be said, admitting that in this way the use of the words exilium and profugus is explained, how do you account for the phrase dudum vetiti laris? Nothing is easier; indeed I am filled with surprise that its true meaning has so long escaped discovery. The commentators have hitherto understood these words as if they referred to the poet's cheerless apartments in Christ College, Cambridge! Milton was too good a Latinist ever to employ the word lar for a purpose so unsuitable. He uses it here in its only proper sense, to denote his home, his father's fireside, to revisit which during term-time had, by the discipline of his college, been lately forbidden him. In short, he enumerates amongst the delights of his present situation, freedom from the home-sickness with which he used to be tormented at Cambridge. When read in this light, the passage assumes consistency with itself, with other portions of Milton's writings, and with the register of his college; and, what is perhaps of higher importance, while it rescues the memory of the greatest poet and one of the ripest scholars of England from a shade that has long rested on it, it deprives giddy and thoughtless youth of a precedent they are fond of quoting for their own irregularities and contumacy. EDINBURGH ACADEMY. ROBERT MACLURE. NOTE. The substance of the above paper was published by me ten or twelve years ago, in another periodical; but as I am desirous of bringing the view it contains under the notice of a class of readers able to judge of its soundness, I now submit it to the readers of the Classical Museum.-R. M. 5. REMARKS ON SOPHOCLES, Antig. 679–83. Πάτερ, θεοὶ φύουσιν ἀνθρώποις φρένας, Of this passage the true interpretation of the last verse seems to have escaped all the editors and commentators that I have had an opportunity of consulting. The Scholiast has gone farthest astray, since he has mistaken the meaning not only of the line adverted to, but has strangely misrepresented the sense of the two verses that immediately precede it, which he paraphrases thus: è ov δύναμαι ταῦτα ἀποδέξασθαι, ἐπειδὴ μὴ καλῶς ταῦτα λέγεις, and the concluding line he expounds as follows :—δυνατὸν δὲ καὶ ἑτέρως μετα βουλεύσασθαι. It is surely unnecessary to be at any pains to shew that yows, &c., cannot be understood to represent Hæmon as peremptorily saying that he does not approve of his father's sentiments. The interpretation of the last verse is equally wide of the truth, if the Scholiast understood Hæmon to hint at the possibility of Creon's changing his purpose. Musgrave suggested xȧrépą (sc. ödw) which Erfurdt adopted, and, according to this reading, the meaning would be, But it is possible, a view of the case different from yours may be the correct one. To this I have no other objection than that it is founded on an unwarranted alteration of the text. Brunck adhered to the common reading, xȧrépy, but affixed to it a sense which, however good in itself, the words will not bear; est tamen ut alius etiam vera dicere queat. Hermann edits the passage as I have quoted it, and says, kaλŵs καλῶς ἔχον referri puto ad χρῆμα τῶν φρενῶν. The interpretation of this viom lent construction would be nearly the same as that proposed by Brunck; it would represent Hæmon as suggesting the possibility of another's being in the right, who should view Antigone's conduct differently from his father to this again I object, only because it rests on a construction forced and altogether unnecessary. For I take the easy and natural interpretation of the passage to be this: I, even were it becoming in me to try, might have neither ability nor skill to expose the erroneousness of your sentiments; but what I cannot, or perhaps ought not to attempt, may be quite becoming in another. All that follows is in exact accordance with this view; for Hæmon, after reminding the impetuous monarch that his rank and character were such as deterred his subjects from speaking freely in his presence, proceeds to report the sentiments expressed by his fellow-citizens, both with regard to Antigone's conduct, and the king's treatment of her. EDINBURGH ACADEMY. ROBERT MACLURE. 5. ON CICERO, De Nat. Deorum, 11. 48. “Quin etiam anatum ova gallinis sæpe supponimus, e quibus pulli orti primum aluntur ab iis, ut a matribus, a quibus exclusi fotique sunt; deinde eas relinquunt et effugiunt sequentes, quum primum aquam quasi naturalem domum videre potuerunt. Tantam ingenuit animantibus conservandi sui natura custodiam." In the last number of the Classical Museum, there are a few "Remarks" on this passage by Dr. Maclure, to which we beg leave shortly to refer. We are much pleased with the concise and perspicuous manner in which the Doctor states his views of the passage; but we regret that he has failed to convince us of the correctness, either of the conclusion to which he has come, or of the steps by which he has arrived at that conclusion. The object of the Doctor's remarks is, to prove that the words