Non hæc mali taberna, curarum mare, Fomes dolorum, mors (ut absolvam) mera, Cui militat gens omnis hæc mortalium." Dominici Baudii Epistol. Cent. I. Epist. x. We meet with another instance of the same metaphor, in a curious modern Greek song, which the very ingenious M. de Guys has given us, in his Sentimental Journey through Greece, (vol. iii. p. 95.) as a proof, and certainly no bad one, that the poetic fire of ancient Greece is not altogether extinguished. I transcribe no more than is necessary for my purpose; the rest may be seen in the volume and page referred to. Με δυσικίαις πολεμω βασανα ὡς το λεμο Ειμαι, και κεντινεύω, και να χαθω κοντεύω Στο ΠΕΛΑΓΟΣ ΤΩΝ ΣΥΜΦΟΡΩΝ με επικίνδυνον καιρον, Με κύματα πολλων και μων, τεφανι αναγενασμων. "I struggle with all the misfortunes of nature, plunged into an abyss of misery. Wandering, floating on this OCEAN OF DISTRESS, my frail bark must soon be overwhelmed. Contrary impetuous winds raise the angry waves, which besiege me, and urge them on to my destruction. I pant for breath in the midst of a thick fog." Wigan, Nov. 20. 1772, Nov. Q. LII. Critical Remarks on the Tragedies of Seneca. MR. URBAN, IN reading Seneca's Tragedies, I lately met with the following passage, Nec Dama trepidant Lupos: Herc. Oet. v. 1057. which I beg leave to present to your correspondent J. Z. as the most decisive answer to the question proposed by him concerning this line in Juvenal: Et motæ ad lunam trepidabis arundinis umbram. It proves the propriety of the common reading beyond a doubt: it is a case in point, and more conclusive than a thousand arguments from analogy.* I mention the Hercules Oetæus as a tragedy of Seneca's; though I am not ignorant of the controversy that has been moved by the critics about the authenticity of some of the pieces, which have been handed down to us under the name of that author. This tragedy, in particular, has been proscribed and reprobated in the severest manner by the elder Heinsius: "Hæc ad Herculem in Oeta," says he, "quam qui Senecæ ascribunt, judicii sui integritatem non tuentur." And again, "Sermo arguit longe post reliquas scriptam. Multan, indigna Seneca utroque, et nihil minus quam Latina, occurrunt." Dan. Heinsii Animadvers. in Senecæ Tragoed.-Heinsianæ earum Editioni adjunct. pp. 550 and Lipsius, however, has admitted it into the num 577. *An excellent critic has this observation concerning the analogy of language; "A Latin writer would say, In eo prælio multum† sanguinis factum est, [in that batile a great deal of blood was spilt]; but if from thence any one should now infer that he might write, In eo convivio multum vini factum est, [in that entertainment a great deal of wine was spilt], he would proceed upon a very wrong supposition: unless he could give an instance of the expression." Markland's Remarks on the Epistles of Cicero to Brutus, &c. p. 85. I have frequently heard Mr. Pope's Inscription on Shakespeare's Monument in Westminster Abbey censured, as though the last line were neither good Latin, nor in the true Epitaph style and taste: Gulielmo Shakespeare, I therefore submit it to the critical reader, whether the following passage from Ovid will, or will not, serve to remove the first part of the objection, and by analogy, to establish the phrase at least of the Inscription: Tempora sacrata mea sunt velata corona, Ep. ex Ponto, lib. iv. Ep. xiv. v. 55. This expression seems borrowed from the Greek asua doav, an instance of which we have in Euripides: Πυλάδης, ὁ συνόρων αίμα και ματρος φόνον. Orest. v. 406, 66 ber of those which he ascribes to one of the Senecas; Plerasque ex istis Annæi Senecæ esse fateor-sed Senecæ novioris:" and his admission of it is approved by Pontanus. -[See J. Lipsii Animadvers. in Tragoedias Senecæ, and Jo. Isac. Pontani de Tragoediarum Auctoribus Prolegomenon, annexed to the edition of Seneca's Tragedies, published by Scriverius, cum notis variorum, Leyden, 1620] Rutgersius, too, seems to acknowledge it for Seneca's, by quoting it, indifferently, with the Hippolytus, and the Troades, which are universally allowed to be of the hand of that author. (See Jani Rutgersii Var. Lect. lib. VI. cap. 17.) Wigan, Oct. 23. 1772, Oct. Q. LIII. Critical Remarks on some passages in V. Paterculus and Petronius. MR. URBAN, I HAVE always suspected a false reading in a passage of V. Paterculus, near the end of the first book, where that elegant author displays so much judgment in tracing out the reasons why the most eminent writers of Greece and Rome flourished, respectively, in or about the same æra, and so much taste in ascertaining and distinguishing their several merits. The passage I mean is this: "Nam, nisi aspera ac rudia repetas, et inventi laudanda nomine, in Accio circaque euin Romana tragedia est; dulcesque Latini leporis facetia, per Cæcilium, Terentiumque, et Afranium, suppari ætate nituerunt." Vel Paterc. i. 17.