pressed, the wise and the virtuous may have been sacrificed; but, if the heart of man were utterly callous to the feelings of genuine patriotism, there would have been no safeguard for civil liberty, no vestige of social union, no scope for those arduous and exalted duties, which are prompted by benevolence and enjoined by religion: our tribunals would be thrown down, our temples would be forsaken, and in the sequestered village, and in the crowded city, the sweet voice of peace would be heard no more. Patriotism then, inspired by nature and authorised by reason, is thus hallowed by the sanction of Christianity. The present situation of Europe, however, will of itself be sufficient to furnish practical conviction, that the existence of the sentiment is incompatible with a state of national subjugation. In the real, or even in the apprehended privation of independence, the glory of a country, or the well-being of its inhabitants, must be equally delusive and visionary. Commerce and the elegant arts would be neglected, nor could we expect either opportunities or incentives for the calm pursuits of science and philosophy; the mind, by continual irritation, would grow insensible to every charm of domestic virtue, or, by debasement, would be unfitted for every manly enterprise. Such a state, in short, is absolutely hostile to the diffusion, if not to the attainment, of that moral and intellectual improvement among individuals, which facilitates and ensures the general amelioration of society. Political freedom, therefore, should be the aim both of the philanthropist and of the patriot; nor even can the Christian indulge an hope, that those mild and benevolent virtues, which peculiarly characterise his religion, and which are so admirably calculated to bless the human species, should ever reach their full perfection in any country, which is subjected to the dictates of tyranny, or where the free energies of action are overawed by the dread of arbitrary force, or controlled by the encroaching influence of some powerful neighbour. CHARLES PARR BURNEY, A. B. 210 CLASSICAL CRITICISM. An attempt to emend a passage in Catullus. CARM. VI. Ad Flavium. Flavi, delicias tuas Catullo, 5 10 15 Thus is this poem found in the Mss. of Muretus, Statius, Scaliger and Vossius, with this exception; that, ver. 12., Stat. for ni has in; Muretus for tacere, taceres.-Ver. 13. Stat. has et futura panda, and Voss. pandas. Of this passage no sense can be made as it stands. Numerous as the attempts have been to correct or explain it, no emendation, as yet, appears sufficiently satisfactory. In Doëring's edit. it stands thus, Nam mî prævalet ista nil tacere. Cur nunc tam latera exfututa pandas, Ni tu quid facias ineptiarum? Muretus and Statius first attempted to alter it: the former proposed making two verses of the three; thus, Nam cur tam latera exfututa pandas, Ni tu quid, &c. and the latter, despairing of being able to discover the genuine language of Catullus, corrected it in this manner; Nam, ni est turpe, volens nihil taceres, Shortly after Scaliger corrected it thus in his first edition, Nam, ni stupra, valet nihil tacere But in his third, and last, edition it stands thus, Nam, ni stupra, valet nihil tacere, (Cur? non tam latera exfututa pandant?) The emendation of Vossius is still closer to the characters of the Mss. Nam ni istapte, valet nihil tacere, Cui non jam latera exfututa pandant and this Vulpius has adopted. But the syllable pte is never added except to ablatives. None of all these are any thing to the purpose. Nam in the first instance is wrong; and if it were not, the whole might be set to rights by a very trifling alteration, Nam mi stupra valet nihil tacere. Cur non tam latera effututa pandam, Why For it is in vain to conceal your amours from me. should I not descant on your emaciated frame, and on all your ridiculous foolery? Here the only deviation from the Mss. is in the words mi stupra, which is closer to the characters of the original than that of Scaliger, who first conjectured stupra. Nec for et, after non, is frequent enough. Of the three following attempts which I made at different times, the latter seems preferable: Num vis ipse loqui, et nihil tacere ? Cur non? cum latera effututa pandant Ipse in opposition to cubile, to pulvinus peræque, to quassa lectu, &c.