virtues made his countrymen jealous of him-Such are the passions in which the custom of ostracism originated. SPIRITED DIALOGUE BETWEEN SCIPIO AND HANNIBAL. In a conversation, in which the merits of other great commanders were discussed, Scipio asked Hannibal whom he considered as the most eminent generals? "Alexander is the first, Pyrrhus the second, and Hannibal the third," replied the Carthaginian. "If you had conquered me," added the Roman, "where then would you have placed yourself?” "At the head of all of them," rejoined Hannibal. There appears in these questions and answers an air of grandeur and sublimity, mixed with great politeness, which renders this passage very amusing. VERY SINGULAR EPITAPII. Perhaps the most singular concurrence of circumstances to astonish and appal the imagination and feelings of the reader, is to be met with in the following lines by an old French writer. Cy gist le fils, cy gist la mere, Here lie the son and the mother, the sister and the brother, the daughter and the father, the wife and the husband, and yet there are only three persons in all.* This strange epitaph is explained by the following stranger History.-A young man thinking to enjoy his maid-servant, lies with his own mother, who had taken her place. The woman had a daughter, who on his return from a long absence to his *To the English reader the "Mysterious Mother," a tragedy, written by the late Horace Earl of Orford, will occur: how far events of so deep domestic calamity are fitted to the drama, critics have determined by their universal approbation of the Edipus Tyrannus of Sophocles. How the Earl has conducted his own drama has been also decided by the suffrage of impartial readers and critics, and the fame of the congenial genius of Lillo has been eclipsed by the Peer. country, the man (her own father) marries. The new married couple dies not long after, and the mother, who survives them, tells this story, and wishing at her death to be interred in the same tomb with her children, occasions the above epitaph to be written and inscribed on the stone. PLAGIARISTS COMPARED TO COUNTRY BANKERS. How many writers, whom the public look upon as original and valuable authors, may be compared to country bankers, who collect into their coffers the property of a whole town or city, and often prove bankrupts when they have a run upon them! How many bankrupt authors should we see, if the original owners of their thoughts should come in a large mass to reclaim the treasures in their possession. SELDENIANA. It is lately reported from Rouen that M. Galle, a man of letters, has among his excellent collection of books a MS. of the learned John Selden, of England, which he is about to translate into English, under the title of Seldeniana. This will be a very valuable present to the literary world, as Mr. Selden is eminent among modern scholars for his erudition and acuteness. I have just heard that this book has been edited in England.* This is a judicious praise of Selden's "Table Talk," a third edition of which was given in 1716, 12m0. and since several editions have been published of this very valuable, sagacious, and entertaining little volume. END OF MARVILLIANA |