CONFERENCE L ;QI. Lethaeum ad fluvium deus avocat agminq magno : Scilicet immemores, supers st convexa revisant }tarsus, & incipient in corpora velle reverti." Loo. Since we are got into the company of the muses, Pithander, let us see what our English Virgil, Mr. Dryden says, in his translation of this period. I will read them to you : Not death itself can wholly wash their stains, But long contracted filth, ev'n in the soul remains. The reliques of inveterate vice they wear; And spots of sin obscene in every face appear. For this are various penances enjoined; And some are hung to bleach upon the wind; Some plung'd in waters, others purg'd in fires, Till all the dregs are drain'd, and all the rust expires : All havé their manes, and those manes bear: The few so cleans'd, to these abodes repair, And breathe in ample fields the soft elysian air. Then are they happy, when by length of time The scurf is worn away of each committed crime. No speck is left of their habitual stains; But the pure ather of the soul remains. But when a thousand rolling years are past (So long their punishments and penance last;) Whole droves of minds are by the driving god, Compell'd to drink the deep Lethaan flood: In large forgetful draughts to steep the cares Of their past labours, and their irksome years; That unrememb'ring of its former pain, The soul may suffer mortal flesh again. PITH. And it is the doctrine of Pythagoras, as represented to us by another of the poets, that human souls return into the bodies of beasts as well as men. Ovid informs us so in the XV. book of his " Metamorphoses." Have you got it here ? Loo. Yes, Sir, Ovid is at hand, and as vain and fabulous a writer as he was in ancient times, yet if his soul was trans- migrated into any human form in this age, I am persuadedhe would be wonderfully pleased to be found in such company as yours gentlemen, and to hear himself called upon to give his sense of the doctrine of Pythagoras, since it puts a sort of phi- losophical air and dress on hiswild stories of the transformation of gods and men. PITH. See here then, Sir, the opinion of that ancient philo- sopherin the language of poesy : Morte carent anima, semperque priore relicta Sede, novis domibus vivunt, habitantque receptw ; Omnia mutantur: nihil interit: errat &Wine Huc vent : hintillue ; quoslibet occupat arts Spiritus ; eque feris humana in corpora transit, Inquve feras poster." Which Mr. Dryden thus translates : Then death so call'd, is but old matter dress'4 In some new figure, and a vary 'dvest vdá
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