sociatus kominibus impiis qui audaci pervicucitate animarum contendunt magno hoc itinere in urbem irrumpere, Jovis voluntate pessum dabitur simul."-We learn from M. Brunk's remarks, that his manuscripts presented the same reading, which is allowed by the second Scholia. At verse 632, dialer Araç is found instead of Sinaias. It is difficult to find any example of the adjective datos euployed with a feminine substantive, even among the Attic writers. In verse 178, the poet calls those prayers of the chorus, πανδίκοις λιτας ; and although πανδίκως, as found in another manuscript (No. 2781), may be right, yet wardi xols does not appear less correct. In our editions, verse 732 is not in It is difficult to understand, in this place, the object of the epithet ayran parum, or castum sulcum matris seminans, sui sunguinis radicem, ausus est tangere: nor can one easily discover the utility of í izpádu, after having said sulcum maThe manuscript before us, reads like those of M. Brunk, ùs opào áyvàn pas apcupes, and the subsequent space is the reason which rendered non purum, in respect to Edipus, the sulcum tris. matris in which he had been formed. This reading is, therefore, decidedly the best. In verses 212 and 213. of the Prometheus, speaking of the war of the Titans agamer the Gods, Prometheus says, he had learned from his mother, that victory was to be obtained, not by force, but by cunning or stratagem: Ως ἀκατ' ἰσχὺν, ἐδὲ πρὸς τὸ καρτερίν Χρὴ ἡ δολῳ δὲ τὰς ὑπερέχοντας κρατεῖν. Such was the ancient reading; but it has degenerated, whether after MSS. or after conjectures, into this, Xpé; that. is to say, xpia, opus sit, necesse sit. M. Dawes, being justly dissatisfied with this form, has substituted, conjecturally, in his Critical Miscellanies, pén, an optative, very commonly employed after the particles, Iva, ori, &e. to express the past time, necesse esset. But all the MSS. which M. Vauvilliers had seen, are in favour of the ancient reading, and only differ in the particle or T, after do, and this form is, in fact, very good. Thucydides prefers the use of p to that of xpin. As to the ellipsis of the comparative μa, before the particle, there is not any Greek writer, who does not furnish examples of it. The phrase thus taken, signifies therefore, “Opor tere, in fatis esse non vi aut robore, magis quam dolo victores vincere; and every one understands, that this grammatical figure amounts to the same as "dolo magis quam vi aut robore.” On the subject of the participle present, impexoras instead of which many editions have misterraç, it is well known, that the fu ture is not by any means necessary in such a circumstance; as in Latin, “misit senatus legatos vetantes," is the same as vetaturos, or qui vetarent. The manu script under our immediate consideration, reads, χρὴ ἢ δόλῳ τε τὰς ὑπερέχοντας χρατεία At verse 215, the printed editions have as follows: Χραπιςα δήμοι των παρεςώτων τότε εφαίνετ' εἶναι, προσλαβόντι μητέρα εκινθ' έκοντι Ζηνὶ συμπαραςατεία. visum est, ut assumens matrem, volens vo "Optimum mihi in præsenti er omnibus lenti Jovi assisterem." In this passage, the ponaborts is good in itself, as relaring to por: but then, what are we to make of the exord exorts Zuvi? It does not appear credible, that Eschylus wrote ROUTE, BROTTS; one having a reference to Jupiter, the other to Prometheus. If he wrote ixivra, can we admit, one at the side of the other, two adjectives relating to the same person; one to the dative, poohaber, the other to the accusative, sorta? No such example is to be found among the Greek authors. Our manuscript, therefore, is right in having po aboura, the two adjectives then joining, not to the pos, but to the infinitive, a garar, a mode of construction com monly found. At verse 618, Paw's edition reads, Λίγ ̓ ἕντεν αὐτῷ· ταν γαρ έκπυθοιό μου. "Dic quid postules? nam quidvis a me doceberis." But to give it this sense, the phrase has occasion of the particle &, without which the optative never assumes the power of a future; this may be supplied in the MS. by conjecture; for we only find ao in it, which leaves a verse defec tive by one syllable. My Brunk has printed wav yep är ærðu fun, after a menuscript. In our editions, after verse 756, and seg. we read, 66 Η γαρ ποτ' ἐςὶν εκπεσείν αρχῆς Δία ; αδαμ' άν, οἶμαι, το δ' ίδούσα συμφοράν. Πῶς δ' εκ ἄν, ὅτις εκ Διος πάσχω κακῶς: Numquid est ut Jupiter aliquando excidat è principatu! gauderem puro, istam conspicata cladem: quidni vero! que a Jove malis afficior." Thus are generally rendered thosewordswhich to pronounces; but notus is a verb active, signifying de-, Lectarem, and not delecturer. M. Dawes, in his Miscellanies, assigns the second of these verses to Prometheus, writing Edo av, that is, doo : thus, too, has M. Brunk pruited it; and