licet Eschyleis longe intellectu faciliores, plurimum tamen obscuritatis habent.** p. 10.

Quod autem minus ampullarum et sesquipedalium verborum Euripides adhibet quam Sophocles, in eo, ut mihi videtur, facile excusari, imo defendi, potest. Certe propius, hoc modo, ad naturæ normam et veræ vitæ consuetudinem acceditur, Si cogitatione fingere possemus dicendi quoddam genus, ex utroque poeta æquabiliter fusum et conflatum; quod nihil ex Euripide humile, nihil ex Sophocle durum retineret; haberemus forte quod maxime ad perfectum Tragœdiæ stilum appropinquaret. Interea non diffiteor majorem me quidem voluptatem ex Euripidis nativa venustate et inaffectata simplicitate percipere, quam ex magis elaborata et artificiosa Sophoclis sedulitate. Hic fortasse meliores tragoedias scripsit: sed ille dulciora poemata. Hunc magis probare solemus, illum magis amare; hunc laudamus, illum legimus.'† pp 11-12.

Some critics have urged an objection against the manner of Euripides, from his often carrying on a dialogue, for a considerable space, in which each speaker has uniformly one line, not more nor less. To this charge of a tasteless and tiresome alternation, the Professor replies in a passage which we recommend to the young scholar as more precious than gold.

Ea est Græcæ linguæ perspicuitas, ea multum in parvo dicendi facultas, ea particularum vis et claritas, ut, una earum apte in

* There are other respects, in which Euripides may be justly declared to have borne away the palm from Sophocles. His diction has the especial recommendation of unaffected simplicity; though I would not absolutely deny that, in his constant use of the language of common life, he sometimes sinks his style too low. On the other hand, Sophocles, in his anxiety to avoid ordinary expressions, and the phrases of the vulgar, is rather too prone to harsh metaphors, unnatural inversions, and other faults of that description; which occas onally render his style more obscure than is suitable to his matter. When we read Euripides, we are delighted, and we indulge the free flow of our affections: but when we take up Sophocles, we feel as if we had undertaken a task. The choruses also of Sophocles, though more easy to be understood than those of Aschylus, have still much obscurity.

Euripides, in my opinion, is not merely to be excused, but is strictly de fensible, for having used fewer pompous expressions and stately words than Sophocles. Certainly he thus comes closer to the dictates of nature and the practice of real life. If we were to conceive of a kind of style, composed by an qual and harmonious combination of the characteristic qualites of each of these poets; which should retain none of the homeliness of Euripides, and nothing of the harshness of Sophocles; we should perhaps have the nearest approach to the perfection of the Tragic style. I acknowledge, however, that 1 derive greater pleasure from the native beauty and unaffected simplicity of Eur pides, than from the more laboured and artificial polishing of Sophocles. The latter wrote, it may be, better tragedies; but the former sweeter poems. The one has our constant approbation, the other has our love: we praise the one, but the other we read.

serta, simul ad id quod prior interlocutor dixerat, respondeatur, simul sententia utraque ita constringatur et copuletur, ut ex duabus una efficiatur. Sed, cum hujus effectus perceptio ex usu dituuron Græci sermonis, ex diligenti lectione, ex attenta meditatione pendeat; quid mirum, si homines indocti, cum primum Tragicos Græcos obiter et otiose inspiciunt, ad suam quisque linguam, ut fit, id quod Græcæ est proprium, revocent, et quod in suo sermone vere vitium esset, alieno sine causa affingant? Deinde, Tragici mira brevitate sententiam uno versu sæpe concludunt, quæ nonnisi per longas in quavis alia lingua ambages declarari posset. Ceterum illud, credo, omnes Græce scientes libenter mihi concesserint, si Tragœdiæ quæ superessent longe iis quas in manibus habemus inferiores essent; cùm tamen veluti tabulæ e lugubri literarum naufragio enatarint, omni veneratione esse amplectendas, omni cura conservandas, omni diligentia pervolutandas. Nulla nobis ex antiquis monumentis restant, quorum assidua lectio junioribus majore studio sit commendanda; utpote quæ maxime ingenuam, maxime liberali homine dignam, voluptatem præbeant*. p. 13.

