218 
objectionable, rendering to the follow- 
ing lines. 
*¢ Contra autem, magno meérentem corpore 
Nilum, 
Pandentemque sinus, et tota veste vocantem 
Ceruleum in gremium, latebrosaque flumina, 
victos.”* 
€¢ While the swoln Nile, mourning her van- 
quished sons, 
Receives them in her bo:om and unfolds 
Her azure mantle to the Hying host, 
That seek retreat in all her streams pro- 
found.” 
T shall not stay to comment on the pr o- 
priety of interpreting “ magno corpore” 
by the epithet “ swoln” ; since every one 
must see, that what is in the version 
tamely confined to the river itself, is in 
the original, with abundantly more con- 
sistency of metaphor, applied to its pre- 
siding deity.t What I intend at present, 
is to offer a few strictures on the ser which 
your Correspondent, has, in the passage 
under consideration, thought proper to 
adopt. 
While the swoln Nile mourning Jer van- 
quished sons, 
Receives them in er bosom, and unfolds 
Her azure mantle tothe flying host, 
That seek retreat in all der streams pro- 
found. 
Without absolutely asserting, I am dis- 
posed to think, that the gender of the 
river, expressed by the termination will 
11 most instances lead us to that of its 
fabled guardian. ‘To take an example 
from the book in which the shield is de- 
scribed. The poet has thus beautifully 
clothed the spirit of the Tyber, when he 
appears to /Eneas sleeping on the bank 
of his river. It is a prosopopeeia which 
has been frequently imitated by succeed- 
ing poets,{ who have had occasion for. a 
river-god; and I hope the beauty of the 
passage will apologize for its imsertion 
here. 
6 Nox erat 5 et terras animalia fessa per om- 
nes, 
lituam pecudumque genus, sopor altus ha- 
bebat, 
Quum pater in ripa, gelidique sub xtheris 
aXe, 
/Eneas, tristi turbatus pectora bello, 
* /En, VIil. v. 711 and seq. 
+ The translator, I might have added, has 
improperly appropriated the epithet ee to 
the ‘© mantle” rather than to the ** bosom” of 
the ideal figure. 
‘T Sec fur instance, Pope’s Windsor Forest, 
ver, 329, &e. 
= 
On the Gender of Personifications of the Nile, &c. [April 1, 
Procubuit, seramque dedit per membra quic- 
tem. 
Huic deus ipse loci fluvio Tiberinus ameno 
Populeas inter senior se attollere frondes 
Visus ; eum tenuis glauco velabat amictu 
Carbasus, et crines umbrosa tegebat arundo.”’* 
It may not be impertinent here to re- 
mark, that the reason which Virgil has 
elsewhere assigned for the name of this 
river, 
———-——asperque immanicorpore Tybrisy _ 
A quo post Itali fluvium cognomine Tydrim 
Diximus :—7 
is not very dissimilar from the current 
story of the Nile’s receiving its denomina- - 
tion from Nilus a king of Thebes; and 
forms another objection to our saying 
mother Nile. Indeed if we might make 
the Agows, who inhabit round the east- 
ern branch, and, as Bruce endeavours to 
prove, the source,of this river—aif we might 
admit them a party to this question, they 
would decide it at once; forit seems, they 
worship the river-spirit under the title of 
Ah, Father.{ 
Milton furnishes us with a fine and 
characteristic picture of a river-gpddess : 
‘¢ A gentle nymph, 
That with moist curb sways the smooth Se- 
vern stream.’ 
And thus invokes her, 
Sabrina fair, 
Listen where thou art sitting 
Under the glossy, cool, translucent wave ; 
In twisted braids of lillies knitting 
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair|]. 
In each of these examples, it is almost 
needless to observe, the utmost propriety 
ef character is maintained, and each of 
them affords proof of the orginal propo- 
sition. In our own language, indeed, 
which knows of no distinction in gender 
but that of sex, unless where the expres- 
sion is figurative, the impropriety of the 
translation in question is not so apparent ; 
to an English ear, the genius of the Nile 
may be created either male or female 
without otfence: but in the Roman 
tongue the case is widely different; and 
consistency seems to require, that in this 
noble prosopopeia, the deity of the mag- 
nus,§| septemgeminus** Nilus, could not 
* fin. VII. v. 26 et seq. 
+ Ib. v. 330 et seq. 
{ Encyclop. Britan. vol. xiii. p. 74. 
§ Comus, v. 836. 
|| Ibid, v. 874. 
Genes Hil ver 29, 
cl Os ae Vi, Vv. 800, 
be 