-and, Nomen fare! valet nibil tacere! or, Num mi effare? valet nihil tacere! Horace, Ode I. 27, may throw some light on this subject. Bracondale, Norwich. D. B. H. I P. S. In reply to J. W. of Liverpool, on my proposed emendation of the passage in Livy, I beg leave to remark, that cum and tum are so nearly alike in ancient Mss. that sometimes they cannot be distinguished; n, u and v, are also similar; i and j, are always alike; and in, ni, vi, ui and m, are written alike; and this I have learned from seven years experience in decyphering the most obliterate parchments. I only refer him to Heinsius on Ovid, Met. viii. 703. and xv. 705.— "Inveteratum scribendi vitium mihi videtur, cum litt. c et t in codd., minusculis literis exaratis, tanta sit similitudo, ut oculis vix possint discerni." Bach's Tibullus, p. 21. He objects to the omission of cum before the verb obsiderentur. refer him to Sallust, B. C. cap. 7. 18. and 20. I need not remind him that he differs from Mr. John Walker, late of Trin. Col. Dublin, whose note on the passage in question runs thus, "Vel transponendæ sunt voces hoc modo, cum peregrinis, &c. vel dicendum has voces cum L. H. exercitu esse glossema librariorum." But I will translate the passage. Then the Romans, driven back into their camp, should have been besieged a second time, devoid of hope, and inferior in strength to the enemy, and perilous had been, &c.-Suis joined with peregrinis copiis, he says, is nugatory and unworthy of the historian: is it nugatory and unworthy of the historian in the preceding chap. but two, cum in fines suos, &c.?" We find suus frequently used by the best writers, where it might, as far as we know, be better omitted. See Vell. Paterc. lib. ii. speaking of Lucretius and Catullus; and again lib. ii. cap. 120. I shall only observe, notwithstanding what J. W. says in the last Number, that, teste se ipso, Dublinii, 1797. the passage is corrupt in all the present editions of Livy. D. B. H. 213 AN INQUIRY into the Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology. By R. P. KNIGHT. PART IV.-[Continued from No. XLVII. p. 49.] 2 85. WHILE the temples of the Hindoos possessed their establishments, most of them had bands of consecrated prostitutes, called the Women of the Idol, selected in their infancy by the Bramins for the beauty of their persons, and trained up with every elegant accomplishment that could render them attractive, and ensure success in the profession; which they exercised at once for the pleasure and profit of the priesthood. They were never allowed to desert the temple; and the offspring of their promiscuous embraces were, if males, consecrated to the service of the Deity in the ceremonies of his worship; and, if females, educated in the profession of their mothers.' 86. Night being the appropriate season for these mysteries, and being also supposed to have some genial and nutritive influence in itself, was personified, as the source of all things, the passive productive principle of the universe,3 which the Ægyptians called by a name, that signified Night.4 Hesiod says, that the nights belong to the blessed gods; as it is then that dreams descend from Heaven to forewarn and instruct 1 Maurice Antiq. Ind. vol. i. pt. 1. p. 341. A devout Mohammedan, who in the ixth. century travelled through India, solemnly thanks the Almighty that he and his nation were delivered from the errors of infidelity, and unstained by the horrible enormities of so criminal a system of superstition. The devout Bramin might, perhaps, have offered up more acceptable thanks, that he and his nation were free from the errors of a sanguinary fanaticism, and unstained by the more horrible enormities of massacre, pillage, and persecution; which had been consecrated by the religion of Mohammed; and which every where attended the progress of his followers, spreading slavery, misery, darkness, and desolation, over the finest regions of the earth; of which the then happy Indians soon after felt the dire effects :-effects, which, whether considered as moral, religious, or political evils, are of a magnitude and atrocity, which make all the licentious abuses of luxury, veiled by hypocrisy, appear trifling indeed! 2 Diodor. Sic. l. i. c. vii. 3 Νυξ γενεσις παντων ἣν και Κυπριν καλεσωμεν. lib. i. c. 1. s. 7. VOL. XXIV. CI. JI. Orph. Hymn. ii. 2. > |