Notices of Foreign Works on ORIENTAL LITERATURE... 178 On the Tau, or the CRUX ANSATA. Thoughts on a Revision of the Translation of various passages in the Old Testament, by ARCHBISHOP SECKER, in a series of Letters addressed to the Rev. Mr. PILKINGTON. 188 dunt Variæ Lectiones Car. ERFURDT, et Notæ ined. ADVERSARIA LITERARIA. No. XXI. Pauli Henrici Marron Elegia et Odarium. Pago Sanclodoaldæo, xxx. fere annorum Rusticatione frequentato, valedicit Poëta.- In Suburbanum Montrolianum.-On the Death of Pope Leo IX. On the Death of Leo x.-Osorius and Cicero. -Joannis Bapt. Bolla Iambi in Pantomimam Viganò.- Αδήλου, οἱ δὲ, Τιρβίττου.— Epitaph on CORNELIA ADRI- COMIA, a Dutch Poetess, written by herself.-Epitaph on PASSERAT the Poet, written by himself.-FACIO and LAURENTIUS VALLA.-Ovidii Heroid. Ep. vI. v. 40... 201 THOUGHTS on a Revision of the Translation of Various Pas- sages in the Old Testament, by ARCHBISHOP SECKER, in a series of letters addressed to the Rev. Mr. Pilkington, A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Joseph Warton, chiefly relating to the Composition of Greek Indexes, and the advantage to On the COINCIDENCE between the Belts of the PLANET JUPITER and the Fabulous Bonds of JUPITER the DE- CLASSICAL CRITICISM. On a Passage in the First Book A Letter to the Right Rev. the LORD BISHOP of OD. 1767, on a Character given of Dr. BENTLEY. CAMBRIDGE PRIZE POEM for 1805. sage in the Psalms.-In Funere duorum Principum, Hen- rici Gloustrensis, et Mariæ Aransionensis, Serenissimi Regis CAROLI II. Fratris et Sororis. J. DRYDEN. BIBLIOGRAPHY.-List of Particular Books sold from the Duke of Marlborough's Collection at White Knights, in June, 1819. With prices and purchasers. DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER. Do not bind this XXth Vol. till No. XLI. appears, as the Index to follow this No. will be published with it. The Story of the Trojan Horse, considered as a Proof of the Reality of a Trojan IVar. THE writers who have examined the question, whether the city of A felling of the trees. The works of Fancy must be founded on fact, knowledge, or memory, or they can neither interest nor please. This reasoning will apply to the Iliad and the Eneid; if the persuasion that Troy had no real existence, and therefore that there were no such men as Achilles, Ajax, Hector, Paris, &c. be once universally received; the admirable talents of Homer and Virgil will be no longer appreciated: their works would gradually be esteemed as ingenious romances, to be neglected, though not entirely forgotten. So far from esteeming the Iliad and the Odyssey in this inferior point of view, we ought rather to receive them as a valuable and interesting collection of exact and perfect representations of the earlier manners, customs, and modes of thinking among the first postdiluvian and patriarchal governments. Though we reject all the fabulous parts of the story, and doubt the truth of many possible events recorded, there seems to be such an air of reality in the whole narrative of the Siege of Troy, that it challenges our belief in the existence of the city, and in the certainty that it was besieged, in spite of all the arguments which have been adduced by Mr. Bryant and his admirers. There is such keeping, uniformity, and connexion, that the human mind never could have invented what Homer must be supposed to have done, if the "tale of Troy divine was not founded on fact. Its internal evidence, in short, appears to decide the controversy. Many instances, in which these observations are applicable, could be pointed out; from others I have selected the curious Episode of the Trojan Horse: the coincidences which I shall enumerate will not perhaps appear too fanciful. The Greeks, says the history, were unable to take the city. They pretended to return home, but sailed only to Tenedos, to await the result of a stratagem, by means of which they trusted to capture Troy. They leave an immense statue of a horse on the plain before the town, which contained within its spacious recesses a large body of armed men. On the departure of the Greeks, the Trojans, as Virgil so beautifully describes the scene, open their gates, and fight their battles over again; they mark where Achilles had fought, where the tents of the several nations had been pitched, and the ships drawn up. While many were thus engaged, and others wondered at the immense horse, Sinon is found lurking on the shore. He is requested, after the first insults of the crowd, and when protection had been promised by Priam, to explain the reasons why this immense statue had been left by the Greeks. He replies, after a solemn and suspicious assertion of his veracity, that when Ulysses and Tydides stole the Palladium from the citadel, they had touched the fillets of the Goddess with hands stained |