THE TEMPLE OF FAME. 69

Th ere huge Coloffes rofe, with trophies crown’d,And Runic characters were grav’d around.

There fat Zanrolxis with cre&cd eyes.

And 'Odin here in mimic trances dies.

There on rude iron columns, fmear’d with blood,The horrid forms of Scythian heroes flood, 126Druids and Bards (tlreir once loud harps unflrung)NOTES.

•was the difciple of Pythagoras , who taught the immortality of thefoul to the Scythiaot. Odin , or Woden, was the great legiflator and hero of the Goths . They tell usefhim, that, beiag fubjedto fits, he perfuaded his followers, that during thofe trances hereceived infpirations, from whence be dilated his laws: he is faidto have been the inventor of the Runic chara&*rs. P.

This rude nation had great ideas. When Alaric their king wasburied its Calabria. 410, they turced the courfe of the river Vafentowhere it was moft rapid/, and having dug a very deep grave in thisliver’s bed, there interred their revered piiuce, with many rich fuitsof armour, and much gold and precious ftoncs. They then turnedthe river back into its ufual courfe, and killed on the fpot all thathad affifted at this work, that the place of his interment might neverbe difeovered.

Vir. 121. Runic cktraflers] The Gothic mythology by being morenobly wild, is more affc&ing to the imagination than the clafficaLTbc magicians of Ariofto, TafFo, and Spenfer, have more powerfulfpells than thofeof Apollonius, Seneca, andLucan. The inchantedfereft of Ifmeno is more awfully aud tremendoufly poetical thaneven the grove which Csefar in Lucan orders to be cut down, b. iii.v. 400. What a group of dreadful images do we meet with in theEdda. Hence are diawn thofe, thrilling cumbers which Gray hasgiven us in his Defcent of Odin ; an ode, which I think with LordOxford (who is bimfelf great in this very fpecies of imagery) equalto any of Gray's. Iiencc alCo has our dramatic poetry beeu enrichedwith the druidical charadcrs and fentiments of CaraSaeus. LetFrench critics aod French heads prefer, if they pleafe, the Canidia ofHorace and the Eri&bo of Lucan, to the bold, fevere, andirragularfirokes of Shakfpcare in his Macbeth.

Ver. 127. Druids and Bards , etc.] Thefe were the priafls and poet*of thofe people, fo celebrated for iheir favage virtue. Thofe heroicbarbarians accounted it a difhonour to die in their beds, and rufhedou to certain death in the profped of an after life, and for theglory of a foag from their bards in praife of their »&ions. P.

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