Surround the timorous Beauty, as she swims, 260 And gaze enamour'd on her silver limbs. --Now Europe's shadowy shores with loud acclaim Hail the fair fugitive, and shout her name; Soft echoes warble, whispering forests nod, And conscious Nature owns the present God. 265 --Changed from the Bull, the rapturous God assumes Immortal youth, with glow celestial blooms, With lenient words her virgin fears disarms, And clasps the yielding Beauty in his arms; Whence Kings and Heroes own illustrious birth, 270 Guards of mankind, and demigods on earth. [_Inconstant Jove_. l. 229. The purer air or ether in the antient mythology was represented by Jupiter, and the inferior air by Juno; and the conjunction of these deities was said to produce the vernal showers, and procreate all things, as is further spoken of in Canto III. l. 204. It is now discovered that pure air, or oxygene, uniting with variety of bases forms the various kinds of acids; as the vitriolic acid from pure air and sulphur; the nitrous acid from pure air and phlogistic air, or azote; and carbonic acid, (or fixed air,) from pure air and charcoal. Some of these affinities were perhaps portrayed by the Magi of Egypt, who were probably learned in chemistry, in their hieroglyphic pictures before the invention of letters, by the loves of Jupiter with terrestrial ladies. And thus physically as well as metaphysically might be said "Jovis omnia plena."] VI. "GNOMES! as you pass'd beneath the labouring soil, The guards and guides of Nature's chemic toil, YOU saw, deep-sepulchred in dusky realms, Which Earth's rock-ribbed ponderous vault o'erwhelms, 275 With self-born fires the mass fermenting glow, And flame-wing'd sulphurs quit the earths below. [_With self-born fires_. l. 275. After the accumulation of plains and mountains on the calcareous rocks or granite which had been previously raised by volcanic fires, a second set of volcanic fires were produced by the fermentation of this new mass, by which after the salts or acids and iron had been washed away in part by elutriation, dissipated the sulphurous parts which were insoluble in water; whence argillaceous and siliceous earths were left in some places; in others, bitumen became sublimed to the upper part of the stratum, producing coals of various degrees of purity.]