names of the Romish divines of Complutum, the catholick Erasmus, Beza the disciple of Calvin, Walton, Mill, and Bentley of the Church of England, the mystical Bengel, Wetstein suspected of heresy, Matthäi of the Greek church, and the Lutheran Griesbach. With such examples, every christian who feels a proper respect for the scriptures must wish to have the words of everlasting life, as nearly as they came from the lips of our Saviour, and the pens of the apostles, as it is now possible to obtain them.

This Dr. Griesbach has effected in the opinion of competent judges, far beyond any other editor of the Greek Testament. His edition has been long received as a standard in all the universities of Germany, and it is appealed to with confidence by theologians in England and every part of Europe. The present edition is admirably adapted to common use. We have no doubt, from what we have learnt, that this American impression will be superintended with the utmost care, and we hope, as it is to be printed page for page with the Leipsick edition (in the text of which no erratum has, we believe, yet been found) that it will rival it in typographical accuracy. The subscribers' price too, for a book of 600 pages, is we think extremely moderate.

That the nature of this edition may be completely understood, we bave translated the following passage from the short preface which Griesbach has prefixed.

Wherever I have altered the common text, as it was edited by Elsevir in the year 1624, I have given the common reading in the margin, that every one may have an opportunity of using his own

judgment and choice; for I am not so presumptuous as to wish to obtrude my decision upon the reader. Those variations of my text from the received, which relate only to the order of words without affecting the sense, or which are only differences of spelling, I have thought it unnecessary to note in the margin; but every other variation, however trifling, I have pointed out with the most religious scrupulosity. I have also collected in the margin the most select and valuable various readings, which differ both from my own and the common text. In selecting them, I have endeavoured to consult the advantage of students in theology; who will find here almost any reading, which may happen to be mentioned in the usual lectures of professors upon the books of the New Testament. But this edition will not be a useless manual to other readers; for it will enable them to discover whether the immense collections of readings, which have been made by the unwearied labours of the learned, contain any thing of sufficient importance to the criticism or interpretation of particular passages, to invite to a more careful examination, or consultation of copious critical commentaries. Nay more, I have not left unnoticed the conjectures of learned men, and the different punctuations of passages, that I may thus open a wider field to students for the exercise of their judgments on subjects of criticism. For the authorities upon which I have determined any reading to be genuine, more or less probable, or utterly inadmissible, I must refer to my large critical edition printed at Halle,'

gers, and regularly attended by a concierge, to whom you pay a trifling compensation. In each room you find a printed catalogue of the paintings, which are all numbered, and you pass round and admire or censure at your leisure. Your catalogue is your companion; your taste your guide. I do not know the number of original paintings in this palace, almost all of which are however by the first masters; but, as I recollect no room with less than forty in it, there must be at least one thousand fine originals.

Every body enjoys these luxuries more than the owner. His habitation is aërial, perhaps in the third or fourth story; and I have little doubt, that, though surrounded with this rich banquet of genius and talent, which his pride will not let him dispose of, he often dines on soup meagre for want of funds. I do not mean that he literally wants bread, but I am assured that these princes are often in want of a guinea to pay their debts.

.. The house of Borghese, however, will probably be provided for. The young prince has lately married the widow of general LeClerc, the sister of the emperour Napoleon. To the Bonaparte family he brought rank, palaces, and the richest treasures of painting and sculpture; and he only demands in return a little Spanish or Neapolitan gold, which twenty thousand French troops can at any time command.

I understand that young Borghese is a very stupid, silly prince; but as his wife has talents, at least for the theatre of love, and fraternal assistance, his want of talents is of no moment.

As the Palazzo Borghese is the most splendid of the Roman palaces, so the Villa Borghese is the

most distinguished of the country seats in the Roman territory. It is a very large and elegant seat, laid out with great taste, in a style between that of the French and English pleasure grounds.

Decorated with fountains and jettes d'eau, in which the Romans excel all the world, ornamented with artificial lakes, temples, and ruins, shaded by groves, and laid out in walks, sheltered by lofty hedges, it boasts more magnificence, and affords more variety than any thing of the sort I have met with in Europe. The Romans indeed have a great superiority over all the rest of the world in this species of decoration. They can erect statues of heathen gods, and of illustrious men; they can distribute temples and ruins, without offending taste, or violating probability.

What an absurdity would it be in our country to erect the ruins of a Roman temple, when our history excludes the possibility of such a fiction! If we would adhere to probabilities, we should confine ourselves to wigwams and beaverdams, instead of ruined palaces or shattered theatres.

The moderate nature of the Italian climate is equally favourable to delicious retreats of this nature. Their hedges are composed of the Laurustinus, now in bloom, of the laurel and the myrtle. The box and myrtle put forth their leaves and flower buds in December, in this climate, and are in flower in January and February.

When you peep through the hedges, you see the orange sinking down under its golden burden, and the citron arrests your attention by its fragrant perfume.

No place in the world unites all these charms in a higher degree than the Villa Borghese. It has a

fine carriage road throughout its extent, and it is very liberally thrown open to the publick for a promenade.

The palace of this villa is as superb as its grounds are enchanting. Of an imposing magnitude, richly decorated with antique bas-reliefs in the front, its exteriour gives you some promise of the noble feast within. Nine elegant rooms on the basement story, whose pillars, floors, and even wainscots are of the richest marble, of infinite variety, are laid open for the display of the finest exhibitions of sculpture existing in any private cabinet in the world.

I shall not attempt to describe them; many excellent remarks have been made on them by Dr. Moore, but there are a few which I cannot refrain from noticing.

There is a Grecian bas-relief, though of a Roman subject; Curtius on his horse, leaping into the chasm to save his country. This is executed in marble. The expressions of terrour in the attitudes and countenance of the horse, and of despair in that of Curtius, are inimitably fine.

There are three pieces of statuary of Bernini, who lived about a century since, and who is therefore classed with the moderns, but whose works are, I think, equal to those of any ancient artist. The first is David with his sling, and his hand drawn back in the attitude of immediate attack; his countenance is severe; anger is inimitably expressed, but I think, with many others, that it is deficient in dignity; it is the anger of a mean mind; it is not the soul of David, commissioned, as he must have felt himself to be, by the God of battles! The anatomical accuracy of this statue, and its attitudes, appear to me fine. The second is

Eneas, in the act of bearing off his father, with the little Iülus by his side. It is a tender, pathetick story, but I do not think that Bernini has rendered it as touching as he might. But his third piece makes ample amends for any trivial defects in the other two. The subject is one of Ovid's; the flight of Daphne, and the pursuit of Apollo. The sculptor has chosen the moment when the god of musick and of light had overtaken the Nymph, and when she was

-, to spare her disgrace, converted into a tree. The attitudes of both figures are enchanting. Her uplifted hands are already springing into leaves, and the tender feet are striking roots into the earth. Nobody would have conceived that marble could so well have expressed this singular mythological fable. The connoisseurs of our party give this piece a preference, in some respects, to even the Apollo di Belvidere, or the Venus di Medici, at Paris.

A groupe is undoubtedly more interesting than a single figure, and Bernini has here had it in his power to unite the beauties of both the Apollo and the Venus; in addition to which he has contrived to shew his skill in the representation of the Metamorphosis.

In this admirable villa there are, also, the celebrated Seneca, dying in the bath, too exquisitely done. Death, with all his horrours, is too accurately described by the faithful chisel. The beautiful Hermaphrodite, lying on a couch; the fighting Gladiator; the Centaur conquered by Cupid, are all chef d'œuvres of Grecian artists. the whole, I can say without enthusiasm, that had there been no other palace at Rome but that of Borghese, I should have thought myself amply repaid for the visit.

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