feriut, which so many expositors, and - famosisque Lupo cooperto versibus?] It might not unreasonably, methinks, be presumed, that Horace in this dialogue, had likewise indirectly and very covertly his majores amicos in view, and by the exemplified relations that subsisted between Lucilius and his great friends C. Lælius and P. Scipio Emilianus, or Africanus minor, intended to fortify those in which be stood to Mæcenas, P. Messala, Pollio, &c. by assuring them on his part in a modest but dignified, yet with regard to them in a no less delicate than flattering manner, once for all, that characters like theirs had never any thing to apprehend from a man like him. The example of Lucilius, to which he appeals, is here the more subservient to his design, as he in his own satires (agreeably to the demands of such a vast difference in the times) allowed himself much less liberty than his predecessor; who scrupled not to attack a person of such high consequence as Q. Cæcilius Metellus Macedonius, very scurrilously in his satires, and even to stigmatise Cornelius Lentulus Lupus, although (according to the scholiast) he was princeps senatus, in defamatory ver ses, probably with the less restraint, as they were both enemies of his great patron and friend, Scipio. Virtus Scipiada el mitis sapientia Læli.] I cannot think this line so flat as Warburton pronounces it to be in his annotations upon Pope's imitation of this satire; or that, as Baxter opines, it savours of Ennius or Lucilius, and that Horace here incidentally ridicules the turgid style of those poets. Virtus Scipiada, sapientia Lælii, is a manner of speaking not unusual with our bard, being exactly of the same coinage with mens provida Reguli (Od. lib. iii. 5.) virtus Catonis (Od. iii. 21.) acumen Stertinii (Epist. i. 12.) and innumerable precedents for it are to be found in Homer, whom Horace seems herein to have followed. This mode of speech, however, is here adopted with the greater propriety, since the Romans, at least throughout the seventh century of their city, had no man to produce, who, in all that they comprehended under the word virtus, had come nearer to perfection than this Scipio; and since Lælius, even during his life-time, had, by the tacit consent of his countrymen, ob"We tained the surname Sapiens*. know that even Scipio's true greatness, and the mild wisdom of Lælius, prevented them not, on privately quitting the theatre, from laying aside the dignity of their characters; and they thought themselves neither too great nor too wise sometimes to unbend their minds with him, and trifle away the time till the cabbage on the fire was ready." This translation of the passage, I conceive, would suit the poet's real meaning, and deliver him from the groundless censures of the two Bitish critics. But ah! what god, or god-begotten, will be able to redeem him from another far more horrible imputation? from a crime, which in the eyes of a word-catcher is sufficient to efface the most conspicuous merits of an author; in a word, from the irremissible sin of having said, at two several times, Scipiades for Scipionides, which the great Priscianus had already alleged against him, although indeed Lucilius, Lucre * Sunt ista vera, Læli ; nec enim melior vir fuit Africano nec clarior; sed existimare debes, omnium oculos in te esse conjectos; unum te SAPIENTEM et appellant et existimant; non solum natura et moribus, verum etiam studio et doctrina, nec sicut vulgus, -ped ut eruditi solent appellare sapientem, &c. Cicera de Amicitiâ, cap, ¡i, tius, tius, and Virgil, are accomplices with Horace in the perpetration of this horrid solecism !-Woe and alas, and heaven help us all! I know of nothing that I can urge in extenuation of his guilt, excepting that this so heinous an offence to a chaste Priscianic ear, is perhaps the most venial of all delinquencies which a rigid patriotic Roman grammarian could find to arraign him of. And in good sooth, when I reflect, that Horace this very Horace, whose writings no person of taste and sentiment, for so many hundred years, could ever be tired of reading has been guilty of so many licences and negligences: that he swarms with Greecisms, and writes almost Grecian Latin; that he disfigures his style by obsolete words long since banished from discourse by the good company of his time; that he makes not the least conscience of writing Lucili for Lucilii, of using deerat as a dyssyllable, of saying surrexe for surrexisse, and (what is scarcely conceivable) that whenever he pleased he would make periods of an extravagant length, and parentheses that may be measured by the yard: I compre hend how it was, that while he lived there were critics who told him bluntly to his face, that he was a wretched author, and that such verses as his might easily be spun by the hundred or the thousand by any dabbler in poetry. The long lapse of time to be sure, has made us tolerant to all these grammatical heresies: but we may imagine how the Bavii and Mævii, the Fannii, and