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Show ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. CANTO I. 34 Whence chemic arts, disclosed in pictured lines, Liv'd to mankind by hieroglyphic signs; And c~ustering stars, pourtray'd on mimic spheres, Assumed the forms of lions, bulls, and bears; 3 70 -So erst, as Egypt's rude designs explain, Rose young DroNE from the shoreless main; Type of organic Nature 1 source of bliss l Emerging Beauty from the vast abyss 1 Sublime on Chaos borne, the Goddess stood, And smiled enchantment on the troubled flood; As Egypt's rude designs, 1. 371. See Additional Note VI. Rose young Dione, l. 372. The hieroglyphic figure of Venus rising from the sea supported on a shell by two tritons, as well as that of Hercules armed with a club, appear to be remains of the most remote antiquity. As the former is devoid of grace, and of the pictorial art of design, as one half of the group exactly resembles the other; and as that of Hercules is armed with a club, which was- the first weapon. The Venus seems to have represented the beauty of organic Nature rising fTom the sea, and afterwanls became simply an emblem of ideal beauty; while the figuTe o'f Adonis was probably designed to represent the more abstracted idea of life or animation. Some of these hieroglyphic designs seem to evince the profound investigations in science of the Egyptian philosophers, and to have outlived all written language; and still constitute the symbols, by which painters and poets give foTm and animation to abstracted ideas, as to those of trength and beauty in the above instances. CANTO I. PRODUCTION OF LIFE. 35 The warring elements to peace restored, And young Reflection wondered and adored." Now paused the Nymph,-The Muse responsive cries, Sweet admiration sparkling in her eyes, 380 " Drawn by your pencil, by your hand unfurl'd, Bright shines the tablet of the dawning world; Amazed the Sea's prolific depths 1 view, And VENus rising from.the waves in Your " Still Nature's births enclosed in egg or seed From the tall forest to the lowly weed, Her beaux and beauties, butterflies and worms, Rise from aquatic to aerial forms. , Thus in the womb the nascent infant laves Its natant fornl in the circumfluent waves; With perforated heart unbreathing swims, Awakes and stretches all its recent limbs; 3QO !•wakes and stretclzes, 1. 392. During the first six months of o·estatwn, the embryon probably sleeps, as it seems to have no use 0 for |
