The
original text, if anywhere, is in the edition published and commented
upon by Arnaldus de Villa Nova, about 1480. Subsequently above one
hundred and sixty editions of the "Schola Salernitana" were published,
with many additions. A reprint of the first edition, edited by Sir
Alexander Croke, with woodcuts from the editions of 1559, 1568, and
1573, was published at Oxford in 1830.--_W. E. B._]
APOLLO; OR, A PROBLEM SOLVED
1731
Apollo, god of light and wit,
Could verse inspire, but seldom writ,
Refined all metals with his looks,
As well as chemists by their books;
As handsome as my lady's page;
Sweet five-and-twenty was his age.
His wig was made of sunny rays,
He crown'd his youthful head with bays;
Not all the court of Heaven could show
So nice and so complete a beau.
No heir upon his first appearance,
With twenty thousand pounds a-year rents,
E'er drove, before he sold his land,
So fine a coach along the Strand;
The spokes, we are by Ovid told,
Were silver, and the axle gold:
I own, 'twas but a coach-and-four,
For Jupiter allows no more.
Yet, with his beauty, wealth, and parts,
Enough to win ten thousand hearts,
No vulgar deity above
Was so unfortunate in love.
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