NOTE 4. Extracted from Ovid.

TRANSLATION BY DRYDEN.

"Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
And heav'n's high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of nature; if a face,
Rather a rude and indigested mass:
A lifeless lump, unfashion'd, and unfram'd,
Of jarring seeds; and justly Chaos nam'd.
No sun was lighted up, the world to view,
No moon did yet her blunted horns renew;
Nor yet was earth suspended in the sky;
Nor pois'd, did on her own foundations lie:
Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown;
But earth, and air, and water were in one.
Thus, air was void of light, and earth unstable,
And waters dark abyss unnavigable.

No certain form on any was imprest;

All were confus'd, and each disturb'd the rest.
For hot and cold, were in one body fixt;
And soft with hard, and light with heavy mixt.

"But God, or Nature, while they thus contend,

To these intestine discords puts an end;

Then earth from air, and seas from earth were driven, And grosser air sunk from ethereal heaven.

Thus, disembroil'd, they take their proper place;

The next of kin, contiguously embrace;

And foes are sunder'd, by a larger space.

The force of fire ascended first on high,

And took its dwelling in the vaulted sky:

Then air succeeds, in lightness next to fire;

Whose atoms from unactive earth retire.

Earth sinks beneath, and draws a num'rous throng
Of pond'rous, thick, unwieldy seeds along.
About her coasts, unruly waters roar;

And, rising on a ridge, insult the shore.

"Thus when the God, whatever God was he,
Had form'd the whole, and made the parts agree,
That no unequal portions might be found,
He moulded earth into a spacious round:

Then with a breath he gave the winds to blow:
And bade the congregated waters flow.

He adds the running springs, and standing lakes;
And bounding banks for winding rivers makes.
Some part in earth are swallow'd up, the most
In ample oceans disembogu'd, are lost.
He shades the woods, the vallies he restrains
With rocky mountains, and extends the plains.
"And as five zones th' etherial regions bind,
Five correspondent, are to earth assign'd:
The sun with rays, directly darting down,
Fires all beneath, and fries the middle zone:
The two beneath the distant poles, complain
Of endless winter, and perpetual rain.
Betwixt th' extremes, two happier climates hold
The temper that partakes of hot, and cold.
The fields of liquid air, inclosing all,
Surround the compass of this earthly ball:
The lighter parts lie next the fires above;
The grosser near the wat'ry surface move:
Thick clouds are spread, and storms engender there,
And thunder's voice, which wretched mortals fear,
And winds that on their wings cold winter bear.
Nor were those blust'ring brethren left at large,
On seas, and shores, their fury to discharge:
Bound as they are, and circumscrib'd in place,
They rend the world, resistless as they pass;
And mighty marks of mischief leave behind;
Such is the rage of their tempestuous kind.

"First, Eurus to the rising morn is sent,
(The regions of the balmy continent;)
And eastern realms, where early Persians run,
To greet the blest appearance of the sun.
Westward the wanton Zephyr wings his flight;
Pleas'd with the remnants of departing light.
Fierce Boreas, with his offspring, issues forth
T' invade the frozen waggon of the north;
While frowning Auster seeks the southern sphere,
And rots, with endless rain, th' unwholesome year.

}

"High o'er the clouds, and empty realms of wind, The God a clearer space for heaven design'd; Where fields of light and liquid æther flow,

Purg'd from the pond'rous dregs of earth below.

"Scarce had the Power distinguish'd these, when straight, The stars, no longer overlaid with weight,

Exert their heads, from underneath the mass;

And upward shoot, and kindle as they pass,

And with diffusive light adorn their heavenly place.

}

Then, every void of nature to supply,

With forms of gods he fills the vacant sky:

New herds of beasts, he sends the plains to share:

New colonies of birds to people air:

And to their oozy beds, the finny fish repair.

}

"A creature of a more exalted kind

Was wanting yet, and then was man design'd:
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire form'd, and fit to rule the rest:
Whether with particles of heavenly fire
The God of nature did his soul inspire,

Or earth, but new divided from the sky,

And pliant, still retain'd th' etherial energy:

Which wise Promotheus* temper'd into paste,

And mix'd with living streams the godlike image cast.
Thus, while the mute creation downward bend

Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend,

Man looks aloft; and with erected eyes

Beholds his own hereditary skies.

From such rude principles our form began;
And earth was metamorphos'd into man.”

Garth's Ovid, vol. i, p. 5—9.

NOTE 5.-Testimony to the majesty of the scriptures from Longinus in his treatise on the sublime. He had been saying that, "those who speak of God, ought to be careful to represent him as great, and pure, and without alloy:" He adds, "Thus

the legislator of the Jews, a man of no common genius, conceived and spake justly of the power of Deity, when in the very beginning of his laws, he writes “God said,” (said he) What? "Be light, and it was: Be earth, and it was so."

Dion. Long. de Sublim. Sec. ix, p. 50, Pearce's Edit. Longinus lived in the time of Aurelian the emperor, and was a favorite of Zenobia, queen of the Palmyrians. His treatise "on the sublime," from which the above extract is taken, is, in itself, a master-piece of eloquence.

LECTURE III.

NOTE I.-For the enumeration of ancient testimonies, to human longevity, by Josephus.

See Joseph Antiq. Jud. lib. I, cap. 3, vol. i, Hudson's edit. I cannot find any passage in Hesiod directly specifying the years of the first men: but he gives a beautiful description of the golden age, and its influence in the prolongation of human life in Dieb. et Oper. v. 130, et seq. Hudson supposes, in his note upon this passage in Josephus, that Hendes might be written for Tags: "intelligendo Isidorum Characenum; qui (ut constat ex Luciano de Macrobiis) in Historia sua attulit exempla regum longævorum.” He says, however, that it is uniformly written Hodes in all the Greek manuscripts: but in the Latin, variously, Isiodus, Esiodus, Isiodorus, and Isidorus.

NOTE 2.-Testimony of Catullus to the infamy of the old world.

"But when the earth became stained with nameless wickedness, and divers lusts banished integrity from the mind; then, a brother's hand shed fraternal blood---the son ceased to deplore his deceased parents-the father desired the funeral of his first born-the son to enjoy his unmarried step-mother-the impious mother yielding to her thoughtless offspring, feared not to pollute the temple of the Gods: all things, just and unjust, were thus blended together by furious passion; and the propitious mind of the Gods turned away from us." Catul. Epith. Pel. et Thet. Can there be a more striking confirmation of the apos

tle's assertion, respecting the heathen world, that "they were given over to a reprobate mind?" or a better comment upon the declaration of Moses, that "the earth was filled with violence?"

NOTE 6. Extract, from Dr. Geddes, respecting the quantity of water required for an universal deluge; and the sources whence it might be supposed to be derived.

"Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. This has been always accounted one of the most unaccountable phenomena of the deluge, and has, more than any other circumstance attending it, perplexed and puzzled,

commentators.

The most ingenious solution of the difficulty which I have ever met with, is one sent to me, some years ago, by Sir Henry Englefield, which I shall here give in his own words:

The diameter of the earth being taken at 8000 miles; and the highest mountain being supposed four miles high above the level of the sea,* the quantity of water requisite to cover them will be an hollow sphere of 8008 miles diameter, and four miles thick; the content of which, in round nun:bers, is 800,000,000 cubic miles.--Let us now suppose the globe of the earth to consist of a crust of solid matter, 1000 miles thick, enclosing a sea, or body of water, 2000 miles deep; within which is a central nucleus of 2000 miles in diameter: the content of that body of water will be 109,200,000,000 cubic miles; or about 137 times the quantity of water required to cover the surface of the earth as above stated. Now water, by experiment, expands about one 25th of its whole magnitude, from freezing to boiling, or one hundredth of its magnitude for 45 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer. Suppose, then, that the heat of the globe, previously to the deluge, was about 50 degrees of Fahrenheit's, a temperature very near that of this climate; and that a sudden change took place in the interior of the globe, which raised its height to 83 degrees; an heat no greater than the marine animals live in, in the shallow seas between the tropics; those 23 degrees of augmented heat would so expand the internal sea, as to cause it to more than cover the surface of the globe, according to the

• "This is more than the height of the Andes."