by the name of the fiones and circles of Loda, or Loden; to which some degree of fuperftitious regard is annexed. to this day. These islands, until the year 1468, made a part of the Danish dominions. Their ancient language, of which there are yet fome remains among the natives, is called the Norfe; and is a dialect, not of the Celtic, but of the Scandinavian tongue. The manners and the fuperftitions of the inhabitants are quite diftinct from those of the Highlands and weftern ifles of Scotland. Their ancient fongs, too, are of a different frain and character, turning upon magical incantations and evocations from the dead, which were the favourite fubjects of the old Runic poetry. They have many traditions among them, of wars in former times with the inhabitants of the weltern iflands. 32) Vid. Huetius de origine fabula- 33) See the rules of poetical defcrip- 34) Odyff. 11. 211. Iliad. 3. 98. vol. 3. 36) There is a remarkable propriety freshes and nourishes the flowers; whilft 37) Iliad, iv. 446) and Iliad, viii. 60. 42) Iliad, xvii. 53. 4) Iliad, xiii. 298. 44) See Dr. Lowth de Sacra Poëfi 45) Isaiah, xvii. 13. 46) Numbers, xiii. 32, 33. 47) Milton's Lycidas. See Theocrit. πᾶ ποκ' ἀρ ήσθ' ὅκα Λάφνις, ἐτα Quae nemora, aut qui vos faltus habuere, puellae, etc. 48) The noted faying of Julius Caefar, to the pilot in a ftorm; “Quid "times? Caesarem vehis;" is magnanimous and fublime; Lucan, not satisfied with this fimple conciseness, ro folved to amplify and improve the thought. Obferve, how every time he twifts it round, it departs farther from the fublime, till, at laft, it ends in tumid declamation. Sperne minas, inquit, Pelagi, ven‹ toque furenti Trade finum. Italiam, fi coelo aucto re, recufas, Me, pete, Sola tibi caufa haec eft jufta timoris Vectorem non noffe tuum; quem- numina nunquam Deftituunt; de quo male tunc fort |