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additur: in medio versu, ubi syllaba ultima est in casura, plerumque omittitur. Igitur accuratus Editor hanc legem debebat sequi constanter."*

It is very certain that the genuine and antient mode of writing ought to be preserved uniformly when it is once discovered. No manuscript, however, either of Homer, or of the Tragedies and Comedies, has yet been collated, in which the Nipunov is constantly and according to rule either inserted or neglected. The famous Codex Paullinus Lipsiensis itself, which contains from Iliad A. to Iliad P. and appears to have given rise, in a great measure, to Ernesti's rule, is not perfectly consistent in its omissions. We are, indeed, firmly persuaded that Mr. Porson's opinion is correct, when he states that this is a point which cannot be determined by the written copies of the Poets: "MSS. enim neque alter alteri consentiunt, neque idem MS. sibi ipse. per omnia constat."

Mr. Wakefield asserts that the Tragic and Epic writers are every where quoted by the Grammarians and other authors, without the insertion of the N. He produces, however, no instances; and if such as may be found were accurately and nicely weighed, they would not, we are persuaded, tend much to the defender of this canon. Mr. Wakefield's chief reliance seems to be on the copy of Euripides edited by Aldus. He refers to this in his Silva Critica, and he cites from this in his Diatribe. It will be proper, then, carefully to examine how far it really tends to confirm or destroy Mr. W.'s opinion.

We shall present to our readers, therefore, a list of the passages in which the N is added, or omitted, collected from four of the Tragedies, in the Aldine edition.

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*This remark of Ernesti has been recorded in the Acta Eruditorum for July 1760, in which there is a review of his Homer.

The verses are numbered from Musgrave's edition. The Choral Odes are wholly omitted in this catalogue, which comprehends only examples frem Iambics and Trochaics.

763. "EOTI

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1292. 1309.

χρήμασιν δε διάφοροι.

θεῶν ἀνέστησεν μόνος.
καπεκόμπασεν τάδε.

καλέστρωσεν βέλει.
τίς ταδ ̓ ἔκλεινεν τεκ-

εκεινέν πολε.

ἀνοισιν βάθροις *.

ὄμμασι δεδορκότες. δώμασι σὸν ομμ ̓ ἰδειν. φίνος σ' ἐκβάκχευσε

νεκρών. Ubi Musgr. tacite, ἐβάκχευσεν.

1399. καθαιροῦσι τύχαι.

To these instances of the omitted N final, in the Aldine Euripides, a few others may be added: but they must not be considered as any additional proofs that Aldus judged this letter unnecessary in order to lengthen the concluding syllable of a foot, when it was naturally short, and could admit such an adjunct. The Canons of Dawes, respecting the power of the mutes and liquids, were not promulgated till above two centuries after the learned Aldus Manutius Romanus had closed a life of indefatigable exertions: a life to himself highly honourable, and of most essential service to succeeding ages! The following are the passages to which we allude, in the four plays from which our citations have been taken : ANDROM. 853. Πᾶσι βροισιν ἢ τότ ̓ ἦλθεν ἢ τότε. TROADES. 412. Ει μή σ' ̓Απόλλων ἐξεβάκχευσε φρένας. 993. 'Αυτᾶις 'Αμύκλαις ἤγαγε πρὸς Ἴλιον.

1373. ἀπόλλυσιν καλή. This instance, though defective, and though it has been corrected, must not be neglected. Mr. Wakefield, in his edition, indeed, adopts Canter's correction, απόλαυσι», after Barnes and Musgrave. He has not, however, given any note on the passage. It surely was incumbent on him to have mentioned the lection of Aldus; and to have stated that the word απόλαυσιν was given in the text from a conjecture of Canter, which had been carefully recorded by the Cambridge and Oxford editors, and inserted by them in their editions of Euripides.Among the various and important duties of an editor, there is no one which demands more exact and religious observance, than the assignment of new readings to their original authors,

HERC.

HERC. FURENS I. ΤΙΣ τὸν Διὸς συλλεκτρον ουκ οιδε βροτῶν. 531. Γύναι, τι καινὸν ἦλθε δώμασι χρέος.

In these five instances, we deem the insertion of the N to be necessary for rendering the verses full and correct: ПowἘξεβάκχευσεν — Ηγαγεν — Οιδεν- Δώμασιν— It must not be omitted that, in this last play, Aldus has himself published, V. 456 : Τῶνδ', ους πανύσται ὄμμασιν προσδέρκομαι.

It is also to be remarked that Aldus, in these four plays, has omitted the N final, when the following word began with a double consonant, or with two mutes.

