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CORRESPONDENCE
OF THE LATE
GILBERT WAKEFIELD, B. A.
WITH THE LATE
RIGHT HONOURABLE
CHARLES JAMES FOX.
Correspondence
OF THE LATE
GILBERT WAKEFIELD, B. A.
WITH THE LATE
RIGHT HONOURABLE
CHARLES JAMES FOX,
IN THE YEARS 1796.... 1801,
CHIEFLY, ON
SUBJECTS OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE.
LONDON;
Printed for
T. CADELL & W. DAVIES, IN THE STRAND:
SOLD ALSO BY W. PLACKWOOD, EDINBURGH;
AND M. KEENE, DUBLIN.
MDCCC XIII,
R. Watts, Printer, Broxbourne,
828
WILSH
A35
1813
اور اس بیماری دیگر
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
LORD HOLLAND,
MY LORD,
I take the liberty of inscribing to your
Lordship this series of Letters, as well on
account of your relationship to the emi-
nent and excellent person who sustains a
part in the Correspondence, as for the
purpose of acknowledging your liberality
in enabling Mr. WAKEFIELD's representa-
tives to lay the Letters before the Public.
Although it is manifest, from the easy,
unlaboured style of Mr. Fox, in this Cor-
respondence, that he wrote without preme-
ditation, merely as the occasion prompted,
I cannot suppose that any of the friends to
his memory will, for that reason, object to
its appearance from the press; but will
vi )
(
rather conceive, that the effusions of such
a man have an additional value from that
circumstance. That such is your Lordship’s
opinion, I conclude from your concurrence
in the design; and, with sentiments of
gratitude and sincere respect, I beg leave
to subscribe myself,
MY LORD,
Your Lordship’s most obedient
and obliged servant,
The Editor.
ADVERTISEMENT.
A NUMBER of Letters from the late Mr.
Fox were left among Mr. Wakefield's
Papers, after his death; and have remained
for some years at the house of his Widow,
at Hackney. As they appeared to be writ-
ten almost entirely on subjects of Classical
Literature, it was thought, that if Mr.
Wakefield's share of the Correspondence
could be recovered, the whole might form
an interesting miscellany to Scholars. For-
tunately, Mr. WAKEFIELD's Letters had been
carefully preserved; and, on application to
Lord HOLLAND, they were given up, in the
most obliging manner, by this Nobleman,
as a favour which he wished to confer on
Mr. WAKEFIELD's family.
ADVERTISEMENT.
The high admiration which Mr. WAKE-
FIELD felt for the character of the illus-
trious Statesman, to whom he dedicated
his beautiful edition of Lucretius, appears
throughout this Correspondence: and the
Friends of Mr. WAKEFIELD will feel no
small gratification in finding, that the sen-
timents of esteem and respect were reci-
procal.
.
London, June 1813,
L ET TERS,
c. &c.
LETTER I.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
South Street, Dec. 17, 1796.
I
Received, a few days ago, your
obliging letter, together with the very
beautiful book which accompanied it. The
dedication of such an edition of such an
author is highly gratifying to me; and to
be mentioned in such a manner, by a person
so thoroughly attached to the principles of
liberty and humanity, as you, Sir, are known
to be, is peculiarly flattering to me.
I am, with great regard,
Sir,
Your obedient, humble servant,
C. J. Fox.
B
2
LETTER II.
FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, Monday.
I RECEIVED, on Saturday, the second
volume of Lucretius, together with a
pamphlet of yours upon Porson's Hecuba,
for which I beg leave to return you my
thanks. I had received, some time since,
your letter, announcing to me the present
of the Lucretius ; but delayed answering it
till I got the book, which my servant had
not then an opportunity of sending me,
lest there might be some mistake, from
your mentioning Park Street, instead of
South Street, for my residence.
I have read with great pleasure your
observations upon the Hecuba; but not
having Euripides here, there are many
points upon which I cannot form a judg-
ment. One thing near the beginning has
very much puzzled me: I mean the diffi-
culty which you suppose some persons
3
would find in making a verse of
φιλιππον λαον ευθυνων ΔΟΡΙ, ,
which seems to me to be, supposing it to
be part of an Iambic, perfectly regular ;
though by the word AOPI being put in
capitals, I must suppose that there lies the
irregularity. You then quote a verse of
Lucretius, which you call “ consimilis,” in
which there is an evident irregularity from
the first syllable in "remota,” which is
usually short, being long.
Now I am writing on a subject of this
sort, may I ask the favour of you, who I know
have given your attention to Moschus and
Bion, to explain three passages to me, which
I do not understand ?
The first is in the Europa, v. 123, 124 :
Οφρα κε νηων, κ.τ.λ.-
The second is in the Megara, v. 70, 71:
επιγνωμων δε τοι ειμι
Ar yandav, %.7.2.-
no ι subscript to ασχαλααν.
The third is in Bion's Adonis, the end of y. 74,
ποθει και στυγνον Αδωνιν. .
1
)
4
-
9
I see
I have no other edition of Moschus and
Bion here except Stephens's, in his Greek
Poets, without a version and with few notes;
but in regard to the first passage,
Casaubon alters it to opga pen wnu, whose
annotations upon the Europa I have in
Reiske's Theocritus. This makes it intel-
ligible, but is a violent alteration.
I feel it to be unpardonable in me to
take advantage of your civility in sending
me your books, to give you all this trouble;
but I could not refuse myself so fair an
opportunity of getting my doubts upon these
passages cleared.
Before I conclude, give me leave to sug-
gest a doubt, whether, in the 38th page of
your Diatribe, it should not be « socios,"
instead of “ socii;” or, if “ socii” is what
you approve, whether there should not be a
“sint,” to prevent harshness of construction?
I am, with great regard,
Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
C. J. Fox.
r
5
LETTER III.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Hackney, Aug. 29, 1797.
f
I AM highly gratified by your
favourable acceptance
of my
Lucretius and
Diatribe. I must beg of you to correct an
oversight or two in the latter. At p. 18,
ver. 669 of the Hecuba should not have
been referred to; and the X', in p. 24, line 7,
should be transferred to the beginning of
the line.
That what I have advanced, in p. 5,
should puzzle you, I must ascribe to an
indistinctness in my representation of the
point in discussion. What I mean is, that
the final , should never be expressed, but
where a vowel follows; or, in other words,
that this appendage was never employed
as a device to lengthen a short syllable,
but merely to prevent the harshness of an
open vowel. Now, upon this principle,
6
the difficulty with the generality of readers
would be the proper enunciation of such
verses as that specified by me at the place.
This difficulty, I maintain, will be none to
those accustomed to pronounce Iambics
with a suitable tone; by which I under-
stand a tone similar to that with which all
scholars, I believe, utter Anacreontics; and
which certainly is necessary to all other
verses, if we wish to distinguish them from
prose:
Ουδ' ω -λεσε με Ζευς
as if necepi': and dogs as if döpsi, with all
the emphasis of a long syllable. In short,
however, these niceties are scarcely to be
conveyed intelligibly but by conversation,
where the modes of education have been
different, or novelties have been suggested
by matured study. Certainly the common
mode of reading, with a strange mixture of
accent and quantity,
Arma vírumque cano
as long as if it were vires, can never be
7
vindicated, and is well ridiculed through
the following verses by a late writer:
Malo me Galatea petit
Tu ne cede malis, sed contra
The
passages, which you cite from Bion
and Moschus, are considered, whether suc-
cessfully or not, in my edition, which you
will honour me by accepting; and I will
carry a copy of it to your house, when I
go to town on Thursday. Arxandav is the
Dor. or Æol. form of the infinitive mode
for ao xanoceiv, not contracted: otherwise it
had been ασχαλαν. .
Certainly socios, in p. 38 of the Diatribe,
would be better,
Sir! your apology for taking up my
time by these inquiries might well have
been spared: occupied as I am, I think it
no interruption, but an exquisite pleasure,
to comply with any wishes of Mr. Fox :
nor could I reap a greater gratification from
my studies, than the opportunity of discus-
sing some of these topics in conversation
with you; as it is possible that my elabo-
8
rate inquiries for some years past might
occasionally strike out some new ideas on
a subject which is still but imperfectly
understood by the best scholars ;--an asser-
tion, which, I believe, my Notes on Lucre-
tius will occasionally confirm.
I am, Sir,
With every sentiment of respect,
Your obedient servant,
Gilbert WAKEFIELD.
LETTER IV.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
St. Anne's Hill, Friday.
SIR,
I RECEIVED yesterday your very
obliging letter, for which I return you
many thanks, as well as for the Bion and
Moschus, which I will tell my servant to
take an early opportunity of sending down
to me,
9
My puzzle arose from my supposing
that, if you meant to refer only to the
short syllable at the end of the verse, you
would rather have asked, “ How shall we
pronounce verses that end with a short
vowel?” of which there are so many, than
have quoted one particular verse out of
thousands; but I now perfectly understand
you, though, I own, I do not think your
reasoning quite conclusive. I conceive
the reason for adding the final , is not for
the sake of pronunciation, which, in dead
languages, is, and always must be, a matter
of great uncertainty, but in order to pre-
serve the rules of Prosody which appear
generally to prevail among the Greek Poets.
I know that, in Homer, and in other Poets
who write Hexameters, it is not very un-
usual to see a short vowel become long by
a particular position, though followed by a
single consonant, and that consonant a
mute; and sometimes even by an aspirated
vowel, as Qine éxvgs, and other instances.
But, as far as my limited and uncertain
10
!
recollection goes, (very limited and uncer-
tain indeed, since, except four tragedies of
Sophocles last winter, I have not looked
into the Greek Tragedians for twenty years
and upwards) I do not think that, in
Iambic poetry, any short vowels, excepting
those only where the final » is used, are ever
put in the place of a long syllable, unless
followed by a g, or at least some liquid. Now,
if this be true, and if those short vowels only,
to which the final , is occasionally added, do
sometimes appear in such places, one cannot
help suspecting that the final y may in such
cases have been used to lengthen the sylla-
ble, as in other cases it is (as we all agree)
used to prevent the hiatus. Perhaps, in
this inclination of my opinion, I may be
warped by the prejudice of an Eton educa-
tion; and, not having ever looked into any old
Greek manuscripts, I do not know how far
it is countenanced by any of them. I con-
fess, however, that I should not admit the
short vowels at the end, whether of Hexa-
meters or Iambics, to be cases in point;
1
11
because it seems to be one of the most uni-
versal of those rules to which I before alluded,
and which seem to me to prevail among the
ancient Poets, that the last syllable of a
verse may be always long or short, as is
most convenient.
I am very sorry more encouragement
has not been given to your Lucretius; but
I am willing to flatter myself that it is
owing to many people not choosing to buy
part of a work till the whole is completed.
Both the Latin and Greek elegiac verses, in
the beginning of the second volume, have
given me great satisfaction ; but I should
fear the inferior rank which you give to our
own Country will not generally please; and
certainly, in point of classical studies, or
poetry, to which the mention of Apollo
naturally carries the mind, we have no
reason to place the French above us.
I am with great regard,
Sir,
Your obedient servant,
C. J. Fox.
12
-
LETTER V.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Hackney, Sept. 2, 1797.
Excuse this additional trouble,
which a desire to explain one point induces
me to give you; and to convey a request,
that
you
will favour me by accepting, with
the Bion and Moschus, two or three other
books which I have directed my bookseller
to send; and which may possibly amuse
you, when nothing more interesting shall
be at hand.
The final syllable of a verse is always
long, whatever its real quantity, in conse-
quence both of the pause and tone of voice,
which are those of a long syllable; other-
wise the verse would no more appear,
and
must be wholly vitiated by the reader, at-
tentive only to the quantity of the syllable.
That the old MSS. and first editors, who
followed their MSS. acknowledge no final v,
13
in the cases alluded to, is most certain :
some later editors have partly seen, what I
apprehend to be the truth in this respect;
particularly Brunck and Musgrave; but,
not discerning the true principle of the fact,
fluctuate between the omission and inser-
tion, in their practice, with great capri-
ciousness. Mr. R. P. Knight, who is a
profound and accurate Greek scholar, as-
sented immediately to my notion, when I
once proposed it to him in a casual conver-
sation at the bookseller's: but I have found
no other person who entered so readily into
my conceptions. Indeed, it is my lot to
enjoy the conversation of very few scholars,
on account of the political complexion, and,
let me add, theological complexion, too, of
the times :
Foenum habet in corņu : longe fuge!
Will you give me leave, Sir, to say, that
you scarcely appear well founded in your
construction of my Greek verses in the
Preface? I think the context and the lan-
guage alike prove, that my preference of
7
14
the French is merely in a political, not in
their literary, character ? And what can
be more deeply sunk in ignominy than we
are as a nation, in that view, at the present
moment
Will you excuse me, also, in recommend-
ing Lucretius to your perusal? I think
antiquity has nothing comparable to his
lib.iii. from ver. 842 to the end of the book:
and the whole of his fifth book, both as a
philosophical and poetical effort, is an ad-
mirable composition; not to mention any
other portions of his poem.
I am, Sir,
With the highest sentiments of esteem
and respect,
Your obliged servant,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
15
LETTER VI.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, Wednesday.
I RETURN you many thanks for
your letter of the 2d instant; and shall
accept with great pleasure the books
you
propose sending to me.
I always understood the final syllable
of a verse exactly as you do; but, for the
purpose of my argument, it was necessary
to mention the effect only, and not the
cause, of the rule. Either your authority,
or Mr. Knight's, much more both united,
would be quite sufficient to convince me,
upon a question relative to the Greek lan-
guage.
I only stated to you some argu-
ments which occurred to me on the other
side of the question, which, however, must
lose all their weight, if the authority of
the old manuscripts is any thing like so
universally against them as you seem to
16
think. I see Stephens is inconsistent; but I
think he oftener omits than inserts the final ),
which I had never observed till you started
the subject.
I had no doubt but political wisdom
and knowledge were what you meant in
your epigram ; but I cannot help thinking
that “Εωσφορος and Hελιος lead the mind a
little to poetry, or, at least, to knowledge
in general; and that Γαι Αυσονις and Aθηναι
do not contribute to confine the sense to
politics: in regard to which, I agree with
you in thinking that no nation ever was
sunk in more deep ignorance than we seem
to be at present; for we are not only in
the dark, but have a kind of horror of the
light.
I have deferred reading Lucretius regu-
larly through again, till your edition is
completed; but he is a poet with whom
I am pretty well acquainted, and whom
I have always admired to the greatest de-
gree.
The end of the third book is per-
fectly in my memory, and deserves all you
17
say of it. I do not at present recollect the
fifth quite so well.
I am going, in a few days, into Norfolk,
for some weeks; and I shall come back by
London, where I will call for the books
which
you are so good as to intend sending
me.
I am, with great regard,
Sir,
Your obedient servant,
C. J. Fox.
LETTER VII.
FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, Tuesday, Jan. 30, 1798.
1
I HAVE received the third volume
of your magnificent and beautiful Lucre-
tius, for which I take the earliest oppor-
tunity of returning you my thanks. I'
cannot help flattering myself that, now the
work is complete, it will be far more pa-
tronized than it has hitherto been: but it
18
must be allowed, that these times are not
favourable to expensive purchases of any
kind; and I fear, also, that we may add,
that the political opinions we profess are
far from being a recommendation to ge-
neral favour, among those, at least, in whose
power it is to patronize a work like yours.
I am at present rather engaged in read-
ing Greek; as it is my wish to recover, at
least, if not to improve, my former acquaint-
ance (which was but slight) with that lan-
guage: but it will not be long before I
enter regularly upon your Lucretius; and
when I do, if I should find any difficul-
ties which your Notes do not smooth, I
shall take the liberty of troubling you for
further information; presuming upon the
obliging manner in which you satisfied
some doubts of mine upon a former oc-
casion.
I am, with great regard,
Sir,
Your obedient servant,
C. J. Fox.
19
[A Letter of Mr. WAKEFIELD's, to which the following is an Answer,
appears to be wanting.]
L ETT ER VIII.
FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, Feb. 2, 1798.
It is an instance of my forget-
fulness, but I really thought I had ac-
knowledged the receipt of the publications
which
you were so good as to send me.
Excepting the Pope, which I have not yet
looked into, I read the rest with great
pleasure ; and quite agree with you, that
Bryant has made no case at all upon the
subject of the Trojan war. I cannot re-
fuse myself taking this opportunity of ask-
ing your opinion relative to the 24th Iliad,
whether or not it is Homer's? If it is, I
think the passage about Paris and the God-
desses must be an interpolation; and if it
is not, by denying Homer the glory of
Priam's expedition from Troy, and inter-
view with Achilles, we take from him the
20
most shining passages, perhaps, in all his
works.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient humble servant,
C. J. Fox.
P. S. Though I have not begun to read
Lucretius regularly, yet I have dipped in
it sufficiently to have no apprehension of
quoting the line of Phædrus. I think the
elegiac verses to the poet are very classical
and elegant indeed ; and, you know, we
Etonians hold ourselves (I do not know
whether or not others agree with us) of
some authority, in matters of this sort.
21
LETTER IX.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
[The Note or Introduction to the following Observations, in answer to
Mr. Fox's inquiry respecting the 24th Iliad, is supposed to have been
mislaid.]
Ver. 1. The first syllable in Auto is made
long, in opposition to the practice of Homer
in about a dozen places; and without an-
other instance in the two poems. Homer
too, unless two distinct parties are spoken
of, uses in these cases ÉMOOTOS* and so in-
deed other good writers, in both languages:
and on this I have touched somewhere in
Lucretius. So that the full construction
is : λαοι εσκ. ιεναι επι νηας, έκαστος (επι την ιδιαν
una). There is, indeed, one or two instances
of this deviation elsewhere, all tending to
confirm my general hypothesis, which I
shall hereafter mention. The Scholiast in
Villoison, at ver. 6, mentions, that Ari-
22
stophanes, and others, thought part of this
introduction spurious; viz. verses 6, 7, 8, 9;
and they may be well spared.
Ver. 14. &Teo Evževev is an illegitimate con-
struction. We might read Sevžao nev" but
such an error is not easily accounted for,
in so plain a case, from transcribers.
Ver. 15. The X is superfluous and im-
pertinent; as Schol. Villois. also observes.
Ver. 28. Macrobius, Saturn. V. 16, be-
yond the middle, says, that Homer never
mentions the Judgment of Paris. The per-
fect acquaintance of the old Grammarians
with Homer's works indubitably evinces
either the spuriousness of this passage, or
an abjudication of this book from Homer's
writings. The antient critics discarded
verr. 20, 21. and from ver. 23–30 inclusive:
see Villoison's Scholiast.
Ver. 44. This verse seems fabricated for
the next, which has no pertinency here,
and is transferred from Hesiod. Opp. et Dd.
316.
Ver. 60. No similar instance, perhaps,
23
>
in the poem, to the lengthening of nou so
situated; or to that of EA in mord, ver. 7.
Verr. 71, 72, 73, were rejected by some
antient critics.
Ver. 79. MEIAANI. He uses this word and
its relatives, perhaps, two hundred times;
but never thus changes the first syllable.
Ver. 85, 86. Deemed spurious by the
Antients.
Ver. 130, 1, 2, were rejected by old
critics, for divers weighty and grave
reasons.
Ver. 241. OYNEXO'—a word no where
else found; as ežeriny, ver. 235, once more
only, in the Odyssey, though of a significa-
tion that might be expected to produce a
more frequent usage. Karndoves too, v. 253,
is draž neyouevov. and three or four others.
Ver. 293. gõ only occurs in Il. E. 427.
which, in such a word of perpetual demand,
is very singular.
Ver. 307. It is impossible that Homer,
or a contemporary using the same lan-
guage, could employ as a dactyl the three
24
first syllables of sigavidw. The word idw,
and all its compounds, had, in that age, an-
other letter prefixed to it—the Æolic di-
gamma, or Ionic Vau, which you please:
by the latter name it still keeps its station
in the Hebrew alphabet, and others, as the
sixth in order; and its figure, a double
Gamma, F, according to the former desig-
nation, in the Latin alphabet. Homer
therefore could never be supposed to vio-
late, in one instance, a propriety, which he
had sacredly observed in 999, and make
EISAV Fiowy stand in a heroic verse. As the
Æolians and Dorians, who spoke kindred
dialects, are known to have been the first
Græcian colonists in Italy, hence it is, that
the Latin language is mere Æolian Greek
engrafted on their indigenous tongue. On
this account, the loss of Ennius, and the
first Latin Poets, is more to be regretted,
perhaps, than that of any other writers;
because of the light they would have thrown
on the Greek and Latin languages. Hence
dew, Fideo, i. e. video; ETOS, vetus; ituhos,
1
1
25
vitulus; &vtegov, ventrem; so yw, voco; s1w,
volvo; and an infinity of others. The
Æolians also, wherever two vowels came
together, inserted the digamma: hence wov,
ovum; audii vel audivi, &c.; dia, diva; ozatos,
scavus; veos, novus; vous, navis, &c. Hence,
by the cominon substitution of an s for the
aspirate, as in , sex; ÉTTO, septem, and inn,
silva; raw, pavo; Boos, bovis; and in an in-
finity of others. EravFidwv, therefore, is the
word either of another age, or another pro-
vince. This is a curious and copious sub-
ject; and furnishes the true medium of
correcting, adjusting, and discerning, Ho-
mer's poetry, from the clearest analogy and
indisputable premises. No verse in Homer
is genuine where a consonant precedes
STOS, EITW, avaš, dw, and many other words,
which began with a digamma. A single
page of any edition will shew how mise-
rably incorrect we read him. If we had
not - fallen on such evil times and evil
tongues,” I should have exerted myself to
give editions of all the Greek Poets, from
26
very ample materials now collected, and of
the old Lexicographers: but-
aliis post me memoranda relinquo.
Ver. 320. Two words with digammas;
one right measure, oi de Fidoutes, i.e. videntes;
the other wrong, úmēq Fartes. (See verr.327;
701.) From Faotu, a city, I suppose, came
vastus; on account of the size of such places,
and the large collection of men. Hence
Virgil receives illustration, Æn. V. 119.
Ingentemque Gyas ingenti mole Chimæram,
Urbis opus
Ver. 325. Terpanvahov.
No similar in-
stance, I believe, of a vowel shortened
before those consonants in Homer; by far
more chaste in this respect than succeeding
Poets.
Ver. 337. og Taç Fiòn. False quantity:
amphimacer for a dactyl: see neighbouring
verr. 332, 352, 366. to go no further.
Ver. 354. Peadeos vož Fegya. Bad measure
again: ver. 213, and others, are right in
this respect. Strong presumptions of more
than one finger in this pie.
27
Ver. 449. minocer Favouri: unquestionably
wrong; as avaž is universally allowed to
have the digamma in Homer's time. Hence
Phoenix, Corvizosis, puniceus, a royal colour ;
purpura regum, purpurei tyranni, regali
ostro; Virgil, and Horace, with all others.
