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Rh shares the triumph which Telesicrates has brought to her city.

The introduction of this legend has a special appropriateness in this particular ode, if we may believe tho statement of the commentators, that Telesicrates was about to bring home to Cyrene a bride from the mother country. And certainly the general colour and contents of the Ode make this supposition extremely probable. One chief idea seems to run through it all, the blessings of a lawful and prosperous love. Telesicrates is described as a beautiful and stately hero, an ideal bridegroom:—

Full oft upon his victories

At Pallas' yearly feasts hath gazed each wondering maid,

And silently hath prayed

For spouse or son like Telesicrates."

The dialogue between Apollo and the Centaur dwells with infinite grace and tenderness on the inseparable connection between a pure love and modest reserve and delicacy. And in the conclusion of the Ode Telesicrates is reminded of another tale of happy love in the annals of his own family, how his ancestor Alexidamus had wooed and won a daughter of the Libyan Antæus, king of Irasa:—

Whom many a kinsman lord of high degree,

And many a stranger sought, for lair of form was she.

And afire were all to bear away

Her golden-coronalled youth's fair fruit,

But her father had purposed a nobler suit."

Antæus had heard the old tale of Danaus, who bade