fables, recollected that they had thought Eridanus worthy of a place
among the constellations, I wished to see such a river as was worthy all
these praises, and even then, says I,

O'er golden sands let rich Pactolus flow.
And trees weep amber on the banks of Po.

But are we sure after all it was upon the _banks_ these trees, not now
existing, were ever to be found? they grew in the Electrides if I
remember right, and even there Lucian laughingly said, that he spread
his garments in vain to catch the valuable distillation which poetry had
taught him to expect; and Strabo (worse news still!) said that there
were no Electrides neither; so as we knew before--fiction is false: and
had I not discovered it by any other means, I might have recollected a
comical contest enough between a literary lady once, and Doctor Johnson,
to which I was myself a witness;--when she, maintaining the happiness
and purity of a country life and rural manners, with her best eloquence,
and she had a great deal; added as corroborative and almost
incontestable authority, that the _Poets_ said so: "and didst thou not
know then," replied he, my darling dear, that the _Poets lye_?

When they tell us, however, that great rivers have horns, which twisted
off become cornua copiæ, dispensing pleasure and plenty, they entertain
us it must be confessed; and never was allegory more nearly allied with
truth, than in the lines of Virgil;

Gemina auratus taurino cornua vultu,
Eridanus, quo non alius per pinguia culta,
In mare purpureuin violentior influit amnis[U];