this enables us to find the meaning of pai, gauderes, puto; whilst the third verse is the answer or ko; quidni? The particle de becomes no longer necessary, and our manuscript, which suppresses it, favours the conjec ture of those two learned critics. It suppresses also, and properly, as appears, the particle in verse 830. Iva μαντεῖα θῶνος ἐςί Θεσπρωτό Δίος Ubi est sedes prophetica Jovis Threspoti et It is evident that the particle is not necessary to the scuse and measure of the first verse; and I can scarcely.believe, that the poet, without any necessty, would seek this cacophony, Marzza Danas Teri Gecompar, wherein the same, Consonant is repeated six times in four words. On the same account that we roject the spigortas, and adopt the reading of our MS. Une exortas, (in verse 215,) we are induced to preter also, in verse 857, Η ξεσι θηρεύοντες ἐ θηρασίμοις It is to be remarked, also, that, in verse 1011, Αυθαδεία την φρονῦντι μὴ καλός; our editors read, γαρ τω φρονῦντι, &ς. The духо here is of no service to the sense of the phrase, but with iad it is recessary for the measure of the verse. In reading au&alala, it would be useless for this object. It is certain, that when ever the poets employ the dieresis, or dissolution of the diphthong 24 or a, in two vowels aï, oï, the continues long: from the same analogy should proceed the same result, in respect to the diphthong Ei. This observation would be of impor tance to the knowledge of prosody, if: confirmed by a sufficient number of ex-, amples. After verse 810, there follows,. as if a line by Eschylus, 11 ano cou μνημόνευμα της της πλάνης, Which is, in fact, only an explanation of verse 839. SIR, TH To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. Pertinet, et nescire malum est:" Su in a line of Pope: Abuse on all he loved, or loved him, spread: where there evidently is only one relative word intended to be understood, and' this, on the above-mentioned consideration, should be the relatie that; "abusa' on all that he loved, or [that] loved him:" that being the object (or accusative) to the first loved, and the subject (or nominative) of the second. Your's, &c. Σ. For For the Monthly Magazine. LYCEUM OF ANCIENT LITERATURE-No. XXVI. W HORACE. THERE so many have concurred to point out the merits, and to perpetuate the fame, of Horace; upon a subject, which has already exhausted alinat criticisin could offer, or ingenuity suggest, the classical reader will be prepared to expect here only those general observations, which may confirm the opinon he has already formed; but which will ad little to the materials, upon which that opinion is grounded. Most wingly, indeed, would we have omitted this article altogether; not so much from any dificulty likely to occur in a poet, who has been so repeatedly revised by commentators, ancient and modern, as from the impossibility of offering remarks suniciently striking, or new, to excite at tention. But the necessity of conformning to the regular plan which we from the first adopted, compels us to proceed. The odes of Horace are, of course, the only part of his works which we propose to consider at present. It may, perhaps, form no idle disquisition to attempt to ascertain the differ ent periods, at which were written the several poems of Horace. This we shall do, taking Bentley for our guide.* The internal evidence of the poems them selves may, indeed, lead us to form a to. lerable conclusion as to their respective dates. Thus, the first book of the odes may be ascertained from the prologue; the second and third from the epilogues; the epodes from these lines of the 14th epod: Inceptos, olim promissum carmen, Iambos Ad umbilicum adducere. The date of the first book of Satires may be collected from the last line of the 10th: I, puer, atq. meo citus hæc subscribe libello; the last from the prologue. The first book, also, of the epistles may be traced from the prologue and epilogue. That the fourth book of the odes, and the second of the epistles, were published after a considerable lapse of time from the rest, is evident from the authority of Sueto nius; a testimony which, as Bentley observes, is so decisive, that it would be an useless task in any one to attempt to refute it. Supposing, then, this internal evidence to be sufficiently clear, the ar Vise Bentley, de Temporious Librorum Horatii. MONTHLY MAG. No. 194. rangement will be as follows:-The first book of Saures, the earliest work of Horace, was written between the t'ventysixth and twenty-eighth year of mis te the second, between his thirty-second and thirty-fourth; the Epodes, in the two following years; the first book of the Odes, was composed between his thirtysixth and thirty-eighth; the second, in his fortieth and forty-first; the third, in the course of