinerem, moritur te non pereunte senectus,
Vidisti quodcunque fuit. Te secula teste
Cuncta revolvuntur: nosti quo tempore pontus
Fuderit elatas scopulis stagnantibus undas:
Quis Phaetonteis erroribus arserit annus.
Et clades Te nulla rapit, solusque superstes
Edomitâ tellure manes: non stamina Parca
In Te dura legunt, non jus habuere nocendi.

Fig. 13.

Mr. CREECH.

De Phænice CLAUD.

A godlike bird! whose endless round of years
Outlasts the stars, and tires the circling spheres ;-
Begot by none himself, begetting none,
Sire of himself he is, and of himself the son;
His life in fruitful death renews its date,
And kind destruction but prolongs his fate.--
O thou, says he, whom harmless fires fhall burn,
Thy age the flame to second youth shall turn,
An infant's cradle is thy fun'ral urn.--
Thrice happy Phenix! Heav'n's peculiar care
Has made thyself thyself's surviving heir.
By death thy deathless vigour is supply'd,
Which sinks to ruin all the world beside.
Thy age, not thee, assiting Phoebus burns,
And vital flames light up thy fun'ral urns.
Whate'er events have been, thy eyes survey,
And thou art fix'd while ages roll away.
Thou saw'st when raging Ocean burst his bed,
O'er-topp'd the mountains, and the earth o'erspread;
When the rash youth inflam'd the high abodes,
Scorch'd up the skies, and scar'd the deathless gods.
When nature ceases, thou shalt still remain,
Nor second Chaos bound thy endless reign;
Fate's tyrant laws thy happier lot shall brave,
Baffle destruction, and elude the grave.

1

The circle of rays that you see round the head of the Phenix, distinguish him to be the bird and offspring of the sun.

Solis avi specimen

Una est que reparet seque ipsa reseminet ales;
Assyrii Phænica vocant: non fruge neque herbis,
Sed Thuris lacrymis, et succo vivit amomi.
Hæc ubi quinque sua complevit secula vitæ,
Ilicis in ramis, tremulæve cacumine palmæ,
Unguibus et duro sibi nidum construit ore:
Quo simul ac casias, ac nardi lenis aristas
Quassaque cum fulvâ susbtravit cinnama myrrhá,
Se super imponit, finitque in odoribus ævum.
Inde ferunt totidem qui vivere debeat annos
Corpore de patrio parvum Phanica renasci.
Cum dedit huic ætas vires, onerique ferendo est,
Ponderibus nidi ramos levat arboris altæ,

Fertque pius cunasque suas, patriumque sepulchrum,
Perque leves aureas Hyperionis urbe potitus
Ante fores sacras Hyperionis æde reponit.

-Titacius ales.

Ov. Met. lib. 15,

CLAUD. de Phoenice.

-From himself the Phenix only springs:
Self-born, begotten by the parent flame
In which he burn'd, another and the same.
Who not by corn or herbs his life sustains,
But the sweet essence of Amomum drains:
And watches the rich gums Arabia bears,
While yet in tender dew they drop their tears.
He (his five centuries of life fulfill'd)
His nest on oaken boughs begins to build,
Or trembling tops of palm, and first he draws
The plan with his broad bill and crooked claws,
Nature's artificers; on this the pile

Is form'd, and rises round; then with the spoil

Of cassia, cinnamon, and stems of nard,

(For softness strew'd beneath) his fun'ral bed is rear'd:
Fun'ral and bridal both; and all around

The borders with corruptless myrrh are crown'd,
On this incumbent; till etherial flame
First catches, then consumes the costly frame;
Consumes him too, as on the pile he lies:
He liv'd on odours, and in odours dies.
An infant Phenix from the former springs,
His father's heir, and from his tender wings
Shakes off his parent dust, his method he pursues,

And the same lease of life on the same terms renews.
When grown to manhood he begins his reign,
And with his stiff pinions can his flight sustain,
He lightens of its load the tree, that bore
His father's royal sepulchre before,
And his own cradle: this (with pious care,
Plac'd on his back) he cuts the buxom air,
Seeks the sun's city, and his sacred church,

And decently lays down his burthen in the porch. Mr.DRYDEN.

Sic ubi fæcundá reparavit morte juventam,
Et patrios idem cineres, collectaque portat
Unguibus ossa piis, Nilique ad littora tendens
Unicus extremo Phanix procedit ab Euro :
Conveniunt Aquila, cunctæque er orbe volucres
Ut Solis mirentur avem-

CLAUD. de Laud. Stil. lib. 2.

So when his parent's pile hath ceas'd to burn,
Tow'rs the young Phenix from the teeming urn:
And from the purple east, with pious toil
Bears the dear relics to the distant Nile;
Himself a species! Then, the bird of Jove,
And all his plumy nation quit the grove;
The gay harmonious train delighted gaze,
Crowd the procession, and resound his praise.

The radiated head of the Phenix gives us the meaning of a passage in Ausonius, which I was formerly surprised to meet with in the description of a bird. But at present I am very well satisfied the poet must have had his eye on the figure of this bird in ancient sculpture and painting, as indeed it was impossible to take it from the life.

Ales, odorati redolent cui cinnama busti. CL. de Laud. STIL. lib. 2.

If you have a mind to compare this scale of beings with that of Hesiod, I shall give it you in a translation of that poet.

Ter binos deciesque novem super exit in annos
Justa senescentum quos implet vita virorum.
Hos novies superat vivendo garrula cornix:
Et quater egreditur cornicis sæcula cervus.
Alipidem cervum ter vincit corvus: at illum
Multiplicat novies Phænix, reparabilis ales.
Quam vos perpetuo decies prævertitis ævo
Nympha Hamadryades: quarum longissima vita est:
Hic cohibent fines vivacia fata animantum. AusON. Eidyl. 18.

The utmost age to man the gods assign
Are winters three times two, and ten times nine:
Poor man nine times the prating daws exceed:
Three times the daw's the deer's more lasting breed: