May 12. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



361 



" But when thro' all th' infernal bounds 

 Which flaming Phleyethon surrounds, 



Sad Orpheus sought his cousort lost ; 

 The adamantine gates were barr'd, 

 And nought was seen, and nought was heard 

 Around the dreary coast, 

 But dreadful gleams. 

 Dismal screams, 

 Fires that glow. 

 Shrieks of woe, 

 Sullen moans, 

 Hollow groans. 

 And cries of tortur'd ghosts. 

 But hark ! he strikes the golden Ij're ; 

 And see ! the tortur'd ghosts respire. 

 See shad}' forms advance ! 

 And the pale spectres dance ! 

 The Furies sink upon their iron beds, 

 And snakes uncurl'd hang list'ning round their head. 



" By the streams that ever flow. 

 By the fragrant winds that blow 



O'er th' Elysian flow'rs, 

 By those happy souls who dwell 

 In yellow meads of Asphodel, , 



Or Amaranthine bow'rs : 

 By the hero's armed shades 

 Glitt'ring thro' the gloomy glades, 

 Bj' the j'ouths that dy'd for love, 

 Wand'ring in the myrtle grove. 

 Restore, restore Eurydice to life ; 

 Oh take the husband, or return the wife ! 



He sung, and Hell consented 



To hear the poet's pray'r ; 

 Stern Proserpine relented, 



And gave him back the Fair. 

 Thus Song could prevail 

 O'er Death and o'er Hell, 

 A conquest how hard and how glorious ! 



Tho' Fate had fast bound her 

 With Styx nine times round her, 

 Yet Musick and Love were victorious." 



The main object of this note is to suggest that 

 the above ode should be inserted in all future edi- 

 tions of the works of Pope. It certainly has a 

 better claim to that distinction, both with regard 

 to the evidence of its authorship and its intrinsic 

 merit, than many pieces which have recently ob- 

 tained it. 



In s'upport of this suggestion I have to observe, 

 J. That the ode in question is a distinct poem 

 from the ode in honour of St. Cecilia, though 

 chiefly made out of the same materials ; 2. That 

 it was recomposed some twenty years later than 

 its prototype, and therefore exhibits the more 

 mature taste of the poet ; and 3. That the said 

 poet was peculiarly anxious to preserve whatever 

 he had written — even his less-finished ideas and 

 expressions. 



The first and second observations require no 

 evidence ; the third I shall briefly exemplify. 



In the first collective edition of the works of 

 Pope, which was published in 1717, there are no 

 various readings ; but in the small edition of 1736 



they are rather numerous. I shall give an ex- 

 ample from the first pastoral : 



" Steephon. 

 I'll stake yon lamb that near the fountain plays, 33 

 And from the brink his dancing shade survej-s. 34 



Daphnis. 



And I this bowl, where wanton ivy twines, 35 



And swelling clusters bend the curling vines. 36 



[Notes] Ver. 34. The first reading was 



And his own image from the bank surveys. 

 Ver, 3G. And clusters lurk beneath the curling vines." 



Now, whence came the above readings ? They 

 are not in the Pastorals as published by Tonson in 

 1709 and 1716, nor in the Works as published by 

 Lintot in 1717. I conceive, therefore, the poet 

 drew them from his own manuscripts ; and, if 

 such was the fact, it establishes the point which I 

 proposed to exemplify. If otherwise, there re- 

 mains sufficient evidence in favour of my argu- 

 ment. Bolton CoRNEr. 



NOTICES OF ANCIENT LIBRARIES, NO. III. 



(^Concluded fi-om p. 338.) 



The emperor Charlemagne founded a splendid 

 library at Lyons, which was destroyed in the 

 wars of religion in 1562. 



In A.D. 932, Moses of Tecrit added 250 volumes 

 to the library of St. Mary Deipara, in the Nitrian 

 desert, Egypt. Some of these identical MSS. are 

 now in the British Museum. 



A century later, mention is made of the library 

 of the monastery of St. Macarius, also in Egypt. 



The following particulars of the libraries of 

 Alexandria, already mentioned, are curious :^ — 

 Epiphanius (Ore Weights and Measures, c. ix.) in- 

 forms us that the books which were^ translated 

 into Greek at Alexandria were deposited in the 

 Bruchion, which was the first library ; another 

 library on a smaller scale was afterwards formed 

 in the Serapium, which is called the daughter of 

 the other. In this were laid up the translations 

 of Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, and others. 

 Ammianus (xxii. 16.) says, that the libraries of the 

 Serapium were of inestimable value, and that 

 70,000 volumes were burnt there in the first 

 Alexandrine war. The Bruchion was destroyed 

 under Aurelian. 



In the Middle Ages most monasteries and ab- 

 bies had libraries, to which frequent reference 

 might be made. Some of these continue till now, 

 but for the most part they have been dispersed or 

 destroyed. The great book-collectors of the four- 

 teenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries did their 

 best to deprive the religious houses of their lite- 

 rary treasures ; and the Reformation led to the 

 destruction of much that remained. 



