Rome; the latter then draws the most beautiful picture of his mistress, of her virtues, of her faith, and declares that he cannot abandon her. Scipio yields, though he says at the risk of incurring the indignation of the Roman people. Barca (the maid) now occupies the scene, a warrior in disguise presents himself to her, and demands an interview with Sophonisba, and gives a ring to be delivered to her. She knows the ring for that of Syphax, and she comes. The warrior tells her that her husband in expiring had commanded him to offer her an asylum, a poor one it must be. She refuses to follow him: Says, perhaps he himself may have been the assassin of Syphax, or have possessed himself by treachery of the ring. He lifts his vizard and shows that he is Syphax. She almost faints at the discovery. He tells her he is aware she never loved him, that obedience not choice had made her his, but asks her, if now that he is abandoned by all, she too will forsake him. After a momentary struggle, she answers, No! she will follow him. He then tells her of a subterranean passage leading from the Temple of Jupiter to the sea, that he has a little bark that will carry them safe from their enemies; at midnight he expects her. Massanissa, however, is impatient to receive Sophonisba's vows, and the altar is prepared; but before she is carried to it, she writes to Syphax, swears fidelity to him, and renews her promise to fly with him at the appointed hour, commits her letter to Barca, who says she knows the passage well. Scipio and a Roman soldier now occupy the scene; the latter tells the former, that having entered a passage he had by chance perceived, a woman had met him, and given him this note, accompanied with some mysterious words, and had disappeared, seeming glad to have executed her commission, and he thought it his duty to bring the paper. The general praises the soldier, and promises reward. He reads the letter, and though rejoiced at the contents, pours out a great deal of commonplace abuse on women in general, and Sophonisba in particular. Massanissa, in the mean time, hurries his bride to the altar of Juno. She is swearing to him all the love, and all the faith she has a right to give him, when Scipio enters and gives the fatal letter. The

ceremony is interrupted, Sophonisba retires, and Massanissa, in transports of rage, swears to murder the lover in her arms. Midnight arrives; Syphax appears; he is attacked and mor tally wounded by Massanissa, and suspects for a moment that Sophonisba has betrayed him. She appears, throws herself down beside him, swears not to survive, and kills herself.

The improvisatore never mentioned the names of the interlocutors, but by the change of tone, and frequently, also, the change of place, left no doubt about the speaker. He used the heroic Ite lian blank verse of eleven syllables, but in the chorus, which recurred several times, he used rhyme of all sorts, from four to twelve syllables The tragedy lasted two hours and a half; he died twice in the course of it, once in the floor to suit the English taste I presume, and once in an arm chair, in the French decorous manner, both times with appropriate action, very energetic, but very natural and graceful, and never outré His fine tones were quite free from the guttural rrr with which the Italians are apt to spoil their sweet harmonious language. He forgot the coxcomb in the transports of the poet, and never once, I really believe, thought of his rings or watch chain during the whole time. His great fault was abundance. Had he had a little time to consider, I have no doubt he would have been much shorter and much better. Yet this very abun dance excites astonishment, for who would undertake to construct verses, even if they were nonsense, in correct measure, during two hours and a half; and when it is considered, that, instead of nonsense, a regular plot is to be contrived and carried through, even with the help of recollection as well as invention, and that the story was, in this instance, not only always plain and intelligible, but often told with great force and eloquence, so as to draw sudden bursts of applause from an audience generally cool and silent, the thing appears almost miraculous. At the conclusion there was a rush of a number of admirers towards the poet, and he was carried off among them in a sort of spontaneous triumph!

Tommaso Scriggi is the son of an advocate of Arezzo. He was educat

ed at the University of Pisa, or rather that branch of it established at Florence, and was intended for the law; but his love of poetry, and particular talent for improvising, at which almost all the young men here try their powers at an early period of their lives, has at length made him a sort of professor of the art, in which he is deemed by most Italians to excel any improvisatore that ever was known. Young men who have been his companions at college told me that his conversation was poetry itself; that he was well informed on most subjects, but chiefly in belles lettres. They admit that he is a great coxcomb, effeminate in his dress and manners, and often admiring himself in a mirror; yet his course of thinking and language is represented to be the very reverse of his manners, and much in the style of Alfieri. He has been accused of being something of a jacobin, as most political school-boys are. The poet having been lately accused, at the house of an English lady, of having praised Bonaparte, he replied, with great warmth, "that he praised no kings:" a speech which was thought rather a confirmation of the charge. M. Scriggi has adopted this exhibition as a trade; a scudo is paid for a ticket of admission; yet he will not speak on a stage, and borrows rooms in a palace for the night-such are the niceties of pride!-Speaking of palaces, they are so numerous, and the proprietors often so poor, that any body can be lodged in a palace, that is, a house with a porte cochere, with a court inside, where a carriage may turn; but, as there are no porters here, the gates stand wide open, and form on each side of the entrance a recess,-a sort of place most convenient to passengers, the public having thus a prescriptive right, which nobody thinks of disputing, so that the entrance into most Roman palaces is a perfect cloaque, through which you must wade, and often see indecencies which would be deemed incredible in other countries. A stranger who had lately taken apartments in one of these great mansions, finding a man en flagrant delit at the foot of the stairs, remonstrated on the proceeding. Why, I thought this was a palazzo!" replied the astonished of fender, in perfect simplicity.

