and, so far as I can discover, peculiar to that edition, is the following passage, which immediately succeeds the last paragraph but one, in the above quotation, on Barca and Zaara :

"Hence late expos'd (if distaut fame says true)

A smother'd city from the sandy wave
Emergent rose; with olive-fields around,
Fresh woods, reclining herds, and silent
flocks,

Amusing all, and incorrupted seen.
For by the nitrous penetrating salts,
Mix'd copious with the sand, pierc'd, and
preserv❜d,

Each object hardens gradual into stone,.
Its posture fixes, and its colour keeps.
The statue-folk, within, unnumber'd
crowd

The streets, in various attitudes surpriz'd

By sudden fate, and live on every face The passions caught, beyond the sculptor's art.

Here leaning soft, the marble lovers stand,

Delighted even in death; and each for each

Feeling alone, with that expressive look, Which perfect NATURE only knows to give.

And there the father agonizing bends Fond o'er his weeping wife, and infant train

Aghast, and trembling, tho' they know not why.

The stiffen'd vulgar stretch their arms to heaven,

With horror staring; while in council deep

Assembled full, the hoary-headed sires
Sit sadly-thoughtful of the public fate.
As when old ROME, beneath the raging
GAUL,

Sunk her proud turrets, resolute on death,

Around the FORUM sat the grey divan
Of SENATORS, majectic, motionless,
With ivory staves, and in their awful

robes

Dress'd like the falling fathers of mankind;

Amaz'd, and shivering, from the solemn sight

The red barbarians shrunk, and deem'd them GODS."

Dr. Shaw, in his Travels, (1757, I. Pt. iii. p. 163,) ascribes the first report of a petrified city in Africa to the Peregrinatio of Baumgarten, published in 1597, but whose travels commenced in 1507. I find the learned, but according to a French biographer, the very credulous Jesuit Kircher,

VOL. XVII.

3 Q

taking up the wondrous tale, in a chapter of his Mundi Subterranei, entitled, Vuriæ Rerum in Lapides conversarum Observationes. There he introduces (Mund. Sub. 1665, II. 50), on the authority of a Vice-Chancellor of the Knights of Malta, his " Admirabilis Historia de Civitate Africæ in Saxum, unà cum Incolis et Animalibus conversa." This history of a petrified city is given to Kircher, on the authority of a captive Ethiopian, who, brought to Malta, in 1634, at ten years of age, was baptized, and at length became an Archdeacon. Some of your readers may be amused by a sight of the Jesuit's introductory paragraph:

"Addam tantummodo hic coronidis loco formidabilem historiam, quæ nostris temporibus accidit in pago quodam Africa Mediterraneæ, qui nostris temporibus totus admiranda quadam metamorphosi in saxum, unà cuin hominibus, animalibus, arboribus, supellectile domestica, frumentis et cibis, conversus fuisse narratur; quoniam verò res gravissimorum et fide dignorum hominum testimonio vera comperta fuit, et quotquot ego istarum partium Arabes ea de re consului, ita rem sese habere, fassi sunt. Totius rei seriem prout Melita ad me cam descripsit Habelus Vice-Cancellarius, ordinis equitum Hierosolymit: hic appouendam duxi."

Thomson may have read Kircher, or met with the Peregrinatio of Baumgarten. Otherwise, I suppose, he was indebted for his petrified city to the following attempt to ascertain the extent of British credulity, as I find it preserved by Dr. Shaw, and in Gent. Mag. (XVII. 436). It was probably first published early in the 17th century, if not before.

"Memorial of CASSEM AGA, the Tripoli Ambassador at the Court of Great Britain, concerning the petrified city in Africa, two days' journey south from Orguela, and seventeen days' journey from Tripoli, by caravan, to the south-east.

