ings appears to have arrived at Rio de la Hacha before him; and he was apprized by the treasurer that the subjects of the king of Spain had been specially forbidden by the viceroy and council of St. Domingo to trade with him, under pain of fine and corporal punishment. The gallant spirit of Hawkins was not daunted by this intelligence. He observed to the treasurer, "that seeing they would, contrary to all reason, go about to withstand his traffic, he would it should not be said of him, that having the force he had he was driven from his traffic per force, but he would rather put it in adventure, to try whether he or they should have the better, and therefore willed them to determine either to give him ficence to trade, or else to stand to their own harms."

This licence was, after due deliberation, granted; but when Master Hawkins had exposed his goods to sale, the Spaniards were so unreasonable as to bid what he conceived to be much too small a price for them; "whereupon, weighing their unconscionable proposal, he wrote: to them a letter, that they dealt too rigorously with him to go about to cut his throat in the price of his commodities; but seeing they had. sent him this to his supper, he would in the morning bring them as good a breakfast." In pursuance of this threat he landed on the 21st of May, at the head of 100 men, and encountering the Spaniards, who made a shew of resistance, he easily put them to flight. This preliminary step to a "quiet trafique" having been taken, negociations succeeded, which were concluded, as might have been expected, in favour of the victor, who now vended his slaves upon his own terms, and when he had completed his sales, "demanded of the treasurer à testimonial of his good behaviour there," a document which that officer did not deem it expedient to refuse.

On the 31st of May Hawkins departed from Rio de la Hacha, with the intention of proceeding to St. Domingo, but he was driven by the strength of the current to the west end of Cuba. After many ineffectual attempts to land on that island, being greatly distressed for want of fresh water, he bore away for the coast of Florida, and entered the river of May, where he was gladly welcomed by Mons. Laudonier, the commander of a French settlement lately established there, which was reduced by wars with the natives to the utmost extremity. Having watered his vessels, he set sail from Florida on the 28th of July, and on the 20th of September arrived at Padstow, in Cornwall.

Master Hawkins, who seems, as I have hinted above, to have been gifted with no small share of piety, observes towards the conclusion of his journal (and I doubt not, Mr. Editor, your readers will agree with him in his observation) that "God in his goodness better provided for" him and his marauding associates" than their deserving.'

It may not be improper to add, that this Master John Hawkins was afterwards Sir John, a famous naval commander under queen Elizabeth; and that a coat of arms was given him, having for its crest "a demi-moor in his proper colour, bound with a cord"—the memorial of his noble exploits!

Sir,

A PECULIARITY IN HERODOTUS.

To the Editor of the Athenæum.

EVERY reader of Herodotus has probably observed in him a peculiarity which has indeed been noticed by the critics, namely, that he frequently separates the preposition from the verb to which it belongs by the insertion of the particle . vid. Wesseling ad Lib. iii. c. 60. et Schäefer ad Longum, p. 418. who produces from other writers similar instances of the tmesis with. Vide etiam Koen ad Gregor. p. 209. It has farther been remarked, that in this tmesis, as employed by Herodotus, the , has not its ordinary force, but is to a modern nearly redundant. I do not now enquire into the power of the particle in these instances, but proceed to observe, that Herodotus inserts it between the preposition and the verb in the use of it now alluded to, I believe, solely in the case of an aorist used for the present indefinite, as in the following example: 'v dosto vendere solent or vendunt; on which use of the aorist vid. Grævii Lectiones Hesiodeæ, p. 24. Krebsius ad Plutarch. De audiendis Poetis, p. 149. Valkenaer's Diatribe, p. 163. Herman De emendanda ratione Græce Grammaticæ, p. 187, to which, that I may take an opportunity of recommending an excellent work to the lovers of Plato, I add Heindorf ad Platonis Phædrum, p. 275.

