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sally received, interpretation of this passage; [belli] porta dira, quia dei diri et abominandi, clauditur ferro et compagibus arctis, seu vinculis, h. e. foribus serratis. (Excurs. 9. ad En. 1.) It seems almost incredible that neither Heyne nor any of the other commentators should have perceived that this interpretation is not only inconsistent with the well known meaning of the word compages, but with the plain and obvious structure of the sentence, and with the fairly presumable intention of Virgil. 1st, With the well known meaning of compages, which is not bolts or other fastenings, but the conjunction or colligation of the parts of which a compound object is compacted or put together, as of the stones or bricks of a wall, (Lucan, III. 491); of the planks of a ship (En. 1. 122), or other wooden building, ex. gr. the wooden horse, (En. II. 51); or of the organs constituting an animal body, (Cic. de Senect. c. 21); or of the several constituent parts of which an empire, (Tacit. Hist. IV. 74,) or the world itself (Aul. Gell. vi. 1,) consists. This is the only meaning which the word compages has either in the Latin language, or in the English, into which it has been adopted from the Latin. 2dly, The received interpretation is inconsistent with the plain and obvious structure, according to which ferro et compagibus is connected with dira, not with claudentur, in the same way as ore cruento at the close of the sentence is connected with horridus, not with fremet. It is impossible for the reader or reciter to separate ferro et compagibus arctis from diræ, or ore cruento from horridus, without making, at dire and horridus, pauses very disagreeable both to the ear and sense. So also, in the sentence ora modis attollens pallida miris, (vers. 354,) modis miris is joined with pallida, not with attollens, as is proved by the corresponding sentence, Georg. I. 477, Simulacra modis pallentia miris. See note, vers. 637. Pliny uses dira in precisely the same construction, (B. v. c. 4,) Sinus vadoso mari dirus. 3dly, Even if it were admitted (which, however, I cannot admit,) that compages might, in another situation, mean the bolts or fastenings of a gate, still we must, in justice to the ars poëtica of Virgil, refer it in this situation to the structure of the gate itself, because it would have been highly incorrect and unpoetical to lay so great a stress on the mere circumstance of the fastenings of the gate being of iron, since it appears not only from the celebrated line of Ennius, quoted by Horace, but from Virgil's own Belli ferratos rupit Saturnia postes (En. VII. 622,) that the gate itself was

iron; it is incredible that Virgil should have presented us with the minor picture of the iron fastenings, and wholly omitted the greater picture of the iron gate. The structure, therefore, is diræ compagibus arctis ferri, and these words are the description of the gate itself: diræ expressing the effect which its appearance produced on the mind; ferro informing us that its material was iron; compagibus, that it consisted of several pieces adapted to each other; and arctis, that those pieces were closely joined or compacted together; for, as appears from En. 1. 122, closeness does not form an essential part of the ideas expressed by compages. It will further be observed, that the emphasis (which by the received interpretation is thrown upon the fastenings of the gate) is by this mode of rendering the passage, thrown upon claudentur, the really emphatic word, as containing the principal idea, the closing of the temple of Janus in the time of universal peace.

Exactly parallel to ferro et compagibus arctis, we have (En. II. 627,) ferro crebrisque bipennibus, for crebris bipennibus ferri. The turn given by Voltaire to this passage, in his application of it to Elizabeth, Queen of England, is as happy as it is truly French:

Quel exemple pour vos, monarques de la terre!.
Une femme a fermé les portes de la guerre,

Et renvoyant chez vous la discorde et l'horreur,
D'un peuple qui l'adore elle a fait le bonheur.

V. 300. Volat ille, &c.

Down thither prone in flight

Henriade, c. I.

He speeds, and through the vast etherial sky
Sails between worlds and worlds, with steady wing.
Par. Lost, v. 266.

V. 301. Remigio alarum.

Οδε πρὸς θυμέλας ἄλλος ἐρέσσει
Kúxvos.-Eurip. Ion. 161.

V. 313. Bina manu lato crispans hastilia ferro.—Lexicographers, commentators, and translators, with one consent understand crispans, not only here, but in the 12th Book, vers. 165, (where this whole line is repeated and applied to Turnus,) to mean brandishing; ("quassando et vibrando micare faciens." Forcellini.) But, 1st, no example whatever has been produced of the use of the term elsewhere in this sense; and, 2dly, both

Eneas here, and Turnus in the 12th Book, are represented as peacefully engaged, (the one setting out to explore the country, the other to ratify a solemn truce,) and, therefore, could not be either poetically or pictorially drawn, brandishing their javelins. Let us therefore, setting aside this interpretation, seek for one which shall accord better, not only with the use made of the term by other writers, but with the Virgilian context, both here and En. XII. 165.