"As one of my friends desired me to give him, in writing, an account of what I knew touching the petrified city, I told him what I had heard from different persons, and particularly from the mouth of one man of credit, who had been on the spot; that is to say,

"That it was a very spacious city, of a round form, having great and small streets therein, furnished with shops, with a vast castle magnificently built;

that he had seen there several sorts of trees, the most part olives and palms, all of stone, and of a blue or rather lead colour.

"That he saw also figures of men in a posture of exercising their different employments; some holding in their hands staffs, others bread; every one doing something, even women suckling their children, all of stone.

"That he went into the castle by three different gates, tho' there were many more, where he saw a man lying upon a bed, all of stone.

"That there were guards at the gates, with pikes and javelins in their hands. In short, that he saw in this wonderful city, many sorts of animals, as camels, oxen, horses, asses, sheep and birds, all of stone, and of the colour above-mentioned."

This marvellous tale appears to have excited no small portion of public attention, since such a judicious traveller as Dr. Shaw considered it deserving a serious investigation. For this purpose he applied to M. Le Maire, who, when Consul at Tripoli, forty years before, had minutely examined the story by order of the French Court." As the result, Dr. Shaw declares, that "the petrified city, with its walls, castles, streets, shops, cattle, inhabitants and their utensils, were all of them at first the mere fables and inventions of the Arabs, and afterwards propagated by such persons, who like the Tripoli Ambassador and his friend," (the above-mentioned man of credit,)" were credulous enough to believe them."

Dr. Shaw returned to England in 1733, and first published his Travels in 1738. Thomson, probably on such sufficient authority, became dissatisfied with this report of "distant fame," and sang no more of the petrified city.

The paragraph which now appears, lines 898-938, will be seen to be an enlargement, with considerable alterations, of the following:

"Here the green Serpent gathers up his Train,

In Orbs immense, then darting out anew, Progressive, rattles thro' the wither'd Brake;

And lolling, frightful, guards the scanty Fount

If Fount there be or, of diminish'd Size, But mighty Mischief, on th' unguarded

Swain

Roam, licens'd by the shading Hour of Blood,

And foul Misdeed, when the pure Day has shut

His sacred Eye. The rabid Tyger, then, The fiery Panther, and the whisker'd Pard,

Bespeckl'd fair, the Beauty of the Waste, In dire Divan, surround their shaggy King,

Majestic, stalking o'er the burning Sand, With planted Step; while an obsequious Crowd,

Of grinning Forms, at humble Distance wait.

These, all together join'd, from darksome Caves,

Where, o'er gnaw'd Bones, They slumber'd out the Day,

By

supreme Hunger smit, and Thirst in

The paragraph, lines 1092-1102, was improved from the following, in 1727 and 1730:

Much of the Force of foreign Summers still,

Of growling Hills, that shoot the pillar'd Flame,

Of Earthquake, and pale Famine, could I sing;

But equal Scenes of Horror call Me Home."

In 1727 and 1730, the lines 11081116, were in the following form :

"Thence Nitre, Sulphur, Vitriol, on the Day

Stream, and fermenting in yon baleful Cloud,

Extensive o'er the World, a reddening Gloom!

In dreadful Promptitude to spring, await The high Command."

The description of the thunderstorm, lines 1144-1168, was originally in the following form, the last paragraph being omitted in 1730:

"Down comes a Deluge of sonorous Hail,

In the white, heavenly Magazines congeal'd;

And often fatal to th' unsheltered Head Of man, or rougher Beast. The sluicy Rain,

In one unbroken Flood, descends; and yet

Th' unconquerable Lightning struggles thro',

Ragged and fierce, or in red whirling Balls,

And strikes the Shepherd, as He, shuddering, sits,

Presaging Ruin, in the rocky Clift.
His inmost Marrow feels the gliding
Flame;

Y

They wore alive, and ruminating still,
In Fancy's Eye; and there, the frowning
Bull,

And Ox half-rais'd. A little farther, burns

The guiltless Cottage; and the haughty Dome

Stoops to the Base. Th' uprooted Forrest flies

Aloft in Air, or, flaming out, displays The savage Haunts by Day unpierc'd before.