The passages in which I have noticed the tmesis under consideration will be found in Lib. ii. c. 39, 40, 47, in which are two instances, 70, 86, 87, 96, 122. Lib. iii. c. 82. Lib. iv. c. 60, 196. Lib. vii. c. 10. All these instances answer to the description above given; I am not, therefore, disposed to admit the conjecture of Wesseling E v Ed. Lib. iv. c. 146, which, as I learn from Borheyk's Apparatus Criticus ad Herodotum, is decidedly approved by Larcher. I have only to add that Herodotus, if I am not mistaken, never uses the aorist for the present in the case of a compound verb without this tmesis; and in one instance he subjoins the to the aorist of a simple verb employed in this manner. Lib. i. c. 132. If there are any who think such minutia not worth observing, they may be told from high authority nihil contemnendum est, neque in bello, neque in re critica. Mr. Porson ad Eurip. Medeam. v. 140. ει δε γε μη πείθονται, λείπεται δη λεγειν αυτοίς τον παλαιον λόγον,

Σοι μεν ταυτα δοκεν εςω, εμοι δε ταδε.

Coray ad Heliodorum, p. 200.

I am Sir, your's, &c.

E. COGAN.

Higham Hill, April 3d, 1807.

CLASSICAL DISQUISITIONS.

ON THE POEMS OF HOMER.

(Continued from page 374.)

THE age of Homer has with some probability been fixed at about nine centuries before the Christian æra, a period so remote, and so destitute of historical monuments, as to be little less obscure than even the fabulous ages of mythology.

The earliest testimonies which remain respecting this most ancient poet, are several centuries subsequent to the date at which we suppose him to have flourished. The first certain mention which occurs of his name is in Pindar, who speaks of him repeatedly, and even alludes to one of his verses. In his long ode to Damophilus, in which he relates the Argonautic expedition, he has the following passage:

"Of the sayings of Homer revolve this attentively; he asserts that a prudent messenger adds the greatest honour to every transaction." The poet alludes to Iliad, xv. 207. He speaks of the labours of Ulysses as celebrated and adorned, and, as he suspects (for Pindar was much inclined to incredulity) exaggerated by the delightful muse of In a passage of some difficulty, Isthm. iv. Homer. Nem. vii, 29. 64, he refers to the Iliad, as conferring immortal honour on Ajax, by the celebration which he has obtained in that poem. He speaks of the Homerida and their rhapsodies. Nem. ii. 1. The age of Pindar may be placed about 485 B. C.

Mimnermus, however, a poet still more ancient, may be supposed to allude to Homer in the second of his fragments published by Brunck. Simonides, the celebrated lyric writer, or some other poet of the same name, expressly speaks of him in a fragment of an ode, (ap. Brunck, Anal, ix.) though it is not easy to discover the passages to which he alludes. In an epigram or fragment of an elegy (Brunck, c. iv.) he speaks of Homer as the man of Chios, and quotes the celebrated comparison, put into the mouth of Glaucus, of human life, to the decay and reproduction of leaves.

Herodotus, on several occasions, quotes the authority of our poet, He distinguishes between the Iliad and Odyssey, and quotes from each poem. He refers to the fifth book of the Iliad, under the title οι Διομήδους αριστεία. He denies the Cypriacs to be the production of of Homer, as contradicting the relations given by that poet in his acknowledged works.

Thucydides likewise repeatedly mentions Homer and his works, and even ascribes to him the hymn in honour of Apollo.

Sush are the earliest testimonies wh remain respecting the poems

of

of Homer, testimonies more than four centuries posterior to the periods to which they relate.

The earliest fact of which we have any credible mention in the history of these poems, is their introduction by Lycurgus, the Spartan legislator, from Asia into Greece. The principal witnesses of this fact are Heraclides Ponticus, Dio Chrysostom, Plutarch, and Aelian. The circumstances as related by Plutarch are these: that during his journey in Asia, Lycurgus met with the poems of Homer, which were probably, says he, preserved by the posterity of Creophilus, and that finding the moral and political instruction with which they abounded no less admirable than their poetical beauties, he gladly transcribed them. Before the time of Lycurgus, only an obscure report of their fame had penetrated into Greece, a few persons possessing some separate parts, the poems being circulated in scattered fragments, as chance might direct. "Nihil amplius ex his constat," says Heyne, "quam inter Sones, et maxime Chios, extitisse carmina, singulatim recitari solita, quorum notitia Spartam perlata esse potuit."

During three subsequent centuries nothing more is heard of Homer, except by some intimation that his poems were commonly recited by the rhapsodists, forming, even at that early period, the pride and pleasure of Greece. Solon is said to have commanded that they should be repeated by the rhapsodists in a regular and connected series, while before they had been accustomed to recite them as distinct compositions, and without any regard to the natural order of succession.