CRITICISM ON A PASSAGE IN LIVY.

MR EDITOR,

NOTWITHSTANDING the prodigious labours of so many commentators, there are still passages in almost every ancient writer that are either unintelligible or unexplained. I happened a few days ago to fall in with the first five books of the second Punic War, edited by Dr John Hunter, and derived real entertainment and illumination from that profound scholar's unostentatious but able remarks, which most provokingly extend only to the two first books.

I was especially struck by the note (44) on a passage in the 54th chapter of the first book. "Ita mille equitibus Magoni, mille peditibus dimissis-Hoc non intelligo-nihil de hoc loco notavit Crevier: nee quicquam mutant libri scripti." What struck me in this note was, the singular ingenuousness of this great scholar's acknowledgment, indicative, if I am not mistaken, of real superiority of mind. I could not leave so memo rable a passage without endeavouring, by some means or other, to produce a meaning. As the words stand at present, every one will be glad to sanetion himself under the authority of Dr Hunter, and say, " hæc non intelligo." I conceive sense may be given to the passage by a change less violent than has been made in innumerable places, in forming the received text of Livy. The two last letters of Magoni have almost the same appearance to the eye as the first letter of the following word-mille. Besides, there is almost no apparent difference in writing between dimissus and dimissis. I conceive then, that the "ni" in Magoni has been inadvertently taken by the transcriber from the next word, and as soon as this blunder was committed, the adoption of the form "dimissis," even although it had been utterly unlike "dimissus," was unavoidable. The words, as thus amended, stand as follows: "Ita mille equitibus Mago, mille peditibus dimissus,"-and here I close the sentence.

Although these remarks are thrown together in the utmost hurry, may I request you to insert them? They will perhaps catch the eye of some one able to offer a more plausible conjec ture, or satisfactorily to confute them,

and thus this hurried note may prove the commencement of a series of classical criticisms, to which, from time to time, I will most joyfully contribute my humble mite. I am, Mr Editor, your obedient servant,

CUPIO DISCERE.

[We insert with pleasure the above emendation, though we confess that if Dr Hunter had not seen a difficulty in this passage, none would have occurred to us. Is it not good sense or good Latin to say, "Thus a thousand of the cavalry and as many of the infantry being given over to Mago," Hannibal made such and such dispositions with the rest of the army? If the word had been "traditis" instead of "dimissis," there would have been no surmise of a difficulty. Now, "dimissis" has all the force of the other word, but expresses a good deal more besides-that these troops were not only delivered over to Mago, but separated from the main body under

Hannibal.

REMARKS ON THE LIFE OF CURRAN.

(Continued from last July, p. 61.) THE second volume of these Memoirs begins with a rapid and animated sketch of the rebellion of 1798, and the disastrous state of Ireland during that period. It was, however, with the close of the conflict that the labours of Mr Curran properly began. He then exerted himself with all his energies in defence of the accused; and the first who were selected as victims on this occasion were two young gentlemen, brothers, and members of the Irish bar, Henry and John Sheares. We do not know a more striking picture than the following representation of the circumstances under which Mr Curran rose to address the jury, and the opening of his speech, although in reading it appears somewhat perplexed, and probably has been inaccurately reported, must have been most powerfully impressive when it was spoken. We have, indeed, been told by a gentleman who was present, that the picture here given is in no respect overcharged.

"It was midnight when Mr Curran rose to address the jury; and the feelings with which he entered on the task cannot be perfectly conceived, without adverting to

VOL. V.

