western part of France, since, from them, called Normandy.— See Roman de Rou, 157, and seq. V. 605. Quæ te tam læta tulerunt sæcula? "Wer bist du, heilig wunderbares Mädchen? Welch glücklich Land gebahr dich? Sprich, wer sind Schiller, Jungf. v. Orleans, Act 1. V. 610. Quæ me cunque, &c.-" Quocunque abiero, beneficii accepti memor ero."-Heyne. "In iis terris in quibus consedero, ut perennis sit beneficii tui memoria efficiam.”—Wagner. I am inclined to think that Eneas's nobler meaning is, no matter whither I may be called, no matter what becomes of ME, YOUR fame will last as long as the world itself. The reader will also recognize in the words, quæ me cunque vocant terræ, (vocant being in the indicative, not the subjunctive mood,) a polite and graceful intimation, (in answer to Dido's invitation, v. 572,) that Eneas's duty leads him away from Carthage. V. 630. Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco.-Scarcely less pathetic is our own Sterne, "She had suffered persecution and learned mercy." Nor is Ulysses's sympathy with Ajax (Soph. Ajax. 1381,) less natural and touching, although, as arising not from recollection of the past but from expectation of the future, it is somewhat of a different kind: Α. ̓́Ανωγας οὖν με τὸν νεκρὸν θάπτειν ἐᾶν ; Ο. Εγωγε, καὶ γὰρ αὐτὸς ἐνθάδ ̓ ἴξομαι. Compare also St. Paul, Epist. to Hebr. iv. 15, quoted by Peerlkamp, οὐ γὰρ ἔχομεν ἀρχιερέα μὴ δυνάμενον συμπαθῆσαι ταῖς ἀσθενείαις ἡμῶν, πεπειρασμένον δὲ κατὰ πάντα. V. 636. Munera lætitiamque Dei.-The sense of this line (as of 534, 560, and I believe of all those which Virgil has left incomplete,) is perfect, although the verse is not; Munera lætitiamque Dei, i. e. Munera læta Dei; the particular god intended being sufficiently indicated ;-(a) by the word lætitia, (see Lætitiæ Bacchus dator, v. 734. Avúcou rávos, Eurip. Cycl. 414; Bótpuos ɣávos, Idem, Bacchid. 261 and 382; Ota Auóvucos dùx2 àvôpáa xápμa, Hesiod, Shield of Hercules, 400); and (b) by the obvious necessity (observed by La Cerda and others) that wine should form a part of Dido's presents. I therefore adhere, with Forbiger, to the ordinary reading, and reject with him, as affording a much inferior sense, the reading dii, proposed by A. Gellius, and adopted by Heyne, Brunck, Jahn, Wagner, and Thiel. Compare En. Ix. 337, where Virgil again applies to Bacchus the term Deus without any distinguishing adjunct; "Membra Deo victus ;" and En. III. 177, Munera libo Intemerata focis, where munera intemerata is the poetic equivalent for merum vinum. V. 637. Regali splendida luxu instruitur.—The structure is splendida regali luxu, not instruitur regali luxu; as in vers. 471, cruentus multâ cæde, not vastabat multâ cæde. See also comment on diræ ferro et compagibus arctis, vers. 293. V. 664. Nate meæ vires, &c.-Compare Venus's similar persuasion of Cupid to wound Medea with the love of Jason: Ei d'aтe μо прочpov, &c.-Apollon. Rhod. III. 131. V. 664.* Mea magna potentia; solus, Nate, &c.-With Servius, and Weichert (Annot. in Æneid, Libr. 11 priores. Luccaviæ, no date,2) I believe the structure to be, Nate, qui solus temnis, and therefore place a semicolon between potentia and solus. V. 665. Tela Typhaia temnis.-See (in Gorius, Mus. Florent. Tom. II. Tab. 16, Fig. 1,) a representation, taken from a gem, of Cupid breaking Jupiter's thunder-bolts across his knee. V. 682. Ne qua scire dolos, &c.-Venus proposes so to dispose of Ascanius, that it may be impossible for him, either knowingly or accidentally, to interrupt her plot. That this is the meaning is sufficiently evidenced: 1st, by the disjunctive ve; 2dly, by the word occurrere, indicating an accidental, not an intentional interruption; and, 3dly, by the no less necessity which existed, of preventing the real Ascanius from accidentally appearing, than of keeping him in ignorance of what was going on. V. 688. Fallasque veneno.-Fallas repeats the idea contained in occultum, and is emphatic; the gist of Venus's instruc 2 A work of only 14 quarto pages, printed a short time before the author's death, and distributed amongst his friends, but never exposed to sale. Among the many attentions which I received from Mr. Wagner, when I had the pleasure of seeing that eminent scholar at Dresden, in the winter of 1846-7, was the loan of a copy of this little work, which had been presented to Mr. Wagner by the author himself.-I. H. tions to Cupid being, not merely to breathe the poisonous fire into Dido, but to do so secretly, so as not to be perceived even by Dido herself; compare vers. 718. The force of the expression Fallas veneno is therefore not in veneno, but in Fallas; as has been well pointed out by Peerlkamp, who alone of all the commentators has perceived the true construction :—“ Arcte jungenda sunt inspires et fallas; i. e. clam inspires ut non sentiat, adóv. Non fallas Didonem veneno, sed ipse lateas dum ignem per venenum tuum, et animam, et dona inspiras." V. 718. Inscia Dido, Insideat quantus misera deus." That the word Dido, after reginam and hæc, is clumsy, and hath a bad effect, will be acknowledged I believe by every poet. I should rather thus: Inscia quantus, Insideat quantus miseræ Deus."