We next meet with ten pages of Observationes Variæ, much after the manner of Dawes's Miscellanea Critica. The Professor proves that the enclitic y is inadmissible immediately after such phrases as Aía, μà Aía, &c. A number of passages, overlooked before by very distinguished editors, he restores by applying the well known fact of the permutations of a and He produces some instances of conjectural emendations by modern critics, which would have been superseded had they known that the very same were really found in the Aldine or other early editions. And he produces a troop of witnesses to shew that Dawes and Valcke

αι

*Such is the perspicuity of the Greek language, such its capacity of expressing much in very few words, such the strength and the luminous effect of its particles, that the apt insertion of a single particle will both furnish a reply to the preceding speaker, and at the same time cause such a happy and unexpected coalescence of the latter speech into the former, that both make one clear sentence. But, since no one can have a perception of this effect without incessant practice in Greek, diligent reading, and attentive thought; it is no wonder that persons not so qualified, on carelessly and indolently looking into the Greek Tragedians, apply (as such persons always do) the idioms of the Greek to their own vernacular tongue, and absurdly conclude that what would be a fault in the latter is so in the former. It is also to be considered, that, the Tragedians, with admirable conciseness, often include a sentiment in a single verse, which could not be expressed, in any other lan guage, without a long circuit of words. I am certain that every man who understan is Greek will readily grant that, if the Tragedies which remain were far inferior to what we really have them, yet, being as it were the wrecks of the melancholy destruction of letters, they would be entitled to the utmost care of preservation, and the utmost diligence of perusal. There are none of the monuments of antiquity, whose constant and close study should be more recommended to young persons; as they afford a gratification the mest manly, the most worthy of an elegant and accomplished mind.

naer were mistaken in their opinion that the Homeric 'nd in the sense of xal, was not also an Attic usage. The reference to Dawes is given "p. 282;" but it is 278 of Bishop Burgess's edition.

Then follow Notæ et Emendationes in Athenæum, extending to 106 pages. Athenæus was Porson's favourite author, to the restoration of whose text and of the innumerable fragments of lost authors which he preserves, our distinguished Grecian had devoted many of his best hours through the principal part of his life. Such was his exquisite sensibility to all the proprieties and delicacies of Atticism, such his knowledge of the private manners and minutest antiquities of the Greeks, and such his metrical skill and fineness of ear, that he was above all other men qualified for elucidating this difficult and interesting author. Omnes criticos, qui in 'hoc campo decurrerunt, longe longeque superavit: quin et illud vere affirmari potest, non tot ex Athenæo corruptelas ab 'universa virorum doctorum gente sublatas esse, quot ab unius 'Porsoni manu sublata.' Præf. p. 13.

We next meet with 130 pages of Notæ et Emendationes on the Three Tragedians. Some of these only had been inserted by Mr. Blomfield and Mr. Monk in their recent editions of single Tragedies. The remarks on Euripides extend to all the Tragedies, except the four published by the Professor himself, and to which his Curæ novissimæ have been added in the republication since his death;-they include also the Fragments and the Rhesus.

These are succeeded by Notes and Emendations on Fragments of lost Tragedians, on Aristophanes and the Remains of Menander and other Comic writers, on Stobæus, and on a number of poets from Pindar to Gregory Nazianzen and Paulus Silentiarius.

To give any gleanings from this critical harvest would convey no just idea of its value, and could answer no other good purpose. It may surely be presumed that no person to whom they would be useful, will refrain from purchasing the book. The condensed expression of the Professor is such as to comprise in 284 close, but not crowded pages, so much matter as most Dutch and German editors would have spread out into several massy volumes. This consideration may reconcile the scholar inops et laris et fundi, to the price of this volume: though we cannot but say that the gentlemen of Trinity College ought to have had more consideration and kindness than to have surrendered this matter to the will of the bookseller, or to have demanded so high a price of copy-right as to render necessary this exorbitance.

