صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني
[ocr errors]

"Servant. From the first word to the laft, as you fhall witnefs.-I am to bid thofe fparks << come home and not loiter till the cook makes "plunder of the broken victuals; I am to fay "the boil'd and the roaft are ready; I am to "reckon up their bill of fare, their onions, olives,

garlick, coleworts, gourds, beans, lettuce, "knot-grafs; their falted tunny-fifh, their fhad, "fturgeon, foals, conger, purple-fifh and black"fifh (both whole ones) their anchovy, mack"arel, fresh tunny, gudgeons, rock-fish, dog-fish "tails, cramp-fifh, frog-fifh, perch, baccalao, "fardin, feaweed-fifh, fea-urchin, furmullet, "cuckow-fifh, paftinaca, lamprey, barbel, grey

[ocr errors]

mullet, Lebias, Sparus, char, Ælian - fish, "Thracian-fifh, fwallow-fifh, prawns, calamary, "flounder, fhrimps, polypody, cuttle-fifh, Or"phus, lobter, crab, bleak, needle-fifh, fprats, "fea-fcorpion and grigg-I am to put them in "mind of their roafts without nuniber, of their "goofe, pork, beef, lamb, mutton, goat, kid,

pullet, duck, fwan, partridge, bergander, and a "thousand more-I am to warn them that their "meffmates are already faft by the teeth, chew

ing, gnawing, cutting, carving, boiling, roaft"ing, laughing, playing, dancing, junketting, "drinking, mobbing, feuling, boxing, battling, "that the pipers are at their fport; every body

«<finging,

❝finging, choruffing, clamouring, whilft the "houfe fmoaks with the odours of cinnamon, "frankincenfe, myrrh, fweet-cane, ftorax, aloes, "ambergrife, mufk, camphire, caffia and a flood "of all other exquifite perfumes

دو

M

N° CV,

MOSCHION.

OSCHION ftands upon the authority of Clemens Alexandrinus and Stobæus as a writer of the Middle Comedy, and a dramatit of a very moral and pathetic turn; his frag ments fully verify that character. A perfon in one of his dramas relates the following melancholy circumftance.

་ ༈༙

"I met a lamentable example of fortune's "inftability-A prince of Argos begging his "bread-The man, awhile ago fo celebrated for "his great talents, high birth, and exalted rank, << was now reduced to the lowest state of human, "wretchedness, an object of commiferation to

[blocks in formation]

"every body who beheld him: Such of us as "reached out the hand to him, or confoled him "with the words of pity for his miferable con"dition, could not leave him without abundance "of tears; 'furely fuch a difmal revolution of "worldly fortune can never be contemplated "but with fympathy and condolence."

The tender and religious fentiments conveyed in the next fragment, which we owe to Clemens, certainly demand a place of honour, (was such honour in my power to beftow) in this collection.

"Let the earth cover and protect it's dead!

“And let man's breath thither return in peace "From whence it came; his spirit to the skies, "His body to the clay of which 'twas form'd,

[ocr errors]

Imparted to him as a loan for life,

"Which he and all muft render back again

"To earth, the common mother of mankind."

Again, in a strain yet more elevated

"Wound 'not the foul of a departed man!
<< 'Tis impious cruelty; let juftice ftrike 1.
The living, but in mercy fpare the deads...
"And why purfué a fhadow that is past?

46

Why flander the deaf earth, that cannot hear, "The dumb that cannot utter? When the foul "No longer takes account of human wrongs, "Nor joys nor forrows touch the mouldering heart, "As well you may give feeling to the tomb, As what it covers-both alike defy you."

NICOSTRATUS comes next under our review, a poet in his clafs of great reputation, as Athenæus, Suidas, Laertius and others teftify. His comedies were found after his death in a cheft, where they had been long miffing and much regretted; we have to the amount of fourteen of their titles, and are further informed that he was fo excellent an actor, that it became a proverb of honour to pronounce upon any capital performer, that He played in the file of Nicoftratus. It is with regret I difcover nothing in the few fmall fragments of this eminent author and actor worth tranflating; however, that I may not påfs over his remains without the grateful ceremony of bestowing one fmall tribute to his memory, I have rendered this fhort epigrammatic diftich into our language--

"If this inceffant chattering be your plan, "I would ye were a swallow, not a man!" The talents of the greatest actor at best can furvive him by tradition only, but when Nature to those rare attributes adds the gift of a poetic genius, it gives a double poignancy to our regret, that time should not have left a relique even of these more confiderable than the above.

Of PHILIPPUS the comic poet I have no anecdotes to record, and nothing but the names of three comedies to refer to.

[blocks in formation]

PHOENICIDES.

We are beholden to this poet for a very pleafant narrative made by a lady of eafy virtue, in which fhe defcribes certain of her keepers with a great deal of comic humour, and it is humour of a fort, that has not evaporated by the intervention of twenty centuries; fhe was tired of her trade, and therefore, though the theme be a loose one, the moral of it is good: The lady is in converfation with a man named Pythias, but whether the friend of Damon the Pythagorean, or fome other, does not appear: The noble profeffions of arms, phyfic, and philofophy had taken their turns in her good graces, but for the credit they gained by the account, I think it is pretty equally divided amongst them

So help me, Venus! as I'm fairly fick, "Sick to the foul, my Pythias, of this trade :"No more on't! I'll be no man's mistress, I: "Don't talk to me of Deltiny; I've done with't; "I'll hear no prophecies--for mark me well"No fooner did I buckle to this business,

Than ftrait behold a Man of War affail'd me-"He told me of his battles o'er and o'er, "Shew'd me good stock of fears, but none of cash, No, not a doit--but still he vapour'd much Of what a certain Prince would do, and talk'd "Of this and that commiffion-in the clouds, By which he gull'd me of a twelvemonth's hope, "Liv'd at free coft, and fed me upon love.

« السابقةمتابعة »