The error is repeated in ver. 452.
There
are numerous faults of this kind in the
common editions ; but they may be cor-
rected by the omission of the paragogic
as verr. 238, 555,646, 733, and others.
But, to omit a more minute investigation
of these niceties, let me give you, in few
words, an outline of my theory respecting
Homer.
What is so well known with respect to
every malefactor tied up at Newgate; (most
detestable, flagitious practice !) his “ birth,
parentage, and education ; life, character,
and behaviour;” are all utterly unknown of
Homer? We are at liberty, therefore, to
.frame any hypothesis for the solution of the
problem concerning his poems, adequate
to that effect, without danger of contrave-
1
28
ning authentic and established history. Now
ομηρος is an old Greek word for τυφλος : see
Hesych. and Lycophr. ver. 422. I take Ho-
merus, then, to have originated in the peculi-
arity of a certain class of men (i.e. blindness),
and not in that of an individual. That bards
were usually blind, is not only probable,
from the account of Demodocus in the
Odyssey, but from the nature of things.
The memory of blind men, because of a
less distraction of their senses by external
objects, is peculiarly tenacious; and such
people had no means of obtaining a liveli-
hood but by this occupation. All this is
exemplified in fidlers, &c. at this day. Now
the Trojan war (the first united achievement
of the Greeks) would of course become a
favourite theme with this class of men, who
are known to have been very numerous.
Detached portions of this event, such as
the exploits of Diomed, of Agamemnon,
the Night Expedition, the Death of Hector,
his redemption, &c. would be separately
composed and sung, as fitted, by their
29
lengths, for the entertainment of a company
at one time: and we find, in fact, that
the parts of these poems are now distin-
guished, by scholiasts, grammarians, and all
such writers, by these names, and not by
books. These songs, bearing date demon-
strably before the use of alphabetic cha-
racters in Greece, and when the dialect of
the civilized parts of Asia (Ionia and Æolia)
was uniform, could never be traced to their
respective authors ; and, in reality, we find
from Herodotus, the first Greek historian,
that no more was known of this Homer, nor
so much, in his days (2, 3, 4, or 500 years
after the event), as in our own. These songs
of blind men were collected and put toge-
ther by some skilful men (at the direction
of Pisistratus, or some other person), and
woven, by interpolations, connecting-verses,
and divers modifications, into a whole.
Hence ραψωδια. . Here we see a reason for
so many repetitions: as every detached part,
to be sung at an entertainment, required
a head and tail piece, as necessary for an
30
intelligible whole: and hence we observe a
reason for those unaccountable anomalies
of measure, and the neglect of the Æolic
digamma, from an ignorance of its power in
those later times, whether from new'inser-
tions, or from alterations in the transmitted
pieces, to effect regularity and consecution.
This accounts also for the glaring disparity
in some of the pieces : for nothing can be
more exquisite than what you so justly ad-
mire, the interview of Priam and Achilles ;
and nothing more contemptible than the
whole detail of the death of Hector, and
the reconciliation of Agamemnon and Achil-
les. You are expecting a noble exhibition
of generosity and magnanimity on both
sides, and you are put off with a miserable
tedious ditty about Atè.
It is probable, from various particulars,
that, perhaps, as good a poem, if the op-
portunity had not been lost (and the
preser-
vation of the Iliad and Odyssey, under all
circumstances, is nearly miraculous), might
have been transmitted on the subject of two
31
other events, which equally engaged the no-
tice of the early Greeks,—the Theban war,
and the Argonautic expedition. But we
have no remains of these exploits, but in
the Tragic writers, the spurious Orpheus,
and the Roman Epic writers, except the
entire
poem of Apollonius Rhodius on the
latter subject.
32
LETTER X.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, Feb. 16, 1798.
I should have been exceedingly
sorry, if, in all the circumstances you men-
tion, you had given yourself the trouble of
writing me your thoughts upon Homer's
poetry; indeed, in no circumstances, should
I have been indiscreet enough to make a
request so exorbitant: in the present, I
should be concerned if you were to think
of attending even to my limited question
respecting the authenticity of the 24th
Iliad, or to any thing but your own bu-
siness.
I am sorry your work is to be prose-
cuted; because though I have no doubt
of a prosecution failing, yet I fear it
may be very troublesome to you. If,
either by advice or otherwise, I can be of
any service to you, it will make me very
33
I sup-
1
happy; and I beg you to make no scruple
about applying to me: but I do not foresee
that I can, in any shape, be of any use,
unless it should be in pressing others, whom
you may think fit to consult, to give every
degree of attention to your cause.
pose there can be little or no difficulty in
removing, as you wish it, the difficulty
from the Publisher to yourself; for to pro-
secute a Printer, who is willing to give up
his Author, would be a very unusual, and
certainly a very odious, measure.
I have looked at the three passages you
mention, and am much pleased with them :
I think “ curalium,” in particular, a very
happy conjecture; for neither “ cæruleum”
nor “ beryllum” can, I think, be right;
and there certainly is a tinge of red in the
necks of some of the dove species. After
all, the Latin words for colours are very
puzzling: for, not to mention “ purpura,"
which is evidently applied to three different
colours at least-scarlet, porphyry, and
what we call purple, that is, amethyst,
D
34
وو
and possibly to many others—the chapter
of Aulus Gellius to which you refer has
always appeared to me to create many
more difficulties than it removes; and most
especially that passage which you quote,
“ virides equos.” I can conceive that a
Poet might call a horse" viridis,” though
I should think the term rather forced ; but
Aulus Gellius says, that Virgil gives the ap-
pellation of “glauci” rather than “ cærulei”
to the virides equos, and consequently uses
virides, not as if it were a poetical or figura-
tive
way of describing a certain colour of
horses, but as if it were the usual and most
generally intelligible term. Now, what
colour usual to horses could be called viridis
is difficult to conceive; and the more so,
because there are no other Latin and Eng-
lish words for colours which we have such
good grounds for supposing corresponding
one to the other as viridis and green, on
account of grass, trees, &c. &c. However,
these are points which may be discussed
by us, as you say, at leisure, if the system
1
35
of tyranny should proceed to its maturity.
Whether it will or not, I know not; but,
if it should, sure I am that to have so culti-
vated literature as to have laid up a store
of consolation and amusement, will be, in
such an event, the greatest advantage (next
to a good conscience) which one man can
have over another. My judgment, as well
as my wishes, leads me to think that we
shall not experience such dreadful times as
you suppose possible ; but, if we do not,
what has passed in Ireland is a proof, that
it is not to the moderation of our governors
that we shall be indebted for whatever por-
tion of ease or liberty may be left us.
I am, Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
C. J. Fox.
36
LET TER XI.
FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, Feb. 23, 1798.
NOTHING, but your stating yourself
to șe in some degree at leisure now, could
justify my troubling you with the long and,
perhaps, unintelligible scrawl which I send
with this. I most probably have shewn
much ignorance, and certainly some pre-
sumption, in seeming to dispute with you,
upon points of which you know so much,
and I so little: all I can say in my defence
is, that disputing is sometimes a way of
learning
I have not said any thing yet upon the
question which you seem to have thought
most upon-whether the Iliad is the work
of one, or more authors? I have, for the
sake of argument, admitted it; but yet,
I own, I have great doubts, and even lean
to an opinion different from yours. I am
37
sure the inequality of excellence is not
greater than in “ Paradise Lost," and
many
other poems written confessedly by one
author. I will own to you, also, that in
one, only, of the instances of inequality
which you state, I agree
with
you.
Atè is
detestable; but I cannot think as you
do
of the death of Hector. There are parts
of that book, and those closely connected
with the death of Hector, which I cannot
help thinking equal to any thing.
It is well for you that
my paper is at an
end, and that I have not the conscience to
take a new sheet.
1
Your humble servant,
C. J. Fox.
-
Inclosed in the above.
Ver. 1. I agree in the objection to auto,
and am not satisfied with Clarke's account
of it; and, besides, there is something of a
baldness, or of an affected conciseness, in
38
beginning a narration in those words, very
unlike Homer, or, if you please, the 'Ouengou.
'Eras06 for éxasos is so small an error in
writing, that it affords little ground for an
objection, or even a doubt.
Ver. 6, 7, 8, 9, may be left out, or not,
without affecting the authenticity of the
book.
Ver. 14.
I have not skill enough in the
language to judge whether your objection
to (euſelev be unanswerable; but I know no
answer to it.
Ver. 15. The d' is easily to be got rid
of, and is one of the most natural mistakes
in the transcribers.
Ver. 28. Macrobius's authority appears
to me to be decisive, to prove that this pas-
sage is an interpolation since his time; and
consequently destroys the argument built
upon this passage against the book itself,
upon other parts of which he has com-
mented.
I do not know why the antient critics
discarded ver. 20 and 21; nor do I think it
39
material whether they are retained or not.
Ver. 44 & 45, I agree, had better be
away; but I know not whether there be
any authority for discarding them.
Ver. 60. The lengthening of 20. in this
place does appear to me very awkward;
and, if there are no similar instances, must
be an error: besides, the mythology of this.
passage is quite new to me: I mean Juno's
having nursed Thetis.
As to the one in ver. 70, I cannot help
thinking there are many instances of syl-
lables being lengthened in such situations ;
and, at any rate, it is one of the verses
which you say some critics reject. Pro-
bably from want of memory, but I have
some doubt about the word oporu being a
Homeric word: it is certainly much oftener
óra.
Ver. 71, 72, 73, I had rather were away;
but, as I said before, I do not know the
authority for leaving them out.
Ver. 79. Meinav is indeed a most suspi- .
cious word, and I have nothing to say for it.
40
Ver. 85, 86. I cannot see any objection
to them; but, as before, I do not know the
authorities or arguments for or against them.
Ver. 130, 131, 132, appear to me to be
much in Homer's style; and I should cer-
tainly be for keeping them, if there is no-
thing against them but Eustathius's saying
the passage was rejected by some of the
Antients.
Ver. 241. Odveo always puzzled me;
nor do I know rightly what it means. I do
not quite agree in thinking e coin of such a
signification as to make the rare use of it
very surprising. As to sở, it is certainly
used once more than you are aware of
EL TWS EŬ TEP.doiro, (I believe in the Y,) and
therefore
may possibly be oftener. In the
place I quote, it means sui, not cujus, as here;
and so it means ejus in the E.427: but this,
I think, makes no difference.
Ver. 307. The three first syllables of
εισανιδων, or, as you write it, εισαν σιδων, can-
not (as you say, and I believe Knight says
the same) have been used by the 'Ouengos as
!
41
a dactyl; and no verse can be a genuine
Homeric verse, where the digamma is (if I
may use such an expression) slighted in that
manner. I must be excused, till further
informed, from giving an unqualified assent
to this proposition. If the proportion of
instances on one side and the other were, as
you seem to state, nine hundred and ninety-
nine to one, I should not hesitate ; but, I
confess, I suspect this to be far from the
true state of the fact. I have not looked
into the Iliad since I received your letter,
except to the N2; but I recollected imme-
diately four instances—three of them in
one book, the T, and one in the A.
οφg έλασσωμεθ' ανακτα : in Γ, ει τις ιδoιτο: and
two in one line-
Ου τοτε γ ωδ’ Οδυσηος αγασσαμεθ' ειδος ιδοντες:
besides, ser siduice is familiar to my ear,
though I do not know where particularly
to look for it.
In the Odyssey, there are three instances
in the space of fifty lines in the A, in the
verses 521,549,560. The first of these three
In A,
1
42
has, I confess, the air of a spurious line; the
second might be remedied by taking away
a d', but without the go the construction
would be hard, and unlike Homer: but the
third cannot well, I think, be altered ; and
it is the more remarkable, on account of
the digamma being respected in the same
line, deupo avaš iv ETOS, &c. There is also,
in the Odyss. N, the word #gooidartal, which,
I should conceive, could hardly be altered
to zgodoviar without changing the sense.
If these which I have mentioned were all
the instances, I admit they would not much
signify: but as those from the Iliad have
occurred to me memoriter only, and those
from the Odyssey from a very slight in-
vestigation of a very small part of the
poem, I cannot help supposing there
may
be found many hundreds of them; so that
I can hardly conceive the proportion to
be any thing like what you suppose, -espe-
cially as all the cases of the paragogic v
preceding the digamma make 'neither for
one side nor the other, but must be thrown
43
AY
}
out of the question, as perfectly neutral.
I should hardly think you would (and I
am sure Knight would not) consent to take
away from Homer, and give to his col-
lectors, or joiners, or botchers, the l' and
the 12 of the Iliad, and the A of the
Odyssey; and this to make the cobler
superior to the original artist or artists.
According to your system, you may pos-
sibly say, that those parts where the di-
gamma is uniformly respected were written
by older poets; those where it is some-
times slighted, by more modern: but what
if it should appear to be nearly equally
respected and slighted in the different parts
of the poem ? Now my hypothesis, if I
dared to form one, would be this; and
(every man loves his own best,-—-INU AUTOV
φιλεει και κηδεται) it appears to me more rea-
sonable than any that I have yet heard.
I suppose this digamma, at one period at
least, not to have had the decided sound
which belongs in general to consonants ;
and, consequently, that the poets of that
1
44
period, the 'Oungos, thought themselves at
liberty to sound it more or less, and con-
sequently to treat it in the manner most con-
venient to their verse. If it was sounded
sometimes more, and sometimes less, it
might naturally happen that, in process of
time, one dialect, viz. the Latin, might erect
it into a decided consonant, v; and others,
viz, the Attic, &c. might wholly drop it.
Thus, in modern Italian, in the word uovo,
an egg, the u is pronounced at Florence in
a manner very difficult to be imitated by
foreigners, and which makes it appear to
be something between a vowel and a conso-
nant; but in other parts of Italy, where
the language is corrupted, it is in some
wholly dropped, and the word is pronounced
ovo; in others, it is made a complete con-
sonant, and sounded vovo. This may be, and
probably is, a fanciful theory of my own;
but, I own, I feel great reluctance to cut the
Iliad and Odyssey to pieces, and to give
them, not only to different authors, but
I do not know whether
different ages.
45
Hesiod is, in your opinion, a contemporary
with Homer; but, if he is, I think that in his
Εργα και Ημερας there is απ' εργου χειρας ερυκοι:
and
εργον is, I suppose, one of the words
with the F.
Ver. 320.
I doubt the derivation of
vastus from asu: though I believe asu to
have been written Faso, because ava asu,
TOTI 45v, are so common: and surely the
comparison of a large vessel to a town is
too natural, when it is meant to exaggerate
its size, to make it necessary to have re-
course to any particular derivation.
Ver. 325. There are certainly some
other instances of a vowel short before
те,
though, I believe, not many.
The first
syllable of Ilargonhos is short in more in-
stances than one; but the instance of a
proper name is not, perhaps, quite a fair
one ; as Homer might take the same li-
berty, in such cases, as the Tragedians did
afterwards, which you have noticed and
accounted for, I think, in the best manner.
The word mot
Atosunu is at the end of a
46
verse in Odyss. M. ver. 381. Ilgoonuda, &c.
are often at the end of lines, and conse-
quently the syllable before ng short : but
these you may not think cases in point,
because in them the vowel and the con-
sonants are in separate words; but I do
not think the Greeks in general attended
much to that distinction.
Ver. 337. I have said enough at least
upon the F; I fear, too much; but I must
just observe, that the being some times
right, and others wrong, does not prove
two fingers in the pie, because they are
sometimes right and wrong in the same
verse, which probably was all made by one
author.
47
LETTER XII.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Hackney, Feb. 25, 1798.
The best argument against Homer,
and for my hypothesis, appears in my ge-
neral observations, prefixed to Pope's Odys-
sey,
in the edition which I prepared for the
Booksellers; and of which I have but one
copy for myself, or I should long since have
requested your acceptance of the work.
Certainly, if any thing like your opinion,
with respect to the digamma, could be
established, the early Greek Poets, instead
of meriting the encomiums of all antiquity
for their correctness, must be deemed the
most capricious and irregular of all writers;
and emendatory criticism upon them can be
modelled by no rules of analogy whatever :
whereas their modes of expression are so
precise and congenial, that the direct con-
trary appears to be the truth.
48
The detached lamentations of the several
characters at the end of Il. 2. have a very
formal appearance; and much the air of
an attempt from different bards to shew
their skill upon the same subject. In col-
lections of Greek epigrams, and in some
works of the later Sophists, you find com-
positions introduced with such commas as
these: “ What sort of exclamation Achilles
would use on the death of Patroclus?” &c.
and then follows a specimen of the author's
talents in that way.
The Shield of Hercules, in Hesiod, is one
of those detached pieces of poetry, such as
I suppose
the Iliad to be formed of, remain-
ing to us from the highest antiquity; and
quite equal to any thing in Homer with
which it can properly be compared. His
Theogony, too, in versification and lan-
guage, is perfectly similar to the Iliad ; so
that their imitation of existing models is
almost an inevitable conclusion: and the
probability is, that numberless pieces of
this kind were existing among the antient
49
1
bards of Greece, but have been lost, partly
from the negligence of succeeding times,
and partly from the want of alphabetic
characters.
But before those corrections of Homer,
on the principle of the Æolic digamma, could
be prosecuted, some general rules must be
laid down; as follow :
I find, suppose, in reading the Theogony
of Hesiod, that the digamma is regarded
seventy times, and disregarded thirty.
(What I am stating is generally the fact,
though the numbers may not be perfectly
in ratio.) Out of these thirty irregularities,
I find ten rectified in the various readings;
but I consider that not one MS, in a thou-
sand of Hesiod has come down to our times.
I argue, then, for the probability of a recti-
fication of all the thirty, with more MSS.
from the general principle of their method
and correctness as writers. Again: this
circumstance of the digamma has been so
unknown to later ages, or at least disre-
garded by them, that reporters of MSS. it
E
50
I
is most certain, have neglected a declaration
of those little varieties, which would settle
these controverted passages, from an opi-
nion of their unimportance. The same ig-
norance or inattention would lead the tran-
scribers readily to fill up these chasms, as
violations of measures, or to leave unnoticed
these niceties, as things trivial and unes-
sential; all which may be shewn, to the very
highest degree of probability, from innu-
merable instances: so that, instead of won-
dering at thirty anomalies, we must rather
be surprised that they have not been much
more plentiful. In short, there is scarcely
an instance of a learned construction, or a
more exquisite peculiarity of numbers, but
some corruption or other may be traced in
the various readings of MSS. or the impor-
tunities of modern editors.
particulars.
Your instance from Il.A.444, has been cor-
rected by Dawes, Misc.Crit. p. 146, from the
Florentine edition, with general approbation,
οφρ' όλασομεσθα ανακτα: and all the exceptions
Now to your
51
that relate to avces are noticed by him, and
mostly well and easily corrected. But all
niceties of this kind were so uniformly ob-
literated by later scribes and editors, that,
in the present wreck of MSS, an emenda-
tion, simple and convincing, is often be-
yond the reach of sagacity, and, in many
cases, quite impossible. In T. 453. laying
aside the digamma, the tenses are incon-
gruous, and the construction ungram-
matical. What is required, the Scholiast
indicates sufficiently: ει τις ΙΔΟΙΤΟ] ει τις
EOEAZATO : “ If he had seen him, he would
not have concealed him ;” not, “ If he
could see him.” Besides, tig is. inelegantly
repeated. Now, except other MSS. and
the first editions (for these studies are not
to be cultivated duly without very large
libraries at hand) give some further hints,
I see nothing better than the following at-
tempt: for the verb absolutely requires here
ay or ne:
Ου
μεν γαρ φιλοτητι γ εκευθανον, ει ΚΕ ΙΔΟΝΤΟ:
52
which will satisfy both measure and con-
struction.
Ver. 224 can occasion no difficulty, as
a most barbarous and impertinent inter-
polation; and I see, accordingly, a mark of
exception prefixed to it by the antient
critics in Villois. Homer.
Εργ ειδυια, and
its parallels, where a must be lost, (for do
before the digamma must be conceded) may
be settled by writing sgya idura as Il. 7.12.
ιδυιησι πραπιδεσσι. No question but we
should write προϊδωνται in Od. Ν. 155. pro-
spicient, See at a distance: compare ver. 169.
Hesiod. Scuti Herc. 385, where one scribe
could not be easy without attempting to
substitute προσιδωνται : otherwise there is
an end of all probability in criticism,
grounded on the usage and accuracy of
writers. But, as I said, before some par-
ticular specimens can be acceptable, the
reader must be prepared by general posi-
tions, and a detail of undisputed specimens
on good authority: and this were a work
of time and labour. I have by me materials
53
1
for an important, and, as I think, interest-
ing attempt of this nature, not less allied to
philosophy and history, than criticism ; and
materials, indeed, for correcter editions of
most of the Greek and Roman Poets; but,
as I can never pretend to execute any thing
much better than my Lucretius, till the
burden of that publication is a good deal
more alleviated, my pen never meddles with
such subjects again, to the end of my days.
Sir! my former apologies must serve
me for stopping more abruptly than I could
wish, and for subscribing myself here, with
every sentiment of respect,
Your obedient servant,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
54
LETTER XIII.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
St. Anne's Hill, March 16, 1798.
SIR,
I DEFERRED answering your last
Letter, in order to have time to read over
attentively some part of Homer, with a
view to the digamma. I have read, since
I wrote last, ten books of the Odyssey,
from 5 to Y inclusive; and find in them
eighty-five instances where the digamma is
neglected. It is true that, in
It is true that, in many of these,
the fault, if it be one, is easily corrected;
but then the question arises, if the instances
are so numerous, What reason have we
to think that there is any error, or occasion
for correction? I will admit, however, that
the result of my attention to the subject is,
that with the old poet, or poets, whom we
call Homer, the natural and common course
seems to have been, to consider words
55
beginning with the F like words beginning
with a consonant; but then the numerous-
ness of the instances to the contrary, and,
above all, the circumstance of those in-
stances being spread pretty equally over
those books to which I have attended, raise
great doubts in my mind, whether words
beginning with F were not occasionally
considered as words beginning with a
vowel. Nor can I
Nor can I agree that this suppo-
sition would make the old writers so capri-
cious as you seem to think: for, in fact, it
only supposes them to have treated the
digamma as unquestionably they treated
the aspirate (; before which short vowels
are sometimes cut off, sometimes left stand-
ing; long vowels and diphthongs sometimes
shortened (though, by the way, very rarely),
sometimes left long; and syllables ending
with consonants sometimes retain the short-
ness natural to them, at other times not.
What you say upon the three instances
I quoted memoriter from the Iliad is
very
satisfactory, especially as the alteration to
56
inacoopeo da is, you say, warranted by an old
edition: and, indeed, the whole of this ques-
tion must at last be decided by a reference
to such editions and to manuscripts; in
regard to both which I am uncommonly
ignorant, never having read Homer in any
other editions than the Glasgow and Clarke's.
