Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

the Douglas Tragedy, where Lady Margaret and her lover Lord William being pursued by the Douglas and his seven sons:

"O hold your hand, Lord William," she said,
"For your strokes are wondrous sore;
"True Lovers I can get many a one,

"But a Father I can never get more."

XX. The legend of Joseph of Arimathea's staff, now the Glastonbury thorn, is well known. A modern writer has discovered a parallel to it in an olive-tree which grew at Træezen, and was said to have sprung from the club of Hercules. (Ensor's Independent Man, Vol. 1. p.352.) He quotes the tradition from Pausanias, but has omitted the reference (Lib. 11. p. 145. l. 17. seqq. ed. Xylandri). Pausanias expresses somewhat of an heretical. doubt on the subject.

XXI. Mitford, 111. p. 186. " A trireme was in all haste dis→ patched, with no small promises to the crew for arriving in time.” It seems here implied that the rewards in question were promised by the Athenian people; whereas Thucydides ascribes them to the Mitylenean deputies at Athens, anxious for the fate of their countrymen, which depended on the speedy arrival of the trireme at Mitylene.

XXII. The following is a continuation of the parallel passages. 1. Nam ut agri non omnes frugiferi sunt, qui coluntur, falsumque illud Accî,

Proba etsi in segetem sunt deteriorem datæ
Fruges, tamen ipsæ suapte natura enitent :

Sic animi nou omnes culti fructum ferunt. Atque ut in eodem simili verser, ut ager quamvis fertilis sine cultura fructuosus esse non potest, sic sine doctrina animus: ita est utraque res sine altera debilis. Cic. Tusc. Dis. 11. 5. This appears to be the original of Gray's opening simile, in his poetical essay on the alliance of Education and Government. The passage is omitted on account of its length; but it may easily be referred to.

2.

Τυδείδην δ ̓ οὐκ ἂν γνοίης ποτέροισι μετείη, ἠὲ μετὰ Τρώεσσιν ὁμιλέοι, ἢ μετ' ̓Αχαιοῖς· θῦνε γὰρ ἀμπέδιον, ποταμῷ πλήθοντι ἐοικώς, κ. τ. λ. Hom. II. E. 85. There is something like this in one of Livy's battles. "Sed longe acrius Calpurniani equites pugnabant, et prætor ipse ante alios; nam et primus hostem percussit, et ita se immiscuit mediis, ut vix, utrius partis esset, nosci posset." Liv. XXXIX. 31.

3.

ἠεροφοῖτις Εριννύς. Hom. Il. Τ. 87. Does this epithet answer to the scripture expression of "the pestilence that walketh in darkness?"

4.

κου ποτ ̓ Οἰδίπουν ἐρεῖς

ἀχρεῖον οἰκητῆρα δέξασθαι τόπων

τῶν ἐνθάδ'·

Soph. (Ed. Col. 626.

This passage was perhaps in Virgil's mind when he wrote, in the address of the Trojans to Latinus:

5.

Non erimus regno indecores; nec vestra feretur
Fama levis, tantive abolescet gratia facti ;

Nec Trojam Ausonios gremio excepisse pigebit.
Æn. vii. 231.

εἰ γὰρ δῆτα τἀγγενῆ φύσει

ἄκοσμα θρέψω, κάρτα τοὺς ἔξω γένους. Soph. Ant. 659. Thus St. Paul, in his enumeration of the requisites for a bishop, 1 Tim. 111. 4, 5.—τοῦ ἰδίου οἴκου καλῶς προϊστάμενον, τέκνα ἔχοντα ἐν ὑποταγῇ μετὰ πάσης σεμνότητος· εἰ δέ τις τοῦ ἰδίου οἴκου προστῆναι οὐκ οἶδε, πῶς ἐκκλησίας Θεοῦ ἐπιμελήσεται ;