the persons who were grouped around him. At the bar stood his clients, connected with each other by blood, with their advocate, and many more of the surrounding audience, by profession, and with the presid ing judge by the ties of hereditary friend ship. Upon the bench he saw in Lord Carleton one of his own oldest and most valued friends, with whom he was now to intercede, if intercession could avail, for those who had so many tender claims to his merciful consideration; while upon the jury appeared several whom Mr Curran (and probably his clients) had long known as acquaintances and companions, and with more than one of whom he had lived, and was still living, upon terms of the most lection of private relations, so unusual confidential intimacy. When to this col upon such an occasion, are added the other attending public circumstances, it is not surprising that the surviving spectators of this memorable scene should speak of it as marked by indescribable solemnity. The fate that impended over the unfortunate brothers-the perturbed state of Ireland-the religious influence of the hour-the throng of visages in the galle ries, some of them disfigured by poverty, others betraying, by their impassioned expression, a consciousness of participation in the offence for which the accused were about to suffer, and all of them rendered haggard and spectral by the dim lights that discovered them, the very presence Irish minds with images of death,-every of those midnight lights so associated in thing combined to inspire the beholders, who were now enfeebled by exhaustion, with a superstitious awe, and to make the objects, amidst which the advocate rose to perform the last offices to his sinking clients, appear not so much a reality, as the picture of a strained and disturbed imagination.

It

dress you or the jury, I would wish to "Mr Curran. My lord, before I admake one preliminary observation. may be an observation only-it may be a request. For myself I am indifferent; but I feel I am now unequal to the dutyI am sinking under the weight of it. We all know the character of the jury; the interval of their separation must be short, if it should be deemed necessary to separate them. I protest I have sunk under this trial. If I must go on, the Court must bear with me ;-the jury may also bear with me ;-I will go on until I sink ;

but, after a sitting of sixteen hours, with times, I should hope it would not be only twenty minutes interval, in these thought an obtrusive request, to hope for a few hours interval for repose, or rather for recollection.'

"Lord Carleton. Attorney-General ??

Uu

What say you, Mr

"Mr Attorney-General Toler. My lords, I feel such public inconvenience from adjourning cases of this kind, that I cannot consent. The counsel for the prisoners cannot be more exhausted than those for the prosecution. If they do not choose to speak to the evidence, we shall give up our right to speak, and leave the matter to the Court altogether. They have had two speeches already; and leaving them unreplied to is a great conces

sion.'

us.

"Lord Carleton. We would be glad to accommodate as much as possible. I am as much exhausted as any other person; but we think it better to go on." "Mr Curran. Gentlemen of the jury: it seems that much has been conceded to God help us! I do not know what has been conceded to me-if so insignificant a person may have extorted the remark. Perhaps it is a concession that I am allowed to rise in such a state of mind and body, of collapse and deprivation, as to feel but a little spark of indignation raised by the remark, that much has been conceded to the counsel for the prisoners; much has been conceded to the prisoners! Almighty and merciful God, who lookest down upon us, what are the times to which we are reserved, when we are told that much has been conceded to prisoners who are put upon their trial at a moment like this of more darkness and night of the human intellect than a darkness of the natural period of twenty-four hours-that public convenience cannot spare a respite of a few hours to those who are accused for their lives; and that much has been conceded to the advocate, almost exhausted, in the poor remark which he has endeavoured to make upon it!

"My countrymen, I do pray you, by the awful duty which you owe your country-by that sacred duty which you owe your character-(and I know how you feel it)-I do obtest you, by the Almighty God, to have mercy upon my client-to save him, not from the consequences of his guilt, but from the baseness of his accusers, and the pressure of the treatment under which I am sinking. With what spirit did you leave your habitations this day? In what state of mind and heart did you come here from your family? With what sentiments did you leave your children, to do an act of great public importance to pledge yourselves at the throne of Eternal Justice, by the awful and solemn obligation of an oath, to do perfect, cool, impartial, and steady justice, between the accuser and the accused? Have you come abroad under the idea, that public fury is clamorous for blood-that you are put there under the mere formality or ceremonial of death, and ought to gratify that fury with the blood for which it seems to thirst? If

you are-I have known some of youmore than one, or two, or three-in some of those situations, where the human heart speaks its honest sentiments. I think I ought to know you well-you ought to know me; and there are some of you who ought to listen to what so obscure an individual may say, not altogether without some degree of personal confidence and respect. I will not solicit your attention, by paying the greatest compliment which man can pay to man;-but I say I hold you in regard as being worthy of it;-I will speak such language as I would not stoop to hold if I did not think you worthy of it. Gentlemen, I will not be afraid of beginning with what some may think I should avoid the disastrous picture which you must have met upon your way to this court. A more artful advocate might endeavour to play with you, in supposing you to possess a degree of pity and of feeling beyond that of any other human being. But I, gentlemen, am not afraid of beginning by warning you against these preju. dices which all must possess-by speaking strongly against them-by striking upon the string-if not strong enough to snap it, I will wake it into vibration. Unless you make an exertion beyond the power almost of men to make, you are not fit te try this cause. You may preside at such an execution as the witness would extol himself for*-at the sentence flowing from a very short inquiry into treason. But you are not fit to discharge the awful trust of honest men coming into the box, indifferent as they stood unsworn, to pronounce a verdict of death and infamy, or of existence and of honour. You have only the inter