I have indeed occasionally looked at a very
few passages in H. Stephens's edition of
him among the Greek Poets; but, with this
single exception, I know nothing of any
other text but Clarke's (for the Glasgow is
a transcript from him), nor of any other
Comments or Scholia than those which he
has cited. What you have said has raised
in me an ardent curiosity to look into the
old editions; and I shall endeavour, in the
course of the year, to visit some libraries
where there are collections of them. The
lamentations in the 12 of the Iliad are cer-
tainly rather formal in the manner in which
they are introduced, unless one supposes
them to be a part of a sort of funeral cere-
mony In regard to the short syllable
57
before the mute and the
,
I have found but
one instance (proper names excepted) in
the ten books I have just read; and in that
there seems to be some error: the word is
danguolo in Od. E. ver. 172 ; but I recollect, in
other parts of Homer, to have read, more
than once, αδροτητα και ηβην.
ηβην. Ανδροτητα,
ΑΝδροτηταas
I believe it is sometimes written, would
only increase the difficulty. I am sensible
that if we consider the diphthongs on and an
as short syllables, the number of instances
I have quoted of the neglect of the F will
be something (not greatly) diminished.
Reiske, in his Notes on Theocritus, is po-
sitive these syllables are sometimes short,
and were so used by Homer; and I suspect
that all you, who think the attention to
the F the criterion of authenticity, are of
his opinion; else the famous passage in Il. T.
quoted by Longinus for its sublimity, must
be given up, on account of
εκ θρονου αλτο και Fιαχε. .
very much concerned at your Lucre-
tius meeting with so little encouragement
I am very
58
as you say; and I feel the more, because I
cannot help thinking that part of the pre-
judice, which occasions so unaccountable
a neglect, is imputable to the honour you
have done me by the dedication of it-an
honour, I assure you, that I shall always
most highly value.
I am, Sir,
Yours ever,
C. J. Fox.
L ETTER XIV.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Hackney, March 7*, 1798.
Ir is most certain, that anomalies
and inconsistencies of all kinds are much
more frequent in the Odyssey than the
Iliad, from a cause which is in favour of
an hypothesis that receives countenance in
*
Although some mistake appears in the date of Letter XIII,
or XIV. this of Mr.Wakefield's is evidently an answer to the
preceding of Mr. Fox.
59
proportion to our ability of approximation
to antient sources; i.e. the fewer tran-
scripts of that poem compared with the Iliad,
on account of the less interest which all
ages have taken in its favour: for it is an
acknowledged position, that those authors
are most corrupt of which the fewest MSS.
have been preserved.
Now, where old
editions and MSS. enable us to rectify so
many of these irregularities without vio-
lence, the presumption is very strong in
our favour, from the great antiquity of
Homer: for MSS. five times as old as any
now in being, would be modern in compa-
rison of the oldest MS. of Virgil, and most
other authors. I have marked in my mar-
gin all the violations of the theory of the
digamma, but have never numbered them.
I should
suppose,
of
stances would be accommodated by an
omission of the final v, or some other simple
process; remembering always, that the little
words 8 and <form no exceptions; and
such sounds were not harsher, I presume,
that many
your in-
60
than βδελυρος, γδουπησε, and some others.
Nor must we forget how all traces of anti-
quity, in numerous other instances, have
been so obliterated by the prepossessions
and ignorance of successive transcribers
through many ages, as to leave the truth
in some cases absolutely irrecoverable: of
which, even with relation to Latin ortho-
graphy, I have given many instances in my
Notes on Lucretius. What you urge upon
the variations of quantity from the influ-
ence of the aspirate seems very pertinent :
but I am partly inclined to believe these
discordances to be imaginary, and the off-
spring of an inaccurate attention to specific
instances. I do not despair of pointing out
reasons for these variations from general
rules; but these studies are really in their
infancy, and will continue so, till better
forms of government leave the human race
at large more leisure to cultivate their in-
tellects. Besides, we may well believe, from
numerous deductions, a theory to be legi-
timate ; though, in the midst of so much
61
darkness and inconvenience, and after so
long an interval, no sagacity be equal to a
satisfactory solution of every contradiction:
but, in truth, nothing can be done with any
proper and adequate nicety in this way
without the First Editions, and a great va-
riety of them ; in which respect I labour
under very discouraging impediments;
though, all circumstances considered, I
have but little doubt of being able to
claim for myself the merit of having col-
lected, without gross imprudence' or in-
justice to my family, from mere personal
self-denial of reasonable indulgences, con-
sidering my income, the best comparative
library of
any man in this country. Bent-
ley's note on Callim. Hymn. Jup. 87. has
long since set at rest the old controversy
on the quantity of the diphthongs or and as,
with all those who do not, like Reiske,
bid defiance to all quantity whatsoever :
and yet Primatt, in his book on Accents,
seems never to have met with that note of
Bentley. The instances of syllables short,
62
in Homer, before two consonants of any
kind, I meant to state as exceedingly few,
much fewer than in any author after him.
To the best of my recollection, Dionysius,
in his Periegesis, approaches nearest to
Homer's purity in this peculiarity of smooth
versification.
Most of the specimens of the violated di-
gamma in saxw may be readily and naturally
adjusted : your example from Il. r. 62. is
of a very untractable quality; and what-
ever assurance we may feel, in our own
minds, of the general validity of a theory, it
were very unreasonable to expect acquies-
cence from a neutral reader in an emenda-
tion not recommended by the utmost faci-
lity and probability. What I have to offer
here, is this : the Schol. in Villois, tells us,
that some read
WATO;
I say, perhaps weeTo
should be substituted, which is a word of
Homer's also : but a too ready persuasion
that it was a variety for åaro instead of waxe
would soon turn wgeto into wgro. Suppose, then,
- Ex @gove áhto xxi agero" leapt from his
63
say, that
n
throne in great bustle and perturbation.”
Now no word whatever could better repre-
sent Virgil's trepident in the parallel passage,
than this: whereas saye has, in the Roman,
at present no counterpart. Further: Eus-
tathius
says on the passage, Δεισας δ', εκ θρονα
αλτο και υπερθoρεν η ιαχε. If I were not in quest
of a particular object, I should
and xar must be transposed ; and then the
common reading is right: but you must
allow me the advantage of this variety; from
which I have surely as much right to reason,
as another man can have to an arbitrary
correction against the copies. If the copies
of Eustathius be correct, it is demonstration
that some word equivalent to saxe (which,
in that case, from a marginal gloss, has in-
sinuated itself into the text) is corrected in
ůzegboger' which the measure rejects. Now
a word not essentially different from the
former
weto
and this of Eustathius, either in
letters or enunciation, would be most proba-
ble. Suppose, then,
εκ θρονε αλτο και ΩΡΥΕ:
64
Made a loud bawl. Now the Lexicons would
make you believe, that this word is only
used of beasts, dogs, and wolves (See my
Notes on Bion, i. 18.); but Antip. Sidon.
epig. 8. employs it of the roaring of the sea;
and Pindar, Ol. ix. 163. of a man.
Sir, it gives me real concern, that you
should suppose my notice of you in my
Lucretius should have proved injurious to
the reception of that work. Believe me,
nothing can be more unnecessary and un-
substantial than your solicitude on this head.
My former publications were alone a proof,
from fact, of what I allege; which makes
me the more decisive in my assertion. I
am satisfied, that no man on earth, at all
similarly situated, was ever less obnoxious
to his political antagonists than you are:
and nothing but a persuasion in me, rooted
on long and attentive observation, that
you
had qualities which secured you from the
disaffection of every heart tolerably hu-
manized, could have induced me to pay you
that trivial token of my respect with such
65
perfect acquiescence; a token of respect
which I shall contemplate, I know, with
increasing satisfaction to the end of life. I
am glad, however, that I can gratulate you
on escaping the inauspicious omen of the
Scriptures: “Woe! unto you, when all men
speak well of you:” and yet I should not
be surprised, if the times mend so much,
and such opportunities for a fuller and freer
display of yourself present themselves, as
actually to excite some apprehension and
mistrust in me in consequence of the uni-
versal and unqualified approbation of the
world. When that takes place, perhaps, I
may set my wits at work to find out some
erratum in the copies of that verse. At pre-
sent, I must own that such solicitude is
not absolutely necessary.
But the copies of my Lucretius are not
numerous; and I know it must make its way
in time against all personal and political
opposition, especially when known on the
Continent. Mr. Steevens, editor of Shak-
speare, who, though a friend of mine, can
F
66
scarcely endure one of my opinions; an ex-
cellent classical scholar, and a most severe
censor; who detected, I think, goo errors
in the Heyne's Virgil, lately published at
London, and corrected by Porson; pro-
nounced, in my hearing, at a Bookseller's,
last week, my large-paper Lucretius to be
the most magnificent and correct work of
its kind that had yet appeared. One was
ordered for the King's Library last week.
I remain, Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
LETTER XV.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, March 1, 1799.
Although I am wholly without any
resources, even of advice, and much more
of power, to offer you my services upon the
present occasion, yet I cannot help trou-
67
bling you with a few lines, to tell you how
very sincerely concerned I am at the event
of your trial.
The liberty of the press I considered
as virtually destroyed by the proceedings
against Johnson and Jordan; and what has
happened to you I cannot but lament there-
fore the more, as the sufferings of a man
whom I esteem, in a cause that is no more.
I have been reading your Lucretius, and
have nearly finished the second volume: it
appears to me to be by far the best publi-
cation of any classical author: and if it is
an objection with some persons, that the
great richness and variety of quotation and
criticism in the Notes takes off, in some de-
gree, the attention from the Text, I am not
one of those who will ever complain of an
Editor for giving me too much instruction
and amusement.
I am, with great regard,
and all possible good wishes,
Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
C. J. Fox.
68
LETTER XVI.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Hackney, March 2, 1799.
Your kind attention at this time is
peculiarly gratifying and consoling; but
wholly congenial to that benevolence of dis-
position, which is the brightest jewel in all
the accomplishments of humanity. My de-
fence, though unsuccessful, was, in the opi-
nion of my best friends, entirely consonant
to my character. Some parts, I am aware,
would be thought, by men of the world,
severe and imprudent to excess; but such
persecution for such things fills me, I own,
with a degree of indignation and sorrow, to
which no words appear to my mind capable
of doing justice. Your approbation of my
Lucretius is also particularly grateful to me.
I am, Sir,
with every sentiment of esteem,
Your obedient servant,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
69
LETTER XVII.
FROM MR, FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, June 9, 1799.
NOTHING could exceed the con-
cern I felt at the extreme severity (for
such it appears to me) of the sentence pro-
nounced against you.
I should be apprehensive, that the dis-
tance of Dorchester must add considerably
to the difficulties of your situation ; but
should be very glad to learn from you that
it is otherwise.
If
your friends can think of any
plan for you, by which some of the conse-
your confinement may be in
degree lessened, I should be very happy to be
in any way assisting in it. From some words
that dropped from you, when I saw you, I
rather understood that you did not feel much
inclination to apply to your usual studies in
your present situation; otherwise it had
occurred to me, that some publication, on a
any of
quences of
be in any
70
less expensive plan than the Lucretius, and
by subscription, might be eligible, for the
purpose of diverting your mind, and for
serving your family; but of this you are
the best judge: and all I can say is, that I
shall always be happy to shew the esteem
and regard with which I am,
Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
C. J. Fox
}
Rev. GILBERT WAKEFIELD,
King's Bench Prison.
LETTER XVIII. .
FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.
St. Anne's Hill, June 10, 1799.
SIR,
WITHIN a few hours after I wrote
to you yesterday, a Gentleman called, who
informed me that a scheme had been
formed for preventing some of the ill conse-
quences of your imprisonment, and upon a
much more eligible plan than that which I
suggested. Of course, you will not think
any more of what I said upon that subject;
71
only that, if you do employ yourself in
writing during your confinement, my opi-
nion is, that, in the present state of things,
Literature is, in every point of view, a pre-
ferable occupation to Politics.
I have looked at my Roman Virgil, and
find that it is printed from the Medicean
MS. as I supposed. The verses regarding
Helen, in the second book, are printed in a
different character, and stated to be want-
ing in the MS.
Yours ever,
C. J. Fox.
LETTER XIX.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
K. B. ragu 1128rni: June 10, 1799.
I am very highly gratified by your
attention to me, as the attention of one
whom I love and reverence.
In the present distraction of my mind,
much enhanced by the consternation into
which I am thrown by hearing this moment
72
of the unexpected sentence on Lord Thanet
and Mr. Ferguson, I am scarcely capable of
answering your kind inquiries in a proper
manner; and therefore beg leave to inclose
a Letter, received last night, which I am sure
will give pleasure to a heart so interested,
not in my welfare only, but in that of
all his species : that Letter you will be so
kind as to return. What I particularly me-
ditate is a Greek and English Lexicon, at
a subscription of a Guinea and a half: but of
this plan I shall judge better when I see
the place of my destination, whither I ex-
pect to be transported in a few days.
My sentence is not to be ranked among
the calamities of human life: but it is a very
serious inconvenience to us on many ac-
counts, and on none more than a separation
from a numerous band of the most af-
fectionate and virtuous and disinterested
friends, of both sexes, that it ever fell to the
lot of any family to possess.
By the time in which my
confine-
ment will expire, I trust a prospect will be
73
opened of calling you from your beloved
retirement, to a theatre of more extensive
usefulness, alike adapted to the amplitude
of your talents, and the benevolence of your
disposition.
l'am, Sir,
with every sentiment of esteem,
our obedient servant,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
LETTER XX.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, June 12, 1799.
I RETURN you your friend's Letter,
which gave me great satisfaction. The
sentence upon Lord Thanet and Ferguson
is, all things considered, most abominable;
but the speech accompanying it is, if pos-
sible, worse.
I think a Lexicon in Greek and English
74
is a work much wanted; and, if you
can have patience to execute such a work,
I shall consider it a great benefit to the
cause of Literature. I hope to hear from
you that your situation at Dorchester is not
worse, at least, than you expected; and,
when I know you to be in a state of perfect
ease of mind (which at this moment could
not be expected), I will, with your leave,
state to you a few observations, which I
just hinted to you when I saw you, upon
Porson's Note to his Orestes, regarding the
final v.
I am, with great regard,
Sir,
Yours ever,
C. J. Fox.
75
LETTER XXI.
FROM AIR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
King's Bench, June 14, 1799.
I set out for Dorchester to-morrow
or Monday; and shall be glad, at all times
and in any place, to receive communi-
cations from you, upon points of criticism,
or any other within my sphere. In the
meantime, two of my Brothers have been
down to reconnoitre the place; and from
their report I collect, clearly, that this trans-
portation thither was intended to be no-
thing less than a Cold-Bath Fields' busi-
ness. It so happens, that in the small
pre-
mises belonging to the governor, alias
keeper, alias gaoler, a small lodging-room
is to be obtained; whether with or with-
out a fire-place I have hitherto forgotten to
inquire; but with no accommodation for
books, beyond a pocket-full or so: of course
every plan of any laborious undertaking in
literature is totally abandoned, and indeed
76
every object of study beyond an author
such as Homer, who is pretty much con-
centered within himself. The intercourse
even with my family, as far as I understand,
will be partial and restrained: so that if
a former occupant had been equal to that
room in the house, nothing but a cell, in a
most detestable building (to my Brothers'
fancies), would have remained for myself.
Upon the whole, considering the great in-
conveniences of an entire removal, and dis-
solution of our former residence, I am not
sure, whether the Bastile, for the same
term, might not have been as eligible. And,
as I was never able to pursue any literary
object without a comfortable disposition of
external circumstances, I must postpone
what projects I had entertained in that
way
to a more convenient season, if I should
live to see it; and content myself with the
amusements of my family, and occasional
intercourse with my friends by letter or
in person.
My defence, and other memorials of this
77
prosecution, which I thought it a part of
my duty not to leave unrecorded, will be
left for your acceptance, with a book which
Lord Holland lent me.
I am, Sir, with the truest respect,
Your obliged servant,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
L ETTER XXII,
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, June 27, 1799.
In consequence of a Letter which
Lord Holland shewed me, I have written
to Lord Shaftesbury and to Lord Ilchester,
who are both very humane men, and
would, I should hope, be happy to do any
thing that may make your situation less
uneasy.
I am, Sir,
Yours ever,
C. J. Fox
78
LETTER XXIII.
1
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Dorchester Gaol, Sept. 6, 1799.
The Courier of this day communi-
cates to me the very unwelcome intelligence
of an injury received by you, from the
bursting of your gun. Assure yourself, Sir,
that your oldest and warmest friends feel not
a more lively interest in all your pains and
pleasures than myself, nor will rejoice more
at
your recovery. And will
And will you do me the
justice to believe, that I would not have
taken the trouble of submitting the follow-
ing passage of Cicero to your consideration,
but from an absolute conviction of your
magnanimity and benevolence, and love of
truth; and from an entire confidence in your
candour, for assigning no motive to this
intrusion, but an ardent desire of your
approximation as nearly as possible to
my own, perhaps visionary and mistaken,
79
66
notions of perfection?—“Ego autem, quam
“ diu respublica per eos gerebatur, quibus
se ipsa commiserat, omnes meas curas
cogitationesque in eam conferebam: cùm
* autem dominatu unius omnia tenerentur,
neque esset usquam consilio aut auctori-
" tati locus; socios denique tuendæ reipub-
licæ, summos viros, amisissem ; nec me
angoribus dedidi, quibus essem confectus,
" nisi iis restitissem, nec rursum INDIGNIS
HOMINE DOCTO VOLUPTATIBUS.” Off. ii. 1.
Am I, Sir, indecently presumptuous and
free, am I guilty of a too dictatorial offi-
ciousness, in pronouncing THOSE PLEASURES
TO MISBECOME A MAN OF LETTERS, which
consist in mangling, maiming, and depriving
of that invaluable and irretrievable blessing,
its existence, an inoffensive pensioner on
the universal bounties of the common Feeder
and Protector of all his offspring?
I remain, Sir,
Your obliged and respectful friend,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
80
LETTER XXIV.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
No. ll, Sackville Street, Sept. 14, 1799.
I ASSURE you I take very kindly
your Letter, and the quotation in it. I think
the question of How far field sports are
innocent amusements,' is nearly connected
with another, upon which, from the title
of one of your intended works, I suspect
you entertain opinions rather singular; for
if it is lawful to kill tame animals with
whom one has a sort of acquaintance, such
as fowls, oxen, &c. it is still less repugnant
to one's feelings to kill wild animals ; but
then to make a pastime of it-I am aware
there is something to be said upon this
point. On the other hand, if example is
allowed to be any thing, there is nothing
in which all mankind, civilized or savage,
have more agreed, than in making some
sort of chace (for fishing is of the same
81
nature) part of their business or amuse-
ment. However, I admit it to be a very
questionable subject : at all events, it is a
very pleasant and healthful exercise. My
wound goes on, I believe, very well; and
no material injury is apprehended to the
hand; but the cure will be tedious, and I
shall be confined in this town for more
weeks than I had hoped ever to spend
days here. I am much obliged to you for
your inquiries, and am,
Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
C. J. Fox.
G
82
L ETTER XXV.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Dorchester Gaol, Sept. 20, 1799.
I Am unwilling to increase the in-
conveniences of your present situation, and
have therefore not been solicitous of imme-
diately acknowledging your favour; nor do
I by any means wish you to incommode
yourself, in the least degree, by noticing this,
or any other similar intrusion from me.
With your leave, the question of animal
food (from which the purest philosophers
in all ages have abstained, the Pythagoreans,
Bramins, Essenes, and others) is no more
involved in that of rural sports, as com-
monly pursued, than the question of racks
and tortures is connected with that of capi-
tal punishments. I would not now state,
Is it lawful and expedient to kill animals
' at all?' but, “Is it philosophical and
humane to leave numbers of them to
83
* perish by pain and hunger, or to occasion
• the remainder of their lives to be perilous
• and miserable ?' for such, I presume, are
the inevitable consequences of shooting in
particular. As for hunting; to see a set of
men exulting in the distresses of an inoffen-
sive animal, with such intemperate and
wild triumph, is to me the most irrational
and degrading spectacle in the world; and
an admirable prolusion to those delectable
operations which are transacting in Hol-
land, and elsewhere !
In reading Ovid's Tristia (to my fancy,
the first Poet of all Antiquity) with my
Children, the other morning, (who, with my
Wife, are forbidden by the Justices to come
to me more than four days in a week, from
ten o'clock to six,) I thought an error, not
yet discovered, to occupy the introductory
lines :
Parve, nec invideo, sine me, Liber! ibis in urbem;
Hei mihi! quò domino non licet ire tuo.
Vade, sed incultus ; qualem decet exsulis esse :
Infelix habitum temporis hujus habe.
By the bye, I have observed, (and mention,
84
I think, somewhere in Lucretius,) that the
Poets never used nec, but always neque,
before a word beginning with a vowel : in
the first verse, therefore, it should be "neque
invideo.” But is there not something auk-
ward and obscure, at first, in the construc-
tion of the third ? The final s is written
in MSS. after a manner likely to occasion
errors; as incultu'. I read, therefore,
Vade ; sed in cultu qualem decet exsulis esse.
With my most cordial wishes for your
speedy recovery, and less desolation in that
kingdom, which one of my pupils, in con-
struing that noble passage in the third
Georgic,-(from which Gray has borrowed,
in his Elegy,
“ Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind,")
Et stabula adspectans regnis excessit avitis,
called the kingdom of birds.
I remain, Sir,
Your most respectful and obliged friend,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
85
LETTER XXVI.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, Oct. 22, 1799.
I BELIEVE I had best not continue
the controversy about field sports; or at
least, if I do, I must have recourse, I
believe, to authority and precedent, rather
than to argument; and content myself
with rather excusing, than justifying them.
Cicero says, I believe, somewhere, “Si quem
“ nihil delectaret nisi quod cum laude et
dignitate conjunctum foret, .
.... huic ho-
“mini ego fortasse, et pauci, Deos propitios,
plerique iratos putarent.” But this is said,
I am afraid, in defence of a libertine, whose
public principles, when brought to the test,
proved to be as unsound, as his private life
was irregular. By the way, I know no
speech of Cicero's more full of beautiful
passages than this is (pro M. Cælio), nor
where he is more in his element. Argu-
86
mentative contention is what he by no
means excels in ; and he is never, I think,
so happy, as when he has an opportunity
of exhibiting a mixture of philosophy and
pleasantry; and especially, when he can
interpose anecdotes, and references to the
authority of the eminent characters in the
history of his country. No man appears,
indeed, to have had such real respect for
authority as he; and therefore, when he
speaks on that subject, he is always natural,
and in earnest; and not like those among
us, who are so often declaiming about the
wisdom of our ancestors, without knowing
what they mean, or hardly ever citing any
particulars of their conduct, or of their
dicta.