6. “ Hæc Romana esse, non versutiarum Punicarum, neque calliditatis Græcæ; apud quos fallere hostem quam vi superare gloriosius fuerit." Liv. XLII. 47. He seems to allude to the well-known passage of Thucydides, 111. 82. where that writer says, ἐν δὲ τῷ παρατυχόντι ὁ φθάσας θαρσῆσαι, εἰ ἴδοι ἄφρακτον, ἥδιον διὰ τὴν πίστιν ἐτιμωρεῖτο, ἢ ἀπὸ τοῦ προφανοῦς. καὶ τό τε ἀσφαλὲς ἐλογίζετο, καὶ ὅτι, ἀπάτῃ περιγενόμενος, ξυνέσεως ἀγώνισμα προσελάμβανε. There is something like this in Dryden's Medal, in the description of a certain eminent character, who, when raised to a situation which placed him above the common temptations to fraud,

7.

had a grudging still to be a knave;

At least as little honest as he could,

And, like white witches, mischievously good.
Postquam omnis res mea Japam

Ad medium fracta est, aliena negotia curo,
Excussus propriis.

Young has something like this:

Hor. Lib. 11. Sat. 3. 1. 18.

Poor Chremes can't conduct his own estate,
And thence has undertaken Europe's fate.

Sat. iv.

8. In Thucydides's description of the embarkation of the Athenians for Sicily, speaking of the crowds assembled on the shore, he says: καὶ ἐν τῷ παρόντι καιρῷ, ὡς ἤδη ἔμελλον, μετὰ κινδύνων ἀλλήλους ἀπολιπεῖν, μᾶλλον αὐτοὺς ἐσῄει τὰ δεινὰ, ἢ ὅτε ἐψηφίζοντο

πλεῖν. νι. 19.

Thus Virgil, An. viii. 554:

Fama volat, parvam subito delata per urbem,
Ocius ire equites Tyrrheni ad limina regis.
Vota metu duplicant matres, propiusque periclo
It timor, et major Martis jam apparet imago.

9. Lucian, describing a female toilet, says-Twv yeɣaμηxóτwv πλοῦτον εἰς ταύτην τὴν χαίτην sc.) ἀναλίσκουσιν (αἱ γυναῖκες,) ὅλην ̓Αραβίαν σχέδον ἐκ τῶν τρίχων ἀποπνέουσαι. Lucian. Έρωτες, ΧΙ. Tom. v. p. 303, Bip. This seems to have been, mediately or immediately, the origin of Pope's line in his well-known description: And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.

10. A Theban in Statius, speaking of the calamities which were likely to ensue to the state from the rivalship of the two brother princes, says:

Nos vilis in omnes

Promta manus casus, domino cuicunque parati :
Qualiter hinc gelidus Boreas, hinc nubifer Eurus
Vela trahunt, nutat media fortuna carinæ.

Stat. Theb. I. 191.

In a passage quoted from Lord Brooke by Southey, in the notes to his "Pilgrimage to Waterloo," p. 227, the following lines

occur:

And as when winds among themselves do jar,

Seas there are tost, and wave with wave must fight;
So when power's restless humors bring forth war,
There people bear the faults and wounds of might:
The error and diseases of the head

Descending still until the limbs be dead.

Treatise of Warres, St. xx.

11. Apollo, in his description of the Furies, Esch. Eumen. 71, says:

κακῶν δ ̓ ἕκατι κἀγένοντ

Thus Milton calls Hell,

A universe of evil, which the Lord
Created evil, for evil only good.

12. σμύρνης ἱδρῶτα. Eur. Ion. 1175.

Tardaque sudanti prorepunt balsama ligno.

Claud. de Nupt. Hon. et Mar. 96. 13." As in landscape, stormy skies, and rugged mountains, and pathless rocks, and wasteful torrents, every work of nature rude, and every work of man in ruin, most engage the notice of the painter, and offer the readiest hold for the touches of his art; so in the political world, war, and sedition, and revolution, destruction of armies, massacre of citizens, and wreck of governments, force themselves upon the attention of the annalist, and are carefully reported to posterity; while the growth of commerce, and arts, and science, all that gives splendor to empire, elegance to society, and livelihood to millions, like the extended capital and the boundless champain, illumined by the sun's mid-day glare, pleases, dazzles,

bewilders, offers a maze of delightful objects, charms rather than fixes the attention, and, giving no prominences, no contrast, no strongly charactered parts, leaves the writer, as the painter, unable to choose out of an expanse and a variety, whose magnificent whole is far too great for the limited stretch of literary or picturesque design." Mitford, Hist. of Greece, Vol. vi. p. 396, 7. Nor are those sovereigns blessings to the age,

14.

