Many of the important operations of Nature were shadowed or allegorized in the heathen mythology, as the first Cupid springing from the Egg of Night, the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, the Rape of Proserpine, the Congress of Jupiter and Juno, Death and Resuscitation of Adonis, &c. many of which are ingeniously explained in the works of Bacon, Vol. V. p. 47. 4th Edit. London, 1778. The Egyptians were possessed of many discoveries in philosophy and chemistry before the invention of letters; these were then expressed in hieroglyphic paintings of men and animals; which after the discovery of the alphabet were described and animated by the poets, and became first the deities of Egypt, and afterwards of Greece and Rome. Allusions to those fables were therefore thought proper ornaments to a philosophical poem, and are occasionally introduced either as represented by the poets, or preserved on the numerous gems and medallions of antiquity. TO THE AUTHOR OF THE POEM ON THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS. BY THE REV. W.B. STEPHENS. Oft tho' thy genius, D----! amply fraught With native wealth, explore new worlds of mind; Whence the bright ores of drossless wisdom brought, Stampt by the Muse's hand, enrich mankind; Tho' willing Nature to thy curious eye, Involved in night, her mazy depths betray; Till at their source thy piercing search descry The streams, that bathe with Life our mortal clay; Tho', boldly soaring in sublimer mood Through trackless skies on metaphysic wings, Thou darest to scan the approachless Cause of Good, And weigh with steadfast hand the Sum of Things; Yet wilt thou, charm'd amid his whispering bowers Oft with lone step by glittering Derwent stray, Mark his green foliage, count his musky flowers, That blush or tremble to the rising ray; While FANCY, seated in her rock-roof'd dell, Listening the secrets of the vernal grove, Breathes sweetest strains to thy symphonious shell, And gives new echoes to the throne of Love. _Repton, Nov. 28, 1788._ _Argument of the First Canto._