"Guy Vulpes, calidus, frigidus, postquam omnia cœpit ; which, when called upon to explain them, he interpreted thus: "Guy Fox was a hot-headed rascal and a cold-blooded villain when he undertook all his plans; but being found out (the constable understood) took him up." But, to resume our remarks on the passage before us, ap, which, according to Mr. Peile's explanation, is placed after the fourth word, is, he tells us, equivalent to ye apa; the last of which "marks the inference οἶδ' ὅπη τελεῖ τοῦτο, whilst the γε points out the precise sensation on which that inference is founded." If ye does all this by itself, it is a mighty clever little particle! We will only add, that Kory should not have been rendered in wrath, but, through the violence of my emotions. (See our remarks on verse 30). Verse 1022.-Praise is due to Mr. Peile for being the first editor who has viewed this passage in its true light-as a hopelessly corrupt, mutilated, and therefore unintelligible fragment. That imperturbable commentator, Klausen, who will translate and explain with all imaginable gravity and pretended facility the most portentous enormities of the Medicean copy, passes over these verses with provoking indifference, and without deigning more than a word or two upon them, as though they were perfectly easy, and within the reach of the most ordinary capacity. It is much to be lamented that the conclusion of this play-which, in our judgment, surpasses that of every other extant Greek tragedy in grandeur of conception and magnificence of diction-should be deformed by so many and such apparently hopeless corruptions. Of the four last verses of the present speech, half the first occurs Pers. 269; and the whole of the third (one word only excepted) Agam. 1253; which seems a somewhat suspicious circumstance. Verse 1031.-Mr. Peile has here ventured, on his own conjecture, of which we very decidedly disapprove, to print pai χίτωνες (χιτῶνες) for the reading of every copy, φαιοχίτωνες. That the latter word was pronounced palokxiTwves, has already been suggested; and the well known, and we think perfectly analogous, examples in the "Seven against Thebes," verses 483 and 542, with several others, adduced in support of the hypothesis. (See "New Cratylus," p. 298). To these might be added Aloxwvádov (i. e., Aioxwvvádov), in Aristoph. Pax. 1154; the only apparent example in the same author (Acharn. 220), where the above solution is inapplicable, having been felicitously disposed of by the learned Dr. Wordsworth, "Athens and Attica," page 224. Now it appears, that in all the above cases the pronunciation could not be affected by the actual repetition of the consonant, for the purpose of lengthening the naturally short syllables; that is, Ἱππομέδων sounds the same as Ἱμπομμέδων, φαιοχίτωνες as φαιοκχίτωνες ; and the ear, in fact our ears, at least), can detect no difference whatever between them. But, as the Greek plays were composed strictly to be heard, and not to be read, such repetition, because in the former case altogether unnecessary, was not resorted to. We would ask, what grounds can commentators possibly have, to lay down as a rule that this license was exclusively confined to the case of proper names, and in them, to the republication of the liquid consonants alone? If the ear was, as we believe, made the sole criterion of the admissibility of the principle in question, then is φαιοχίτωνες as correct as Παρθενοπαῖος οι Τελεύταντος. Thus we find ὄφις (i. e., οπφις) and φαρμακός (φαρμακκος) in Ionic writers. (See also Aristoph. Equit. 416; Lycophron, 953). Mr. Peile's translation of the text, after he has thus corrupted it, is such, that we think every student will without hesitation acquiesce in the old and perfectly correct paroxitwves :-" See! see! good serving-women, here are like Gorgons! dusk-coloured tunics, and they curled over with a heap of serpents!" How much better does Potter render it : "Ha! look, ye female captives, what are these, Mr. Peile Their starting locks tangled with knots of vipers?" Verse 1039.—"Αναξ *Απολλον, αἵδε πληθύουσι δή. translates this noble verse by the following insufferably tame remark-the ne plus ultra of weak attempts to approach Aeschylean sublimity: "they are many indeed!" There is only one word in the English language which will at all express the Greek novovat in this passage; and upon that word πληθύουσι neither Mr. Peile nor Potter have been fortunate enough to light-THEY SWARM! We have now gone through the greater portion of the "Choephori," expressing ourselves freely, indeed, and perhaps sometimes strongly, but we sincerely trust neither uncourteously nor with unjust severity, upon passages, where either the notes or translations of the learned editor appear to us objectionable. That we have received little or no new light upon any of the numerous difficulties with which this play abounds-met with very few examples of ingenious emendation or acute criticism—and that we consequently think the benefits conferred upon the readers of Aeschylus by no means commensurate with the tedious prolixity of the accompanying commentary-we are compelled with regret to avow. In the last piece of the Orestean Trilogy, the "Eumenides," Mr. Peile will be destitute of the aid of his guide and critical pioneer, the learned and ingenious, but too credulous and pertinacious, Klausen. There is much in that play which yet requires the hand of a master critic-one of better taste and judgment than Müller, and of more felicitous skill in emendation than either a Scholefield or a Peile. On the "Eumenides" there are many remarks which we would gladly make in the way of anticipative suggestion; but we refrain, through the polite wish to allow Mr. Peile the credit of certain restorations of the text, which, if he applies his well-stored mind seriously to the task, he will hardly fail to effect: and that he will favour the world with an edition (if somewhat less verbose, all the better) of a play which has, unhappily, not undergone the revising care of a Blomfield, is our anxious hope; and we shall hail his labours, we trust, with a heartier welcome than we have bestowed upon his "CHOEPHORI" OF AESCHYLUS. ART. VIII.-A Collection of Chants. By ALFRed Bennett, Organist of New College, Oxford. 