Whose deeds are sung, whose actions grace the stage.
A peaceful river, whose soft current feeds
The constant verdure of a thousand meads,
Whose shaded banks afford a safe retreat
From winter's blasts, and summer's sultry heat,
From whose pure wave the thirsty peasant drains
Those tides of health that flow within his veins,
Passes unnotic'd; while the torrent strong,
Which bears the shepherds and their flocks along,
Arm'd with the vengeance of the angry skies,
Is view'd with admiration and surprise;
Employs the painter's hand, the poet's quill,
And rises to renown by doing ill.

Wilkie's Poems.

πλευραῖσι γὰρ προσμαχθὲν ἐκ μὲν ἐσχάτας
βέβρωκε σάρκας, πλεύμονός τ ̓ ἀςτηρίας
ῥοφεῖ ξυνοικοῦν, ἐκ δὲ χλωρὸν αἷμά μου
πέπωκεν ἤδη.

Soph. Trach. 1055.

the fever

Blair's Grave.

Shoots like a burning arrow 'cross his bowels,

And drinks his marrow up.

For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit. Job v1. 4.

15.

16.

τῇ ῥα παραδραμέτην, ὁ δ ̓ ὄπισθε διώκων,...
καρπαλίμως· ἐπεὶ οὐχ ἱερήϊον, οὐδὲ βοείην
ἀρνύσθην, ἅ τε ποσσὶν ἀέθλια γίνεται ἀνδρῶν,
ἀλλὰ περὶ ψυχῆς θέον"Εκτορος ἱπποδάμοιο.

Hom. I. X. 157.

The wounded hind thou track'st not now,
Pursuest not maid through greenwood bough,
Nor pliest thou now thy flying pace
With rivals in the mountain race:
But danger, death, and warrior deed,

Are in thy course-speed, Malise, speed!

Scott's Lady of the Lake, Canto 111.
Was there cause for this?

For guilt without temptation, calm cool villany,
Deliberate murder, unimpassion'd lust....

Brooke's Gustavus Vasa.

17.

Leur rage

S'irrite sans obstacle, égorge sans colère,

Et, s'il n'est teint de sang, l'or ne sauroit leur plaire.
De Lille, Malheur et Pitié, Chant 11.
redit agricolis labor actus in orbem,
Atque in se sua per vestigia vertitur annus.

Virg. Georg. 11. 401.

So manifold, all pleasing in their kind,

All healthful, are th' employs of rural life,
Reiterated as the wheel of time

Runs round; still ending, and beginning still.

18. Trojani belli scriptorem

Cowper's Task, Book 11.

Qui, quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non,
Plenius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore dixit.

Hor. Lib. 1. Ep. 2. l. 1.

Thus Milton speaks of "our sage serious Spenser, whom I dare to be known to think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas." CECILIUS METELLUS.

LIFE OF HEYNE.

PART II. [Continued from No. XXXVII. p. 168.] HEYNE was not the man, upon whom such representations were thrown away. He was too much attached to his duties, and had too great a sense of the useful career, in which he was engaged at Gottingen, to think without regret of quitting it. It needed, therefore, but little persuasion to determine him against the acceptance of the Berlin proposals; though the compensation, which the Hanoverian government could make him, in a pecuniary point of view, was in no proportion to the advantages which he consented to renounce. Indeed, all he obtained was a small annuity for his wife, which she was to enjoy in case of his death. It may not be uninteresting to transcribe a passage from the minister's letter, to show the high opinion, which he entertained of Heyne's merits: "You perhaps," he says, "suppose it feasible to replace you by some other able man: but such a man I do not know, nor will you yourself be able to point him out to me." A copy of Heyne's answer to the minister has likewise been preserved, in which, among other things, are these expressions: "I owe your Excellency every thing, my fortune, my comfort, and even the very opportunity of rendering my abilities, such as they are, useful to the world; even that species of reputation, which has occasioned the knowledge of me in other quarters. The fame of Gottingen is an object so near my heart, that while it is thought that my humble exertions can VOL. XX. Cl. Jl. NO. XXXIX.

B

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »