reforted to for recreation as well as inftruction, and a knowledge in morals was the supreme accomplishment in vogue. The fruit of these philofophical conferences would naturally fhew itself in certain brief, fententious conclufions, which would neither contradict the fashion, nor, it seems, offend against the ease and gaiety of conversation in thofe times. Schools and pedantry, morals and aufterity, were not fo effentially connected, in their combinations of ideas, as they have been fince; and a fenfible moral truth might have fallen from any mouth, without difgracing it. Nay, which is very remarkable, the very scholia, as they were called, or drinking catches of the Greeks, were feafoned with this moral turn; the fallies of pleasantry, which efcaped them in their freeft hours, being tempered, for the most part, by some strokes of this national fobriety. "During the courfe of "their entertainments," fays Athenæus, [1. xv. c. 14.]" they loved to hear, from fome wife and 66 prudent person, an agreeable fong: and those fongs were held by them moft agreeable, "which contained exhortations to virtue, or "other inftructions relative to their conduct in "life." And to give the reader a taste of these moral fongs, I will take leave to present him with a very fine one, written by no less a person than Ariftotle Ariftotle himself; and the rather, as I have it in my power to present him, at the fame time, with an elegant translation of it. But its best recommendation will be, that it comes from the fame hand which has fo agreeably entertained us of late with some spirited imitations of Horace [4]. Αρεία πολύμοχθε γένει βροτείῳ, Σᾶς πέρι, Παρθένε, μορφᾶς Καὶ θανεῖν ζηλωτὸς ἐν Ἑλλάδι πότμος, Σε δ ̓ ἕνεκ ̓ ἐκ Διὸς Ἡρακλέης Αελία χήρωσεν αὐγάς. Τοίγαρ αοίδιμον ἔργοις, [k] Imitations of Horace, by Thomas Nevile, M. Α. Fellow of Jefus College, Cambridge, 1758. VoL. I. N Αθάνατόν ̓Αθάνατόν τε μιν αὐξήσεσι μέσαι, Διὸς ξενία σέβας αὔξεσαι [] There is a confiderable difference in the copies of this ode, as given us in the best editions of Athenæus and Diogenes Laërtius. But the SIXTH verfe is, in all of them, fo inexplicable, in refpect of the measure, the conftruction, and the fenfe, that I have no doubt of its being extremely corrupt. In fuch a cafe one may be indulged in making conjectures. And the following one, by a learned perfon, exactly skilled in the proprieties as well as elegancies of the Greek language, is fo reasonable, that I had almost ventured to give it a place in the text. The poet had been celebrating, line 3, the divine form of virtue; which infpired the Grecian youth with an invincible courage and contempt of danger. It was natural therefore to conclude his panegyric with fome fuch epiphonema as this: "Such a paffion " doft thou kindle up in the minds of men!" To justify this paffion, he next turns to the fruits, or advantages, which virtue yields; which, he tells us, are more excellent than those we receive from any other poffeffion, whether of wealth, nobility, or ease, the three great idols of mankind. Something like this we collect from the obfcure glimmerings of fense that occur to us from the common reading, Τοῖον ἐπὶ φρένα βάλλεις καρπόν τ' εἰς ἀθάναλον, Χρυσά τε κρέσσω, &c. But it is plain, then, that a very material word muft have dropt out of the first part of the line, and that I. Hail, I. Hail, Virtue! goddess! fovereign good, And death's dark frown no terror wears. II. So full into the breast of man defcends Thy rich ambrofial shower; A fhower, that gold, that parents far tranfcends, Or, fleep's foft-foothing power. III. By thee ALCIDES foar'd to fame, Thy influence LEDA's twins proclaim : there is an evident corruption in the last. In a word, the whole paffage may be reformed thus, Τοῖον ἐπὶ φρέν ̓ ΕΡΩΤΑ βάλλεις. Καρπὸν ΦΕΡΕΙΣ ἀθάναλον Κρυσέ τε κρέσσω και γονέων, It need not be obferved how eafly καρπὸν ΤΕΕΙΣ is changed into καρπὸν ΦΕΡΕΙΣ: And as to the reftored word gala, befides the neceffity of it to complete the fenfe, it exactly fuits with oo Ta wólos in line 12. Laftly, the measure will now fufficiently justify itself to the learned reader. N 2 Heroes Heroes for thee have dauntless trod IV. His deeds, his focial love (fo will the Nine, Of friendship and of friendly Jove) shall shine This moralizing humour, fo prevalent in those times, is, I dare be confident, the true fource of the fententious caft of the Greek dramatic writers, as well as of that fober air of moral, which, to the no small disgust of modern writers, is spread over all their poets. Not but there would be fome difference in those poets themselves, and in proportion as they had been more or lefs conversant in the academy, would be their relish of this moral mode; as is clearly feen in the cafe of Euripides, that philosopher of the ftage, as the Athenians called him, and who is characterized by Quinctilian, as fententiis denfus, et in iis, quæ a fapientibus tradita funt, pæne ipfis par. [L. x. c. 1.] Yet ftill the fashion was fo general, that no commerce of the world could avoid, or wholly get clear of it; and therefore Sophocles, though his engagements in the state kept |