I shewed your proposed alteration in the
Tristia to a very good judge, who ap-
proved of it very much. I confess, myself,
that I like the old reading best, and think it
more in Ovid's manner; but this, perhaps,
is mere fancy. I have always been a great
reader of him, and thought myself the
87
greatest admirer he had, till you called
him the first Poet of Antiquity, which is
going even beyond me. The grand and
spirited style of the Iliad ; the true nature
and simplicity of the Odyssey; the poetical
language (far excelling that of all other
Poets in the world) of the Georgics, and
the pathetic strokes in the Æneid, give
Homer and Virgil a rank, in my judgment,
clearly above all competitors; but next
after them I should be very apt to class
Ovid, to the great scandal, I believe, of all
who pique themselves upon what is called
purity of taste. You have somewhere com-
pared him to Euripides, I think; and I can
fancy I see a resemblance in them. This
resemblance it is, I suppose, which makes
one prefer Euripides to Sophocles; a pre-
ference which, if one were writing a
dissertation, it would be very difficult to
justify. Euripides leads one to Porson,
who, as I told you, is not content with
putting the final v as others have put it,
before him, but adopts it even when the
88
following word begins with a mute and a
liquid : and that he does this merely from a
desire to differ as widely from you as pos-
sible, is evident. In his Note on verse 64
of the Orestes, are the words which I will
copy and inclose. Now the cases of pre-
positions in compound words being made
long, appear to me not very rare; though
rare being an indefinite word, it is difficult
to ascertain precisely the force he gives to
it: but of the final vowel being long, of
which he thinks there are no instances,
there are a great many; at least I must
suppose so, as I recollect several from mere
memory. But, what is most to the purpose,
there is one in his Hecuba which I must
suppose to be “ indubiæ fidei ;” as he was
so far from stating it as a suspicious pas-
sage,
that he did not point it out even as a
remarkable one.
It is verse 589:
Ω θυγατερ, ουκ οιδ' εις ο, Τι βλεψω κακων"
but he had not then been angered by your
observations, and had not, therefore, re-
89
solved to support the use of the vin all
possible places. You must allow it is diffi-
cult for us unlearned to have a proper
confidence in great Critics, when they use
us in this manner, and lay down general
rules, which they never thought of before,
only for the purpose of making the dif-
ference more wide between them and their
opponents. In the Cyclops, v. 522, there
is ουδενΑ βλαπτει βροτων" in the Electra of
Euripides, v. 1058, there is aga xhuovori
and, I dare say, hundreds of more instances
against him, as I found these by mere
chance : and it has so happened, that I have
not read any play of Euripides, or Sophocles,
since I read his Note.
I cannot conceive upon what principle,
or indeed from what motive, they have so
restricted the intercourse between you
and
your family. My first impulse was, to write
to Lord Ilchester to speak to Mr. Frampton;
but, as you seem to suspect that former
applications have done mischief, I shall do
nothing. Your pupil's translation of avitis'
90
shews that he has a good notion of the
formation of words; and is a very good sign,
if he is a young one. Did you, who are
such a hater of war, ever read the lines
at the beginning of the second book of
Cowper's Task? There are few things in
our language superior to them, in my
judgment. He is a fine poet, and has, in
a great degree, conquered my prejudices
against blank verse.
I am, with great regard,
Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
C. J. Fox.
My hand is not yet so well as to give me
the use of it, though the wound is nearly
healed. The Surgeon suspects there is
more bone to come away.--I have been
here something more than a fortnight.
91
Professor Porson's Note, inclosed in the preceding :
" Orestes, v. 64.
« Παρθενον, εμη τε μητρι παρεδωκεΝ τρεφειν.
“ Erunt fortasse nonnulli, qui minùs
“ necessario hoc factum (that is, the inser-
“tion of the final v ) arbitraturi sint in
Togedwaev. Rationes igitur semel exponam,
nunquam posthac moniturus. Quanquam
“ enim sæpe syllabas naturâ breves positione
producunt Tragici, longè libentius corri-
piunt; adeo ut tria prope exempla correp-
" tarum invenias, ubi unum modo exstet
“ productarum: sed hoc genus licentiæ, in
-s verbis scilicet non compositis, qualia Tervov,
Targos, ceteris longè frequentius est.
“ Rarius multo syllaba producitur in verbo
composito, si in ipsam juncturam cadit, ut
“ in monuxguros, Andr. 2. Eâdem parsimoniâ
“ in augmentis producendis utuntur, ut
“ in eneurwoev, sup. 12. neuanobar, Sophocl.
66 Electr. 366. Rarior adhuc licentia est,
92
“ ubi præpositio verbo jungitur, ut in
ATOTGOTO, Phoen. 600. Sed ubi verbum in
" brevem vocalem desinit, eamque duæ con-
sonantes excipiunt, quæ brevem manere
patiantur, vix credo exempla indubiæ fidei
“ inveniri posse, in quibus syllaba ista
producatur. Ineptus esset quicunque ad
“ MSS. in tali causâ proyocaret, cum nulla
“ sit eorum auctoritas: id solum deprecor,
“ ne quis contra hanc regulam eorum
« testimonio abutatur; MSS. enim neque
« alter alteri consentiunt, neque idem MS.
“ sibi ipse per omnia constat. Quòd si ea,
quæ disputavi, vera sunt, planum est in
as fine vocis addendam esse literam, quam
66 addidi.'
93
LETTER XXVII.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Dorchester Gaol, Oct. 23, 1799.
I say, also, peace to our contro-
versy! and I wish that every dispute of
every kind could terminate as amicably,
and after such gentle litigation: the dif-
ferences of opinion in mankind would then
issue in the general melioration of their
tempers, and the augmentation of mutual
esteem; instead of acrimony, revenge, and
bloodshed.
Only excuse my unsolicited
freedom of remonstrance.
On the subject of Cicero, my opinions
coincide with yours : but as the turn of my
disposition has led me to inquiries con-
nected with the history of human intellect,
and human opinions; with the events of
antient times, and the rise and progress
of philosophy; to subjects also more im-
mediately conversant with philology and
94
+
criticism, and the theory of language; my
attention and affection have been fixed on
his philosophical works, which I exceedingly
reverence, rather than on his orations and
epistles, the repositories of private incidents,
and personal and local manners. But I
mean only to state my propensities, not to
extol them, or disparage the pursuits and
predilections of other students.
What immediately led me to that con-
jecture in Ovid, was, an instantaneous re-
pugnance of feeling to the connection of
qualem with the participle incultus : and I
am very much inclined to think, (for con-
fidence on these points, of all others, is
most inexcusable and absurd,) that no si-
milar instance will readily be discovered ;
in which case I should be much more tena-
cious of the conjecture.
In appreciating the comparative excel-
lencies of different poets, the first praise
seems due to invention: and, as I should
always omit Homer in these competitions,
from our entire ignorance of the circum-
95
.
stances under which he wrote, and of the
assistances which he might receive, no
poet of antiquity seems capable of support-
ing the contest with Ovid. Virgil has
produced more perfect poems; but then his
obligations for materials are commensurate
with the number of his verses; and would be
seen still more clearly, if Euphorion and
Nicander were now extant, fragments only
of whose congenial performances are pre-
served. Quintilian, with that candour
which distinguishes all his judgments, under
a strong bias in favour of his countryman,
after his admirable comparison of Demos-
thenes and Cicero, acknowledges that the
palm must be yielded in this respect, “as
Demosthenes made Cicero, in a great mea-
sure, what he was.” By the bye, I may
appear impertinent in recommending to
your notice what you know so well : but
that chapter of Quintilian, in which the
comparison between the Greek and Roman
authors is instituted, appears to me one
of the most interesting compositions in all
96
antiquity. Horace, I think, has happily
comprehended the constituent qualities of
a poet in few words:
Ingenium cui sit, cui mens divinior, atque os
Magna sonaturum.
In the first endowment, fertility of in-
vention and copiousness of thought, Ovid
far exceeds his countryman : in the second,
a noble enthusiastic fervour of imagination,
whose effects are sublimity and pathos,
some passages prove Ovid to have no supe-
rior among the sons of inspiration : see, in
particular, many parts of his Epistle of
Dido to Æneas, Phyllis to Demophoon, and
some others; his entire Elegy on the Death
of Tibullus, Metamorph. ii. ver. 333 to 344,
vi. 426--433; and the whole story of Pytha-
goras, xv. 60, &c. which has no parallel in
the monuments of human wit, to my fancy,
among the Antients, (as at once moral and
delightful,) except the conclusion of Lucre-
tius's third Book, and the adventures of
Ulysses with Alcinous in Homer. Very
few readers have attended more to the
97
peculiarities of elegant construction and
curious phraseology, whether of figure or
combination, than myself; and I find such
exquisite specimens and varieties in no
poet, as I find in Ovid: while, as Quintil-
lian says of Cicero, to the best of my re-
collection,—"hæc omnia fluunt illaborata;
" et ea, quâ nihil dulcius esse potest oratio,
præ se fert tamen felicissimam facilita-
“ tem.”—As to the third quality, magnifi-
cent language, Virgil has no rival there.
I am sorry that you gave yourself the
trouble of transcribing Porson's Note, as his
Orestes is one of the few books which I
have got with me. At present, I am reading
some voluminous Greek prose writers, with
a view to my Lexicon incidentally; so that
I do not expect to be able to read through
the Tragedians for some months yet; when
I shall pay particular regard to the points
in controversy : in the meantime, I wish
not to be positive, but open to conviction.
But my persuasions about the final , are
grounded on this sort of reasoning.
H
98
,لا
It is not for us, at this time of day, to lay
down the laws of Greek composition and
versification, but to inquire into the actual
practice of the Antients. Now it is most
certain, that the old editions and old
Scholiasts so generally omit the where
modern editors interpolate the letter, as to
induce a most probable conviction, that it
was universally omitted by the Antients;
and that the few present exceptions are the
officious insertions of transcribers and pub-
lishers, who would " be wise above what
was written;" and modelled the MSS. by
their own preconceptions of propriety.
Whereas, from the current persuasion,
among modern scholars, of the necessity
of support to these short syllables by the
application of consonants, it is perfectly
inconceivable that they should have left
the syllables in question unsustained, had
they found the y in their copies. Nay, it
cannot be doubted, but modern editors,
like Porson, would invariably supply the ,
in all those places where early editors
99
were contented to omit it in obedience to
their authorities; and, if the early editions
were lost, all traces of the old practice, as
it should seem to be, would presently be
obliterated beyond recovery.
I have been furnished with many opportu-
nities of observing Porson, by a near inspec-
tion. He has been at my house several times,
and once for an entire summer's day. Our
intercourse would have been frequent, but
for three reasons: 1. His extreme irregula-
rity, and inattention to times and seasons,
which did not at all comport with the
methodical arrangements of my time and
family. 2. His gross addiction to that
lowest and least excusable of all sensuali-
ties, immoderate drinking: and, 3. The un-
interesting insipidity of his society; as it is
impossible to engage his mind on
any
topic of mutual inquiry, to procure his
opinion on any author or on any passage
of an author, or to elicit any conversation
of any kind to compensate for the time and
attendance of his company. And as for
Homer, Virgil, and Horace, I never could
100
hear of the least critical effort on them in
his life. He is, in general, devoid of all
human affections; but such as he has, are of
a misanthropic quality: nor do I think
that any man exists, for whom his propen-
sities rise to the lowest pitch of affection
and esteem. He much resembles Proteus
in Lycophron :
ω γελως απεχθεται, ,
Και δακρυ-
though, I believe, he has satirical verses in
his treasury, for Dr. Bellenden, as he calls
him (PARR), and all his most intimate asso-
ciates. But, in his knowledge of the Greek
Tragedies, and Aristophanes; in his judg-
ment of MSS. and in all that relates to
the metrical proprieties of dramatic and
lyric versification, with whatever is con-
nected with this species of reading; none
of his contemporaries must pretend to
His grammatical knowledge
also, and his acquaintance with the antient
Lexicographers and Etymologists, is most
accurate and profound : and his intimacy
with Shakspeare, B. Jonson, and other
equal him.
101
dramatic writers, is probably unequalled.
He is, in short, a most extraordinary per-
son in every view, but unamiable; and has
been debarred of a comprehensive inter-
course with Greek and Roman authors, by
his excesses, which have made those ac-
quirements impossible to him, from the
want of that time, which must necessarily
be expended in laborious reading, and for
which no genius can be made a substitute.
No man has ever paid a more voluntary
and respectful homage to his talents, at all
times, both publickly and privately, in wri-
tings and conversation, than myself: and I
will be content to forfeit the esteem and
affection of all mankind, whenever the
least particle of envy and malignity is found
to mingle itself with my opinions. My first
reverence is to Virtue; my second, only to
talents and erudition : where both unite,
that man is estimable indeed to me, and
shall receive the full tribute of honour and
affection.—But I am transgressing the rules
of decorum, by this immoderate περιαυτολογια,
1
102
which yet, perhaps, is not unseasonable,
and certainly wishes to stand exculpated in
your sight.
I am so wholly immersed in my studies,
that my spirits are entirely recovered; and,
with the abatement of solitude (which no
man ever abhorred more), I never was more
comfortable in my life. To this, the most
extraordinary solicitude and affection of
my
friends, some of the most virtuous cha-
racters that ever existed, have contributed
not a little : and in this confinement, if I
live, I shall combat some of that severe
and unkindly reading, in authors of less
gaiety and elegance, which, in a happier
situation, would have been contended with
more tardily and reluctantly, if contended
with at all. It will give you pleasure to be
informed, that a former pupil sent me,
about a month ago, from Jamaica, 1000l.
I have occasionally looked in Cowper,
though I possess him not.
He appeared to
me too frequently on the verge of the ludi-
crous and burlesque; but he deserves, I
103
dare say, the character which you give
him. Whilst I am in health, and able to
endure fatigue, I mortify myself by keeping
to my main pursuits,
sener ut in otia tuta recedam:
may
hoping, if I live to grow old, that I
then indulge inyself more freely in gayer
literature. But surely Milton might have
reconciled you to blank verse, without
the aid of Cowper !
I rejoiced to observe your Letter dated
from your beloved retirement in the coun-
try; but your information respecting the
amendment of your hand communicates
but a mixed pleasure, if the gradual extri-
cation of other fragments of the bones must
be expected; a process, I fear, attended with
inflammation and torture, in most cases of
the kind. My best wishes attend you on all
occasions; and excuse me, if, in the French
style, which appears to me most manly and
becoming, even for the sake of variety itself,
I conclude myself,
Ever yours, with health and
respect !
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
+
104
[The second of the two Letters from Mr. WAKEFIELD, which the follow-
ing of Mr. Fox shew's to have intervened, is wanting.]
.
LETTER XXVIII.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, Nov. 22, 1799.
I Am much obliged to you for your
two Letters, and am very happy to find that
your situation is become more easy than I
had apprehended it was. If I should have
an opportunity of getting you the use of
any manuscripts from the persons you
mention, or from any others, you may de-
pend upon my attention to it. I know that
Mr. Coke has some; and I will write to a
friend who goes often to Holkham, to in-
quire whether there are any worth your
notice. I have looked at the quotation in
Diodorus, which certainly, as far as it goes,
makes much for your system : but it is to
be remarked, that some other parts of it
stand in need of emendation; and there-
105
fore the whole may be supposed not to
have been very accurately transcribed.
Since I wrote last to you, I have read three
plays of Euripides ; and in them I find no
less than five instances of that description,
of which Porson, in his Note on the Orestes,
supposes that there are none“ indubiæ fidei.”
They are as follow: Medea, vv. 246, 582.
Troades, v. 628. Heraclidæ, vv.391, 1044.;
and I have little doubt but in the rest of
his works, and probably in those of the
other Tragedians, instances would occur in
nearly a similar proportion. Porson's asser-
tion, therefore, appears to me so outrageous
a neglect of fact, that he ought to be
told of it. In his Notes upon the Hecuba,
v. 347 and 734, he makes two very singu-
lar remarks, in regard to metre, which
(singular as they appear) are nevertheless,
as far as my observation goes, just: but
these were probably made upon much exa-
mination and consideration, and not for a
particular purpose of supporting a new
system, that had occurred to him, of
106
ولا
inserting the final y where nobody else had
done it: to which he could be tempted by
no other motive than that of differing toto
coelo from you; and saying, “ So far from
listening to your advice of omitting the v
“ where others insert it, I will now insert
“it where nobody ever thought of it.”
This is abominable.--In regard to the gene-
ral question of the final I agree with you
that it must depend, in a great measure,
upon MSS.; and in so far as it does I am
no judge of it, never having seen any
of the Tragedians, nor indeed scarcely of
any other Greek Poets: but, upon general
reasoning, I own I am inclined to preserve
it, because I think there is much in this
argument. Vowels of a certain description
are uniformly short in certain given posi-
tions, with the exception of such of those
vowels only as occasionally admit the final y
(for the purpose of preventing the hiatus,
&c.). Is it not, therefore, a fair conjec-
ture, at least; and, if supported by any
one old MS, almost a certain one, that,
107
in such exceptions, the final v, which they,
and they alone, were capable of admitting,
was added.
Porson uses this argument;
but then he is not, as I have shewn you,
supported by the fact. I have read over, pos-
sibly for the hundredth time, the portion of
the Metamorphoses about Pythagoras; and
I think you cannot praise it too highly. I
always considered it as the finest part of the
whole poem; and, possibly, the Death of
Hercules as the next to it. I think your pro-
posed alteration of “pendet” to “pandit," is
a very fair one, if any is wanted; but upon
looking into Ainsworth, the only Latin
Dictionary I have, I find that Pliny uses
“ aranea” for the down that appears on some
parts of willow: now I think he never
could do this, unless “aranea" meant the
web of a spider, as well as the animal itself.
The Dictionary gives “ spider's web” too, as
one of the senses of " aranea ;” but then it
cites only the very passage we are upon,
and is therefore nothing to the purpose.
I own, I do not see why, in the passage
108
erroneous.
of the Fasti, “ defensæ" should be certainly
- Frondes defensæ arboribus,"
instead of “ arbores defensæ frondibus, "
seems not unlike the poetical diction of the
Latin Poets in general; but, if that is
wrong, at any rate the other old reading of
“excussæ” is unexceptionable; or, perhaps,
a reading compounded of the two might
do, such as “decussæ.” The change of the
punctuation in Juvenal is clearly, I think,
an amendment. I have read again (what
I had often read before) the chapter you
refer to of Quintilian, and a most pleasing
one it is; but I think he seems not to have an
opinion quite high enough of our favourite
Ovid; and, in his laboured comparison be-
tween Demosthenes and Cicero, he appears
to me to have thought them more alike, in
their manner and respective excellencies,
than they seem to me.
It is of them, I
think, that he might most justly have said,
Magis pares quàm similes.” I have no
Apollonius Rhodius, and have never read
of him more than what there is in our Eton
109
Poetæ Græci, and the Edinburgh Collecta-
nea: but, from what I have read, he seems
to be held far too low by Quintilian ; nor
can I think the “æqualis mediocritas” to be
his character. The parts extracted in the
above collections are as fine as poetry can
be; and, I believe, are generally allowed
to have been the model of what is certainly
not the least-admired part of the Æneid : if
he is in other parts equal to these, he ought
not to be characterized by mediocrity. I
wish to read the rest of his poem, partly
for the sake of the poem itself, and partly
to ascertain how much Virgil has taken
from him: but I have not got it, and do not
know what edition of it I ought to get:
I should be much obliged to you
if
you
would tell me. Shaw's is one of the latest;
but, I think, I have heard it ill spoken of.
If, at the same time, you would advise me
in regard to the Greek Poets in general
(of the second and third order, I mean),
which are best worth reading, and in what
editions, you would do me a great service.
110
Of Aratus, Nicander, Dionysius, Oppian,
Nonnius, Lycophron, I have never read a
word, except what has occurred in notes on
other authors; nor do I know what poems
those are which Barnes often alludes to,
calling them Trożca. Against Lycophron,
I own, I am somewhat prepossessed, from
hearing from all quarters of the difficulty
of understanding him. The Argonautics,
that go under the name of Orpheus, I have
read, and think that there are some very
beautiful passages in them,
in them, particularly the
description of Chiron, &c. I have read, too,
Theognis; and observed four verses in him
that are full as applicable to other countries,
as ever they could be to any city in Greece:
Λαξ επιβα δημω κενεοφρονι’ τυπτε
d's
κεντρώ
Οξεί, και ζευγλην δυσλoφoν αμφιτιθει.
Ou
you εθ' ευρησεις λαον φιλοδεσποτον ωδε
Ανθρωπων, οποσες ηελιος καθορα.
I wish to read some more, if not all, of
the Greek Poets, before I begin with those
Latin ones that you recommend; especially
as I take for granted that Valerius Flaccus
111
(one of them) is in some degree an imitator
of Apollonius Rhodius. Of him, or Silius
Italicus, I never read any; and of Statius
but little. Indeed, as, during far the greater
part of my life, the reading of the Classics
has been only an amusement, and not a
study, I know but little of them, beyond
the works of those who are generally placed
in the first rank; to which I have always
more or less attended, and with which I
have always been as well acquainted as
most idle men, if not better. My practice
has generally been “ multum potius quàm
multos legere.” Of late years, it is true
that I have read with more critical attention,
and made it more of a study ; but
tention has been chiefly directed to the
Greek language, and its writers ; so that in
the Latin I have a great deal still to read :
and I find that it is a pleasure which grows
upon me every day.
Milton, you say,
might have reconciled me to blank verse.
I certainly, in common with all the world,
admire the grand and stupendous passages
my at-
112
of the Paradise Lost; but yet, with all his
study of harmony, he had not reconciled me
to blank verse. There is a want of flow, of
ease, of what the painters call a free pencil,
even in his blank verse, which is a defect in
poetry that offends me more perhaps than
it ought: and I confess, perhaps to my
shame, that I read the Fairy Queen with
more delight than the Paradise Lost: this
may be owing, in some degree, perhaps, to
my great partiality to the Italian Poets.
I have no doubt but your Dictionary will
be a very interesting work, to those who
love the Greek language; but 20,000 new
words seem impossible; unless you mean,
by new words, new significations of old
words. I have some notions upon the
subject of a Greek Dictionary that are
perhaps impracticable, but, if they could
be executed, would, I think, be incredibly
useful: but this Letter is too unconscionably
long to make me think of lengthening it
by detailing them.
My hand mends slowly, but regularly ;
113
and I do not now think there will be any
exfoliation of the bone, though that is not
certain.
I am very glad to hear your
Jamaica pupil, whoever he be, has done
both you and himself so much honour.
I say nothing of the late surprising events :
the ends may be good, but the means seem
very odious. I shall think the degree of
liberty they allow to the press the great
criterion of their intentions.
Yours ever,
C. J. Fox
LETTER XXIX.
