Equally unfortunate is the endeavour of C. J. B. to make me, at Suppl. 62, a plagiarist on Elmsley, to whom all the credit of the emendation is given in the Addenda; as the exact reference probably escaped me while writing my notes in their regular series. The last instance of plagiarism attributed to myself is in my note on Suppl. 63, where I am supposed to have stolen the reference to Babrias from the note of C. J. B. on Agam, 1113. But as my reading had lately led me to Babrias, for the purpose of detecting the plagiarisms of C. J. B., I might have met with the passage, without being indebted for its indication to another individual. Having thus overwhelmed me by the mighty enumeration of six instances of my supposed plagiarism, Č. J. B. gives vent to his feelings of mortified vanity by penning a sentence, in which all the force of the sneer is lost in the weakness of the reasoning. "If I am not prepared with a longer list of instances from the writings of Mr. Burges, it is owing, in part, to the slight acquaintance which I have contracted with that gentleman's critical labors; and in part to the peculiar turn of mind, which has led him to make the generality of his emendations of such a cast, that they are not likely to have been anticipated by any former, or to be borrowed by any future critic. If C. J. B. be not conversant with my writings, his opinion of the character of my emendations generally is worth nothing; but if his opinion be worth any thing, his assertion that he is not conversant with my writings is false. To mortify, however, that spirit of envy, which has led C. J. B. thus to depreciate the generality of my emendations, I have amused myself with drawing up a list of more than 70 of my corrections, which have been confirmed by Mss. and anticipated by preceding or borrowed by succeeding critics, or simultaneously made by those, of whom I can Ven. Ιλ. Ν. 588. ̓́Αλκμαν, Μῶσα Διὸς θυγάτερ-λίγ ̓ ἀείσομαι : and Welcker subjoins Priscian. p. 1328, and Harpocrat. v. Θεράπναι·—Τόπος ἐστὶν ἐν Λακεδαίμονι Θεράπναι, οὗ μνημονεύει καὶ ̓Αλκμὰν ἐν πρώτῃ ; but as none of these scholars understood that the hymn of Alcman was written upon the rebuilding of the temple of the Dioscuri at Therapnæ, they did not see the right reading hidden in Priscian's words, καὶ νάος ἁγνᾶς εὐπύργω θεραπαίνας. With ἁγνὰ I understand 'Exéva, who was the foundress of that shrine. As to the idea that a syllable can be shortened before uv in the same word, when C. J. B. shall produce satisfactory examples on this point, I shall be ready to give up my opinion respecting his ignorance of metre. not by the most distant suspicion be accused of being the Plagiarist, except in the instances marked by an obelus. When C. J. B. can produce a similar list in evidence of sagacity as a conjectural Critic, I will then, but not till then, believe, 1. that he never saw the Porson papers before the publication of his Prometheus; 2. that he knows not the contents of my Appendix to the Troades beyond the second page; 3. that he did make the luckless reference to Gronovius; and, lastly, that his assertions, sneers, and reasoning, are true, caustic, and irresistible. Having thus discussed the chief points urged against me, I might fairly trust the rest to their own confutation, and the defence of C. J. B. to his boasted honor and good faith, were I not anxious to leave no stone unturned, on which a doubt can rest, remembering the old saw or song, 3 Ὑπαὶ παντὶ λίθῳ σκόρπιος, ὦ ταῖρ ̓, ὑποδύεται· Beneath each stone a scorpion lies; beware; First, then, C. J. B. states that I pronounced him the most unfit man in the world to make a charge of Plagiarism; whereas I said quite the reverse, knowing that Tov papa papav χρηστὸς ἔσθ ̓ ὁ φώςτατος. 2. C.J. B. asserts that, in my preface to the Phoenissæ, I praised him for some kind services to myself. Had I not done so, I should have exhibited greater ingratitude than C. J. B. has shown towards other scholars, to whose kind services he has been considerably more indebted. It is true, that I once thought every scholar would, untainted by envy, cheerfully acknowledge the rising reputation of C.J.B. But is it my fault, if he has compelled me to blush for praises too early bestowed and too forcibly expressed, by wilfully sinking from the pedestal, on which his young honors had placed him, to his present stool, the mark for scorn to point its finger at? 3. C. J. B. asserts, that at no time has