* "Captain Armstrong, the witness in this case, having been questioned by Mr Curran regarding the death of two countrymen, replied, We were going up Blackmore Hill, under Sir James Duff: there was a party of rebels there. Welmet three men with green cockades: one we shot-another we hanged-and the third we flogged and made a guide of." Thomas Drought, Esq. (one of the witnesses for the prisoners) gave in evidence a conversation which he had held with Armstrong respecting this transaction. I asked him (said Mr Drought) how he could possibly reconcile it to himself to deprive those wretches of life, without even the form of a trial. He acknowledged that they did so. I asked him whether he expected any punishment for it; and though he did not expect it from government, yet that there was an all-powerful Being who would punish him. He said, You know my opinion long ago upon this subject." This was the execution to which Mr Curran above alluded."

val between this and pronouncing your verdict to reflect; and the other interval, when you are resigning up your last breath, between your verdict and your grave, when you may lament that you did not as you ought.'

We cannot enter into the detail of the many affecting trials in which Mr Curran was engaged after this period, -into the miserable business of Emmet, accompanied with the deplored ca tastrophe of Lord Kilwarden,-and the other innumerable disasters of those times, which must have been so heartrending to an Irish patriot. The measure of the Union, Mr Curran considered as among those disasters, and his spirit, naturally subject to depression, was so heavily borne down by the real or supposed sufferings of his country, that he received but little solace by his coming into office as Master of the Rolls, after the death of Mr Pitt; indeed, that very circumstance unfortunately embroiled him in a disagreeable misunderstanding with his friend Mr Ponsonby. He row, however, enjoyed more leisure, and projected several literary works for his amusement; one was, Memoirs of his own Times, a work which would have been inestimable from such an observer and describer of the events and characters of such a period; another was a Novel, in which we think he would have bid fair to reach the interest awakened by the late popular novels in this part of the island.

"The scenes and characters were to be connected with the modern history of Ireland. Of this work, which since the period of the Union he had been meditating, his mind had completed the whole plan: he often repeated long passages, descriptive of the most interesting situations, and marked by a style of affecting eloquence which would have rendered the work, had he submitted to the task of committing it to paper, a valuable and very original accession to that department of English literature."

Although he never had perseverance to write a book, he has left many lively sketches of manners in his letters. At this time he visited Scotland. He thus writes to a lady in Dublin his observations upon our countrymen.

"Loudon Castle, Sept. 12, 1810. "The day is too bad for shooting, so I write. We arrived in miserable weather at Donaghadee; thence we set sail for the

Port, where, after a prosperous voyage of ten hours, we arrived. Two English gentlemen had got before us to the inn, and engaged four horses, all there were; two might have drawn them one very short stage, and they saw us prepare to set out in a cart, which we did, and I trust with a cargo of more good manners and good humour aboard us than the two churlscould boast in their chaise and four.

"I was greatly delighted with this country; you see no trace here of the devil working against the wisdom and beneficence of God, and torturing and degrading his creatures. It seems the romancing of travelling; but I am satisfied of the fact, that the poorest man here has his children taught to read and write, and that in every house is found a Bible, and in almost every house a clock; and the fruits of this are manifest in the intelligence and manners of all ranks. The natural effect of literary information, in all its stages, is to give benevolence and modesty. Let the intellectual taper burn ever so brightly, the horizon which it lights is sure but scanty; and if it soothes our vanity a little, as being the circle of our light, it must the interminable region of darkness that check it also, as being the boundary of lies beyond it. I never knew any person of any real taste and feeling, in whom knowledge and humility were not in exact proportion. In Scotland what a work have the four and twenty letters to shew for themselves!-the natural enemies of vice, and folly, and slavery; the great sowers, but the still greater weeders, of the human soil. Nowhere can you see the cringing hypocrisy of dissembled detestation, so inseparable from oppression : and as little do you meet the hard, and dull, and right lined angles of the southern visage; you find the notion exact and the phrase direct, with the natural tone of the Scottish muse.

"The first night, at Ballintray, the landlord attended us at supper: he would do so, though we begged him not. We talked to him of the cultivation of potatoes. I said, I wondered at his taking them in place of his native food, oatmeal, so much more substantial. His answer struck me as very characteristic of the genius of Scotland-frugal, tender, and picturesque.

Sir,' said he, we are not so much i' the wrong as you think; the tilth is easy, they are swift i' the cooking, they take little fuel; and then it is pleasant to see the gude wife wi' a' her bairns

about the pot, and each wi' a potatoe in its hand.'

"We got on to Ayr. It was fortu nate; it was the last day of the rain, and the first of the races; the town was un usually full.

"I was introduced to many of theiz