the two succeeding years': the first book of Episues, in his fortysixth and forty-seventh years; then the fourth of the Odes, and the Carinen Seculare, in the course of his forty-ninth, fieth, and fifty-first years. The Art of Poetry, and the fourth of the Epistles, are not so well ascertained; probably, they were written only a year or two before he died. This arrangement will ap pear to be judicious, and not loosely hazarded, if the reader will carefully at tend to the evidence of the poems them selves. In the first place, it is obser vable, that, in the Satires, the Epodes, and the first of the Odes, the name of Casar is always used, never that of Augustus, which was not assumed till about the thirty-ninth year of Horace ; after which it is frequently adopted. Then again, in the Safires and Epodes, the poet describes himself as a young man, and asserts, that he owed all his fame to the publication of his Satires. He no where mentions his lyric compositions as having contibuted to his reputation. His progressive advance in life may be collected from a close examination of the sentiments of each successive poem. The free, and often vicious, tendency of his early poems, denotes his youthful years; but we see him afterwards engaged on more decorous subjects, and assuming a graver and chaster style. It is by this internal evidence alone, that we can properly ascertain the different Those periods at which Horace wrote. who have not condescended to follow this unerring guide, have lost themselves in the wildest conjectures, and have seldom failed to obscure, rather than illustrate, the subject. Let us now consider Horace as a writer of odes, a species of poetry, which, of all others, requires the greatest strength and elevation of genius, and a sort of enthusiasm, that must diffuse itself Judgment, too, through the whole. must have its share, in tempering the flights of too wild an imagination; and the greatest art must be used, without the appearance of any, that the compo B position sition, though strictly regular, may retain an air of rapture and disorder. Gods, heroes, and princes, were, ai ang the ancients, the objects of the lyric Muse. They had also another kind of Ode, of a more humble nature, which delighted in softer themes; where beauty, and the pains and joys of love, were described, or the praise of Bacchus sung. The want of the sublime was supplied by delicacy and sprightliness. If Pindar excelled in the former, Anacreon was unrivalled in the latter. The happy genius of Horace could sing the triumphs of Augustus, and the coyness of Chloe, with equal success; uniting the qualities of both the Grecian bards, he has occasion ally the rapture of the one, and the soft ness of the other. He has all the enthusiasm and elevation of the Theban poet; he is as rich in similes and imagery: but his transitions are not so abrupt; and his diction is more uniformly soft and flexible. The subjects of Pindar's odes are generally the same, and his style par takes of the uniformity. But it is the Peculiar characteristic of Horace, that his style continually varies with his subject. Wherever his poetical imagination may lead him-whether he fancy him pelf in Olympus, announcing the decrees of the gods; or moralizing upon the uins of Troy-whether scaling the Alps, or at the feet of Glycera; it is always adapted to the objects before him. He can, with equal case, pourtray, in the sublimest strains, the characters of Cato and of Regulus; and yet, with playful vivacity, describe the caresses of Lycim ia, and the inconstancy of Pyrrha, Like Anacreon, the devoted son of pleasure, he has all the graces of the Teian bard, with infinitely more wit and philo sophy; and while he possesses the bril liant imagination of Pindar, he surpasses im in the solidity of his judgment. In a word, if attention be paid to the sound ness of his sense, the precision of his style, the harmony of his verse, and the variety of his subjects; if it be recol. lected, that the same man has composed satires, replete with keenness, sense, and gaiety; epistles, which contain the best directions for our conduct in life, and an Art of Poetry, which will always be the standard of true taste; it will be admitted, that Horace was one of the greatest and best-informed poets that ever existed. His thoughts are the genuine offspring of nature. They are dictated by truth and reason. Unwilling to deck his style with frivolous ornaments, which can amuse only superficial minds, he com→ pensates for the want of these by the grandeur of his ideas and figures, in the Odes; and by the chasteness of his elocution, and the propriety of his images, in his Satires and Epistles. Grace every where flows from his pen, and pleases the more because natural and unstudied. His