voted) will acquiesce in these remarks, we cannot tell-Mais revenons-nous à nos moutons. There is a species of indirect bathos of which Virgil is occasionally guilty-the applying a line, or a couple of lines, to a trivial subject, and afterwards, with the requisite variations, to an important one. Thus in En. x. enumerating the Italian forces of Æneas, Non ego te, Ligurum ductor fortissime bello, Transierim, Cinyra, et paucis comitate Cupavo. 1. 185. It is impossible not to recollect the corresponding lines in the catalogue of the different species of grapes, Georg. 11. 101. Non ego te, Dîs et mensis accepta secundis, Transierim, Rhodia, et tumidis bumaste racemis. Another example occurs in one of the most pathetic passages of the Æneid, the narrative of the death of Priam. The passage begins, Forsitan et, Priami fuerint quæ fata, requiras. Æn. 11. 506. Who does not perceive that this line is modelled on Georg. 11.288? Forsitan et, scrobibus quæ sint fastigia, quæras. But we are weary of this trifling, and we fear our readers are weary of it too. ERRORS IN THE ORTHOGRAPHY OF CLASSICAL NAMES. Without referring to such unusual anomalies as "Elysia's dews," "Castalius's spring," and Mr. Pylades Galt's etymological interpretation of Lacedæmonia (Laconia) "the country of devils," there are several more common and less noticed errors in the orthography of Greek and Latin words, arising from various sources. Delphos (a form not yet obsolete) is alluded to in Bentley's dissertation; perhaps this originated in the frequency of Greek terminations in os. Trazene for Trazen, and Mycene for Mycena, may have been produced in a similar manner. Alceste for Alcestis, is rather referable to the French Alceste. Tusculum, for Tusculanum, or the Tusculan villa of Cicero, is common. We have retained the Homeric forms of many early Greek names, and with propriety; but in the names 'Eneidos, which the Doctor mentions as an archaism, occurs as late as Charles II. "Down go the Iliads, down goes the Eneidos."-Anon. Poem. where the old form Iliads is also observable. Odysses, or Odysseïs, was afterwards improved into Odyssey, which Mr. Mitford (on his system) would further improve into Odyssee. of the republican times, and in some barbarian ones, the Ionic dialect of Herodotus has betrayed us into a few errors, hardly worth correcting; as Timegenides (Herod. ix. 38, 86.) in Mitford for Timagenidas, a Boeotian name; Timoxeinus, in Mitford also (Herod. viii. 128) for Timoxenus; Ardyes for Ardyas (as Pactyas and Marsyas); perhaps also Gygas and Candaulas (as Pheraulas). MISQUOTATIONS. Errors in proverbial, and other trite quotations, are more numerous than is generally supposed. Numbers employ, on every fitting occasion, the pithy phrase "Ex uno disce omnes, without in the least suspecting that they have committed the double sin of misquotation and misinterpretation. The words occur in the prelude to Æneas's tale of Sinon, Æn. ii. 65. Accipe nunc Danaûm insidias, et crimine ab uno sc. Danaos. The separation of the latter clause from its context has altered the immediate meaning of the passage; but the substitution of er for ab has totally changed its purport.-That Sir Walter Scott should have fathered upon the same poet the halfline," Maximus quæ docuit Atlas," (Æn. i. 741, see notes to the Lay,) or that his alter idem, the author of Waverley, should have put into the mouth of his Highland chieftain the words, "Moritur, et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos," is not at all wonderful; as the good people of Scotland are notoriously deficient in metrical knowledge-witness, among others, the Latin authors in Blackwood's Magazine. The latter misquotation, however, is not peculiar to Scotland. Read, Sternitur infelix alieno vulnere, cœlumque Aspicit, et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos. Æn. 781. Our excellent and ingenious friends of the Retrospective Review (No. VII. p. 131, note) speak of an individual Multorum mores hominum qui vidit, et urbes : -a very good verse, but not Horace's. A writer in the London Magazine, on the other hand, has marred all metre by converting" Sed nunc non erat his locus," (Hor. Art. Poet. 19) into "Non tunc erat illis locus." (Lond. Mag. No. xx111. p. 472). Mr. Bland, in the notes to his Anthology, has committed a worse error, in substituting for the well-known sentiment, Heu, quanto minus est cum aliis versari, quam tui meminisse!" the tame" Melius est tui meminisse, quam cum aliis versari;" a transformation to which we could produce a parallel-but we will not.