A clearer light now begins to be thrown both on literary and civil history. The domination of the family of Pisistratus was the period when the arts of every species were called into activity, and science and learning shone forth with a splendour before unknown. It is the unvarying testimony of antiquity, repeated by a cloud of witnesses, that at this period, and under the direction of Pisistratus and his family, some remarkable change, the nature of which is more or less. definitely described by different writers, took place in the form of Homer's works, and the mode of their circulation. The fact is thus spoken of by Cicero: "Quis doctior iisdem illis temporibus, aut cujus eloquentia literis instructior fuisse traditur, quam Pisistrati? qui primus Homeri libris, confusos antea, sic disposuisse dicitur, ut nunc habemus. (de Orat. iii. 34.) The words of Josephus are very remarkable." "It is said that even Homer did not leave his poetry committed to writing, but that it was transmitted by memory, and afterwards compiled into one body from separate songs." (cont. Ap.) It was, however, the object of this writer to bring the origin of the arts in Greece as low as possible. Aelian speaks of Pisistratus as compil ing the Iliad and Odyssey. In short, this remarkable fact is so well supported by the concurrent voice of antiquity, that Kuster, though embarrassed by it, is constrained to confess, "Non caret quidem, fateor, hæc sententia difficultatibus; attamen ob totius fere antiquitatis consensum aliter statuere non licet."

The fact is, however, related with some variations, though not suf ficient to affect its general credibility. The absurd narrations of some

of

of the grammarians are unworthy of notice, but in the dialogue aseribed to Plato, and bearing the name of Hipparchus, the son of Pisistratus, the work is taken from Pisistratus, and assigned to his son, who, it is said, ordered the poems of Homer to be sung at the feast of the Panathenæa. Hence some have supposed that Hipparchus published a new and more correct edition. There is, however, some reason to suspect the genuineness of the dialogue in which this fact is alleged, and its contradiction to other concurring witnesses is therefore the less to be regarded.

Notwithstanding the labours of Pisistratus in the preparation of a regular and authentic edition of Homer's works, the art of the rhapsodists still continued to be held in esteem. One of the most celebrated of that profession, whose names are at present known, was Cynæthus, the Chian, who is said by the scholiast of Pindar to have emigrated about the sixty-ninth Olympiad to Syracuse, and to have been the first who recited in that city the poems of Homer. To this Cynæthus also is ascribed by the same scholiast the hymn to Apol which passes under the name of Homer,

When the rudiments of critical learning were established in Greece, the fame of Homer, and the unsettled state of his text, naturally called the attention of critics to his works, and various revisals of his poems were made, which are distinguished by the scholiasts into those κατ' ανδρα, and κατα πόλεις, the former bearing the name of some particular critic, and the latter, whose authors were probably unknown, denominated from the cities where they were preserved, or where they first appeared. Of the former class were the editions by Antimachus and Aristotle. Antimachus was himself a celebrated poet, author of the Thebaid, which held a high rank among the epic compositions of Greece. He was a native of Colophon, and contemporary with Socrates. The edition of Aristotle was more celebrated. The principal writers by whom it is mentioned are Strabo and Plutarch, by whose account it appears to have been confined to the Iliad, and to have been made for the use of Alexander. It was so much valued by that hero, as to be his constant companion even in his wars, and it was deposited in a casket of most precious workmanship, found among the Persian spoils. It was hence named the edition of the casket. It is said to have been revised by the hand of Alexander himself, assisted by Callisthenes and Anaxarchus. The subsequent fate of this edition is unknown, and it is remarkable that no mention of it should occur in the Venetian scholia. Of the editions named from cities, six are enumerated, the Massitiotic, the Chian, the Argive, those of Sinope, Cyprus, and Crete,

Under the Macedonian Sovereigns of Egypt, critical and grammatical learning was cultivated with great ardour, and the accumulation of literary productions began to afford scope for the acquisition and display of erudition. It appears to have been the chief ambition of many of these princes to be surrounded by men of learning and genius, to be distinguished as patrons of literature, and to carry to its utmost possible extent their magnificent institution of a public library. We

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