1
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Dorchester Gaol, Nov. 27, 1799.
Our want of accord on the final,
and critical emendations proves to me the
necessity of a work (of which all the ma-
terials are ready on my papers) on the
rationale of criticism, as founded on philo-
1
I
114
sophical principles, corroborated and ascer-
tained by the real practice of transcribers
and indubitable specimens from authors;
otherwise, no assent can be expected in the
majority of cases. My argument for the
perpetual omission of the v stands thus :
It is universally allowed, that the early
editors adhered more closely to their MSS.
In their editions, the final , is commonly
omitted. In such works as Scholia, of
which few copies were circulated, that v is
always omitted. Good reasons may be as-
signed for the occasional insertion, but
none possibly for the omission. Owners of
MSS. have perpetually corrected them, as
we see at this day, according to their own
fancy; and if Porson, for example, had
them all, in time he would put in the v
throughout; and these MSS. might go
down as vouchers for the practice of anti-
quity. Very little learning would suffice,
to induce men to insert v, from an opinion
of vicious quantity; so that a very old MS.
now might abound in that insertion, though
115
its prototype were without it; and so on.
But the acknowledged omission in in-
numerable instances even now, and that
obvious reason for its insertion in the rest,
when no possible solution can be given for
the regular omission, induce, to my appre-
hension, a probability of the highest kind,
that the Antients never used it at all.More
might be said; but this is the substance of
the argument.
In Ovid, Fast. iii. 537, the case stands
thus: I find in books of authority two
very different readings, detonse and excusse.
Whether either of these words will do, is
by no means the first consideration. I
want some probable account of this strange
variation, which, like all other facts, must
have a cause; and before the passage can
be mended, a probable cause must be al-
leged. There is no resemblance in the
letters; therefore we cannot satisfactorily
suppose one word to have been mistaken
for the other, by the transcriber's eye. I
think, therefore, that Ovid gave crusta.
116
Why? 1. Because it resembles excussæ in
its characters, and most likely in its pro-
nunciation; so as to be confounded, either
through eye-sight, or through dictation.
2. Because either detonse or excussa may
be reasonably supposed a marginal gloss, or
interlineary interpretation of the word pro-
posed; of which MSS. are full. 3. Exusta,
being an elegant word, and a word which
implies some reading and taste to relish
and understand it, would be readily super-
seded in the hands of a sciolist (whether
transcriber, or owner of a MS.), by one more
suited to his fancy; such as the other read-
ings. These are my reasons ;
my reasons ; none of
which can be assigned for the other two
words. If now it should be said, that
either of the other will do, I
say,
No:
1. Because no man, I dare say, can bring me
any passage, from all antiquity, in which
frost or cold is said " tondere folia,” or any
thing like it.
2. Because excusse and its
kindred are words of violence, and, I will
venture to affirm, are never applied to the
117
gentle and gradual operation of a frost.
(Excuse me, if I appear positive: it is only
in the expression, which one acquires from
the study of mathematics; where, after
constructing the figure, it is usual to add,
“I say, the triangle so and so is the trian-
gle required.") And with respect to phrases,
I have noted their peculiarities so copiously
in my own Dictionary, that I speak with
some confidence, on that account merely,
with respect to them.
Apollonius Rhodius was a great gramma-
rian, as well as a poet; and therefore you
should by all means have an edition with
the Scholia. Shaw's, though of no value as a
critical work, is prettily printed, has the
Scholia, and a most excellent Index; and
is therefore a very commodious book for
You should get the last 8vo edition.
Brunck, however, it is impossible to do
without, on account of his accuracy, and
his MSS. It is a 12mo, not very easily
got: there was one at Lackington's the
beginning of this year. Stiffness, and want
use.
118
of perspicuity and simplicity, appear to me
the failings of Apollonius Rhodius.
Aratus, as a versifier, is much in the
same style; and in language harsh and dif-
ficult, partly from his subject. His Phæ-
nomena will hardly be relished, but by the
lovers of astronomy; but his other work,
on the Signs of the Weather, must be read,
as it has been translated nearly by Virgil,
in Geo. i. The small Oxford edition is the
best I know: it is become scarce and dear.
I rather think they are republishing this
poet in Germany. You would know by
inquiring at Elmsley's. This poet has been
little read, and seldom published.
Nicander
you will never have patience to
read, I think; otherwise, he was also a
great linguist, but as obscure at least as
Lycophron; though his (Nicander’s) obscu-
rity is in the quaint and learned phrase, not
in the meaning. His first poem, of about six
hundred verses, treats of vegetable, mineral,
and animal poisons, and their remedies: his
second, of about a thousand verses, of
119
noxious animals, their bites and stings, and
remedies. They are good for me, as a Lexi-
con compiler, and a scholar by profession;
but I cannot recommend them to
you.
Dionysius Periegetes is, to my mind, the
sweetest and simplest writer, both for verse
and diction, of all the Greeks, far and wide,
after Homer The best and pleasantest
edition, to my knowledge, is Stephens's, or
the Oxford, which may easily be procured.
They are very numerous. There are also
some London editions; but beware of
Wells's mutilated and interpolated edition,
for the use of Westminster School.
Oppian is very puerile, and writes in a
false taste ; but his descriptions are enter-
taining and exact. He alone, of all the
Antients, delineates the camelopard very
accurately, and from nature. He will re-
compense the trouble of perusal. The best
edition is Schneider's. Ballu, a French-
man, began a very pretty edition ; but the
Halieutics, by him, have not yet appeared.
Rittershusius' also is not amiss.
120
Nonnus was a Christian poet of much
later date than the former; of a most pue-
rile and romantic cast : wrote a poem as
long as all Homer: difficult to be procured,
and not likely to approve himself to you.
He versified also, pleasantly enough, John's
Gospel.
Lycophron by all means read, in Potter's
later edition. Aspirit of melancholy breathes
through his poem, which makes him, with
his multitude of events, as delightful to
me as any of the Antients. I have read him
very often, and always with additional
gratification. His poem is delivered in the
form of a prophecy; and therefore affects
an ænigmatical obscurity, by enveloping
the sentiment in imagery, mythological
allusions, and a most learned and elaborate
phraseology. Most obscure in himself, he
is rendered perfectly plain and easy by his
scholiast, Tzetzes, who was a Jew. No
man equal to him in the purity of his iam-
bics; so that anapæst, tribrachys, and dactyl,
are extremely rare in him. His narrative
121
of the adventures of the Grecian chiefs,
particularly Ulysses, after the fall of Troy,
is infinitely interesting; and his prospect of
Xerxes' expedition into Greece, the devas-
tation of his army, &c. is nobly executed.
You cannot fail, I think, after the first
difficulties are surmounted, to like him
much.
No resemblance, but in the name of the
poem, between Apollonius Rhodius and
Valerius Flaccus. He and Statius have
ideas and expressions frequently beyond
Virgil. Varro wrote an Argonautic Ex-
pedition, which Valerius Flaccus may possi-
bly have imitated.
The Classics have been your amusement,
not your study. Alas! the reverse has been
the case very much with me. I have always
reckoned upon amusing myself, if I lived to
grow old; and have been therefore reso-
lutely labouring, under almost every species
of disadvantage, in my youth.
On this
account I never purchased Cowper: I have
met with him occasionally. He appears to
122
me a man of fine genius; but his Task
borders too much on the burlesque for a
fine poem. My revisal of Pope's Homer
led me to read his translation of the Greek;
and of all the miserable versification in
blank verse, that is the most miserable I
have yet seen. I have scarcely any books
here; but I remember the beginning of
Odyssey X. to be the most calamitous spe-
cimen of want of ear that ever came under
my notice. It would be rash in me to give
an opinion of his versification elsewhere;
but between his versification in Homer,
and that of Milton's Paradise Lost, there
is, to my sense, as great a difference as
can exist between two things that admit
comparison at all. The Faery Queen stanza
was always tiresome to me.
You would cease to wonder at my twenty
thousand words, if you saw my Lexicons ;
words good and true. You may cease also,
when I mention that there are at least as
many words of Nicander as that poet has
verses, in no common Lexicon; two or three
123
-
hundred in Oppian, as many thousand in
Nonnus; and when I mention further, that
in a day, one day with another, when I am
occupied in this work, I at least add twenty
from my reading, for months together;
some, original words; the generality, com-
pounds. What think you of five hundred
solid and nervous words on the margin
of my Johnson, not found in him, from
Milton only; and perhaps two hundred
from the same source, which Johnson gives,
but without authority?
I am very glad to hear so good an ac-
count of your hand.
I am, Sir,
Your obliged friend,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
124
LETTER XXX.
FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.
SIR,
Dorchester Gaol, March, 1800.
I trouble you with the Proposals
for my Lexicon; an enterprise of such
magnitude, and such ungrateful labour, as
almost overpowers my mind in the pro-
spect of it. Had some of our most opulent
countrymen your taste and zeal for antient
literature, a small portion of their super-
fluous wealth would be readily applied to a
much more complete performance, which
would not reach above two good volumes
in folio ; and the civilization of our present
barbarous manners would be essentially
promoted, I think, by the promotion of
useful letters. In general, I have been
always desirous of considering sound learn-
ing and virtuous manners as convertible
terms-generally, I say, not universally ;
and would willingly subscribe to the truth
125
of one of the noblest passages in antient
poetry:
ουτε γαρ υπνος,
Ουπ'
εας εξαπινας γλυκερωτερον, ουτε μελισσαις
Ανθεα, οσσον εμιν Μωσαι φιλαι' ους
Γαθευσαι, τως ου τι ποτω δαλησατο Κιρκα.
γαρ ορευντι
I am, Sir,
Your obliged servant,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
LETTER XXXI.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, March 12, 1800.
I received yesterday your Letter,
with the Proposals for the Lexicon. I see
innumerable advantages in an English inter-
pretation; to which the only objection is,
that it will confine the sale to this country:
and, how far it may be possible to get two
thousand subscriptions for a work useful
only to English readers of Greek, I am afraid
126
is doubtful. If Schools and Colleges are ex-
cepted, the number of those who ever even
look at a Greek book in this country is very
small: and you know enough of Schools, no
doubt, to suspect that partiality to old
methods is very likely to make them adhere
to Latin interpretations, notwithstanding the
clear advantage of using for interpretation
the language we best understand. My en-
deavours to promote the work shall not be
wanting, and you will of course set me
down as a subscriber. My idea with re-
gard to a Greek Dictionary, which I hinted
at in a former Letter, was suggested by a
plan of a French Dictionary, mentioned by
Condorcet in his Life of Voltaire. It is this:
That a chronological catalogue should be
made of all the authors who are cited in
the work; and that the sense of every word
should be given, first, from the oldest author
who has used it; and then should follow, in
regular chronological order, the senses in
which it was afterwards used by more mo-
dern authors. Where the sense has not
127
altered, it should be observed in this man-
ner: “ Ogos,
" 80s, a God. Homer : and is used in
the same manner by the other authors.” Thus
we should have a history of every word,
which would certainly be very useful; but
perhaps it would require a greater degree
of labour than any one man could perform.
Condorcet says, that Voltaire had offered
to do one letter of a Dictionary upon a prin-
ciple something like this: but, even if he
would have kept his word, one letter of a
French Dictionary, upon this plan, would
not be a hundredth part of a Greek one;
for, besides the much greater copiousness
of the Greek, the great distance of time be-
tween the early and the late writers must
make a Dictionary upon this principle more
bulky when applied to that language, (but,
for the same reason, more desirable,) than
it would be in any other.
Soon after I wrote to you last, I read
Apollonius (in Shaw's edition, for I have
not been able to get Brunck's); and upon
the whole had great satisfaction from him.
128
His language is sometimes hard, and very
often, I think, prosaïcal; and there is too
much narration: but there are passages
quite delightful to me, and I think his re-
putation has been below his merit. Both
Ovid and Virgil have taken much from him;
but the latter less, as appears to me, than
has been commonly said. Dido is, in
very few instances, a copy of Medea ;
whereas I had been led to suppose that she
was almost wholly so: and of Hypsipyle,
whose situation is most like Dido's, Apollo-
nius has made little or nothing. I have
lately read Lycophron, and am
am much
obliged to you for recommending it to me
to do so: besides there being some very
charming poetry in him, the variety of sto-
ries is very entertaining. Without Tzetzes
I should not have understood, however, a
tenth part of him; nor would they, per-
haps, who treat this
poor
Scholiast with so
much contempt, have understood much
more. There remain, after all, some few
difficulties, which if you can clear up to
129
me, I shall be much obliged to you; and
upon which neither Canterus, Meursius, nor
Potter, give me any help. The most im-
portant of these is, that which belongs to
the part where he speaks of the Romans
in a manner that could not be possible for
one who lived in the time of Ptolemy Phil-
adelphus, that is, even before the first Punic
war. Tzetzes speaks, it is true, of such an
observation having been made; but remarks
only upon the absurd way in which it has
been expressed, without answering the ob-
servation itself: and the other commenta-
tors above mentioned are silent upon it. I
see no remedy but leaving out verse 1226,
and all the following verses down to
v. 1281; and in favour of doing this, it is
to be observed, that 1281 and 1282 have a
much more correct sense if they follow
verse 1225, than placed as they now are:
for oι την εμην μελλοντες αιστωσαι πατραν Can-
not well apply to Æneas or the Romans;
and Torauta, in v. 1286, naturally applies to
the last-mentioned calamities. If these verses
K
.
130
are to stand, I think it must be admitted,
that the poem is not so antient as is sup-
posed, and that, if the author's name was
Lycophron, it was not at least that Lyco-
phron who lived in Philadelphus's time.
If this hypothesis is admitted, then Tzetzes'
interpretation of v. 1446 and the following
verses is not so absurd as the other com-
mentators state it to be; and they may very
well relate to the first of the Ptolemies who
was in alliance with Rome (I forget his
surname); or still better to Philip of Mace-
don, if the poem was written soon after his
peace with Rome, and prior to the Roman
war with his son Perseus. As the matter
now stands, the allusion is given up as
desperate. My next difficulty is in line 808,
in regard to the word noois, which, how it
can describe Telemachus (as is supposed) I
cannot conceive. The husband of whom?
of nobody mentioned before: certainly not
of the damagros, whom he killed: and if of
her who is mentioned after, she is called
sister, and therefore the word husband does
131
when you say
A
not naturally refer to her; for though she
is supposed to be both sister and wife, yet
“ the husband was killed by
his sister," it cannot mean a sister that was
wife too. Scaliger, in his translation, has
it “frater:" and 2005 would do for the verse;
but even then the construction is very hard,
as the naviy must refer to the adenon men-
tioned two lines after. As it now stands, I
think it must allude to some lost story, in
which Telemachus, or some son of Ulysses,
is supposed to have killed his own wife, and
to have been killed in revenge by that
wife's sister, or his own. The difficulty
does not seem to be felt, at least it is not
explained by the commentators. I could
not at first understand ver. 407; but I
thought I remembered something of yours
upon the subject; and, upon looking into
your notes upon Ion, I found it perfectly
explained; only I cannot find in my Lexi-
cons (I have only Stephens's Thesaurus and
Morell's Hederic) that nown ever signifies
the string of a bow. In v. 1159, I find the
132
word sportopevns, from some such word as
poetow, which I cannot find any where. Of
this the commentators take no notice. In
v. 869, I think andnuc is an incomprehen-
sible expression, if the sense is as is sup-
posed (for I do not take it to have the
double meaning of the Latin word “saltus”);
and I understood it, before I looked at the
comment, to be a description of Venus
herself, according to one of the mytholo-
gical accounts of her birth ; nor am I quite
sure I was wrong. The omission of the
particle ye
after κογχειας,
, in the same line
in one MS, would rather favour my inter-
pretation. If
you have a Lycophron with
you, and much leisure, I shall be obliged
to you for your opinion upon some of the
above
passages; for, excepting these, I do
not think there are any about which I have
much difficulty; though I may have forgot
some, as I did not note down any whilst I
was reading him: and there are, besides,
many words new to me; but where the
commentators have taken notice of them,
133
and so explained them that I can acquiesce
in their explanation, I do not trouble you
with them. The passage you quote from
Theocritus is most beautiful: I suppose
Horace took his idea of his
Quem tu, Melpomene, semel -
from it; for, besides the general resem-
blance of the sentiment, the shape in which
it is put seems exactly the same;
Ous yog ógnte, tws oux, &c.
Quem tu videris, illum non, &c.
I have written it ógnte, because I under-
stand, from my edition, that is the oldest
reading; and if so, I think the change of
Porson rather an elegance than a defect:
not that I should think it worth while to
alter it, which ever way it stood. At
any
rate, I like øgeurti yadevoas, as you write it,
better than δρωσαι γαθεωσι, which is in the
text of my edition.
You have heard from the newspapers, of
course, of my going to the House of Com-
mons last month. I did it more in conse-
quence of the opinion of others, than from
134
1
my own; and when I came back, and read
the lines 1451, 2, 3 of Lycophron,
T
μακρα τλημων εις ανηκοους πετρας, ,
Εις κυμα κωφον, εις να πας δυσπλητιδας
Βαζω, κενον ψαλλουσα μαστακος κροτον και
I thought them very apposite to what I
had been about. In the last of the three,
particularly, there is something of comic,
that diverted me, at my own expense, very
much. I mean
Βαζω, κενον ψαλλουσα
κενον ψαλλουσα μαστακος κροτον. .
I believe I ought to make you some apo-
logy for this long and tedious Letter; but
trusting to your goodness, I shall make
none, except that it is, in part, the conse-
quence of that zeal for literature, which
you suppose (and I hope, in general, truly-
universally certainly not ) leads to better
things.
Yours ever truly,
C. J. Fox
135
LETTER XXXII.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Dorchester Gaol, March 13, 1800.
I AM very glad that you like Lyco-
phron. The only exception to him is, that
quaintness of phraseology which borders
on burlesque : but I suppose the necessity
of correspondence with the oracular style
of antiquity produced this singularity, for
the old oracles are altogether in this strain.
Some time ago I sent for my Oxford Lyco-
phron,-but great inconvenience attends
the search of my books,-and an old copy of
another edition came in its stead, which I
cannot use commodiously. I expect the
right book by the first convenient oppor-
tunity of conveyance; when I mean to read
him again very attentively, and will keep
in view your difficulties and doubts. In
truth, I am very careful about this migra-
tion of my library; because all my notes
136
are on the margins, and I am not fond of
hazarding inconsiderately the labours of
my life. These little things are great to
little men. The disadvantages and vexa-
tions which this confinement has occa-
sioned, in this way, cannot easily be enu-
merated, and are very irksome to my
feelings.
That disadvantage of an English inter-
pretation to the Lexicon was foreseen, and,
on a general estimate, disregarded. I am
not very solicitous for its success; and shall
abandon the project without reluctance, if
the country does not furnish encourage-
ment sufficient for it. No word, properly
speaking, can have more than two senses :
its primary picture sense, derived from ex-
ternal objects and operations; and its secon-
dary and consequential: a rule which would
make short work, but very proper work,
with most Dictionaries; and reduce John-
son's strange ramifications of meaning into
twenty or thirty shoots, to one original sense,
and two or three shades of inferential.
137
What I once said of my number of
additional words, surprised you.
I am
reading Manetho, an old astrologer, whom
I have read before, but not with this
par-
ticular view; and one who probably never
came in your way.
your way. He is a good writer of
his class, and a most correct versifier; but
deals very largely in new words. Before
your letter came, for the gratification of
my own curiosity, I had noted all the
words, not inserted in Hederic, which I had
met with since the morning. They amount
to seventy-two ; and not so much as two
thirds of my day's work is yet finished.
I should have thought that you might
have got a Brunck's Apollonius Rhodius
at Lackington's. They had several before
my departure from the world. I shall be-
gin him in a few days; and may perhaps
trouble you with a few conjectures, though
my principal copy is not here.
To my mind, nothing was ever more
soothing, in the melancholy strain, than
many passages in Lycophron; but, as you
138
justly observe, he would be absolutely
unintelligible, in most parts, without his
Scholiast, to whom more obligations are
due, on that account, than to the Scholiast
of any other author whatever.
I never met with that reading, ognte, in
the second person, in that passage of Theo-
critus. I should except to it, because not
in his way, as his poetry does not furnish
a beauty of that kind. Milton very finely
adopted it from Virgil, in his Evening
Hymn:
Thou also mad'st the night,
Maker omnipotent ! &c.
.
In the next page but one of my Silv.
Critica, (vol. i. p. 22.) where I have illus-
trated the verses of Theocritus by some
very beautiful parallels, p. 23, are some
excellent exemplifications of that sudden
conversion to address from narrative: to
which add Acts of the Apostles, xiii. 22.
xiv. 22; for no writer has been more suc-
cessful in this respect than Luke: see, too,
Polybius, i. 344. Ernesti's edition.
139
Your absentation from the House is a
measure which always had my most entire
concurrence; nor do I less approve your
late appearance there: not that I expected
any immediate benefit from your exertions;
but because I think your friends and the
public expected that effort from you. My
opinion was, I own, (but I venture a dis-
sent from you on any subject, and most of
all on this, with extreme diffidence,) that
you should have absented yourself sooner;
and for this plain reason : Such discussion
and debate, in opposition to Ministers, con-
tributed to encourage a delusion through
the country, that measures were to be car-
ried in that House by argument and the
force of truth, when they certainly were
not to be carried by such influence.
There is another author, Tryphiodorus,
who is short, and therefore not very trou-
blesome in that respect, whom you might
wish to read : Merrick published an edition
of him, with an excellent English transla-
tion: an edition has been given also by a
140
pupil of mine, Mr. Northmore: either are
easily procurable, and you would not re-
gret the bestowal of two or three hours
upon him.
No apology is necessary for any applica-
tion to me on these subjects. I shall be
abundantly recompensed, if my superior
assiduity may enable me to contribute any
particle of gratification to your studies.
I remain, Sir,
Your obliged friend,
GILBERT WAKefield.
141
LETTER XXXIII.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, March 14, 1800.
I have received your Letter; and
will certainly write to Lord Ilchester, and
apply, through some channel that may be
proper, to the persons you mention ; or take
such other measures as, upon consultation
with my Nephew, may be thought advisa-
ble. In
In regard to the question of submit-
ting to extreme extortion, if it should come
to that, I confess myself not to be of the
stout side, unless it should be necessary
upon a prudential principle, which I hope
it is not. A person in your situation is not
called
any voluntary sacrifices to
public considerations, for which he already
suffers quite sufficiently.
upon for
Yours ever,
C. J. Fox.
142
LETTER XXXIV.
}
FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, March 19, 1800.
My Nephew writes me word that
he is to see Mr. Moreton Pitt, who, I believe;
has more influence, in regard to the prison,
than any of the other Magistrates. When
I mentioned prudential reasons, it was not
with a view to discourage them, but on the
contrary. But with regard to the effects
of an ill example, I am clearly of opinion
that your situation dispenses with your
making any sacrifice to such a considera-
tion, when put in competition with your
ease and convenience.