-John Wesley, in Southey's biography, (Vol. 11. p. 65) quotes, as from Juvenal Sensus communis in illa Fortuna rarus: -a transposition_originating in the same cause as that above quoted from the Retrospective Review-the convertibility of the metre. We might also remark upon some prevalent mistranslations of common quotations, as of the line of Horace "Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri," which appears to be understood as signifying "not addicted to swear to (or assent implicitly to) the words (dogmas, ipse dixits) of any teacher ;" an interpretation which agrees with Horace's meaning, but not with his words, which it misrepresents in two places. Many a heretic in classics, again, (to use the phrase of a periodical writer) translates Calvin's "horribile decretum," "horrible decree;" we are not quite sure that the Bishop of Winchester himself is not included in the number. But our recollection does not supply us with sufficient materials for a treatise on this subject. To the misquotations above cited, add, from a late Number of the Morning Chronicle," Jucunda atque idonea discere vitæ." 1 SPECIMENS OF BOMBAST. Lycophron thus versifies a well-known proverb: ἔγνω δ ̓ ὁ τλήμων σὺν κακῷ μαθὼν ἔπος, ὡς πολλὰ χείλους καὶ δεπαστραίων ποτῶν μέσῳ κυλίνδει μοῖρα παμμήτωρ βροτοῖς. p. 34. Meurs. Valerius Flaccus somewhere panegyrises a skilful butcher, quo non præstantior alter Pinguia letifera perfringere colla securi. Thus Claudian improves upon Homer and Virgil: Non, mihi centenis resonent si vocibus ora, Multifidusque ruat centum per pectora Phoebus, Acta Probi narrare queam. De Cons. Prob. et Olyb. 56. After these, our modern specimens may perhaps pall upon the appetite. the bulky chief o'erturns, And Heaven, with heel of quick elation, spurns. In the same, a perplexed monarch summons a council. We have more to produce-but we must here refrain. ΒΟΙΩΤΟΣ. ADDENDA. Grecisms in English Writers. Not all the öyntments brought from Delos isle; Nor from the confines of seaven-headed Nile; Nor that brought whence Phoenicians have abodesW. Browne's Pastorals, Retrosp. No. iii. p. 156. So in Southey's Roderick: -all day long Among the hills they travelled silently, Till when the stars were setting, at what hour Jeremy Taylor speaks of being "confined into a prison." This writer also makes frequent transitions from the singular to the plural, somewhat after the manner of the Greeksan idiom visible also in the Old Testament. In the original poetry of Dryden many classical idioms, as well as allusions, occur; a peculiarity owing to his habit of translation from the classics. This propensity would perhaps have been more fully developed in his projected epic. There is a line in the Absalom and Achitophel which sounds like a literal translation from the Latin: snatch'd in early time By unequal fates, and Providence's crime: a line otherwise remarkable for the Miltonian elision (an instanceof which occurs also in Cowley's Davideis) and for the irreverence of the expression, which is less visible in a Latin garb Cœlicolûm culpa, fatisque ereptus iniquis. Since the paragraph on Misquotations was written, we have noticed another variation of the Virgilian proverb-Ab uno disce omnia. VOL. XXIV. Cl. Jl. NO. XLVIII. 2 C 390 PUERILIA. NO. II. Babyloniados Fragmentum. "Εστι μαλ' ἀσπέτου ἄγχι πόλεως εὐρεῖα κολωνὴ, Ρύσθαι χαλκείησι τ ̓ ἐπιτραπέουσι πύλησιν, Τὸν δ' ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη Χαλδαῖος ἀμύμων Τὸν δ' ἐμείβετ' ἔπειτα μένος Κύρου βασιλῆος Μή μοι ταῦτ ̓ ἀγόρευε, φίλος, φρεσίν· αἱ γὰρ ἐγώ σε Ολβου τε, πλούτου τε, καὶ ἡμετέροιο δόμοιο Μοῖραν ἔχοντα ἴδοιμι· τὸ μὴ θάνατόν μοι ἔνισπε. P. W. 1 From Il. Κ. 420. πολύκλητοι ἐπίκουροι. Εὕδουσιν· Τρωσὶν γὰρ ἐπιτραπέουσι φυλάσσειν, 2 For παθήσεις. |