Tigellii, the Orbilii and Scribonii, must have carped at him during his life, while antiquity had yet drawn no nimbus round his head. Infra Lusili censum.] "Most assuredly both in genius and in birth, far beneath Lucilius, yet, &c." So Francis likewise has well translated census by birth. What though with great Lucilius I disclaim All saucy rivalship of birth or fame, &c. They were nearly of like import in the age of Lucilius; and Lucilius was in fact not only a Roman knight by birth, but, in behalf of his sister, great uncle to Pompeius Magnus. It is probable that the foregoing nostrum melioris utroque may relate simply to that circumstance. Equidem nihil hic defringere possum.] The MSS here leave it entire ly to our own choice, whether to read diffindere, diffidere, diffigere, or defringere. The reasons adduced by Bentley against the juristic diffindere appear to me just as luminous, as on the other hand the word diffingere, which he recommends instead of it, seem forced and incongruous in the mouth of Trebatius. In such trifles frequently all depends on a certain perception which we are hardly able to explain to others, or not without a tiresome prolixity. From the conformity of the whole, and the convertible words themselves, two things are evident the one, that Trebatius means no more than, he has nothing to object; and the other, that in de livering his meaning he employs a metaphorical expression. Whether now diffingere or diffidere or defringere be the properer word, must be determined by the taste, or the sense of the greater propriety and concinnity. The speech of Trebatius manifestly relates to what Horace had just before observed concerning his sple netic rivals, : be to imagine, that Trebatius, preserv The properest way, therefore, would ing the metaphor employed by Hohave no desire to bite off any thing race, jocosely says: I, for my part, from it and then of course defringere or diffringere would be the right word. I have accordingly, salvis melioribus, adopted it in my text, though perhaps, in a translation it might be preferable simply to give the sense, without the metaphor. If, however, the metaphor must be preserved, Trebatius might be made to say with a smile: I for my part require thee not to diminish aught from it. Si mala condiderit in quem quis carmina, jus est judiciumque.] The law of the twelve tables against him who indited mala carmina against any one, sounds extremely harsh: si quis occentassit mala carmina, sive condidissit quod infamiam faxit flagitiumque alteri, capital esto. In the sequel, the punishment of death being apparently thought too severe, the sentence seems to have been altered into that which Trebatius quotes. He therefore, by whom whom a man was attacked in satirical verses in his civil honour and reputation was liable to an action at law, injuriarum, for damages; the plaintiff, however, must be unimpeachable of any notorious acts, infamia juris et facti. Lucilius happened to be in a singular predicament. Being publicly insulted by name from the stage by a dramatist, he brought against him a suit at law for it by an action for damages: but the pretor C. Calius acquitted the dramatist; probably because he had done no more to the satirist, than what the latter took the liberty of doing to all the world, The witty conceit of taking the expression mala carmina for bad verses, would have been but a flimsy evasion, if Horace could not have added, si quis opprobriis dignum laceraverit, integer ipse: thus, however, he decides in three lines the whole affair. I allow it, if one makes mala carmina, says he; but if he have only fallen foul of such as are deserving of disgrace, if he himself lives irreproacha Bly, and if his verses moreover are good, and even approved of by Cæsar: how will it then fare with the complainant? - To conclude, it cannot be denied, that the two words, laudatus Cæsare, here must have produced a sort of magical effect; it being just as if the poet presented himself to his adversaries clad in the impenetrable armour of Achilles and covered with the terrific ægis. Accordingly it appears that thenceforward he had no farther attacks from that quarter. 圈 I read with Bentley laceraverit instead of the usual latraverit. His arguments amount to a demonstration, and are not at all shaken by Baxter's and Gesner's flat contradictions. Solventur risu tabulæ, tu missus abibis.] "Then the process is brought to a laughable termination, and thou mayst walk off discharged." This is all that I can make of the sentence, confessing at the same time, that i have but a faint apprehension of it. That in the case which Horace immediately before supposes, so violent à burst of laughter arose, that the roof of the court-house, or the bench whereon the judges sat, had nearly gone to pieces, (as a scholiast thinks) neither Horace nor Trebatius can have said. Such an hyperbole might pos sibly have been allowed to pass from a jester in a Plautinian comedy; but here it could not by any means be justified. Gesner