flowed from it: Neither is it true that the Vulgar alone believed the harmony of the animal in a literal fenfe, while the Learned only meant it metaphorically: The authorities, already cited, are too numerous and refpectable to admit of this conftruction, which refts only on unfupported conjecture. But Virgil, fays this Ornithologist 54, "when he fpeaks of Swans figuratively, afcribes to them melody or the power of mufick; but when he talks of them as birds, he lays afide fiction, and like a true Naturalift gives them their real note, Dant fonitum rauci per ftagna loquacia Cycni." En. 1. XI. v. 458. This remark, which is alfo made by Monfieur Morin 55 in his differtation, is at first fight more plaufible, than in conclufion true: For Virgil paints the Swans, as finging melodiously, where he is not fpeaking metaphorically, and in a paffage, which will serve to illustrate the true meaning of the epithet rauci: He compares in the feventh Æneid the embattled troops of the friends of Turnus, when marching regularly, and finging in array, to a fnowy train of mufical Swans, Ibant æquati numero regemque canebant; Ceu quondam nivei liquida inter nubila Cycni, 54 Vol. II. p. 567. 55 Autre obfervation, qui paroit encore plus decifive, c'eft que le Prince de's Poetes Latins Virgile, qui dans le ftile poetique, & fuivant la prevention populaire, les a honorè quelquefois d'épithètes mélodieufes, quand il en parle en Phyficien & avec connoiffance de caufe, leur donne la qualitè de rauci, & qui dans la verité leur convient parfaitement. Mem. de Litter. tom. V. p. 215. Dant Dant per colla modos; fonat amnis et Afia longè All these in order march, and marching fing Like a long team of Snowy Swans on high, Dryden, Æn. VII. 968. The Roman Poet appears to have borrowed the original idea from Homer, though he has diverfified the application of it: For the Græcian Bard, in order to convey to his reader the rufhing tumultuous found of the Græcian army, arranging themselves for battle, contrafts it with the mixed clangor, arifing from the rustling wings of different Birds lighting promifcuously together, Τῶν δ', ὥς ̓ ὀρνίθων πετεηνῶν ἔθνεα πολλα, II. II. v. 459. Not lefs their number than th'embody'd cranes That o'er the windings of Cayfter's fprings Stretch their long necks, and clap their ruftling wings; Now light with noife; with noise the field refounds. Here is no allufion to the voice of the Swan: but Virgil exprefsly applies the epithet canoros, or harmonious, to the notes of this Bird in his fimile; and yet in the lines immediately fubfequent the word raucarum occurs, Nec quifquam æratas acies ex agmine tanto (V. 705.) Here we must understand the word raucarum consistently with the preceding canoros; for the mufick of the troops could not at the fame time resemble the fweet melody of the Swan, and the jarring diffonance of other Birds: It must therefore be fo qualified as not to affect the harmonious tone of the Swan, unless we should confine the comparison to the equal order of the arrangement of the troops contrasted with the train of Swans, and fuppofe no allufion in the first lines to the voice of this animal; but this I think would be a forced conftruction, and contrary to the plain import of the words, 56 Ibant æquati numero, regemque canebant, Ceu quondam &. (v. 699.) Yet Dryden and the other Tranflators have been guilty of this inconfiftency in regard to the epithet raucarum. Not one, who heard their mufick from afar, 56 According to this idea Mr. Warton fays in his note, that fome of the Ancients have imagined, that the embattling an army was first learned from the clofe manner of flight of thefe birds: fo that in this fimile we must fuppofe the noife to be but a fecondary kind of likeness: order is primarily pointed at. (En. VII. v. 897.) But But flocks of fowl, that when the tempefts roar, Dryden, Æn. 7. v. 972. Not one, who heard the loud confus'd alarms, Pitt, n. 7. v. 904. .če But this qualified limitation of the word faucarum does not folely rest on the above paffage in Virgil: The fame epithet is applied by him in his firft Eclogue to the foft Ringdove, Nec tamen intereà raucæ tua cura Palumbes, (V. 59.) 57 Here then, by the fame analogy of reasoning, as Mr. Pennant has drawn his conclufion in regard to the Swan, and from the same respectable authority of Virgil, this Pigeon, whose notes that Ornithologist in his British Zoology 7 mentions, as mournful or plaintive, must be allowed to have a hoarféness of sound; yet Mr. Warton has thus tranflated the above lines, Nor the foft-cooing dove, thy fav'rite bird, Mean while fhall cease to breathe her melting ftrain, Nor turtles from th'aerial elm to plain. There yet remains another paffage, which will ferve as an additional illuftration, that the word canoros and raucarum are not incompatible. The Poet of the Pervigilium Veneris, which poem has by fome been afcribed to Catullus, in a description of the most delightful images of the Spring has these beautiful lines, Et canoras non tacere Diva juffit alites; Jam loquaces ore rauco ftagna cygni perftrepunt, And now the Goddefs bids the Birds appear, And from the poplar charms the lift'ning plain. Thus Parnell has admirably tranflated these lines, where we may obferve, that not only canoras and rauco occur close together, but the Nightingale joins the concert with the Swans loquaces ore rauco; which are the exprefs epithets, both ufed by Virgil in that paffage of the 11th Eneid, cited by Morin and Pennant, Pifcofove amne Padufæ Dant fonitum rauci per ftagna loquacia cycni. (V. 458.) The Roman Poet here compares the various confufion among the different Latians of different ages and fexes on the formidable approach of the hoftile army of Æneas to the mingling found of many birds, |