poetry is not a barren soil; the useful and the agreeable spring up together: we are at once amused and instructed. The mind finds itself enriched by fables, history, and geography, which are sprinkled through the whole work with judg inent, and without affectation. The heart is improved by a variety of wise reflections on the manners of his age, and by lively representations of vice and virtue. In a word, the taste is formed by a composi tion just and correct, without constraint; full of grace and beauty, without varnish ; easy, and yet not negligent; always seasoned with so much wit and learning, as to leave no room for disgust. It has been sometimes said, that elegance, not sublimity, is the characteristic of Horace. That the former qualifi cation is unquestionably his due, no one will attempt to deny. But, surely, he offers as many instances of the sublime in his odes, as any of the ancient lyric writers. Let the adimirer of Horace turn to the following Odes: the 15th, 35th, 37th, of the first book; the 1st, 13th, perhaps, the best of all, and 19th, of the second book; and, especially, the 1st, 3d, and 4th, the character of Regulus in the 5th, and the 25th, of the third book; Odes the 4th, 9:h, and 14th, of the 4th book. It would be easy to fill these columns, by numerous quotations that would sufficiently prove the truth of our assertion. It is true, that he himself disclaims all pretensions to sublimity; and often says in his odes, that his Muse was not suited to subjects of grandeur, but rather chose to sing Convivia, et prælia Virginum Sectis in Juvenes unguibus acrium, But this is a specimen of that modesty, Nititur pennis, vitreo daturus We shall allow ourselves one quotatið☎ more, to prove, once for all, that the ge nius of Horace was highly susceptible of that grandeur' of sentiment which is called called sublimity in Pindar, Observe with what magnificence, and pomp of expression, he describes a lyric poet, and a favourite of the Muses, in the 3d Ode of book 4: Quem tu, Melpomene, semel Nascentem placido lumine videris, Illum non labor Isthmius Ciarabit pugilem; non eques impiger Curru ducet Achaïco Victorem: neque res bellica Deliis Ornatum foliis ducem, Quod regum tumidas contuderit minas, Ostendet Capitolio: Sed, quæ Tibur aquæ fertile perfluunt, Et spissæ nemorum comæ, Fingen: Folio carmine nobilem. The truth is, that the splendour of Horace, not having the glare and extra vagance of Pindar, does not so immediately strike the eye, but is generally more agreeable to the understanding of the reader. He is more correct in his expressions, less extravagant in his metaphors, less bold in his transitions. Though he sometimes swells, and rises high, he never exceeds those limits which a clear judgment prescribed to a warm imagination. His transitions, even where they are the boldest, will be found adapted to the design of the Ode; and to arise more from the nature of that kind of poetry, than from any unreason able indulgence granted to his Muse. That which occurs in the third Ode of book iii. has been considered most hable to objection; but even this will vanish, when the reader accurately studies the design of the Ode, and upon what occasion it was composed. Before the death of Julius Cæsar, there was a report, that he intended to remove the seat of empire to Troy, from which the Romans derived their origin; and it was feared, that Augustus might carry into execution what his uncle and adopted father had proposed to effect. Horace is thought to have composed this Ode, in order to prevent it. He therefore intro duces Juno in the council of the Gods, as consenting to favour the Romans, provided they never think of re-building Troy, or of transferring to that city the seat of government. The design of the poem thus anticipated, it may be sup posed that he would only gradually con vey the hint to Augustus, and not abruptly discover his intention in writing: and the manner in which it is executed will be found equally admirable. Ode begins with the praises of a just and sourageous man: it proceeds to exem The plify this character in some heroes, who is an Quo Musa tendis? desine pervicax Sublimity, then, is an essential feature As to his morality, though in early youth he had imbibed the principles of Epicurus, yet he acknowledges one Supreme Power, superior to all created beings, who will not suffer crimes to be committed with impunity; to whom even kings are accountable for their conduct, and who ought to be the source and end of all their actions. He teaches us, that happiness consists in the right use of our reason, and in curbing the tumultuous sallies of our passions; that we cannot too soon devote ourselves to the study of wis * Baxter, judicium de Horat, in Zeunius Edit. of Gesner, p. 32. dom |