says: cogitabam, tabulas esse tabellas judiciarias, in quibus scribi fingat sententias ludicras et hilares. How the learned critic, by the word solvere could be led to this idea, is more inexplicable to me than the problem itself; however, this unsuccessful attempt emboldens me to hazard another, the sufficiency whereof may be determined by those who have a seat and vote in trials of such causes. Every judge, as is well known, on proceeding to give sentence on a trial at law, had three tablets delivered to him: the one marked with A (absolvo), another with C (condemno), the third with N.L. (non liquet). Now, may not solventur risu tobule, be as much as to say: the judges with laughing let the tablets drop out of their hands? However extraordinary this metaphor may be, it would certainly not be more so, than the synecdoche, which Cruquius adopts, when he says, that tabulæ has here the same siguification as judi cium. Ormond-sireel. Mr. UREAN, HE W.T. Bristol, Jan. 28. Review of my Poems in your Magazine for October, was very different in substance and spirit from the superficial, skimming comment, the "faint, damning praise," or the searching, witty malignity, by which they who exercise the functions of periodical critics have sometimes chosen to signalize their indolence or their ill-nature. To no part of the Review do I consider myself more really indebted, than to that in which the writer, with a liberal candour of construction that lends a grace to rebuke, urges his objections to a particular passage, in a style of reasoning equally sound and eloquent. That the impression conveyed by this passage is not confined to the Reviewer, appears from an excellent letter in December last on the indispensable duty of attending public worship. The author appears to regard the verses in question as justifying an impu tation of proselytism to the modern philosophy; by which, I suppose, is meant the deistical philosophy, or pure, natural religion, professed by the the followers of Bolingbroke. Your Correspondent is pleased to express himself of my very moderate abilities in terms which, from such a writer, would have given me the highest gratification, were I capable of being gratified by the praise of talent at the expence of Christian principle. Deeply impressed with that conviction, which the intrinsic simplicity of truth in the Gospel itself is all-sufficient to produce in every sincere and unprejudiced mind, and which the writings of Locke, of Butler, and of Paley, are so admirably calculated to confirm; I feel obliged to your Correspondent for the occasion which he has afforded me to disavow the general sentiment, deduced, by what I must confess to be a natural inference, from the exordial lines of my Sabbath Musings. As these lines were only alluded to in your Review, I shall here quote them entire : What needs the dimly purpled light that glows [chant Through imag'd glass, or what the measur'd Of Monkish strains to the deep organ's peal, [sound To rouze devotion; when thy cliffs reThe wave's mild murmur, and thy thick ets green [in dew Ring with the song of birds? when flowers Exhale their fragrance, and the sense is cheer'd [groans, With air and sunshine? While fanatic Breath'd from a gloomy spirit,!rise to Him Who spread this verdure o'er the fields, who bade [son; These violets spring, and lighted up the Be mine with silence of the heart to praise His mercies, and adore his name of love. Now, I readily admit that in these lines there is a confusion of thought, arising from the want of steadily contemplating and separating the ideas that presented themselves, and arranging them in the connexion necessary to give clearness and precision to their meaning. "The fanatic groans breath'd from a gloomy spirit" have no affinity to the prayers chanted or rather gabbled, by the choristers. They belong to a different and more melancholy superstition. But the whole passage in its present crude or der seems to throw a slight on Church worship in general. The leading idea in my mind was, that outward observances were of none effect, if unaccompanied by the religion of the heart and I meant to illustrate this prin ciple by touching on the opposite religious extremes of mummery and cant. The mechanical chanting of the confession, of the solemn and affecting supplication in the Litany, and of the Lord's Prayer, is an evident relick of Popish mummery; and is, in fact, given up by your Correspondent as an indefensible practice. So far our sentiments completely coincide: and I hope also to acquit myself of the less important part of the imputation, namely, heterodoxy of taste. The painted glass was mentioned in connexion only with the pompous ceremonial of the high cathedral service. Exclusively of these unmeaning and monotonous intonations, these 'Monkish strains,' I can assent most cordially to his admiration of Cathedral architecture, as eminently adapted by the shadowy glow of light, the aerial loftiness of roof, and the indistinct immensity