conservandi sui, in the concluding clause, refer, not to animantibus, but to natura; and this, he says, "may be evinced by considerations drawn both from logic and grammar." Let us look first at the grammatical use of the reflexive pronoun sui; for this, the Doctor seems to think, is the strongest part of his argument; whereas, in our humble opinion, it is his weakest point. He says, 66 every tyro knows that the reflexive pronoun sui refers to the principal subject of the sentence, which is here not animantibus, but natura." And again, I contend that the objection derived from the use of the reflexive pronoun is fatal to it." Now, "every tyro" may know that this is a general rule regarding sui; but every scholar also knows that it is by no means a universal rule. To prove this, (if proof be needed,) many examples might be adduced from the best classical authors, but we think it sufficient for our present purpose to produce only one, which is perhaps of all others the most conclusive; as the whole structure of the sentence is so identical with that of the sentence under review, that the grammatical use of sui in the two sentences must undoubtedly stand or fall in both. It is this: Cæsar, Bell. Gall. 111. 6,—“ Quod jussi sunt, faciunt; ac, subito omnibus portis eruptione facta, neque cognoscendi quid fieret, neque sui colligendi hostibus facultatem relinquunt." Now, who can doubt that sui in this sentence refers to hostibus? And if so, why may not the sui in the sentence under review refer to animantibus? Having thus, beyond all doubt, as we think, established the point that the reflexive pronoun may refer to animantibus, without any violation of grammatical exactness, let us now look at the logical part of the question. The Doctor says, "In all that goes before, there is nothing that has even a remote reference to self-preservation. To translate therefore the phrase in question, as if it referred to that great law of nature, would be to impute to Cicero a manifest non sequitur." Now, so far are we from seeing any thing illogical in referring sui to animantibus, that to refer it to any thing else appears to us to involve a manifest absurdity. If sui refers to natura, as the Doctor so strenuously contends for, then, instead of nature taking care of animals by implanting in them a self-preserving instinct, he makes the animals use that instinct for preserving or taking care of nature and her arrangements. For what does he make Cicero say? Manifestly this: "Nature has implanted in animals the care of preserving herself [nature] and her arrangements inviolate." This is certainly reversing the order of things. The Doctor seems to imagine that the verb conservare in this sentence, if referred to animantibus, implies, "keeping themselves from destruction," whereas, in our opinion, it means, "to conserve," or "keep themselves inviolate," or, in short, "to keep themselves as nature made them ;" for, looking back to the preceding chapter, we find Cicero, after speaking of the nature of the heavenly bodies, and of plants and trees, &c., going on to say, "animantium vero, quanta varietas est? quanta ad cam rem vis, ut in suo quæque genere permaneant?" And from this point down to the end of the 48th chapter, he goes on to shew the various provisions which nature has made for the preservation and support of animals. And then, as a general inference from the whole passage, he says, "Tantam ingenuit animantibus conservandi sui natura custodiam," which, contrary to the Doctor's opinion, we would venture to translate thus:-Such is the care (or watchful instinct) that nature has implanted in animals, of PRESERVING (or TAKING CARE OF) THEMSELVES, or, of SELF-CONSERVATION. JOHN TROTTER. 6. PARAPHRASE OF THE SONG OF THE EPOPS IN THE Birds OF With a hip and a whoop, and a hip-hip-whoop, I call, I call, I call, Come trip it, trip it, trip it, trip it, And troop, and troop, and troop, My merry men all, Both great and small, Since birds of a feather Should flock together, Away, hie away, at my call. Come, ye lords of the soil Of well-seeded acres, Whose ample advowson Keeps half a score thousand And you too, make haste, for I want ye, Who strike on the new furrow's sharp edges Perched on your orchestra Care not for work a straw; And, overjoyed at the tones ye reiterate, Tirily, tirily, twit, twit, twit, twitter it. Of orchards and gardens, Of the green ivy-tree, And where, and oh, where is The Highlander, who lives And roots of wild olives. Hear, gentle and simple, hear, rustic and cit, Whose mental and bodily tastes agree Who dine, of science most voracious, Off spiky-snouted gnat mordacious. And you, for whom the sun-beams brew On Marathon's delicious plain, Guinea-hen, guinea-hen, graceful guinea-hen. A general order gone out from head-quarters; So, up to the muster, or every defaulter Shall have his long neck longer stretched with a halter. Here's an old man, whose verjuicy visage May some seventy winters have seen; |