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 : แ 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. Čui 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. I. 1003, decide me in favour of the received reading, Hebrum, and against Eurum, the reading proposed by Huetius and Rutgersius, and adopted by Heyne. V. 320. Nuda genu, &c. Each maiden's short barbaric vest Left all unclosed the knee and breast A quiver on their shoulders lay. Bridal of Triermain. 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 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. must account for the delay in their publication.-ED.] This 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 it is a corruption of conventio or coventio, which, in the oldest specimen of the Latin tongue, actually occurs in the sense of a general meeting of the people. If he wishes the authority of MSS., let him look to Sprengel's edition of Varro's De Lingua Latina. This editor takes great pains with his text, and always gives in the notes an account of the MSS. when they disagree from his text. Now he, like G. F., had a fancy for concio, which stands every where in his text, but as invariably the notes give "MSS. contio." Moreover, I support contio, if only to destroy the ludicrous etymology which would derive it from con and the verb cio, as though we had any right to avail ourselves of the first person of a verb in derivation, and as though the n of contionis, &c. could be neglected. P. 112.-"The first person ending in om,"-" the analogy of am we cannot admit,"- -" from premises so limited."“ The Greek verb," &c.-Strangely enough it happens that the Greek tongue affords the strongest support to my views. If we examine the middle or passive forms, τύπτομαι, τύπτεσαι, τύπτεται, . . . τύπ Tovtal, we soon discover that a is the distinctive characteristic of the voice, but this leaves us τυπτομ, τύπτες, τυπτετ, TUTTOYT, which agree wonderfully with the conjugation of a Latin verb, and speak decidedly in favour of a present first person in om, scribom. But G. F. perhaps believes the gulf between verbs in w and verbs in ш to be impassable. All doubt seems to be removed by the optative Tonto μt, &c. Moreover, the German τύπτοι stock of languages furnish first persons, such as bim, "I be or I am," dom, "I do," gom or gam, "I go." Again, look at the plural τύπτομεν, or Doric τύπτομες. Of these the two last letters denote plurality, and we have left tʊntou for the singular 1st person. Other support for this view is found in scribebam, scriberem, scripserim. The reason why the m disappears so readily after it may be difficult fully to ascertain. But we have something very parallel to it in the absorption of the n in ratio, natio, and in the Portuguese habit of suppressing an n in the same position. Witness their orthography of their own capital, not Lisbon, but Lisboa. So the adjective fem. bona, becomes with them boa. I ought not to omit that the best Greek philologers believe ἔτυπτον, the 1st person, to be a corruption of ἔτυπτομ. See also my Grammar, 2787. How readily a final m was lost in Latin is easily conceived, from the habit of treating one as nothing before a vowel in poetry, I mean in elision. Consi an o, der too the practice of omitting one in writing, so that omniu means omnium. Consider further, how readily con becomes co, and that in the words consul, consolere, the n was treated as such a complete nonentity, that the inscriptions frequently omit it, cosul or cosol, cosolere, &c. The Greeks too, wrote the name of Constantine and the towns called after him Kovotavtivos, &c. with an w. Why? No doubt because the n was not pronounced. Hence the Cirta of Sallust in Numidia is now called Costantina, and Constantia and the Pagus Constantinus in France, are become Coutances and the Pays Cotantin. Observe too how readily in English none has been shortened into no. Such detailed proofs in a grammar would be wholly out of place, simply because of the room they require. P. 112.-"The nominative, the quarter FROM which," &c.G. F. has here forgotten, that as I deduce the passive through the middle or reflective, servus cæditur would signify originally "the slave strikes himself," so that the blow still proceeds from the slave. Thus, though I may be wrong, I am at least consistent. But the example in truth confirms my view, for the full phrase of the passive requires ab domino, whereas dominus would accompany the active voice. Thus dominus and ab domino express the same relation, viz. from, exactly what I contend for. P. 112." The nominative is formed by the suffix s."-It is here objected that the exceptions are too numerous to be accounted for on one principle. Let us see. The exceptions may be reduced, I believe, to the three cases,-1. neuters; 2. nouns in a or the 1st declension; 3. nouns ending in a liquid, as r, l, n, or in ri or ro. To begin with the neuters, as my theory of the nominative insists on the case denoting the origin of motion, it must at first have been limited to living agents, that is, to masculine or feminine nouns, so that neuters had no original claim to the case ending. Secondly, although the Latin first declension has no s in the nominative, yet the Greek has, for example, noλitys, 'Apiotaɣópas, &c. But I may be told that this is limited to masc. nouns, This matters little, unless it be also contended, as by some it is, that the s is the symbol of the masculine. To such1 I again 8 1 The same parties are asked to account for this, that in acer, acris, acre, the form with an s is at least more feminine than masculine. |