of vanishing ailes, to enlarge and exalt the imagination, while it awes and soothes the mind; thus producing through the senses a disposition of feeling highly favourable to devotional sentiment. I shall, however, venture to remind your Correspondent, that, as far as the mere theory is concerned, he has suffered his judgment to be seduced by the ro mantic and ingenious hypothesis of Bishop Warburton. That the shaded walks of a forest did not suggest the idea of the primitive Gothic architecture (introduced, not by the Goths but by the latter Romans, at the time of the Gothic invasion of Italy) is evident from the fact, that the early Gothic (called also the Saxon from its adoption by the Anglo-Saxons, but more properly the Roman) and the Norman architecture, which differed from it only in magnitude, could not be said to bear any resemblance what ever in the form of its round-headed arches, and the massive rotundity of its pillars, to the pointed intersections of an avenue of trees. It was at a later period that the vast round column was split into slender shafts, the arch pointed, and the capitals and roofs carved with foliage. These innovations were gradual; and the new style (called by some the Saracenic, for no better reason than the former was styled Gothic, namely, because it arose at the time of the Crusades) is, I think, well expressed by the characteristic racteristic term affixed to it by Warfon, of the florid, or ornamented, Gothic. To return to the verses: I trust it will appear that neither allusion was levelled at the general institution of social worship, of whose reasonable necessity, divine authority, and apostolic example, every man must be fully convinced, who studies with attention the Gospel history and the early annals of the primitive Christian Church. The lines are not as they originally stood: they were altered in that not unusual mood of restless dissatisfaction, which though it often leads to the amendment of a bad passage, no less frequently tempts a writer to refine away all the merit of a good one. I shall transcribe the original passage from the fifth volume of Dr. Aikin's Athenæum; in which the verses were first printed; and it is my intention to restore it in the event of a second edition of the Poems. O native Isle belov'd! by sounding waves Bosom'd remote, and hallow'd from the world! The spirit meek of sanctity now walks fall. I love thy pure and simple rite: there are Who love thee not: there are who barb'rous deem [cern Thy manliest virtues, and whose eyes dis- Be this thy stedfast anchor: be this day ners of his day, and written in a style of pleasant irony, well adapted to the subject chosen by the author, which was the instruction and reproof of the seventeenth century. young gallants in the early part of the "The Head is a house built for Reason to dwell in, and thus is the tenement framed. The two Eyes are the glasse windows at which light disperses itself into every roome, having goodly pent-houses of haire to overshadow them. As for the Nose, tho some (most iniuriously and improperly) make it serve for an Indian chimney, yet surely it is rightly a bridge with two arches, under which are neat passages to convey as well perfumes to aire and sweeten every chamber, as to carry away all noisome filth that is swept out of uncleane corners. The cherry Lippes open like the new painted gates of a lord mayor's house to take in provision. The Tongue is a bell, hanging iust under the middle of the roofe; and lest it should be rung out too deepe (as sometimes it is when women have a peale) whereas it was cast by the first Founder, but onely to tole softly; there are two even rowes of ivory pegs (like pales) set to keep it in. The Eares are two Musique roomes, into which as well good sounds as bad descend downe two narrow paire of staires, that for all the world have crooked windings like those that lead to the top of Powles steeple; and, because when the tunes are once gotten in, they should not too quickly slip out, all yellow wax round about them. Now, as the walls of both places are plaistered with the fairest lodging, tho it be furnisht with walles, chimneys, chambers, and all other parts of architecture, yet if the seeling be consequently to ruine: so would this goodwanting, it stands subject to raine, and so ly palace, which we have moddeld out unto you, bee but a cold and bald habitation, were not the top of it rarely covered. Nature, therefore, has plaid the tyler, and given it a most curious covering, or (to speake more properly) she has thatcht it all over, and that thatching is haire." Yours, &c. Mr. URBAN, Τ P. B. Bedford Place, Jan. 15. IT is one of the characteristics of the present enlightened age, that the publick are always ready to pay a proper tribute of respect to the memory of departed excellence. If this be due to Poels, Warriors, and Statesmen, how infinitely stronger is the claim for those who have passed a long life in one uniform series of active virtue and benevolence! These |