I am much obliged to you for what you
mention in regard to the Anthologia,
which I shall attend to, as well as to
your recommendation of Hales of Eton.
I thought the principal beauties of the
Anthologia would be in Brunck's Ana-
143
lecta; a book which I have not yet
got, though it is a year since I commis-
sioned my Bookseller to get it for me.
I believe the next Greek author I shall
read will be Diogenes Laertius.
Yours ever,
C. J. Fox.
P.S. Till I know the result of Lord
Holland's application to Mr. Pitt, I think
it best to delay any other application; but,
you may depend upon it, whatever my
Nephew and I can do, shall be done.
144
LETTER XXXV.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Dorchester Gaol, March 20, 1800.
It is well that you have not ob-
tained Brunck's Analecta ; because Jacobs'
is a republication of the very book, with
infinite improvement; and may be had,
except the last volume, at any time I
should think, of Elmsley, if not of your
own Bookseller.
Another book I forgot to mention, as
worthy of your notice,—the edition of Or-
pheus de Lapidibus, by that very modest
and most ingenious person, the late Mr.
Tyrwhitt: but take care that his Disserta-
tion on Babrius, with the exquisite frag-
ments of that neat and simple writer, be
annexed. Scarcely any loss is more to be
regretted than that of Babrius, as you will
judge from his remains; which, I think it
145
A
probable that you may not have seen col-
lected.
When you are at a loss, Quintus Calaber
would amuse you, from the light which his
long poem throws on the Trojan war: and
his connection, in these respects, with the
nobler Poets confers an indirect and inci-
dental value on his rambling, and, in gene-
ral, puerile performance.
It is singular, and probably you might
observe it, that all the words quoted from
Lycophron, in Morell's Hederic, are stated
as being found in Lycurgus: “Lycurg." at
least in my 4to edition of 1790. And, on
this subject of mistakes, Is it not also ex-
traordinary, that the verses from Shak-
speare, which are put at the head of the
daily occurrences in the Morning Chronicle,
have been wrongly arranged to this day,
through the last ten years, the term of my
acquaintance with the paper?
I am sorry that you do not readily pro-
cure Brunck's Apollonius Rhodius. The
text is wonderfully improved from his
L
146
MSS.; and my doctrine of the final v evinced
beyond all dispute. Brunck, however, did
not see, or would not acknowledge, the
omission to that extent in which I maintain
it; and, you will perceive, involves him-
self accordingly in numerous embarrass-
ments and self-contradictions, both in that
edition, and his edition of the Tragedians.
I remain, Sir,
Your obliged friend,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
147
LETTER XXXVI.
FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.
SIR,
Dorchester Gaol, April 8, 1800.
As Mr. M. Pitt is going to town
to-morrow, and the Duke of Grafton and
Lord Holland have promised to see him,
an application at the same time to Mr.
Frampton could not fail of a beneficial
effect; who, during Mr. Pitt's absence in
Ireland, has interested himself much in the
affairs of this place.
It should be understood, that I want no
interference with A. in the management of
his own family, or the disposal of his
house; but merely a provision, by the
Magistrates, of a place where I shall not
perish with the inclemency of winter, if A.
will not continue me under his roof at the
expiration of this year. Mr. F. will receive
another application, through his tutor, Dr.
Huntingford, warden of Winchester Col-
148
lege, with whom I have occasionally com-
municated by Letter in former days.
You will find in the Life of Diogenes, in
Diogenes Laertius, whom you spoke of as
your next author to be perused, many di-
verting applications of Homer's verses ; and
if
you
have Casaubon's Athenæus, the Index
prefixed will point out a most ludicrous
appropriation of the initial verses of Sopho-
cles' Electra, by a celebrated courtesan.
If
you
should not discover the place, or
not have an Athenæus at hand, I will
relate the circumstance for your enter-
tainment, when less incommoded by the
pressure of those inconveniences which at-
tend these sudden movements at this place;
for I learn, but this moment, Mr. Pitt's in-
tention to visit London before the Sessions.
I am, Sir,
Your obliged friend,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
149
LETTER XXXVII.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, April 13, 1800.
I have not yet begun Diogenes Laertius,
having been a good deal occupied of late.
The little Greek I have been reading lately
has been in Pindar, where I confess I find
some difficulties; nor have I yet met with
any passages equal in beauty to those odes
of his which are in the Eton Extracts.
I have Casaubon's Athenæus, but (owing
perhaps to my not knowing how to search
them) I cannot find, in any of the Indexes,
the appropriation of the beginning of So-
phocles' Electra which you mention. In
the list of plays quoted under the head of
Sophocles' Electra, it does not appear; nor
can I find it from the Index at the end,
under the heads of Phryne, Thaïs, or Laïs.
I am, Dear Sir,
Yours ever,
C. J. Fox.
150
LETTER XXXVIII.
FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, April 20, 1800.
I have received a Letter from Lord
Ilchester, who promises to speak to Mr.
Frampton. My Nephew has spoken to Mr.
M. Pitt, who seems to be very willing to
do what is right, and says he will speak
with
you concerning the business. A room
at the Gaoler's, if it can be had on mode-
rate terms, I should think most eligible ;
and of your obtaining that, either by
Mr. M. Pitt's interference, or otherwise, I
should hope there is little doubt.
Pindar's Pythics appear to me much su-
perior, in general, to his Olympics: I do not
know whether this is a general opinion:
however, the second Olympic is still my
favourite.
I am, Sir,
Yours ever most truly,
C. J. Fox.
151
LETTER XXXIX.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Dorchester Gaol, May 27, 1800.
3
I received my Lycophron a little
time since; and have been reading him
again. I have neither the proper books
here, nor chronological memory, sufficient
to judge of your objection to the authenti-
city of the passage from y. 1226 to 1281,
from the progress of the Roman conquests
at that time: but a general objection arises
to the latter parts of the poem, from the
aukward poetical salvo in ver. 1373, which
one aware of the prophetic character was
not likely to have introduced. But is it
incredible, that an attentive observer of the
times, and the rising greatness of the Ro-
mans, might venture to predict the extent
of their future sway in the general terms
of ver. 1229, especially with Homer's ex-
152
ample before him, Il. Y. 307, 308 ? Just
as that remarkable prophecy also of Seneca,
-venient annis
Secula seris, &c.
the passage.
might readily force itself on the mind of
a philosopher at all acquainted with the
figure of the globe, and the disproportion
of the terrestrial parts, then known, to the
seas and ocean. The absence of my books
disables me from specifying the tragedy
and verse : but you will probably recollect
The greatest singularity of
this nature, which recurs to my memory,
is an anticipated description of the Jesuits
before the establishment of that fraternity;
which is quoted, somewhere about the time
of their origin, in the Notes to Mosheim's
Ecclesiastical History -- Maclean's trans-
lation.
At ver. 807....812, I perceive no difficulty,
but one, occasioned by the word 70015,
rendered obscure by its nearness to δαμαρτος, ,
to which it does not refer. I render thus,
and understand: “When he (Ulysses) shall
153
66
s breathe out his life, lamenting the cala-
“mities of his son and wife; which wife
(Circe), a husband, or married man,
(namely, of Cassiphone the daughter,)
having slain, will himself
go
in the next
place to the grave, killed off by his sister
(his relation), who was the relation of
Glaucon, &c.”
The difficulty is increased by the expres-
sion of ver. 809, which naturally carries
you to Ulysses, and his descent into the in-
fernal regions; but may easily mean, that
she (the wife) went the πρωτην οδον, for πρωτη
first; and Telemachus went the devtegar, or
after her: which are common variations of
phrase.
As to ver. 407. Ilaynu, or mayor var. lect.
means a snare; and so, by inference, a
string, or nervum; as bird-snares were made
of nerves or strings.
Your interpretation of ver. 869 is ex-
ceedingly ingenious and just. “Αρπη is
used by Nicander for any pointed instru-
154
στ
ment in general, as a tooth, &c.; and otopdury's,
Tovuč, and equivalent words, are used in
the Anthologia, and elsewhere, for that far-
famed implement in question; for which
again is a proper term of disguise, in such a
composition as the Cassandra. Observe,
also, how the congenial word Jogos, from
Jogw salio, agrees with andnua : and the e
'
may
either be omitted, or remain, as the
exordium of an aggregate: “ doubling both
the water, &c.” So that your conception
of the verse seems every way unexceptiona-
ble and appropriate.
For myself, I seem arrived nearly at the
end of my reading in this place, with my
present stock of books; and my appetite is
apt to flag with the hilarity of the season,
and the tempting appearances of nature :
so that I should not much object to a
liberation at this time, with Lord Thanet
and Mr. Ferguson : but
Truditur dies die,
Novæque pergunt interire Lunæ ;
155
and will soon accomplish my desires, if not
anticipated by a more arbitrary and speedy
summons from this terrestrial existence.
I remain, Sir,
Your obliged friend,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
LETTER XL.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, June 20, 1800.
I have been a good deal occupied
of late, which has prevented me thanking
you sooner for your Letter, in which you
clear some of my doubts about Lycophron. I
am very glad you approve of my conjecture
about ágan: but it is not even necessary to
it that ágan should bear the figurative sense
you mention. It may mean the instrument
with which Saturn mutilated his father
156
|
Cælus. I was aware the forte was very
consistent with my interpretation; but to
the common one it is absolutely necessary;
and therefore its being absent from some
of the old copies makes in favour of my
guess; for, in my supposition, it may be
there or not. I confess I cannot think it
possible, that Lycophron, writing before the
first Punic war, could speak of the Romans
as he does: besides, there is a passage,
which I cannot immediately lay my finger
upon, foretelling an alliance between the
Romans (or at least the descendants of
the Trojans ) and the Macedonians; which
may allude either to that between the Ro-
mans and Philip, or to that between them
and Ptolemy, but which, as a particular
fact, could never be guessed at so long
before it took place. The Prophecy in
Seneca's Medea is very curious indeed. I
once saw one relating to the Jesuits in
some history of Ireland (not certainly Le-
land's), which may perhaps be the same to
157
which you allude. It appeared to me to
be the most extraordinary thing of the kind
I had ever met with; so much so, that I
am very sorry I did not take a note of the
book and page.
I will endeavour to reco-
ver it. Homer's I do not think much of,
as it is easily explained by the supposition
that in his time Æneas's posterity were in
power somewhere: whether in Asia, or
in Europe, the words are equally appli-
cable.
In one of your Letters, long since,
you mentioned that Dawes said, that in-
stead of ιλασσωμεθ' ανακτος, it was in the
Florentine edition inaoopeola, so that the
digamma was respected. I have lately
been extravagant enough to purchase the
Florentine edition; and find that it has
inasowuel', like the other editions: the line
is in the A. 444.
I am truly glad that you have settled
your own business. I never supposed I
could have any influence with Mr. Frampton.
158
His Father-in-law, I think, would be glad
to oblige me, and, even independently of
such a wish, would be of the good-natured
side of any question.
I like parts of the imitation of Juvenal
very
much: it is full of spirit. You do not
say by whom it is
Yours ever,
C. J. Fox.
159
i
LETTER XLI.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Dorchester Gaol, June 21, 1800.
any
one.
No apology for any interval of
time in noticing my Letters is at all neces-
sary. I usually send answers immediately,
partly from regular practice, and partly
from want of room in this place; so that
what once is dismissed from my sight on
the table, is in danger of being totally for-
gotten. But I make no requisitions of
.
I cannot now recollect what I said about
Homer, Il. A. 444; but I probably misre-
presented what Dawes asserted, from de-
fect of memory. Common editions have
λασσωμεθ' ανακτα. My Florentine, which
is now open before me, has incrowusola
avazta, which you see is removed from
what is apprehended to be the truth,
ελασομεσθα, by only very common and
.
160
accountable variations, the doubling of o,
and long for short o.
If it be in yours, as
you state, inaorwuel', it is very strange. I
collated the Florentine soon after I came
hither, and found it less serviceable than I
expected. A good deal of suffrage in the
final v; but as much in the Etymologicon
Magnum. See Od. T. 419.
See Od. T. 419. Some small
confirmation of the proposed correction for
II. A. 444, exists in Etymologicon Magnum,
p. 97, in as far as o for w; for the author,
though the passage is most corrupt, very
evidently refers to the verse in question.
I am, Sir,
Your most obliged friend,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
161
LET TER XLII.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, June 26, 1800.
It is very extraordinary, that our
copies of the Florentine Homer should be
so different. In mine, the dedication to
which (to Peter of Medicis, the son of
Lawrence) is dated 1488, it is most dis-
tinctly, as I stated, inaorwel'. Observe, that
the i is marked with the lenis, instead of the
aspirate. As my eyes are very indifferent,
I at first thought it might be a mistake of
mine, and that there was a thickness at the
bottom of the I, which might stand for a o;
but I observe it is quite the same letter as
in Φοιβο 9' ιερης εκατομβην, in the preceding
line; and the mark of elision at the end,
instead of the a, is quite clear. Its being
in acowpeodo in your copy, is a clear justifica-
tion of the reading inaconerla, if that use
M
162
of the future is common in Homer, which,
upon mere recollection, I cannot say. This
variation between our copies is a very sin-
gular circumstance.
You see the turn affairs have taken in
Italy. God send it may lead to a peace !
Yours ever,
C. J. Fox.
LETTER XLIII.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Dorchester Gaol, June 28, 1800.
When Heath recommended a read-
ing in Sophocles on the authority of the
second Justine edition, Brunck, who had
never seen that edition, nor knew indeed
of its existence, made himself merry at the
expense, as he supposed, of our country-
man, “as if he had got an impression of
Sophocles made on purpose for himself.” I
did not entertain so high an opinion of you,
as to suppose the Fates to have gifted the
163
Italian typographers with a prophetic im-
pulse for a provisionary accommodation of
a Florentine Homer to your future pur-
poses, in exclusion of all other admirers of
that poet: but rather concluded, from your
accuracy on these occasions, that two dif-
ferent impressions of this work, much at
the same time, must have gone abroad, as
the product of the same operation ; as we
know of two Aldine Demosthenes, and two
Baskerville’s Virgils, only distinguishable by
the more knowing dealers in these articles.
The verse in question is most distinctly
and unambiguously written at length in
my copy, and stands the second in the
right-hand page; perfectly conformable to
my former representation of it. I suspect
yours to be some spurious and managed
copy: of the legitimacy of my own, its
pedigree will not suffer me to doubt. Its ori-
ginal owner, of late years, was Mr. Crache-
rode: it is a very fine copy; but when its
curious
possessor procured a finer, it past
over to the library of Lord Spencer; and
164
he, on procuring one more suited to his
taste, transferred it to Edwards the book-
seller, who conveyed it to my hands for a
large-paper Lucretius : so that it exhibits a
genealogy almost comparable to that of
Agamemnon's sceptre, or Belinda's bod-
kin. The knowing ones, who must occa-
sionally come in your way, will be able, I
dare say, to solve your doubts, and clear
up the difficulty. If a surreptitious copy
has been foisted on you, it will be pru-
dently returned to its late owner; who, if
a craftsman, might be aware of its illegi-
timacy. But I speak merely from conjec-
ture, founded on the
the facts, which our
respective copies unquestionably would
furnish in greater numbers, from more
minute comparison of passages.
With reference to the conclusion of your
favour: in other circumstances, I might
say, that I was so affected, as not to know
whether my head or heels were uppermost.
In my present situation, I shall employ
language more significant and appropriate,
165
if I
say: that I scarcely know whether I am
in a prison, or without. For that man
(whom I have long revered), and for every
son of peace and mercy, my aspiration is,
what is inscribed on the entrance of our
cloisters in Jesus College : PROSPERUM ITER
FACIAS!—My spirit is with him and them.
It amazes me, that any man can pretend
to believe in Revelation, and these pre-
tenders are very numerous,) and not see, if
he read but a page of Christ's lectures in the
Gospel, that his religion, and every hostile
propensity, much more actual and offensive
war, are not only incompatible with each
other, but the most unequivocal contradic-
tion in terms.
I remain, Sir,
Your obliged friend,
GILBERT Wakefield.
Opea, which I omitted to mention, is
very variously employed in Homer: a simi-
lar government and power of the word
may be seen in verse 147 of the same book.
166
LETTER XLIV.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, Oct. 17, 1800.
You mentioned to me, some time
since, a wish to have the perusal of some
MSS, of the Classics that may be in pri-
vate libraries. I shall
go
to Mr. Coke's, at
Holkham, the beginning of next month;
who has, as I understand, several, which I
will look at: but if there are any particu-
lar authors of more consequence to you
than others, I wish you would give me a
hint, and I will endeavour to get the loan
of them for you. I have not been able yet
to account for the difference between my
copy of the Florence Homer and yours;
but have desired an intelligent person to
examine such other copies as may fall in
his way.
I am, Sir,
Your friend and servant,
C. J. Fox.
167
LETTER XLV.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Dorchester Gaol, Oct. 18, 1800.
I THANK you for this recollection
of my request. The loan of any Greek
MS, prior in date to the invention of print-
ing, will be acceptable; of any poet, except
Aristophanes; and of prose writers, Clemens
Alexandrinus and Philo Judæus. Of the
Latin poets, Silius Italicus, Valerius Flac-
cus; and Virgil, if very antient and uncol-
lated, otherwise a MS. of him cannot be
presumed of much utility.
Suffer me to employ this opportunity of
thanking you for your Address to your
Electors : it was seasonable, spirited, and
judicious. I know no men, who pour out
such an abundance of practical good sense
on all subjects, intelligibly to the meanest
capacities and instructively to the best, as
Dr. Paley (I wish that he did not sophis-
168
ticate too frequently against his convictions,
in vindication of his craft), Dr. Priestley,
and the man who is now addressed
By his obliged servant,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
LETTER XLVI.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, Jan. 26, 1801.
I was at Holkham this year å
much shorter time than usual; and I am
ashamed to say, that I could not find time
to do what I certainly had voluntarily
engaged to do, by searching the library.
Partly a malus pudor, and partly an expec-
tation of hearing from Mr. Wilbraham
that he had repaired my omission, have pre-
vented me hitherto from giving you this
account; but it is the true one, nor will I
attempt at any palliation. Clemens Alex-
169
you
andrinus, if I remember right, was the
author you particularly mentioned, as a
manuscript you most desired.
I am much afraid that it will be much
longer than you seem to think, before Europe
will be delivered from the horrors of war;
if that be the delivery to which
look,
If you mean only a deliverance from the
odious projects of our Ministers and their
allies, I consider that as already in effect
accomplished.
I am at present engaged in an attempt
to write a History of the times immediately
preceding and following the Revolution
of 1688. Whether my attempt will ever
come to any thing, I know not; but,
whether it does or not, I shall grudge very
much the time it takes away from my atten-
tion to poetry and antient literature, which
are studies far more suitable to my taste.
However, though these studies are a good
deal interrupted, they have not wholly
ceased ; and therefore I should be obliged
if
you
would tell me your opinion
to you,
170
concerning the best edition of Æschylus.
I see, in a Catalogue now before me, that
I can have Pauw’s for four guineas, which,
if it be the best, I do not think much.
I have no edition of this poet at all ; and,
consequently, have not of late years read
any of his plays, except the Eumenides in
your collection. Some passages are grand
indeed; but there is a hardness of style,
and too continual an aim at grandeur, to
be quite to my taste. I think I have heard
that there are detached editions of some
of his plays that are worth having. Now
I am troubling you upon these subjects,
If I have time only to read one or two of
Aristophanes' plays, which would you re-
commend me? I never read
I never read any of them.
I suppose Porson's parenthesis, in his
Note on the Phænissæ, ver. 1230, is meant to
apply to the Tragedians exclusively. Whe-
ther, even so applied, it be true, I doubt;
but if applied generally, it is ridiculous.
The parenthesis is,“ “Neque enim diph-
thongus ante brevem vocalem elidi potest."
171
The more I consider the passage I once
before mentioned to you in Lycophron, the
more I am convinced that it is morally
impossible that a man living in the time
of Ptolemy Philadelphus (that is, before the
first Punic war) could have written the
verses concerning Rome, beginning at ver.
1226; still less those beginning at 1446:
and yet I believe nothing of the sort is
more generally believed than that Lyco-
phron did live in the time of Ptolemy
Philadelphus. Tzetzes takes notice of the
objection; but only cavils at the manner
in which it is stated, without answering
the substance of it. The other Commen-
tators say nothing about it; only, as to ver.
1446, one of them is satisfied with saying
that he does not know what it alludes to.
I have to return you thanks for the Dio
Chrysostom, which, however, I have not
yet looked into.
I am very truly, Sir,
Your obliged servant,
C. J. Fox.
172
P.S. I cannot clear up the mystery of
my Florence edition of Homer, differing
from yours in the word ελασσωμεθ'. I
begin to be afraid that mine must be a
spurious copy; but it has not the appear-,
ance of it.
I have not seen any other
Florence Homer lately, to compare it with;
but I have commissioned a friend to exa-
mine one.
--
173
LETTER XLVII.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Dorchester Gaol, Jan. 27, 1801.
MSS, I know, are so scarce in
this country, even in public libraries, that
I had formed no flattering expectations
from your researches at Mr. Coke's; and,
of course, shall feel but little disappoint-
ment at an unpropitious issue.
Several visitors to me at this place had
mentioned your engagement on that part
of our political history which your
Letter
specifies; and I cannot but lament that
you express yourself with any uncertainty
respecting its accomplishment; a failure
which would occasion lasting regret, to your
friends in particular, and your contempo-
raries at large: nor do I learn with pleasure
that your affections are not so cordially in
unison with this important and interesting
occupation, as with other studies, poetry
and antient literature.
174
You will do well to purchase that edition
of Pauw's Æschylus, unless it be a very
inferior copy: four guineas, as times go,
is
a moderate price. Pauw contains the whole
of Stanley, who was a very modest and
learned man, of the Derby family; and the
same who wrote the Lives of the Philoso-
phers. Pauw's own Notes are of little
worth: he was a noisy, boastful, and inju-
dicious critic. The book is very neatly
printed, and pleasant to the eye. Æschylus
is pompous, but frequently sublime: his
principal defect, as a a dramatic writer,
seems want of action. His Prometheus is
interesting, as a collection of antient my-
thology and history, not so distinctly pre-
served elsewhere : and Milton's Satan was
most evidently formed on that character.
The Septem ad Thebas is a fine delinea-
tion of heroic inanners, but is made up,
almost wholly, of descriptive speeches. His
Persæ is not very interesting, and may be
considered as a mere sacrifice to Grecian
vanity. In the Agamemnon are some very
175
sublime passages : part of a chorus in dia-
logue, ver. 1560...1569, contains the bit-
terest irony, the most cutting insult, that
ever was written, I think, by man. One
feels more respect for the poet, from his
distinction as a citizen, and his gallantry at
the battle of Marathon.
