yl 
an 
have always been poets who have fung, 
and philofophers who have inculcatcd, the 
Jaws of wedded love, of pure and undi- 
vided affection. 
Nor gold, dor empire, nor the lufcious 
board, 
Such pleafures to the race of man afford, 
As when two kindred fouls, united, prove 
The mutual joys of heav’nly-temper'd love. 
(AroLLONIDEs apud STos.) 
« How fweet to the foul of man (lays 
Hierocles) is the fociety of a beloved wife! 
When wearied and broken down by the 
abours of the day, her endearments foothe, 
her tender cares reftore him. The {olici- 
tudes aud anxieties, and the heavier mis- 
fortu..es of lite, are haraly to be borne by 
him who has the weight of bufinefs and 
dometiic cares at the fame time to contend. 
with. -But how much lighter do they 
feem, when, after his neceffiry avocations 
are over, he returns to his home, and finds 
there a partner of all his griefs and 
troubles, who takes for his fake her thare 
of domeftic labour upon her, and foothes 
the anguith of his foul by her comfort 
and her participation. By the immortal 
Geds ! a wile.is not, as. fhe 1s falfely re. 
prefented and efteemed by fome, a burden 
or a forrowto man. No! She fhares his 
burdens, and fhe alleviates his forrows.— 
For there is no toil nor difficuity {o heavy 
or infupportable in life, but it may be 
furmeunted by the mutual laboursand the 
affeCtionate concord of that holy partner- 
fhip.” 
Homer has afforded us moft beautiful 
and affecting pictures of the conjugal flate 
in both his immortal poems, and, by the 
wonderiul force of his mighty genius, has 
rendered perfect the i image he deSigned to 
convey, by the natural and ftriking con- 
trait of oppofiie charaf&ers. Even an An- 
Gromache and a Penelope wou!d not be fo 
admirable in'themfelves, if they were not 
placed in oppofition toa Helen and a Ca- 
lypfo. Whole volumes defcriptive of the 
nature of that facred tie could not have 
brought it more forcibly to our mind than 
he has done in two lines, put into the 
mouth of the wife of Heétor:— 
“ExT0e, ATH, ou fear test cerie % mothe penne 
"HOE Kaciyynros: eb 2 ror Garsgic wapantiras. 
Even Euripides, as Antipater obferves,* 
when warmed by this hely fire, could iay 
afide his hatred to women, and fing its 
praifes with all: the ardour and tendernefs 
of a poet i— 
* Apud Stobzum. 
Epigrams, Fragments, &c. from the Greek. 
[Feb. 
Tov} yap Ev yorosct 4 HOKDIG wires 
“Ho¥rov ict, Sapa i my ainy xarwee 
"Opyny Oe reaivera x AvzSuutay 
Wux nv peGicas notv x, dnatas ty 
The * Alcettis,”> which has i its 
foundation the pureft and moft fublime in- 
ftance of conjugal affection to be met 
with in all antiquity (unleis we except, 
perhaps, the beautiful tale of. Patus and 
Arria), and to which very few parallels 
can be found either in hiftory or in ro- 
mance,* abounds with ftriking paffages 
of the nature I have been de(cribing, and 
may be pronounced the moft affecting and 
interefting play in the language. 
The Anthologia is not deftizute of. po- 
ems in praife of the marviage-ftate, and 
defcriptive of conjugal affc€tion. I have, 
in a former Number, piefented a very 
{weet fpecimen in Meleager’s elegant and 
natural tribute to the memory of his He- 
liodcra. A thought of a very different 
kind, by Paul the Silentiary, an officer of 
the Court of Judinian, occurs to me :— 
| Kar& ta Tapfeving REUANAGL 
Fair is the gift of true virginity ; 
But, if that valued gem all women chee 
- rifh’d, 
Life foon wae wither, and the world 
decay. 
Take tothine armsa hufband while you 
may, 
Leave tothe world thy form when thou 
haft ‘perifh’d, 
And be content with wedded chaftity. xp» 
This is very good Chriftian morality ; 
and, while we little expeét to find it in a 
collection of Greek epigrams, we are at no 
lofs to ditcover abundance of refemblances 
among our native fongs. It is rather 
more a matter of wonder that a Trouba- 
dour and a monk fhould be heard ineul- 
cating a fimilar doétrine : yet fuch is the 
ftrain of Izarn the Dominican :—** There 
is no chaftity fo agreeable to God as a 
faithful marriage.” 
Antipater of Sidon has embellithed the 
collection with a very elegant and fimple 
poem, defcriptive of the affeétionate de- 
pendence of a young and tender woman 
on her hufband, and the mutual affiftance 
and comfort he derives from her focjety. 
The metaphor i is a very common one, but 
here it is introduced with a delicacy and 
propriety that I think i never oblexved 
elfewhere — vis 
MARI Malia Pini chest a 
* The ftory of Edward and Eleonora is very 
fimilar to that of the Alceftis, a refemblance 
which Thomfon has taken advantage of; 
many of the beft paflages in his play a 
é very clofe imitations of the Grecian bard. 
Aum 
