What if I should steer betwixt the two extremes, and conclude, that the infant, who was to be happy, must not only smile on his parents, but also they on him? For Scaliger notes, that the infants who smiled not at their birth, were observed to be #agelastoi#, or sullen, (as I have translated it,) during all their life; and Servius, and almost all the modern commentators, affirm, that no child was thought fortunate, on whom his parents smiled not at his birth. I observe, farther, that the ancients thought the infant, who came into the world at the end of the tenth month, was born to some extraordinary fortune, good or bad. Such was the birth of the late prince of Condé's father, of whom his mother was not brought to bed, till almost eleven months were expired after his father's death; yet the college of physicians at Paris concluded he was lawfully begotten. My ingenious friend, Anthony Henley, Esq. desired me to make a note on this passage of Virgil; adding, (what I had not read,) that the Jews have been so superstitious, as to observe not only the first look or action of an infant, but also the first word which the parent, or any of the assistants, spoke after the birth; and from thence they gave a name to the child, alluding to it. PASTORAL V. OR, _DAPHNIS_. ARGUMENT. _Mopsus and Menalcas, two very expert shepherds at a song, begin one by consent to the memory of Daphnis, who is supposed by the best critics to represent Julius Cæsar. Mopsus laments his death; Menalcas proclaims his divinity; the whole eclogue consisting of an elegy and an apotheosis._ MENALCAS. Since on the downs our flocks together feed, And since my voice can match your tuneful reed, Why sit we not beneath the grateful shade, Which hazles, intermixed with elms, have made? MOPSUS. Whether you please that sylvan scene to take, Where whistling winds uncertain shadows make; Or will you to the cooler cave succeed, Whose mouth the curling vines have overspread? MENALCAS. Your merit and your years command the choice; Amyntas only rivals you in voice. MOPSUS. What will not that presuming shepherd dare, Who thinks his voice with Phoebus may compare? MENALCAS. Begin you first; if either Alcon's praise, Or dying Phyllis, have inspired your lays; If her you mourn, or Codrus you commend, Begin, and Tityrus your flock shall tend. MOPSUS. Or shall I rather the sad verse repeat, Which on the beeches bark I lately writ? I writ, and sung betwixt. Now bring the swain, Whose voice you boast, and let him try the strain. MENALCAS.