Schutz has published Æschylus : three
volumes had come out before
my
arrival
hither; and two more are expected, con-
taining the last play, index, &c. They are
become, I believe, enormously dear, and
very scarce.
I would not advise you to
look after them, except you feel your thirst
increased for a more elaborate perusal, after
reading Stanley. The text of Æschylus is
in a much less correct state than that of the
other Tragedians.
The two most popular, and most ap-
proved, plays of Aristophanes, are the
Ranæ and Plutus: but, to say the truth,
Plato and Aristophanes are the only two
celebrated authors of antiquity whom I
never could read through. Often have I
176
determined to surmount my disinclination;
and as often recoiled, in the middle of
my enterprise:
ter saxea tentat
Limina nequicquam; ter fessus valle resedit.
If a man loves nastiness and bawdry, he
may find both to satiety, usque ad delicias
votorum, in his Lysistratus, and other plays.
I do not profess much squeamishness and
prudery on these points, as a student: but
an author whose object is principally
pleasure, and not utility, must bring with
him either sublime sentiment, magnificent
language, or sonorous verse, to rivet my
affection ;--and there is nothing of these in
Aristophanes. Pure diction, easy versifica-
tion, and coarse wit, are his excellencies,
But the principal obstacle is, that obscurity
which attends all writers whose chief ob-
ject has been the delineation of vulgar
manners, and the transitory peculiarities
of the day. Brunck's edition is the most
correct; but
you would scarcely understand
him without the Scholia, which are not in
177
him, but may be read to most advantage
in Kuster. Perhaps you will prefer pro-
curing the common London edition, of the
beginning of this century, which is easily
procured, and contains the Nubes and
Plutus, with the Scholia.
At the desire of the Editor, I have re-
viewed, in the Critical Review, two months
ago, Porson's Hecuba and his Orestes, for
the coming month. Porson will know the
author; but I never yet did any thing in
this way which I wished to be concealed,
though not ambitious to divulge it; nor am
I at all fond of the Reviewer's employ-
ment, nor engage in it but on particular
solicitation.
If I live to see London again, I shall
take great pleasure in mentioning your dif-
ficulty on Lycophron to a gentleman, who
has studied him more than any man living,
I suppose. He is vicar or rector of some
parish in Bread Street: his name is Meek ;
and he is rightly so called; for a more pa-
cific, gentle, unassuming, human creature
N
178
never did exist. He was somewhat senior
to me at Cambridge.
Some of my friends have very much
urged me to give Lectures on the Classics ;
and, on a mature consideration of the
project, I mean to make the attempt, by
beginning with the second Æneid, when I
leave this place. I shall not wish it to be
regarded as'a benevolent scheme, in the
least degree'; but as one, in which those
on the spot, and interested in such pursuits,
may expect to receive something like an
equivalent for their money. When my pro-
posals are digested and printed, I shall take
the liberty of sending you one; more as a
token of respect for your judgmerrt, than
with any desire of troubling your services
on this occasion.
I remain, Sir,
Your respectful friend,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
179
LETTER XLVIII.
FRONI THE SAME TO THE SAME.
SIR,
Dorchester Gaol, April 2, 1801.
I once mentioned, if I rightly
recollect, my intention of troubling you
with the inclosed plan ; supposing it pro-
bable that you might meet with an oppor-
tunity of speaking on the subject, if
you
should be in town.
My Printer, I expect, will have con-
veyed to you a small performance on the
versification of the Greek epic writers.
This trifle, which I could have printed in
this country, since my commencement of
authorship, for six pounds, and could now
print in Paris for less than four pounds,
has cost now no less than seventeen pounds.
I congratulate myself more and more on
abandonịng my Lexicon, as the full list of
subscribers would not have defrayed the
bills of the stationer and printer. Indeed,
all private adventure in the classical way,
180
to any extent, is become utterly impracti-
cable in this island; and must benumb the
activity, and destroy the engagements, of
those who reposed the future comfort of
their lives, in some measure, on these
pursuits.
Our joy on the near approach of libe-
ration has been tempered by a severe afflic-
tion—the loss of our youngest child, on
Sunday last. To express the miseries which
my absence has occasioned to my wife and
family, during an agonizing illness, of al-
ternate hope and despair, would look like
an ostentation of sorrow, to all, but those
who have been exercised in similar circum-
stances, by a similar calamity.
I remain, Sir,
Your respectful friend,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
181
LETTER XLIX.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, April 5, 1801.
I am exceedingly concerned to hear
of the loss you have sustained, as well as
of the additional suffering which your
family has experienced (as of course they
must), from your separation from them
during so trying a calamity.
You mentioned to me before, your
notion of reading Lectures upon the Clas-
sics, but not as a point upon which you
had fully determined. If I can be of any
use in promoting your views, I will not
fail to do so: for in proportion as classical
studies are an enjoyment to myself and
they are certainly a very great one), I wish
them to be diffused as widely as possible.
I have run over, with great pleasure, your
dissertation upon the metre of the writers
of Greek hexameters. There are one or two
182
and on
things that I am not quite sure that I
understand, but upon which I have not
time, just now, to trouble you with my
doubts. The observations upon verses of
the following form,
Eγνως, Εννοσιγαιε – εμην εν στηθεσι βουλης
on the aspirate in the pronouns
oi, ós, fos, always telling as a consonant;
appear to me to be quite new, and very
striking. I had myself observed how
sparing Homer is in leaving a vowel short
between two consonants, though one of
them be a liquid; but it seems strange,
that the author of the Argonautics, which
go by the name of Orpheus, should have
been less scrupulous in this licence than
poets of a period more distant from Homer.
That is supposed (is it not?) to have
been written as early as the age of Pisis-
tratus.
poem is
Yours ever,
C. J. Fox.
183
L ETTER L.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Dorchester Gaol, April 6, 1801.
The project of my Lectures is a
very important event in my future life; but
one, whose success appears, I own, ex-
tremely doubtful to myself.
The principal points of my metrical dis-
sertation seem tolerably well ascertained.
Some difficulties will arise of impossible so-
lution, partly from inexplicable corruptions,
and partly, perhaps, from the inconsistency
and incorrectness of the writers themselves.
That hiatus in the middle of the third foot
I once mentioned to Dr. Parr, and desired
his opinion on it; but, as he revolted at the
very mention of it, and condemned it as
a peculiarity unheard of, and inadmissible,
I made no reply, but concluded it to
184
have been unobserved by all readers but
myself.
You
quote me as speaking of os, os, and cos:
whereas, my rule is not true of this last, nor
of 601, the substantive in the dative case. I
suspect, that, in many cases, the aspirate
has passed into a letter; and that to, by the
rule of dactyls, should frequently be sub-
stituted for os. In antient inscriptions, the
aspirate is found expressed by half the H,
thus t, which, from quick writing, might
easily pass into an e, by the loss of two
angles ; as the present aspirate' is exhi-
bited in the Apollonius Rhodius with
capital letters, and other books, in its
primitive shape ".
The author of the Argonautic Expedition,
under the name of Orpheus, probably in-
terwove, in his poem, verses from pure
authors, who had previously treated this
subject; of whose works various copies
once existed, as appears from fragments in
Suidas, and from other testimonies: but the
present poem was evidently put into the
185
form now extant by a writer of very late
date, and probably some centuries posterior
to the Christian æra.
I remain, Sir,
Your respectful friend,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
LETTER LI.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, April 13, 1801.
Your story of Theseus is excellent,
as applicable to our present Rulers: if
you
could point out to me where I could find
it, I should be much obliged to you. The
Scholiast on Aristophanes is too wide a
description.
The whole affair relating to the late
changes is as unintelligible to me as to
you. That there is some sort of juggle in
the business, appears to me certain; but to
what degree is difficult to ascertain.
186
me.
I think, as you do, the success of your
proposed Lectures doubtful; but am rather
inclined to be sanguine: if I can do any
thing to promote it, you may depend upon
The second book, upon which you
propose to begin, is a delightful composi-
tion. If the lines omitted in the Medici
Manuscript are spurious, they are,
T
think, the happiest imitation of Virgil's
manner that I ever saw. I am indeed so
unwilling to believe them any other than
genuine, that rather than I would consent
to such an opinion, I should be inclined
to think that Virgil himself had written,
and afterwards erased them, on account of
their inconsistency with the account he
gives of Helen, in the sixth book.
I certainly quoted you erroneously, about
sos, tos, &c.; and I perfectly understand your
observation to apply only to éo, oi, ég ós,
when in the possessive sense; and I suppose
to eú, when used for so. oó, for so, is not,
I believe, used in Homer: ou, for oio, follows
of course, I suppose, the rule of ós. I do
187
not know whether you have remarked how
very rarely in the Iliad the final iota of the
dative plural is omitted before a consonant;
and even, of the few instances that do ap-
pear,
there are several in which there are
various readings. In the one, therefore,
which you mention on another account, it
is an additional reason for preferring your
reading;
Χειρεσιν αμφοτερησιν ανης φεροι:
because in the other, αμφοτερης φεροι άνης,
the final iota is omitted. The preference
of dactyls in the Greek hexameter Poets
is certainly pretty general ; but more re-
markable, I think, in Apollonius, than in
any other; except, perhaps, the Doric Poets.
In Homer there appears to me to be more
variety in this respect; and his versification
is therefore, to my ear, the most agreeable:
but there may be, and I suspect there is, a
great deal of fancy in this, on our part, who
are so ignorant of the true antient mode of
pronunciation. Virgil is, I believe, the
most spondaïc amongst the Latin Poets;
188
and sometimes evidently with a view to a
particular expression, in which he is often
very successful. I believe the following
lines are in the 3d book of the Æneid, but I
am not sure:
Secretæ Troades actâ
Amissum Anchisen flebant, cunctæque profundum
Pontum aspectabant flentes; heu! tot vada fessis, &c.
Every foot is here a spondee, except those
in the fifth place; and it seems to me to
have a wonderful effect. There are two
lines in the Iliad, one in the A. 130; the
other in Y; which, as they are now writ-
ten, consist of six spondees each; but I sup-
pose they should be written,
Ατρείδης" τω δ' αυτ' εκ διφρου (or διφρο Fo)-,
and
Ψυχην κικλήσκων ΠατροκλΕΕος δEEλοιο. .
I remain, Sir,
Yours ever,
C. J. Fox.
189
+
LETTER LII.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Dorchester Gaol, April 14, 1801.
1
My Aristophanes with the Scholia
is not here. If I am right in my
recollec-
tion, the story probably occurs in the Scho-
lia on the Frogs, and would soon be found
by reference to the name of Theseus in Kus-
ter's Index. Nor is my Burman's Virgil
with me, whose margin contains my refe-
rences: there I should probably have found
the desired passage, at Æn. vi. 617; and
there, I doubt not, you will find references
in Heyne's Virgil, which will conduct you
to other authors of the story, Apollodorus
and Pausanias, or their commentators.
Heyne, you will see, mentions the fable
without its jocular appendage; not fore-
seeing your wishes on this occasion.
Your supposition, that the verses in Æn.
ii. were Virgil's own, and omitted by him,
190
with the reason for that omission, pleases
me entirely.
Your opinion of a versification more dac-
tylic in Apollonius Rhodius than Homer
will scarcely continue with you, I think,
after another trial or two. Where Homer
appears spondaïc, the cause is assignable
often to a modern orthography, agreeably
to a just remark of your own at the con-
clusion of your Letter. It will scarcely be
disputed, I believe, that the former verse,
which you cite, Il. A. 130, should be thus
written, as far as the present point is con-
cerned:
Ατρε Ειδης" του δ' αυτ' εκ διφρο εγoυναζεσθην:
which makes great alteration of celerity.
Your
passage of Virgil is not in Æn. iii.
but Æn. v. 613, where you should observe
the sluggishness of the spondaïc measures to
be relieved by two elisions, which, with a
suitable rapidity of enunciation, become
equivalent to dactyls. Have you never re-
marked also, in that same book, a stroke of
nature and pathos no where surpassed, and,
191
as far as is known, unborrowed from the
Greeks ? What strains of immortality from
v. 765 to 772! Heyne miserably mars the
passage, by putting nomen, for numen (the
beauty of which he did not discover), into
the text. Numen is the dailwv, the exist-
ING CIRCUMSTANCES, chiefly of a melancholy
complexion (as those of our time and coun-
try), which influences or governs the man
and his life at that crisis; and the verse may
be well compared with Æn. iii. 372. where
also Heyne appears to be inaccurate.
Your remark on the unfrequency of the
termination
ns
in Homer, compared with
succeeding Ionic writers, is entirely just.
My reason for beginning my Lectures
with the second Æneid was its superior im-
portance to the first, and its priority in
order to the other important books; which
to me are, iii. v. vi. vii. and viii.
I remain, Sir,
Your respectful friend,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
192
LETTER LIII.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, April 13, 1801.
I Am much obliged to
you
for
your
Letter; and found immediately, from Kus-
ter's Index, the passage in question. It is
in a note upon 'ITTEIS, V. 1365. The verses
you
refer to in the 5th Æneid are indeed
delightful; indeed I think that sort of pa-
thetic is Virgil's great excellence in the
Æneid, and that in that way he surpasses
all other poets of every age and nation, ex-
cept, perhaps (and only perhaps), Shak-
speare. It is on that account that I rank
him so very high; for surely to excel in
that style which speaks to the heart is the
greatest of all excellence. I am glad you
mention the eighth book as one of those you
most admire. It has always been a pecu-
liar favourite with me. Evander's speech
upon parting with his son is, I think, the
most beautiful thing in the whole, especially
193
the part from v. 574; and is, as far as I
know, wholly unborrowed. What is more
remarkable is, that it has not, I believe,
been often attempted to be imitated. It is
so indeed in Valerius Flaccus, lib. i. v. 323,
but not, I think, very successfully.
Dum metus est, nec adhuc dolor-
goes too minutely into the philosophical
reason to make with propriety a part of the
speech. It might have done better as an
observation of the poet's, in his own per-
son; or still better, perhaps, it would have
been, to have left it to the reader.
reader. The
passage in Virgil is, I think, beyond any
thing
Sin aliquem infandum casum-
is nature itself. And then the tenderness
in turning towards Pallas,
Dum te, care puer! &c.
In short, it has always appeared to me
divine. On the other hand, I am sorry and
surprised, that, among the capital books,
you should omit the fourth. All that part
o
194
of Dido's speech that follows,
Num fletu ingemuit nostro ?
is surely of the highest style of excellence,
as well as the description of her last impo-
tent efforts to retain Æneas, and of the
dreariness of her situation after his de-
parture.
I know it is the fashion to say Virgil
has taken a great deal in this book from
Apollonius; and it is true that he has
taken some things, but not nearly so much
as I had been taught to expect, before I read
Apollonius. I think Medea's speech, in the
fourth Argonaut. v. 356, is the part he has
made most use of. There are some very
peculiar breaks there, which Virgil has
imitated certainly, and which I think are
very beautiful and expressive : I mean, par-
ticularly, v. 382 in Apollonius, and v. 380
in Virgil. To be sure, the application is
different, but the manner is the same:
and that Virgil had the passage before
him at the time, is evident from what fol-
lows:
195
Μνησαιο δε και ποτ' εμοίο,
στρευγομενος καματοισι, ,
compared with
Supplicia hausurum scopulis et nomine Dido
Sæpe vocaturum.
It
appears to me, upon the whole, that
Ovid has taken more from Apollonius than
Virgil.
I was interrupted as I was writing this
on Sunday; and have been prevented since,
by company, from going on. There is
another
passage in Apollonius, lib. iii. 453,
which Virgil has imitated too, very closely,
lib. iv. 4. &c. and in which I confess that
he has fallen very short of the original.
Before I leave Apollonius, let me ask you,
Whether in Medea's speech, in the fourth
book, to which I have before alluded in
ver. 381, the insertion of ou in the manner
it is there, or at least the collocation of it,
is not very unusual and awkward? With
respect to the comparison between Homer
and him, in point of dactyls, I cannot help
being a little obstinate in my former opinion.
196
EVb,
I think I would even venture to put it
to this trial: Let all the long vowels and
diphthongs in Homer be resolved into two
vowels, that can be so, consistently with the
metre; and leave those in Apollonius as we
find them; and, I say, the spondees in Ho-
mer would still exceed those in Apollonius.
If
you change
ev
into and eatery into
&nbepev, &c. in one, it would be fair to do
the same, of course, in the other. My re-
mark, with respect to the datives plural in
Homer, is not confined to those in nou; but
extends also to those in o101; the final iota is
very rarely omitted in either of them, ex-
cept, of course, where it is elided by a sub-
sequent vowel.
Heyne's substitution of
nomen for numen, in the lines of the fifth
Æneid, appears to me, as to you, very
absurd: but it is fair to say, that in my
Roman edition of Virgil, in which the text
is taken from the Medici MS, notice is
taken of various readings, viz. coelum in
the Vatican, and nomen in the Leyden ;
and then it is added, 66 In codice olim erat
197
NOMEN.” By the codice, without any addi-
tion, I presume is meant the Medici; from
which, as I said, the text is uniformly pro-
fessed to be taken. What difficulty Heyne
can find in regard to numen, Æn. iii. ver.
372, is still more incomprehensible : but
I have not his edition, nor ever had an
opportunity of looking much into it.
Here let me finish this unconscionable
Letter: but I have dwelt the longer upon
Virgil's pathetic, because his wonderful
excellence in that particular has not, in my
opinion, been in general sufficiently no-
ticed. The other beauties of the eighth
Æneid, such as the Rites of Hercules, and
the apostrophe to him, both of which Ovid
has so successfully imitated in the beginning
of the fourth Metamorphosis; the story of
Cacus; the shield; and, above all, the de-
scription of Evander's town, and of the
infancy of Rome, which appears to me, in
its way, to be all but equal to the account
of Alcinoüs, in the Odyssey, have been, I
believe, pretty generally celebrated; and
1
198
yet I do not recollect to have seen the
eighth book classed with the second, fourth,
and sixth, which are the general favourites.
I am,
with great regard, Sir,
Yours ever,
C. J. Fox.
1
LETTER LIV.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Dorchester Gaol, April 22, 1801.
My reason for omitting Æn. iv. in
the list of those on which I proposed to
give Lectures, was not a disparaging opinion
of its worth; for, if the delineation of hu-
man passions, in their most operative and
interesting circumstances, be meritorious,
Virgil's success in that book has attained to
merit of the highest kind; but because it
contains passages (such particularly as ver.
199
1
318, less delicate, perhaps, than its parallel,
Soph. Aj. 521.) which would lead to a
discomposure of decorum in a miscella-
neous assembly; and because the dramatic
appears to me less calculated for public ex-
position than narration and description; in
both which Virgil supereminently excels.
As to the second book, with which I com-
mence (if I do commence), the whole impos-
ture of Sinon, the catastrophe of Laocoon,
and all connected with them, are, and always
were to me, the most unpalatable parts of
Virgil, and through which I always work
my way with weariness and impatience.
That intermixture of antient history and
primæval manners in Æn. viii. very much
recommends that book to my fancy; as the
enumeration of the warriors is the capital
excellence of the seventh; and, in my mind,
as it exceeds every thing of the same kind
in Homer, has nothing comparable to it
within the same compass, in Greek and
Roman poetry. Apollonius deserves great
praise on that article ; but then, exclusive
200
of the sentiment, the dignity of Virgilian
language, the magnificence and pomp of
his versification, who has equalled of an-
tient or modern artists ? Evander's farewell
speech to Pallas justly merits your applauses.
I suppose that I may have repeated to my-
self the twelve last verses of it, once a
month, for these twenty-seven years last
past, upon a moderate average computa-
tion. The epilogue to the same subject,
Æn. xi. ver. 139—182, is little, if at all,
inferior. The part of Evander's speech,
which
you quote, has something heavy and
unfinished in the monotonous terminations
of the adjoining words; which the poet,
I am inclined to think, would have corrected
$
on revisal :
Sin aliquem infandum casum,
Æn. iv. 457–469, is finely imagined, and
imitated, with great success, by Ovid, and
Pope in his Eloïsa.
As for Virgil's imitations of Apollonius
Rhodius, they detract very little from his
sum of excellence. . The characteristic
201
merit of a poet is founded on his general
delineation of human character, with the
main conformation of his poem, and the
concatenation and correspondence of its
parts; not on a few incidental obligations
to his predecessors. On the whole, I read
Virgil's Dido with more pleasure than the
Medea of his original : one appears to me
somewhat artificial and indistinct; the other,
all perspicuity and nature.
Your hesitation at Apollonius Rhodius,
iv. 381, and mention of the difficulty in your
Letter, furnishes me with an additional
proof, to the many which I have before
experienced, how important the suggestions
and communications of another are found,
even with respect to passages the most fa-
miliar, and to a superficial view the most
unexceptionable. I perceived instantane-
ously, on turning to it at your suggestion,
what never else, in all probability, would
have presented itself to my mind--that a
slight error, which I think you will ac-
knowledge, occasions the awkwardness in
1
202
question. We should read,
We should read, I am per-
suaded :
Ηε μαλ’ ευκλειης; Τινα δ' ΑΥ τισιν ηε βαρειαν
Aτην ου σμυγερως, κ.τ.λ.
}
But is the passage
Nay, rather, on the other hand—;" which
is perfectly consonant, in my opinion, both
to the power of the particle, and the exi-
gence of the context.
unexceptionable yet? I think not. Brunck
perceived a difficulty, it is plain, though he
says nothing; and he has accordingly at-
tempted to remove it by an interrogation at
svuhsins. But does ne ever introduce a ques-
tion, unless another ne, or n, precedes ? I
believe not: and, without an interrogation,
it is made in Shaw, and others, equivalent
to m certe, or on: which is inadmissible
again ; for ne never has any such
power. I
read, therefore, and the reasons for cor-
ruption are obvious and probable,
Η μαλ’ ευκλειης
“ Certainly very honourable!” sarcastically
and ironically; which seems quite in cha-
1
203
racter, and escapes all embarrassment and
exception of phraseology.
You have a right, I believe, from an ex-
perimental comparison of a few
passages,
not to be, as you candidly express yourself,
a little obstinate in your opinion respecting
the superior frequency of dactyls in Apoll.
Rhodius to Homer, but greatly persevering
in that opinion. Homer's deficiency, how-
ever, seems ascribable to the more frequent
recurrence, and greater number, of his pro-
per names ; many of which are spondaïc
in their syllables: Αιας, Ατρειδης, Ηρη, Αθηναιη,
Κιρκη, Ποσειδάων, Νεστωρ, Εκτωρ, Αχαιοι, Οδυσ-
σευς, Πηλείδης, Αχιλλευς, Καλυψω, Απολλων,
Ερμης, Ερμείας, Αφροδιτη, φιλομμειδης, &c.
perpetually recurring.
