(From the many grammatical inaccuracies in this Fragment, the transcriber appears to have been an illiterate person.) ON THE QUANTITY OF CEDRINUS. The writer of the Life of Thomas Warton, in the London Magazine for August, (No. xx. p. 126,) mentions the fact of Warton having, in some Latin verses, made the penultima of "cedrinæ" short, which he is inclined to consider as an error in quantity. This is a mistake: cedrinus is derived immediately from the Greek; and adjectives in vos, expressive of the materials of which any thing is made, have the penultima short. So Homer, of an apartment in the palace of Ulysses-Kéopivov, ὑψόροφον, ὃς γλήνεα πολλὰ κεχάνδει. We should not have thought this error worth correcting, were it not that the writer of the article is obviously a scholar.-We were struck with the happiness of the following image, illustrative of the style of Warton's lyrical pieces: "Though his diction is rugged, it is like the cup in Pindar, which Telamon stretches out to Alcides, XpVσw πεÒPIxvĩav, rough with gold, and embost with curious imagery." SPECIMENS OF THE BATHOS IN VIRGIL. Virgil has been the object of eulogy among critics for the last two millenniums, as the poet, xar' èox, of good taste; and yet there are some passages in his poems which, to modern perceptions at least, appear to be signal instances of the figure above mentioned. We shall not quote the description of the storm in the first Georgic, as it has been already commented on by greater hair-splitters than themselves; and perhaps the simile of the two Centaurs descending the mountain, (Æn. vii. 676,) dat euntibus ingens Sylva locum, et magno cedunt virgulta fragore may be considered rather as a juxtaposition of two different but equally striking effects, than as a climax ascending from one to the other-though we remember a school-boy being censured for imitating it. But what shall we say to Nascetur pulchra Trojanus origine Cæsar, Julius, a magno demissum nomen Iulo. En. 1. 286. On the following, which is something like a repetition of the above: En hujus, nate, auspiciis illa inclyta Roma VI. 782. Imperium terris, animos æquabit Olympo, Septemque una sibi muro circumdabit arces. To a Roman, probably, the effect of the latter bathos would be lessened, if not entirely removed; and indeed the idea of a capital comprehending, as it were, seven cities in one, is magnificent enough, and might have stood excellently well by itself, without the injudicious addition. This last line reminds us of another of Virgil's faults-the repetition of a favorite line or lines, in connexion with a subject very different from that to which it was at first applied. (Georg. 11.535.) Such repetitions produce an effect injurious to the poet. The reader naturally reverts to the former topic-compares it with the latter-and can discover no connexion between the two, except the poet's wish to ingraft on both his pet image or expression. Not only is the latter passage, by this means, deprived of all appearance of a natural effusion (to use a hackneyed term), but the original passage itself, on recollection or re-perusal, loses some of its effect. We all admire the magnificent line with which, in the spirit of Lucan, Virgil concludes the prooemium of his epic : Tantæ molis erat Romanam condere gentem! and yet, had the same verse recurred in any subsequent part of the Eneid, half its beauty would be forfeited. It is as if an act of favor, conferred specially on one friend, and thence the more valuable, were to be made common to many. Nor is this effect lessened by the comparative rarity of such repetitions, which gives them an appearance of art and choice:—they do not occur, like those of Homer,' in the course of things; we see that poet has in his stores a certain number, and only a certain number, of very good things, and that he watches his time to exhibit them. We are reminded of Ephraim Jenkins's learned discussion on the cosmogony; or of the artifice by which the people of Egesta deluded the Athenian ambassadors into an opinion of their immense riches; ἰδίᾳ ξενίσεις ποιούμενοι τῶν τριηριτῶν, τά τε ἐξ αὐτῆς ̓Εγέστης ἐκπώματα καὶ χρυσᾶ καὶ ἀργυρᾶ ξυλλέξαντες, καὶ τὰ ἐκ τῶν ἐγγὺς πόλεων-αιτησάμενοι, ἐσέφερον ἐς τὰς ἑστιάσεις, ὡς οἰκεῖα ἕκαστοι, καὶ πάντων ὡς ἐπιτοπολὺ τοῖς αὐτοῖς χρωμένων, μεγάλην τὴν ἔκπληξιν Αθηναίοις παρείχε. (Thuc. vi. 46.) Whether our readers, and especially the peculiar admirers of Virgil, (of whom we were once among the most de 'Homer repeats himself without end; but Homer can afford to do so. His repetitions are like Milton's imitations: we have implicit confidence in the boundless invention of the one poet, and the perfect originality of the other; and we allow them to take their own way. 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 Æn. 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. Træzene 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 ex for ab has totally changed its purport.-That Sir Walter Scott should have fathered upon the same poet the halfline," Maximus quæ docuit Atlas," (n. 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. En. 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." . 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: Nou, 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. |