Scar'd is the Mountain's Brow; and, from the Cliff,

Tumbles the smitten Rock. The Desart shakes,

And gleams, and grumbles, through his deepest Dens.

"Now swells the Triumph of the
Virtuous Man;

And this outrageous, elemental Fray,
To Him, a dread Magnificence appears,
The Glory of that POWER He calls his
Friend,

Sole honourable Name!-But woe to
Him,

Who, of infuriate Malice, and confirm'd In Vice long-practis'd, is a Foe to man His Brother, and at Variance with his GOD.

He thinks the Tempest weaves around his Head;

Loudens the Roar to Him, and in his Eye

The bluest Vengeance glares. Th' Oppressor, who,

Unpitying, heard the Wailings of Dis

tress,

Gall'd by his Scourge, now shrinks at

other Sounds.

Hid are the Neroes of the Earth-in vain, Like Children hid in Sport. Chief, in the Breast

Of solitary Atheist, Wildness reigns, Licentious; vanish'd every quaint Conceit,

And impious Jest, with which he used to pelt

Superiour Reason; Anguish in his Look, And Supplication lifts his Hand. He'd pray,

If his hard Heart would flow. At last

The lines 1238-1242, appear now much improved, from the following in 1727 and 1730:

"Shall He, so soon, forgetful of the past,

After the Tempest, puff his transient
Vows,

And a new Dance of Vanity begin,
Scarce ere the Pant forsakes his feeble
Heart!"

The lines 1268-1437 are not in the edition 1727, nor except the episode of Damon and Musidora, (afterwards much enlarged,) in the edition 1730. The paragraph, lines 1619-1628, was in both the early editions thus:

"Low walks the Sun, and broadens by degrees,

Just o'er the Verge of Day. The rising

Clouds,

That shift, perpetual, in his vivid Train, Their dewy Mirrors, numberless, oppos'd, Unfold the hidden Riches of his Ray,

And chase a Change of Colours round the Sky.

"Tis all one Blush from East to West! And now,

Behind the dusky Earth, He dips his Orb,

Now half immers'd, and now a golden Curve

Gives one faint Glimmer, and then disappears."

The lines 1635-1642 were originally thus:

"A sight of Horror! to th' ungodly Wretch,

The Hard, the Lewd, the Cruel, and the False,

Who, all Day long, have made the Widow

weep,

And snatch'd the Morsel from her Orphan's Mouth,

To give their Dogs; but to th' harmonious Mind,

Who makes the hopeless Heart to sing for Joy, Diffusing," &c.

Instead of the lines 1657-1662 the following paragraph appears only in the edition 1727:

"Wild-wafting o'er the Lawn, the thistly Down

Plays in the fickle Air, now seems to fall,

And now, high-soaring over Head, an Arch,

Amusive, forms, then slanting down eludes

The Grasp of idle Swain. But should

the West

Instead of lines 1698-1702, were the following in 1727 and 1730:

Of Pestilence, and every great Distress, Empires subvers'd, when ruling Fate has Th' unalterable hour: even Nature's Self Is deem'd to totter on the Brink of Time,

"Not so the Man of Philosophic Eye, And Inspect sage, the waving Brightness, He,

Curious surveys, inquisitive to know

drink,

Of this Appearance beautiful, and new."

their joy,

And mystic faith, a fond sequacious herd! But scrutinous PHILOSOPHY looks deep, With piercing eye, into the latent cause; Nor can she swallow what she does not see."

The concluding address to Philosojected to scarcely any alteration; and phy, lines 1729, &c., has been subthe praise of poetry, lines 1752-1756, which is inscribed on Thomson's Monument in Poets' Corner, is now verbatim as in 1727.

The only variation, not merely verbal, which remains, is in lines 17611769, substituted for the following, some of which are less worthy of the author of Liberty :

"Nor Home nor Joy Domestick, mix'd of Tenderness and Care,