The Germans have just reprinted the volume, avowedly on this very account.

LET IT BE RECORDED WITH EMOTIONS OF SHAME AND GRIEF, that, in this vast and rich collection of philology, not one line, not one passing hint, is bestowed upon the language or the sentiments of the NEW TESTAMENT!-It would have been no dishonour, in time or IN ETERNITY, to Mr. Porson, could he have said with an editor of Plato, Præsertim e Novi Fœderis stilo exempla apposuimus, sacrarum nempe, 'etiam cum aliud agere videamur, literarum haud prorsus im'memores.' (Nath. Forster, Ox. 1745.)

The Notes on Aristophanes which Mr. Porson's papers have furnished, are very considerable; so that the editors regard them as capable of furnishing occasion for a new edition. They have therefore been reserved. But we understand that it is now resolved, that they shall be published in a manner uniform with this volume of "Adversaria."

Besides the celebrated transcript of the Lexicon of Photius, there remain of Mr. P'orson's manuscripts, Critical Observations on some of the Greek prose authors, on Hesychius and the other Lexicographers, and on some of the Latin classics. We have reason to hope that these fragments will be given to the world, under the editorial care of Professor Monk : and, surely, the resources of the University are competent to the publication of the Photius. Hermann has watched the market, and published it, as he could get it, and in a sad state truly.

The learned and diligent Editors deserve every praise for the manner in which they have published the "Adversaria." They have secured great correctness, and have added two excellent Indices. The typography is beautiful. The Greek types are from Porson's forms; the same as were first exhibited in Mr. Blomfield's Prometheus Vinctus. The large paper copies are sumptuous.

Art. IV. Charlemagne; ou l'Eglise Delivrée. Poeme Epique, en vingt-quatre Chants. Par Lucien Bonaparte, Membre de l'Institut de France, &c. &c. 2 Tomes, 4to. pp. xx. 784. Price 41. 4s. Longman and Co. 1814.

Charlemagne; or the Church Delivered. An Epic Poem, in Twentyfour Books. By Lucien Bonaparte, of the Institute of France, &c. Translated by the Rev. S. Butler, D.D. and the Rev. Francis Hodgson, A.M. 2 Vols. 4to. pp. xl. 808. Price 41. 4s. Longman and Co. 1815,

(Concluded from Page 240.)

AS S we have already quoted sufficient of the original to give our readers an idea of the general purity and fluency of the Author's style, we shall present the remainder of our extracts in the dress into which it is put by Dr. Butler and Mr. Hodgson, whose translations are admirably faithful, and often highly poetical. Dr. Butler goes on in an even pace, though far from being either tame or weak: Mr. Hodgson has somewhat the advantage over him in animation and variety, but his style is more careless, and is disfigured by the continual recurrence of triplets. There is one word, both in the original and translations, to which we must object, though Mr. Walter Scott has chosen to enrich his poetry with it; we mean the epithet felon- felon knights,' felon breath,' 'felon hands,' 'felon guilt,' &c. &c. It is a vile expression, and presents to the reader's imagination the very unpoetical figure of a man with a halter round his neck. Compared with this, miscreant bands,' 'mis'creant deeds,' appear elegant and agreeable. The verbal failures are so few, and, in a long work like this, so excusable, that it would be invidious to point them out; they seem rather the result of weariness than of either carelessness or ignorance; but it would have only been charity to have added, among so many superfluous notes, one for the benefit of ignorant heretics, to save them the trouble of getting up to consult their dictionaries, respecting the meaning of such words as oriflamme' and nimbus.'

The second volume commences with the return of Charles from his attack upon the Saxons; the rebellion of Gaiffre of Aquitaine, and the obsequies of Roland, from whose funeral oration we shall present the following extract by Mr. Hodgson.

When thus the priest. "How frail is human bliss! "How brief the honours of a world like this!

"Roland the terror of th' embattled plain,

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Against whose sword war's ramparts rose in vain;