-Now, leporis facetie seems to be a tautology, unworthy the precision of this accurate writer; since each of these terms, I apprehend, separately denotes those* delicate traits of wit, those exquisite strokes of pleasantry and humour; in a word all those "Jam ut ad lepores, sales, gratias, et venustates veniamus; certum est, fere omnes eas tolli a ridiculo, quemadmodum ab excessu tollitur virtus. Quare Terentio ac Menandro tribuunt lepores antiqui; sales vero Horatius Plauto concedit, verum inurbanos." Dan. Heinsii Dissertat. Heiusiana Terent. Comediar. Editioni præfix. p. 22. "Facetum quoque non tantum circa ridicula opinor consistere.-Decoris hanc magis, et excultæ cujusdam elegantiæ appellationem puto." Quintil. Inst. Or. lib. vi. cap. 3. graces of elegance and politeness of the most refined facetiousness and urbanity, so essential to the comic muse, which the historian meant to intimate had been at length transplanted into the Latin language, and, at one and the same period, nearly, shone out with distinguished lustre in those three Latin poets. Cicero, it is evident, frequently uses the words lepos and facetie* as synonymous expressions: "Veruntamen, ut dicis, Antoni, multum in causis persæpe lepore et facetis, profici vidi." De Orat. ii. 54. Again, "Quis est igitur, qui non fateatur, hoc lepore, atque his facetiis, non minus refutatum esse Brutum," &c. Ibid. 55. And, more particularly, "Etenim, cum duo genera sint facetiarum, alterum æquabiliter in omni sermone fusum, alterum peracutum et breve." Ibid. 54. And, "Non enim fere quisquam reperietur, præter hunc [Crassum] in utroque genere leporis excellens, et illo, quod in perpetuitate sermonis, et hoc quod in celeritate atque dicto est." Ibid. We see here two distinct species of wit or pleasantry defined, which are denoted, indiscriminately, by the terms facetie and lepos; so that these terms had clearly the same t significa THR. Quid est? GNA. Facete, lepide, laute, nihil supra. Ter. Eunuch. Act. iii. Sc. 1. 37. + We meet, indeed, with lepos facetiarum in two passages of Cicero; "Libandus etiam ex omni genere urbanitatis facetiarum quidam lepos, quo, tanquam sale, perspergatur omnis oratio.". De Orator. 1. 34. And, again, in his description of the oratorical talents of Crassus: "Erat summa gravitas, erat cum gravitate junctus facetiarum, et urbanitatis oratorius, non scurrilis, lepos." In Brut. 143. In both these places I take facetia to be the genus, and lepos the species; understanding Cicero to intend, in the first passage, a certain grace, an air of politeness and pleasantry, which ought to animate the whole composition: and, in the latter, a certain delicacy of wit, an elegance of raillery and ridicule, becoming the dignity of the orator, totally different from the coarse jests, the low illiberal humour of the droll and the buffoon. For that lepas signifies sometimes a gracefulness, a gentility, a politeness of manner, is evident likewise from Cicero: "Festivitate igitur et facetiis, inquam, C. Julius, L. F. et superioribus, et æqualibus suis omnibus præstitit, oratorque fuit minime ille quidem vehemens, sed nemo unquam urbanitate, nemo lepore, nemo suavitate conditior." In Brut. 177. "Vox, gestus, et omnis actio sine lepore." Ibid. 238. "Hujus actio non satis commendabat orationem; in hac enim satis erat copiæ, in illa autem leporis parum." Ib. 240. "Omnisque vitæ lepos, et summa hilaritas, laborumque requies." Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. xxxi. cap. 7. These instances determine the meaning of lepos facetiarum; they tion. Instead of leporis, therefore, in the passage under consideration, I think we ought to read sermonis; and am confirmed in this opinion, by observing, that this is the reading of that learned and judicious critic Rutgersius, in his quotation of the passage on a different occasion: "Quare Velleius Paterculus libro primo Cæcilio ac Terentio, non Plautum, non Nævium, non Licinium, aut quæ etiam cogitare putidum sit, Attilium comitem dat, sed Afranium; dulcesque Latini Sermonis Facetie, inquit, per Cæcilium, Terentiumque, et Afranium, suppari ætate floruerunt." Rutgers. Var. Lect. lib. iv. cap. 19. The authority of Aulus Gellius, who, in a critique on Plautus, remarks from Varro, that poet's facetia sermonis, renders this reading still more probable: "Quasdam etiam alias [comoedias] probavit [Varro] adductus stylo atque Facetia Sermonis Plauto congruentis." A. Gell. Noct. Átt. iii. 3. There is an erroneous reading, too, I think, in the following fine passage of Petronius's Poem on the Civil War, which, according to my judgment, spoils half the beauty of it. At contra, sedes Erebi, qua rupta dehiscit, The last line is evidently a parody of two passages in Virgil; circumque atræ Formidinis ora, Iraque, Insidiæque, dei comitatus, aguntur. crudelis ubique Eneid. xii. 385. Luctus, ubique Pavor, et plurima Mortis imago. Ibid. ii. 369. But the introduction of "the ghastly image of death" [lurida mortis imago], in the end of the line, after " Death himself" [letumque] had been introduced in the beginning of it, is so idle, unmeaning, a repetition, so tame, and so prove, too, the propriety of this construction of those words, even though we had not found them in this form of construction in Cicero. But, I think, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to give an instance of the inverse construction of them, leporis facelia,-except that suspected reading in Paterculus. |