-Jortin, Philol. Tracts. On the contrary, the insertion of Dido's name in this position not only gives additional pathos to the passage, but is according to Virgil's manner. Donec regina sacerdos, Marte gravis geminam partu dabit Ilia prolem. -En. 1. 273. See also En. 1. 496 and 690; II. 403, and comment.; also the separation of Delius from Apollo (En. 111. 162); of Ithacus from Ulysses (III. 628); and of Saturnia from Jovis conjux (IV. 91); and the junction of the separated appellatives with separate verbs. The proposed repetition of quantus would have only operated to withdraw the attention from the principal personage, for the purpose of fixing it on one which performs only a secondary part. Akin to this criticism of the learned Jortin on Inscia Dido, is that of Steevens, the celebrated editor of Shakespeare, on At Venus obscuro gradientes aëre sepsit, En. I. 411. "Had Virgil lived to have revised his Eneid, he would hardly have permitted both of these lines to have remained in his text. The awkward repetition of the nominative case in the second of them seems to decide very strongly against it."-Steevens's Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act IV. sc. 1, note. Hard indeed is the destiny of authors! transcendent excellence, clearness, and beauty of style, are as surely accounted awkwardness, clumsiness, and error, by the judges who sit on our critical bench, as, two centuries ago, superior physical knowledge, or even singular blamelessness of life, was received in our criminal courts as proof incontrovertible of communication with the father of evil. V. 724. Crateras magnos statuunt. Ἐπεὶ δ ̓ ἐς αὐλοὺς ἧκεν, ἐς κρατῆρα τε Euripid. Ion, 1177, ubi vide Barnes. 66 V. 724*. Magnos.-No inappropriate or idle epithet, these crateres being sometimes so large that a man could hide himself behind one of them. 'Magnum metuens se post cratera Hence the propriety of the verb statuunt, not merely place or set, but (correctly of a large unwieldy object) establish. tegebat.”—En. IX. 346. Among the princely presents of ancient times, we not unfrequently meet one of these huge crateres of silver or other costly material, carved or chased over with emblematical or historical images. See En. v. 536. V. 724. Vina coronant.-Car. Wagner, Professor Marburgiensis, (opuscula Academica, Marb. 1832,) has, I think satisfactorily, shown that Homer's pηtýpas êñeotéfavto noτoło, must not be confounded with Virgil's vina coronant; the former being (as indeed the ipsissima verba sufficiently indicate) to be understood of filling the vessels up to the brim with liquor; the latter, of a custom unknown in Homer's time, but well known in Virgil's, viz., that of crowning the vessels with flowers. V. 739. Pleno se proluit auro.-Compare "Estivo recubans te prolue vitro."-Copa. vers. 29. V. 740. Cithara crinitus Iopas, &c.-Virgil has taken from Eurip. (see Ion, vers: 1146, and seq., and also vers. 190,) not merely the whole of the subjects of Iopas's song, and a considerable part of the description of the banquet, but the general idea (without however the particulars) of the painting on the walls of Juno's temple, vers. 456. See also the song of the Argonauts in the beginning of Apollonius Rhodius's poem. V. 741. Personat.-Suonare is the term commonly used throughout Italy at the present day to express playing upon a musical instrument, the Italian derivative, in this instance as in so many others, retaining not merely the general sense, but the special application of the Latin original. V. 741*. Docuit quæ maximus Atlas.-The calm and philo sophical subject of Iopas's song contrasts finely with the subsequent romantic and exciting narrative of Eneas. In this respect, as in so many others, Virgil has improved upon his master, who, making his minstrel sing, and his hero tell, similarly romantic stories, loses the advantage of contrast. See Odyss. books VIII. IX. V. 746. Quæ tardis mora noctibus obstet.—Viz., quin prœcipitantes cælo (see En. II. 8), se quoque tingant oceano. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE CONSIDERED AS A PRACTICAL BASIS FOR THE STUDY OF OTHER INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. I FEAR We do not appreciate enough the advantage of a good stock of words for a beginner in Grammar. Yet if we call to mind what discouraged us most in our first attempts at translating from a foreign language, ancient or modern, into our native tongue, we shall be obliged to confess that it was our great want of words. We knew perhaps our grammar very well, we saw at once the construction of the whole sentence before us by a glance over the endings of the words, and according to the endings we had ready in our minds all the necessary articles in their requisite cases, as, the, of the, &c.; besides the necessary auxiliaries, as, has, should be, And so we set to work to make out the meaning with good courage and not without self-satisfaction. But here we wanted a substantive, further on a verb, here an adjective, and there an adverb; and looking first for the substantive in the dictionary, we found so many meanings to it, that we were obliged to know first the meanings of the other words, or at least of the verb, before we could decide on the meaning of the substantive. We hasten to the verb, but the verb has as many different meanings as the substantive. Almost every word we look for, makes it more &c. |