I did not censure Heyne, or did not
mean to censure him, at Æn. ver. 768, for
preferring nomen as his own conjecture, but
for accepting this reading of the MSS. .
to the exclusion of the other. You surprise
me exceedingly by saying that you
have
not Heyne. I know it has been fashionable,
204
of late, with many, to undervalue his
exertions on Virgil, and particularly with
the Eton men, who primi rerum omnium
esse volunt; but I would not want his edi-
tion, and Burman's, on any consideration :
they are absolutely essential, in my judg-
ment, not only to a critical perusal, but to
an elegant perception of this most accom-
plished and delightful author.
My Lectures are, with me, an object of
great importance: for, without the assis-
tance of this project, all my schemes of
future editions must be frustrated, under
the present conditions of this country,—the
monstrous price of printing in the dead
languages, and the enormous rise on paper,
such as to be doubled since my sepulture
in this delectable abode. Should this at-
tempt on Virgil meet with tolerable coun-
tenance, I had meditated a similar experi-
ment on a Greek Poet, in the winter.
A thought comes into my head, which I
do not recollect to have imparted to you
before. A very imperfect notion is enter-
205
+
tained in general of the copiousness of the
Latin language, by those who confine them-
selves to what are styled the Augustan
writers. The old Comedians and Tragė-
dians, with Ennius and Lucilius, were the
great repositories of learned and vigorous
expression : and their language, with the
diction of Lucretius and Virgil, is, to a cer-
tainty, largely preserved to us in some
writers, little read, but to me, I own, the
sources of much amusement, and more in-
formation; several of them at the same
time characterized by a truly masculine and
original eloquence: Tertullian, Arnobius,
Apuleius, A. Gellius, and Ammianus Mar-
cellinus. Their words are usually marked
in Dictionaries as inelegant and of suspi-
cious authority; when they are, in reality,
the most genuine remains of pure Roman
composition. I have ever regarded the loss
of the old Roman Poets, particularly Ennius
and Lucilius, from the light which they
would have thrown on the formations of
the Latin language, and its derivation from
m
206
the Æolian Greek, as the severest calamity
ever sustained by philological learning.
Another thought also, of a different com-
plexion, recurs to memory. I often won-
der, that your highly respectable friends in
the House of Commons, who are tossing
their words with such wonderful perse-
verance, day after day, to every wind that
blows, when the objection of no petitions
coming against the suspension of the Ha-
beas-Corpus Act, &c. is urged upon them,
by Ministry, do not reply, by stating the
inefficacy of petitions in one very singular
and apposite example, the case of the Slave
Trade; on which occasion few counties
and towns in England, to the best of my
recollection, were wanting in this effort :
with what success I need not mention.
The stations of no men in this kingdom
do I ever feel myself inclined to regard
with an eye of envy, except those of the
Masters and Tutors of Colleges in Oxford
and Cambridge ; who are possessed of all
possible implements and opportunities to
207
pursue and encourage literature, and con-
tinue sleeping
μαλα μακρόν
ατερμονα νηγρετον υπνον, ,
over their desirable appointments. The
Masters, also, of our great public Schools
are placed, to my apprehension, in en-
viable situations. In short, education is of
such incomparable value, in my opinion,
that I cannot help coveting the condition
of every man who is rendered capable of
conducting it with efficiency and extent.
I remain, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
208
LETTER LV.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, April 28, 1801.
you for
I AM much obliged to
your
caution about Heyne's Virgil; and if I
purchase it at all, I will wait for the new
edition. When I was a book buyer, in my
younger days, it was not in existence; and
lately I have bought but few classical
books, except Greek ones; and some Latin
authors, of whom I had before no edi-
tion. I had once a good many editions
of Virgil ; but having had frequent occa-
sions to make presents, and Virgil being
always a proper book for that purpose, I
have now only the fine Roman one, in three
volumes folio; a school Delphin ; a Vario-
rum; and Martyn's Georgics. I am glad
to find that you are not the heretic about
the fourth book that I suspected you to be.
Your reason for omitting it may be a very
209
good one. I think the coarsest thing in
the whole book (not indeed in point of in-
decency, but in want of sentiment) is
ver. 502. “She thought she would take it as
she did the last time,' is surely vulgar and
gross to the last degree. How very strange
it appears to me, that that character of
perfection or faultlessness, which so justly
belongs to the Georgics, should have been
so frequently applied to the Æneid! and
yet even in Quintilian there is the ex-
pression of “ Quanto eminentioribus vinci-
mur, æqualitate pensamus,” or something
like it, which, according to the common
interpretation of the words, seems to jus-
tify such an opinion, as far as his authority
goes. I am much obliged to you for re-
ferring me to the passage in the Ajax, which
is exceedingly beautiful, and certainly more
delicate than Virgil's; and yet, I own,
I
should never have thought there was much
indelicacy in si quid dulce meum ;
haps I am not so nice upon such subjects as
others are. By the way, in the Ajax, v.514,
but per-
P
210
1
quæ bre-
1
1
there is και τι βλεπω, another instance in
refutation of Porson's absurd assertion in
the Note upon the Orestes, ver. 64. “ ubi
verbum in brevem vocalem desinit,” &c.
Is not hi a short syllable? and is it not fol-
lowed by Ba, two consonants “
vem esse paterentur”? In short, I doubt
whether, except the play he was actually
publishing, and the Phænissæ, he could
have found another wherein there was not
a contradiction to his position. The epi-
logue, as you call it, to the story of Pallas,
and which you erroneously quote as being
in Æneid xii. (it is in Æneid xi.) is indeed
capital, but not equal, in my opinion, to
the parting speech: but then, I think, that
nothing is. There appears to me something
harsh and difficult in the construction in
the last lines of the epilogue. It may,
perhaps, be owing to the habit we are in
of comparing him to Homer, the most per-
spicuous of all poets; but, to say the truth,
perspicuity does not appear to me to be
among Virgil's chief excellencies. As we
$
211
are upon the subject of Pallas (in which the
poet is always peculiarly happy), I hope
you admire the two lines, Æn. x. 515,
516. I quite agree with you as to Sinon
and Laocoön ; though some of those pas-
sages, which are become so trite as quota-
tions, are in themselves very good; such as
“Timeo Danaos,” “Hoc Ithacus velit," &c.;
but if Sinon and Laocoon are cold and
forced, the Death of Priam, the Apparition
of Hector, &c. amply compensate. Your
notion, in respect to poets borrowing from
each other, seems almost to come
up
mine, who have often been laughed at by
my friends as a systematic defender of pla-
giarism: indeed, I got Lord Holland, when
a school-boy, to write some verses in praise
of it; and, in truth, it appears to me, that
the greatest poets have been most guilty, if
guilt there be, in these matters. Dido is
surely far superior to Medea in general ;
but there are some parts of Apollonius, such
as lib. iii. from 453 to 463, and from 807 to
816, that appear to me unrivalled. Your
to
212
16
nor
correction in Arg. iv. 380, from ou to av,
must please me ; for I had thought myself
of changing the other ov, in the following
line, to av; but I dare say your collocation
is better. The difficulty also of for
on had struck me; but seeing no notice
taken of it by the editor, I was too diffi-
dent of my own knowledge of the language
to pronounce it to be wrong. In my edition
(Shaw's octavo), it is without the note of
interrogation ; and I think such a note
would take off greatly from the spirit of the
passage; besides the impropriety, which you
suggest, of the use of ne, even in that case.
If it is a question, it should be, I suppose,
either nga or âge. Your emendation, n paer'
sünneins, seems to take away all difficulty,
and is quite simple. By the way, a few
lines below, the pronoun os is repeated
without any apparent cause; or any ele-
gance, that I can see, in the repetition. I
suppose the second o' may be omitted, and
that sua may stand in that part of the verse
without it; or if not, should the first os be
213
upon them.
changed into té, “Ex dE TE rotens” ? Your
observation on the utility of communications
upon these subjects may possibly be the
cause of my making many trifling ones
them. There is a strong instance of
Apollonius's delight in dactyls, in one of
the passages quoted, lib. iii. ver. 813, where
he changes Homer's ομηλικιης ερατεινης into
Teguyndeos. The loss of the older Roman
writers is certainly the greatest that could
have happened to philology; and probably,
too, on account of their own merit, is in
every view a considerable one. Of the
more modern writers, whom you mention,
I have never read any but A. Gellius. I
bought Apuleius last year, with an inten-
tion to read him, but something or other
has always prevented me. I never saw one
quotation from Tertullian that did not ap-
pear to me full of eloquence of the best
sort; and have often thought, on that ac-
count, of buying an edition of him: but
have been rather discouraged, from sup-
posing that it might be necessary to know
214
more than I do of the controversies in
which he was engaged, to relish him
properly.
With respect to your Lectures, I should
think that Latin would succeed better
than Greek authors; but this is very un-
certain. From the audience, however, which
you may have upon the first, it will not
be difficult to collect what probability
there is of getting as good, or a better one,
to the second.
It would be very good in argument, to
state the inefficacy of the petitions on the
Slave Trade, in the way you mention; and
I do believe, that, in fact, the supposed
inefficacy of petitions has been one of the
great causes of the supineness, or rather
lethargy, of the country: but it is not true,
that petitions, though they have been ulti-
mately unsuccessful, have been therefore
wholly inefficacious. The petitions in 1797
produced, as Mr. Pitt says (and I suspect
he says truly), the negotiation at Lisle : no
great good, you will say; but still they
215
t
were not wholly inefficacious. And even
with regard to the Slave Trade, I conceive
the great numbers which have voted with
us, sometimes amounting to a majority,
have been principally owing to petitions.
Even now, in this last stage of degradation,
I am not sure that if the people were to
petition generally (but it must be very ge-
nerally) that it would be without effect.
Your attention to the unfortunate wretches'
you speak of must do you the highest ho-
nour, in the eyes of all men, even of Tory
justices; and that is saying θαρσαλεον επος.
Yours ever,
C. J. Fox.
$
P.S. According to your maxim of not
allowing the valuable article of paper to go
unemployed, I will trouble you with one
more question, relative to Ajax, v. 511. and
that is, how do you construe droitetas there?
Stevens says “ D.OSCETOs, apud Sophoclem 'de-
portabitur?,” as if it were a peculiar use of
the word by that poet. But I do not think
216
deportabitur will do in this place well. The
Latin version in my edition, that is, John-
son's, printed at Eton, says deseretur; but
how DIOITETAI, which I suppose to be the
future middle of diapepeolas, is to mean de-
seretur, I do not conceive.
C. J. F.
L ETT ER LVI.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
SIR,
Dorchester Gaol, April 29, 1801.
Your Variorum Virgil, if Emmene-
sius's, is a good book, and contains Servius's
Exposition ; without which every Virgil is
defective, on account of that grammarian's
antiquity and real merit. There is, in the
British Museum, an unpublished MS. of
the same grammarian’s, a Vocabulary of
Synonymes : and every thing of this kind,
which will soon perish for ever, and which
abounds every where, should be published:
and these helps to literature, if a national
+
217
concern, would not all amount to one's
day's expenditure by frensy and corruption.
Æn. iv. 502, is a very difficult passage,
and unintelligible, I own, to me.
If quam
be genuine, the construction must be, quam
evenit in morte Sychæi; but where can
such another construction with the compa-
rative be found? Your acceptation, in that
case, must be admitted. I had conjectured,
I see, jam for quam: and I conceived the
general sentiment to be this : " As Dido
“ had endured that great calamity, under
“ lamentable circumstances (the death of
Sychæus by her own brother, Pygmalion),
“ without such an act of desperation as
“ suicide; her sister had not anticipated
“ this catastrophe now, nor prepared her
" mind for it." See yi. 104, 5, which seems
not much amiss: but I have referred, with
approbation, to Koen on Corinthus upon
Dialects; and that book I sent home, to my
house in the town, a few days ago.
The imperfect state of the Æneid is suf-
ficiently clear from the hemistichs, little
218
inconsistencies, and inaccuracies, which
the author would certainly have corrected;
but this imperfection might have been in-
dubitably inferred from his own dying
directions for its destruction ; a piece of
history, which never admitted, to my re-
collection, of any controversy. Quintilian,
I presume, by his æqualitate pensamus,
means to intimate, that Virgil, if he have
not taken such lofty flights as Homer,
never approaches so near the ground, nor
degrades himself by the puerilities and
coarsenesses of his master.
I have no Virgil here, which contains
Servius ; but you may consult him on the
quid dulce meum, and see what the Antients
collected from that expression.
As to your passage from Sophocles si
Brenw, Ba are not those consonants be-
fore which the Tragedians shorten syllables.
I call the part of Æn. xi. which finishes
the story of Pallas, the epilogue, in the
rhetorical meaning of the term ; for the
lamentable termination of his warfare. The
219
επιλογος was that portion of the oration
which was devoted to commiseration only;
and as this was the conclusion, the term
gained the secondary sense, afterwards, of
conclusion in general.
A beautiful pas-
sage in Longinus owes its excellence to
this primary and proper use of the word,
perceived by no editor before Toup: where
Longinus, in speaking of those parts in the
Odyssey which relate the death of Anti-
lochus and the other Grecian chiefs, in
allusion also to the νεκυομαντεια, calls that
poem the epilogue of the Iliad; i. e. the
funeral oration, as it were, of those heroes
whose living adventures had been celebrated
in the former poem.
Certainly Æn. x. 515, 516, are highly
spirited; and the vivacity of the concep-
tions is well delineated by the rapidity of
the composition, unfettered by copulatives,
and unretarded by epithets. The second
Æneid, abating those exceptions of Sinon
and Laocoön, is incomparable. The exor-
dium is most dignified and solemn, as well
220
as natural and pathetic to perfection; and
what follows the introduction to the havoc
of the Greeks, after issuing from their
retreat, exhibits, to my fancy-in an ade-
quate display of events, the most awful and
affecting, of the most turbulent and soft
emotions --all the capacities of human
genius.
With respect to imitation, much may be
said on so copious a subject. The unifor-
mity of Nature supplies, of course, those
thoughts which inevitably suggest them-
selves to every contemplator, but which
become the property of the first occupant;
so that sameness and similarity often sub-
sist without imitation in reality. Then,
as few poets have written without some
excellencies, these catch the peculiar at-
tention of every succeeding genius, and are
often imperceptibly assimilated with his
own ideas, and often borrowed for the
purpose of different application or im-
provement. Virgil's Georgics arose proba-
bly from the works of Hesiod and Nicander;
221
but how much superior to one, and pro-
bably to the other? The same of Pope's
Rape of the Lock, and many other poems,
which would be but ill exchanged for their
originals. There is scarcely a verse in
Virgil, Milton, and Pope, that does not
savour of their predecessors ; and yet they
will ever be acknowledged as prime artists
in Parnassus.
As to Apoll. Rhod. iv. 386, it is rather
observable, that Brunck has put into the
text his conjecture, which is also yours,
en de TE natens* and that I, from observing
(as fully shewn in my Noctes Carcerariæ)
how re follows the pronouns, had conjec-
tured on my margin, Autin' Epal
Γ’ ελασειαν ;
and this is confirmed by two Paris MSS.
One reads Tertullian purely for his style
and conceptions, not for the pertinency of
his argumentation. They were miserable
advocates of their own system. Apuleius
is to Cicero, and such writers, what Burke,
in his most glorious extravagancies, is to
Addison or Swift, as to composition.
222
As to petitions to Parliament, many
powerful impediments stand in their
way.
1. The political acrimony of the times,
which terrifies some of independent condi-
tions; and many, who subsist by their
superiors. 2. The general and constitu-
tional indifference of the majority in all
societies, who prefer indolence with suf-
fering, to the chance of redress from
exertion and activity. 3. The more ex-
tended speculations of some, who cannot
acquiesce in those formalities of lan-
guage, respecting Royalty and Parliaments,
which commonly enter into these petitions.
4. The
expense, more or less, of such efforts,
which usually falls on a few; and on whom
the demands of all sorts, for money, have
been pressing and frequent during the war,
in consequence of their principles. My
experience and connections have led me to
some knowledge of these matters. I have
a Brother at Nottingham, who is a prime
mover in all business of a public nature,
whether political or benevolent, to an
}
223
extent, and with an estimation among his
townsmen, with which, I believe, no pri-
vate individual in this country can compare:
and my own actual observation agrees with
his reports. 5. The tricks in counteracting,
and counter-petitioning, are innumerable,
and too successful.
As to the prisoners here, not a man among
them but would be reformed to a certainty,
by good instruction from those who proved
themselves kindly interested in their wel-
fare by their actions: and it is most
afflicting to see them sentenced by the Jus-
tices to one, two, &c. to seven years, for
the veriest trifles, if all the circumstances of
their condition be considered. Time, and
the necessity of endurance, will blunt the
acutest sensations of the heart; but the
miseries sustained by these unhappy people,
without one effort of instruction and re-
formation, in the midst of keen hunger
(which the prison allowance leaves in pain-
ful exertion unremittingly), when I first
224
came ainong them, prest down my spirit to
the earth:
Κλαιον ενι λεχεεσσι καθημενος, ουδε νυ μοι κης
Ηθελ' ετι ζωειν, και δραν φαος ηελιοιο.
As to drougetar in Soph. Aj. 511. I see,
from my margin, that Suidas touches on the
word; but I have no Suidas here, nor any
Sophocles with Notes or Scholia. The
sense of the word however, if you do not
look too far, but consider only its simple
energy, is most satisfactory and evident.
Asc@sga is essentially and literally to carry
through; and, in the middle voice, to carry
one's self through. " How then, when for-
“ saken by you, will he carry
himself
through (get himself through-go through,
" i. e. life), under guardians of unkindly
“manners and affections ?"
I remain, Sir,
Yours respectfully,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD,
225
LETTER LVII.
FROM MR. FOX TO MR. WAKEFIELD.
SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, June 5, 1801.
I was called to town upon business
just after the receipt of your last Letter; and
partly by going backwards and forwards,
partly by company here, I have been so taken
up,
that I have had little time to myself.
But if I do not write now, I think, by, my
computation, that I shall scarcely have an
opportunity of directing another Letter to
Dorchester Gaol. I am much obliged for
the great quantity of information which
your latter Letters have given me ; but at
this moment have only time to notice one
or two points. Br, you tell me (and I doubt
not but you are right), are not two letters
before which the Tragedians make vowels
short. I was led to suppose they were,
1
Q
226
from Th, , 7, Ja, x1, 0, being undoubt-
edly of that description. Your information
diminishes considerably the number of in-
stances which had occurred to me, against
Porson's dictum, in his Note upon Orestes,
v. 64. If yr and yw are taken from me, it
will be diminished still more: but even then
I have some instances remaining; and have
no doubt, upon reading with that view, of
finding many more, as those I had collected
were entirely by chance. For the present,
take two: Medea, 246, and Euripides'
Electra, 1058. Upon looking again at Me-
dea's speech, in the fourth book of Apollo-
nius, I doubt whether ne be not used, ver.
357, in nearly the same way as Brunck,
when he puts the note of interrogation,
supposes it to be, ver. 380; and yet I can
conceive or, by an ellipsis of the sense, to
have a meaning in ver. 357 which it cannot
have in ver. 380.
I sincerely congratulate you, upon your
being arrived so near to the end of a con-
finement which I shall ever consider to
227
have been as disgraceful to the Government
of the Country, as it has been honourable
to you.
Your obedient servant,
C. J. Fox.
LETTER LVIII.
FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, June 17, 1801.
t
FENTON, in a sort of note prefixed
to his translation of Sappho to Phaon, says,
that we learn from the Antients, that Phaon
was an old mariner restored to youth by
Venus. In Burnian's Ovid there is a note
from Egnatius, referring to some other work
of his (Egnatius's) upon the subject; and
there is some reference too, in my Vario-
rumOvid, to Ælian's Various History, which
I have not. This is not a very important
subject of inquiry; but I own I have a sort
228
of curiosity concerning this history of
Phaon, which if you can instruct me how
to gratify, you will much oblige me.
I sincerely hope you are better satisfied
with the state of your Son's health, than
you seemed to be when you were here.
If accident (I hope not of the same sort
as the last) should bring you again this
way, I flatter myself you will make me a
longer visit.
I am, Dear Sir,
Yours eyer,
C. J. Fox.
229
'LETTER LIX.
FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. FOX.
DEAR SIR,
Hackney, August 12, 1801.
I HOPE, in no long time, to be
able to consult my books, with a view of
answering the queries in your last favour;
as I have taken a house in Charter-House
Square, to which I expect to remove by
the latter end of next week.
There is, at a Bookseller's in Oxford
Street, a large-paper Brunck's Apollonius
Rhodius, price eighteen shillings. The
book is become so scarce as not to be pro-
cured in common paper; but I could not
determine whether you would choose a
finer copy, or I would have secured it for
you.
I am, Sir,
Your respectful and obliged friend,
GILBERT WAKEFIELD.
230
LETTER LX.
FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR,
St. Anne's Hill, August 21, 1801.
On my return hither yesterday,
from a short excursion, I found your Letter,
with its inclosure, which I return. It is
a piece of news to me (that would be
very
agreeable,' if it were true), that I have
finished an historical work. That I have
begun one, is true; and that I have had
numerous applications relative to the pub-
lishing, is equally so: and I should be
obliged to you, if you would give the same
answer to Mr. Phillips, that I have given to
other applicants; which is, that I do not
mean to decide on the mode of publication,
much less upon the bookseller to be em-
ployed, till the work is nearly finished;
and till that time I wish to remain entirely
unfettered by any promise or engagement.
+
231
The hard usage Mr. P. experienced at Lei-
cester would certainly incline me, at any
time, to do him a good office, if it were in
my power.
I should be very glad to have the copy
you mention of Brunck's Apollonius; and
if you had mentioned the name of the book-
seller, in Oxford Street, where it is, I would
have written to him. If
If you have an op-
portunity, I will trouble you to bid him
send it me by the stage, and I will remit
him the price.
I have found, since I wrote to you, a
great deal about Phaon, by looking into
Bayle, who referred me to Lucian; a
note in Heyne's Virgil, which I found at
Woburn, and Palæphatus, which I have
not seen, but from whom there are ex-
tracts, in some of the books I have looked
into, containing, as I suppose, all he says
upon the subject.
I observe, in Brunck's Analecta, which
I have lately purchased, that he takes no
notice of the doubts concerning the authen-
232
ticity of the Remains of Anacreon. I have
always supposed them modern; but I un-
derstand there has been discovered a Ma-
nuscript which proves them to be of a
certain degree of antiquity, or at least not
a forgery of H. Stephens. The style of
them appears to me very modern; but yet,
that preserved in A. Gellius bears a strong
resemblance to some of the others. As to
their being really Anacreon's, I should re-
quire very strong evidence to satisfy me.
Yours ever,
C. J. Fox
R. WATTS, Printer, Broxbourne.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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