appellat per æquora longe patentia, ne quis crederet illas tantum intelligere quæ parvis euripis discretæ erant, e quibus quasi in unum connexis unica urbs conflata est. Justinianus quoque Imperator Venetias appellat ipsam Provinciam initio Novellæ xxix : τὸ Παφλαγόνων ἔθνος ἀρχαῖόν τε καὶ οὐκ ἀνώνυμον καθεστώς, ἀλλὰ τοσοῦτον ὡς καὶ ἀποικίας μεγάλας ἐκπέμψαι, καὶ τὰς ἐν Ἰταλοῖς συνοικίσαι Βενετίας, ἐν αἷς δὴ καὶ ̓Ακυληΐα πόλις τῶν ἐπὶ τῆς ἑσπέρας μεγίστη κατώκισται καὶ βασιλικὴν πολλάκις δίαιταν δεξαμένη: hoc est, Paphlagonum gens antiqua nec sane ignobilis olim extitit, in tantum ut magnas deduxerit colonias, et in Venetias Italorum commigraverit, ubi Aquileia condita fuit, urbs omnium in occidente maxima, quæque Imperatorum non raro fuit domicilium. Quin et Jordanus, sive Jornandes, Ravennæ Episcopus, in Historia de rebus Geticis ita scribit: qui recto cursu de Corcyra atque Hellada partibus navigat dextrum latus, primum Epirum, dein Dalmatiam, Liburniam, Histriamque, et sic Venetias radens palmula navigat. Et apertius alio loco: Hesperiam tendit, rectoque itinere per Sirmas ascendit vicinas Pannoniæ, indeque Venetiarum fines ingressus, ad pontem Sontium nuncupatum castrametatus est. Nemo non videt regionem hic designari, quæ Forum Julii, uti diximus, nunc appellatur. Idem Jordanus, quum de Attila verba habet: primaque aggressione Aquileiensem obsedit civitatem, quæ est Metropolis Venetiarum, in mucrone vel lingua Adriatici posita sinus. Nec vero negandum Venetiarum nomen paulatim subductum fuisse ad insulas Adriaticas, quod jam suo tempore obtinuisse Paulus Diaconus loco, quem supra attulimus, [significat]; ut demum nobilissimæ civitatis, uti videmus, proprium est factum." HUGONIS GROTII CARMEN, QUOD PAUCISSIMIS LEGERE CONTIGIT. Hyporchema in obitum Aldinæ Catellæ. VERSUS ex syllabis brevibus dumtaxat Græci olim fecere, quorum fragmenta extant, sed versus breves, quo ultimæ syllabæ, quæ communis, licentia citius rediret. Hyporchemata appellabantur, quod perpetua subsaltatione exprimi solerent. Latinorum veterum unus, quod sciam, Serenus sequutus est, cujus versum hunc citat Martianus Capella, et Terentianus Maurus: Perit, abit avipedis animula leporis. Post renatas litteras Jul. Scaliger versibus satis longis, sed interdum obscuris, idem aggressus est Hymno in Bacchum, Silenum, Nemesim, qui in Poëmatis ipsius extat. Nos id exemplum instaurare auși sumus: Trepidula canis animula Styga subito petiit, ADVERSARIA LITERARIA. No. XXXII. Extracts from the Reminiscences of CHARLES BUTLER, Esq. FROM this entertaining and instructive work we shall take the liberty of laying before our readers a few extracts; and as these will occupy as much room as we can allow, we shall give them unaccompanied but by one or two brief remarks. Perhaps, 1 Quum hic versus in apographo quatuor careret syllabis, inseruimus nostro periculo voces crotala et que. EDIT. however, some of our learned contributors may find in them some useful materials, and favor us with their ideas on them. I. HOMER. "The sublime conceptions, vivid figures, interesting narratives, but more than all, the exquisite style and perfect common-sense of the Mæonian bard are far above any praise, which they can receive in these pages. His work is a prodigy:-we must suppose either that he was preceded by other writers, who had brought poetry to the perfection, or nearly to the perfection, in which we find it in his writings, or that he himself was the creator of the poetry of his own immortal work. It is observable that Herodotus, l. II. seems to declare for the latter opinion :-' As for the Gods, whence each of them was descended, or whether they were always in being, or under what shape or form they existed, the Greeks knew nothing till very lately. Hesiod and Homer were, I believe, about 400 years older than myself, and no more; and these are the men, who made a Theogony for the Greeks, who gave the Gods their appellations, defined their qualities, appointed their honors, and described their forms. As for the poets, who are said to have lived before these men, I am of opinion they came after them.' Herodotus seems here to express himself, as if he considered the Grecian Theogony to have been the invention of Homer and Hesiod; but, whoever reflects on its nature, its complication and contrivance, its countless, but coherent relations and dependencies, must be sensible that this was impossible. Even if this opinion were admitted, a further difficulty would press on us. The poetry of Homer is complete; the structure of the hexameter is equalled by no other mode of versification in any language; the formation of the phrases, the collocation of the words, the figurative diction, the animation of inanimate nature, whatever else distinguishes poetry from prose, is introduced in its most perfect mode into the poems of Homer. The universal opinion of all ages has acknowledged these to constitute the true poetical character, and no succeeding age has improved on any of them. Was he then the inventor of them? This exceeds human power. Was he preceded by other bards, on whom he refined, and whom he transcendently excelled? If this were the case, what has become of these antecedent poets? To solve these difficulties, the Reminiscent begs leave to insert a conjecture, in which he has sometimes indulged himself; that there existed in central Asia a civilised and powerful nation, in which the