HECUBA. 774. Τίνος γ' ὑπ ̓ ἄλλου ; Θρήξ νιν ὤλεσε ξένος.
TROADES. 932. Φρυξί σε αληγουν θ' Ελλάδ ̓ ἐξανιστάναι.
ANDROM. 638. Ξηρὰ βαθειαν γὴν ἐνίκησε σπορά.
HERC. FURENS. 150. Ὕδραν ελειον, ἐι διώλεσε κανών ;
(Troch.) - δίω κύμασι σίείων λάβρως.

rocg. Νῶτον παλάξας ὃς πεσήμασι στέγης.

From this examination, it appears that Aldus printed the first part of his Euripides carelessly; and did not attend with critical exactness to the insertion or omission of this final N. It never can be allowed, that, even in the opening of his edition, he deemed it a letter of no metrical influence, when placed after short vowels, which allowed its junction with them, and which were placed at the end of a foot in Iambics. It is neglected certainly in twenty-one passages of the Hecuba: but it is properly added to six others. These six assuredly would have been published equally without the N final, if he had taught himself to consider the rejection as an act of propriety. Typographical errors more frequently arise from the substitution of one letter for another, or from a letter omitted, than from the addition of a letter in a word to which it does not belong.

Aldus, however, as he proceeded in his author, began to use more caution; and in the latter plays he has seldom failed to add the N final, when a long syllable is demanded by the laws of the metre. In the Andromache, the seventh Tragedy, the Aldine edition exhibits only one instance, V. 793. of this omitted final N,-and eight of its proper insertion.

In the Troades, which stands the twelfth play, this N is never omitted: but in the nine passages, in which its presence is required by the laws of the Iambic verse, it is inserted correctly and regularly.

In the Hercules Furens, his last play, (for he never published the Electra,) the N is, indeed, omitted in six places: but it is properly inserted in seventeen verses, to the metre of which it gives stability and correctness.

It is not necessary, we trust, to pursue this examination through more of the plays: but, in order to complete the statement, a few slight remarks must be subjoined.

The final N is in some passages ADDED improperly. In the 'ANDROMACHE, V. 1135. the Florentine and Aldine editions. read:

Αλλ' ουδὲν ἤνυεν· ἀλλὰ πολλ ̓ ὁμου βέλη,

where Musgrave gives vev, ex MS. D. and Brunck VUE, which preserves an ANAPEST in tertiâ sede. This verse will doubtless be printed without deformity in Mr. Porson's edition.

In the TROADES, V. 354. Εσωφρονήκασιν ἀλλ ̓ ἔτ ̓ ἐν—where Musgrave gives Σεσωφρονίκασιν ἀλλ ̓ preserving the termination, and destroying the verse.-V. 885. Aldus has:

Ποινάς, ὅσοι τεθνάσιν εν Ιλίω φίλοι. where Musgrave reads τεθνάσ ̓ ἐν Ι.

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where Aldus edited: V. 984.

Ηρα τοσουτον ἔχει ἔρωτα καλλονῆς ;

In the Herc. Fur. also, V. 3. "Eldey & Пegoews Anapest in secundâ sede, V. 583.

and publishes:

with an

ὡς πάροιθεν, λέξομαι, for pole, as it is found similarly situated in an Iambic of Hippolytus. 290. Tüv magоile Mer nóywv. and as it must stand in Andromache 877. - μηδὲ φαντάζου δόμων Πάροιθε τώνδε.

V. 1167. Mévouci Evo201-it seems as if it should rather be: Μένουσ' ἔνοπλοι - as the second syllable of ἔνοπλος is used long in the only Iambic verse, except the one quoted, in which we recollect it in Euripides: Orest. 1634. Edit. Porsoni.

Ουκ ει', ἐνόπλῳ ποδὶ βοηδρομήσεις.

-but this is not of great consequence.

If Aldus had imagined, as Mr. Wakefield does, that this final N should never be added when the following word begins with a consonant, he would surely have banished it on every possible occasion; and not have inserted it where it clogs the verse; as it does, in the preceding examples. Aldus was certainly inaccurate; and in his MSS. of Euripides, the Attic Metrical Canons seem sometimes to have been observed, and sometimes to have been neglected. With respect to this final N, his inconsistency, indeed, may be adduced as a proof that he did not intend its omission as an useless adjunct. To carelessness, and not to design, it must be attributed that, in these four plays,' he uses equally before words beginning with the same consohants both Ώλεσεν and Ώλεσε, Εστιν and Εστι, Ἔστηκεν and Ἔσε τηκε, Ἕλλησιν and Ἕλλησι, Δώμασιν and Δώμασι, ̓Ανδράσιν and Ανδράσι.

Aldus was little disposed, it should seem, to reject on principle this N, for he preserves it generally with great care at the end of the verse: a custom which is more honoured in the

observance

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