2. Cathedral Selections. By THOMAS BENNETT, Organist of the Cathedral and St. John's Chapel, Chichester. London: Chappell and Co. 3. Twenty-four Chants. To which are prefixed some Remarks on Chanting. By ROBERT GRAY. Bellerby, York. 4. The Psalter; arranged for Chanting. By WILLIAM Jones, Organist of Ely Cathedral. 5. Tunes for Country Churches; more especially adapted to the Selection of Psalms and Hymns compiled by the (late) Rev. Thomas Webster, B.D., Cambridge. At the Pitt Press. 6. The Psalm and Hymn Tunes used at St. John's Chapel, Bedford-row; arranged for Four Voices, and adapted for the Organ or Piano-forte, with appropriate Symphonies. BY THEOPHANIA CECIL. London: Cramer, Addison, and Neale. IT has often been observed, and the observation has been made with only too much justice, that no part of the service of our Church has been more unaccountably and more totally neglected than the psalms and hymns which are put into the mouths of her members. While we express our necessities to our Heavenly Father, day after day and week after week, in the same forms of prayer from which our forefathers, now numbered among the Church triumphant, derived strength and consolation, and which our brethren, still members of the Church militant, are continually offering up-the words in which we declare our admiration of his power, our gratitude for his mercies, our acknowledgment of his love, vary in almost every congregation throughout the kingdom. Hymns, containing every variety of doctrine, written by every class of men, are sung to every possible tune, and very frequently to no tune at all, and are interspersed through every part of the service, without any regard to propriety, or respect to the designs of the framers of our liturgy. In some congregations, a hymn is used at the opening of public worship; in others, it is inserted after the second lesson; it sometimes follows the collects; almost invariably succeeds the Litany and the Nicene Creed; and frequently is used immediately before-nay, we have heard it after the blessing. Of these, the third seems to be the only position which is allowed by our rubrics for the authority usually quoted for the first and the last-" For the comforting of such as delight in music, it may be permitted that, at the beginning or end of divine service, there may be sung a psalm, to the praise of Almighty God"-refers merely (as it has been well shown) to the singing; not when the congregation are assembled, but before they have arrived, or after they have departed; not as a part of public worship, but as the expression of private thankfulness. With respect to the introduction of a hymn after the second lesson, now unfortunately so usual, it is not only entirely irregular, but completely destroys the connexion between the lesson itself and the anthem which immediately follows it. It was a beautiful order which appointed, that, after we had heard some noble declaration of the power of that faith which overcometh the world-of the length, and breadth, and depth, and height of that love of Christ which passeth knowledge-of the glory of that resurrection in which the body, sown in dishonour and mortality, shall be raised to immortality and glory-we should join in the song of triumph, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." But this effect is entirely lost by the insertion, between the two, of a hymn, which may be quite at variance with the joyful spirit which should then animate our praises. And we have here a very fair example of the great danger incurred by the introduction of any novelty, lest we violate some unknown or overlooked principle. Too much can hardly be said on the extreme irregularity involved by the introduction of the thousand "Selections of Psalms and Hymns" which teem through our parish churches. A clergyman is hardly inducted into a cure of souls, especially if it be in a town, before he adds his collection to those which are already in use: and there are many inducements to such a course of action. In the first place, what the author considers the want-and we might call the non-existence of a good collection of psalms and hymns; then the pleasure of publishing, which to many minds is exceedingly great; and the certainty of publishing without risk; because, if the selection be introduced into the parish church or chapel, the congregation must obtain it, or be content not to join in the hymns. As to the consumption of time and labour, the compilers seem ready to adopt the excuse of the German poet : "Chartarum autem jam demum miserere mapera, stultum, aut certe nimis serum est, ut qua sine omni gratiâ ita perierunt hactenas et pereunt quotidie." And were this the whole mischief, the excuse might be accepted. But our Church has already authorized the use of two versions of the Psalms among her members; both, it is allowed, imperfect, and both falling very far short of the spirit of the original, yet both abounding in passages of more than ordinary beauty, and (inasmuch as they are translations of the word of God) containing no false doctrine, no principle of questionable orthodoxy. But how many of the hymns in our collections, while they fall infinitely short of the old and new versions in conveying nothing but simple and unalloyed truth, if viewed even in a poetical light, can be considered their equals? Let us glance at the five collections which have, and perhaps deservedly, obtained a more extended circulation than any others we refer to "The Percy," "The St. John's," "The Cottage Hymn-book," the Rev. Charles Simeon's, and the Rev. Charles Bradley's. One might have expected that those whose words are to be the key-notes to the praises of future generations in the English Church, would be members who had lived and died in her communion; or, to extend our liberality as far as possible, writers who differed from her in no essential point of doctrine or discipline. But what is the case? Watts, and Doddridge, and Beddowe, and Baxter, and Wesley, and Whitefield, stand in strange juxtaposition with Ken and Jeremy Taylor: nor does the addition of the names of Pope and Dryden tend the better to assimilate the heterogeneous mass. Sentiments of all kinds, from the highest Calvinistic to the lowest Arminian tenets, are thus introduced into the same volume, and are sung "to the praise and glory" of Him who is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." And, setting aside the palpable irreverence of addressing the God of Truth in forms of words, of which, if one be true, the other must be |