Now crispare, according to the use of all other Latin writers, is to crisp or curl, i. e. to bend or fold an object upon itself in the manner in which a hair is bent upon itself in the operation of crisping or curling; and crispus describes the crisped or curled condition of such an object. Sanguine pulli bubonis crispari capillum, (Plin. XXIX. 4.) Ingeminat tremulos naso crispante cachinnos, (Persius, III. 87): the nose, crisping, wrinkling, or curling upon itself, in the expression of contempt. "Alma novo crispans pelagus Tithonia Phœbo," (Valer. Flacc. 1. 311,) crisps or curls the sea, produces that wrinkling of the water's surface which the Italians, preserving the Latin term, call increspatura (“ Il mare s'increspa al levar del sole,") which Milton, following the Italian example, calls crisping:

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the crisped brooks

Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold."

Parad. Lost, IV. 237.

And which more ordinary English writers denominate curling. "There is not a breath the blue wave to curl." "Crispum sub crotalo docta movere latus" (Copa, vers. 2,) to move the flank crisped or curled upon itself, i. e. to bend the flank so as to bring the shoulder towards the hip, or the hip towards the shoulder, in the manner of the castagnette or tambourin dancer; for a use somewhat similar to which of the English curl, see Pope's Alexander's Feast.

Accordingly, in the passage before us, crispare manu hastilia (equivalent to the prosaic crispare manum in hastilia) is to crisp or curl the hand so as to close or clench it upon the spears; to clench the spears in the hand; an interpretation which, rendered probable by its perfect accordance not only with the general meaning of the term crispare, but with the Virgilian context both here and in the 12th Book, seems to be placed beyond all doubt, by the use which the French make of this very term

to express this very idea. "On etablissait egalement que les cheveux trouvés entre les doigts crespés de la duchesse et dans la mare de sang ou gisait son corps etaient precisement de la même couleur et de la même longueur que ceux de son mari." -Account of the murder of the Duchess de Choiseul-Prâslin by her husband, in the "Gazette des Tribunaux," Paris, Aug. 20, 1847. And again, in the account given of the same murder by "Le Droit," same date :-" Les doigts de la main gauche de la duchesse etaient crespés, et retenaient quelques cheveux du meurtrier, arrachés dans cette horrible lutte."

V. 314. Cui mater, &c.-Compare the admirable conciseness of this exquisite picture with the (dare I say? tedious,) diffuseness of the Spenserian copy.-Faerie Queene, II. 3, 31, and seq.

V. 317. Prævertitur Hebrum.-The arguments of Wakefield and Wagner (ad locum,) and of the former ad Lucret. 1. 1003, decide me in favour of the received reading, Hebrum, and against Eurum, the reading proposed by Huetius and Rutgersius, and adopted by Heyne.

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V. 335. Haud equidem tali me dignor honore.--Not referring specially to Multa tibi ante aras, &c., but generally to the whole of Eneas's speech, ascribing divinity to her.

V. 339. Genus intractabile bello.-I am decided by the so similar phrase, genus insuperabile bello (En. IV. 40,) applied to the Gætulæ urbes, to take part with Heyne against Wagner, and refer genus intractabile bello, not to Carthage, but to the immediately preceding, fines Libyci.

V. 349. Ante aras

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Clam ferro incautum superat.So (En. III. 332,) "Orestes Excipit incautum (Pyrrhum viz.) patriasque obtruncat ad aras."

(To be continued.)

V.

REMARKS ON THE REVIEW OF PROFESSOR T. H. KEY'S LATIN GRAMMAR IN THE CLASSICAL MUSEUM, VOL. V. PART XV. P. 109–120.

[The following remarks were written immediately after the publication of the review of Professor Key's Grammar, and would have appeared in No. XVI. of this Journal, but they were unfortunately mislaid, and have not come to hand again till very recently. This must account for the delay in their publication.-ED.]

P. 110.-"Seven pages (assigned) to word-building."-Say rather 150, seeing that the heading "word-building" is the general heading to which every subsequent heading down to the syntax is subordinate.

P. 111.-" Orthography not consistent."-Of course not, as authors of different ages and habits are quoted. The object was to give to each his own orthography; thus optumus to Cicero, optimus to Cæsar.

P. 111.—" The tendency is to conceal from the pupils the words in the form in which the best editions present them."-On the contrary, it will be found that the orthography of the best editions agrees with mine, and this on the showing of G. F. himself. For example, he refers me more than once to Wagner's Virgil, and would fain be guided by Alschefski's Livy. I open the latter at random, and find in the compass of three chapters, XXII. cc. 6, 7, 8, contio, nequiquam, milia, nuntiare, consolantis, gratulantis, tris, (all accusatives,) maestus, &c., all of which G. F. would probably object to in the Grammar, as he has in fact objected to three of them. In Wagner's Virgil nequiquam is also adopted on the authority of the MSS. Then again for Cicero; I suppose Wunder's Pro Plancio will be accepted as a specimen of the best editions. This has again and again haut, set, illut, viciens, &c. In short, I have always endeavoured to give the authority of the Augustan age, following for instance the inscriptions of that period, as the Monumentum Ancyranum, &c. What G. F. has called archaic, are the very forms then in use, the very forms supported by Cicero's authority. As regards contio in particular, I may observe that

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