Then plots and fair excuses filled her brain,
The views of breaking am'rous vows for gain,
And for a comfort in the marriage life,
The little pilfering temper of a wife."

Young Hermes.-Hermes another name for Mercury, who was considered as the god of traffic or trade, whether honest or dishonest. He is always represented with a caduceus in his hand, which is a rod with small wings at the top and two serpents twining round it in opposite directions. Besides the caduceus Mercury is represented with a winged cap called petasus, and with wings at his heels. which are called talaria. These wings denoted his swiftness as messenger of the gods.

"Full on the fair his beams Apollo flung, And fond persuasion tipp'd her easy tongue,

He

gave

her words where oily flattery lays,
The pleasing colours of the art of praise,
A wit, to scandal exquisitely prone,
That frets another's spleen to cure its own."

Apollo who was at the same time the Sun, and the god of eloquence and poetry, is properly said to fling his beams upon his new his new creature (Pandora) to inspire her with eloquence. From this idea of Apollo, were taken the metaphoric expressions, rays of genius, beams of imagination, blaze of eloquence, flashes of wit, &c.

Where oily flattery.-Oily from the smoothness and softness of flattery,the epithet oily is also proper as it is connected with the idea of laying colours, which are mentioned in the next line-colours are usually mixed with

oil.

A wit to scandal exquisitely prone. Prone, means inclined to.-In the time of Parnell the fair sex were not well educated-consequently they had not so many subjects of conversation as at present-dress and scandal were then the most usual subjects of conversation in the assemblies of ladies; at present there are many subjects of literature, and objects of science, upon which ladies can converse with ease and pleasure, and consequently, though dress still continues to be a favorite topic, scandal is not so exquisitely preferred to other topics of conversation as formerly-exquisitely, means curiously sought after. Whoever consults the Spectator and the works of Swift, will be convinced that the minds of the fair sex are infinitely improved within the last half

century. Cards do not now exclusively engross the attention at evening parties. Yet cards were certainly a useful invention; they filled up a prodigious blank in society, and in some measure prevented politics and scandal from overwhelming every other species of conversation.*

"Those sacred virgins whom the bards revere, Tuned all her voice and shed a sweetness there, To make her sense with double charms abound, Or make her lively nonsense please by sound;"

The sacred virgins are the nine Muses

"To dress the maid the decent Graces brought A robe in all the dies of beauty wrought,

* There is an ingenious essay on this subject written some years ago by the Chevalier Pinto, a Portuguese gentleman.

Then spread those implements which Vulcan's art
Had formed to merit Cytherea's heart;

The wire to curl, the close indented comb
To call the locks that lightly wander, home;
And chief the mirror, where the ravish'd maid
Beholds and loves, her own reflected shade."

and

After the superior Gods Goddesses had bestowed their various gifts upon Pandora, the inferior Deities are employed in her service.-The three Graces Aglae, Euphrosyne, and Thalia are engaged in dressing the new formed creature. The poet has with great ingenuity introduced the modern implements of dress, by supposing that they had been invented by Vulcan to please Venus or Cytherea-Venus was so called from the islands Cythera near Peloponnesus, where she was peculiarly worshipped; and near which she is supposed to have

H