444 T A M E S W A N. Clafs II. 



to have been ingrafted, the notion the antients had of 

 fwans being endowed with a mufical voice. Tho* this 

 might be one reafon for the fable •, yet, to us there ap- 

 pears another flill ftronger, which arofe from the Pytha- 

 gorean doctrine of the tranfmigration of the foul 

 into the bodies of animals; from the belief, that 

 the body of the fwan was allotted for the man- 

 fion of departed poets. Thus Plato makes his pro- 

 phet fay, /cfs/c [Mv yap 4 y X v,f ' £ P" ™? 9re7 ' £ oppsfiw ysvopivw 

 kvmx @m eups^vnv *. " I faw the foul of Orpheus pre- 

 fer the life of a fwan". 



After the antients had thus furnimed thefe 

 birds with fuch agreeable inmates, it is not to 

 be doubted but they would attribute to them the fame 

 powers of harmony, that the poets poflefTed, previous 

 to their tranfmigration : but the vulgar not diftin- 

 guifhing between the fweetnefs of numbers, and that 

 of voice, ignorantly believed that to be real, which 

 philofophers and poets only meant metaphorically. 



In time a fwan became a common trope for a Bard; 

 Horace calls Pindar Dircaum Cygnum, and in one ode 

 even fuppofes himfelf changed into a fwan; Vir- 

 gil fpeaks of his poetical brethren in the fame man- 

 ner, 



Vare, tuum nomen 



Cantantes fublime ferent ad fydera cygni. Edog. ix, 



when he fpeaks of them figuratively, he 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 cygni. JEneid. lib. xi. 

 * Be Bepubl. lib. x. fubfine. 



Thus 