he given me any cause of offence, either by word or deed. With the exception of his note on Agam. 214, I remember no instance where he has directly mentioned my name in terms of disrespect; yet I could not miss the indirect sneer aimed at me in the Edinburgh Rev. No. XXXIV. p. 382. and in the Quarterly Rev. No. xvIII. p. 351. It is true that the first allusion has been, and the second may be still, disavowed by C. J. B. When this is done, it will still be in my power to tell him, that inest in nobis is animus, ut non modo nullius audacia cedamus, verum etiam ut improbos ultro lacessamus. In the mean while, I shall doubt this disavowal of C. J. B. For though I may mistake in pinning one part of his sneers upon Seidler, non constat that I am equally wrong in taking the other part to my self. 4. During the whole of this contest, it has been my studious aim to prevent the introduction of a third party, fearful lest the due course of justice be perverted by interested feelings. Not so C. J. B., who has expressed his mortification at the difference of my conduct towards him and others, twice for my neglecting to accuse Elmsley of apparent plagiarism, and once for my insensibility to a sneer of Elmsley against myself. The object which C. J. B. has thus had in view, does equal credit to his ingenuity and ingenuousness, in vainly hoping, and meanly attempting, to escape the vigilance of his pursuer, by calling off, when he finds himself hard pressed, my attention to other game newly started, or else to make a breach between those, whom he fancies to be more nearly united than is convenient for his purpose. Before my feelings could have permitted me thus to disgrace myself, by introducing into a literary contest all the mean spirit of party, I would have buried myself in the obscurity of a country parish, in hourly penance for the wrong thus done to the cause Literarum Humaniorum, by my inhuman attempt to embitter the sweets of social intercourse. 5. When C. J. B. is accused of making a needless display of learning, in quoting, from voluminous and, by him, unread authors, fragments of the tragedians, already to be found in their proper place in the edition of each poet respectively, he turns round with wonderful agility, and applies to me the old Tu quoque. Although the power of that figure of speech has been justly questioned, as incapable of fairly answering a charge, yet he shall have the advantage of it, however small. But let him bear in mind, that in the instances adduced against myself, the case is widely different. For, in quoting fragments of various authors, I am led, by peculiar circumstances, to give, or not, the reference at full length. For example, in the case of Bacchylides, as Brunck quotes only from Grotius' Stobæus, I have thought proper to quote also the page of Gesner. Of the two fragments of Eschylus, in one I have referred to the Scholia on Aristophanes, because the fragment is wanting in Stanley; and in the other I have quoted Stobæus and Plutarch, to show that both alluded to the same passage, differently exhibited. In the fragments of Euripides, however, I am seldom found, like C. J. B., making a ridiculous display of apparently extensive reading, to excite the astonishment of the unlearned; and until he proves me guilty on this point, I shall treat his Tu quoque with the contempt it merits. The two last observations, which demand a distinct notice, are those, where C. J. B., in one place, describes me as a person who has been seeking to raise himself into notice by calumniating the fair fame of others, and, in another, where, under the expiring agony of wounded vanity, he thus finishes his piteous defence, by confessing, that he is not insensible of the disgrace of having been forced to descend into the arena with such an adversary as myself, and that the mortification which he experiences, of being compelled to appear in the character of my antagonist, is such as may satisfy even my spirit of malevolence. Although I must needs reprobate the impudence of C. J. B. in thus talking about men seeking to raise themselves into notice by calumniating the fair fame of others, as if he did not rise first into notice by his abuse of Butler, in the Edinburgh Rev., yet I will express my satisfaction at finding that he can still feel the disgrace of being held up to general scorn as a paltry plagiarist. For my spirit of malevolence, I deem it needless to say one word of extenuation, |