Sanscritan language was spoken, and the religion of Brama prevailed; this the initiated might reconcile, by emblematical representation, with philosophy; but, in the sense in which it was received by the people at large, it was the rankest idolatry;-that, comparing what the writers on India, and the Siamese, Chinese, and Japanese writers relate of a celebrated man, whom they severally call Budda, Sommonocoddom, Fohi, and Xaha, we have reason to suppose that he was the same person, and a reformer of the Sanscritan creed and ceremonial; that his reformed system may be called Buddism; that this still prevails in Tartary, China, and numerous islands in the Indian Archipelago; but that Sanscritism still exists in Hindustan; that either before or after the Buddistic schism, and not far from the time usually assigned to the fabulous ages, the Sanscritans spread their doctrines and languages over the countries which lay to their west, so that in the course of time they became the religious creed and language both of Greece and Italy; that civilisation, and the arts and sciences, florished among them; that those, who introduced them into Greece, were called the Pelasgi; that those, who introduced them into Italy, received the appellation of Hetruscans; that by degrees the Sanscritan was moulded into the Greek language; that from the Greek it degenerated, in Italy, into the Latin; that this state of things continued in Greece till the irruption of the Dorians and Heraclidæ into Peloponnesus, about 80 years after the Trojan war; and in Italy, until the period usually assigned for the foundation of Rome, when, from some unknown event, the glories of Hetruria were considerably impaired; that, after the settlement of the Dorians and Heraclidæ in Peloponnesus, but while the former traditionary learning of Greece was still remembered, Homer wrote; that, in the confusion which followed this event, the memory of Homer and the preceding or contemporary poets was lost; and that the minor poets were never revived, but that the super-eminent merit of Homer resuscitated his poems, and restored them to celebrity. This conjecture receives some countenance from the opinion generally entertained by the ancients, that Homer acquired his knowledge in Egypt, and the Egyptians theirs from India; and from the system of Sir Wm. Jones (in his excellent dissertation in the Asiatic Researches) respecting the identity of the Indian, Grecian, and Italian deities. Among these, if we believe Dr. Milne, (see his Retrospect of the first 10 years of the Protestant Mission to China, an interesting work, printed at the Anglo-Chinese press in Malacca,) we should include the national deities of China." P. 10-4. II. LORD COKE; CARDINAL DE POLIGNAC. "The whole course of study suggested by the Reminiscent may be achieved in four years, if they are employed in the manner described in the well-known verses of Lord Coke: Sex horas somno, totidem des legibus æquis, When the Jesuits settled the plan of education to be observed in the Collège de Clermont, the physicians were consulted on the portion of time, which the students should be allowed for sleep: they declared that five hours were a sufficient, six an abundant allowance, and seven as much as a youthful constitution would bear without injury." [Some one has facetiously said that five hours are sufficient for a man, six for a woman, seven for a child, eight for a pig.] "The College falling into decay was re-edified by Louis the XIVth, and received the appellation of the Collège de Louis le Grand. Upon this occasion, a poetical exercise alluding to it was required from the students. The city of Nola had recently given them the Collegio nel Arco, and they were in possession of the Collège de la Flêche in France. Alluding to these, a saucy boy wrote the following verses, and the Professor good-humoredly assigned him the prize : Arcum Nola dedit patribus, dedit alma Sagittam The saucy boy was afterwards the Cardinal de Polignac. It is observable that Lord Coke recommends to his students just twice as much time for prayer, er, and twice as much for their meals, as the Jesuits prescribed to their students." P. 62. III. LORD THURLOW AND PORSON. "Lord Thurlow is said to have remarked, 'that Burke would be remembered after Pitt and Fox were forgotten.' The meaning of Lord Thurlow is evident; but the same phrase was used by the late Mr. Porson with a happy ambiguity. When Mr. Cumberland presented his poem, entitled Calvary, to that gentleman, 'Your poem,' said Mr. Porson, will certainly be read, when Milton and Shakspeare are forgotten.' Mr. Porson was not profuse of compliments. 'Sir,' said a gentleman to him, at the dinner of the Literary Fund Society, 'I have the honor to present to you Mr. 一, who recited the verses which you have just heard.'A dead silence.- Sir, I have the honor to present to you Mr. -, who recited the verses which you have just heard.'A second dead silence. Sir, I have the honor to present to you Mr.- who himself composed the verses which you have just heard.' Sir,' said Mr. Porson, 'I am quite deaf.'" P. 169. IV. VIRGIL. "The Reminiscent here begs leave to suggest an observation, which has frequently occurred to him in perusing the beginning of the 2d book of the Georgics, and which leads him to suspect that some verses in it have been transposed. In the three first lines of this book, Virgil proposes his subject: |