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NUGE.

No. X.-[Continued from No. LVIII.]

collecting toys

And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge;
As children gath'ring pebbles on the shore.

Paradise Regained, iv. 325.

1. THE following is a copy of the epitaph inscribed on the tomb of Joshua Barnes:

Hic jacet
Joshua Barnes,
&c. &c. &c.
Βαρνήσιος δ ̓ ἅπαντας
νίκησε πολύτεχνος,
λογογράφων φέριστος,
ἄνθος τε τῶν ἀοιδῶν,
τῶν ἱστόρων μέγιστος,
καὶ ῥητόρων ἄριστος,
καὶ μαντέων βάθιστος,
Βρεταννικῆς ἀρουρῆς.

(On another part of the monument :)

The Greek Anacreontiques on the monument Englished. (Supposed by the 'Squire of the parish for the time being.) Kind Barnes, adorn'd by every Muse, Each Greek in his own art outdoes. No orator was ever greater, No poet ever chanted sweeter, H' excell'd in Grammar's mystery, And the Black Prince of history; And a divine the most profound,

That ever trod on English ground.

We must not be over-severe in criticising these tributes of posthumous admiration. 'IoTopwv for historians may pass muster in a modern Greek; but the epithet Báboros, applied to a writer, contains an unfortunate ambiguity. There is a very elegant and recondite compliment couched in the title, " Black Prince of history;" as, besides bis Latin epic of which the Black Prince was the hero, the Doctor, if we mistake not, wrote a history, in English, of the wars of the same Prince.

2. Herod. ix. 120. Καὶ τέῳ τῶν φυλασσόντων ('Αθηναίων) λέγεται ταρίχους ὀπτῶντι τέρας γενέσθαι τοιόνδε. οἱ ταρίχοι ἐπὶ τῷ πυρὶ κεί

μένοι ἐπάλλοντό τε καὶ ἤσπαιρον, ὅκως περ ἰχθύες νεοάλωτοι. καὶ οἱ μὲν, περιχυθέντες, ἐθαύμαζον. ὁ δὲ ̓Αρταύκτης ὡς εἶδε τὸ τέρας, κ. τ. λ. We know not whether it is worth while to produce an instance of a similar superstition in the modern Greeks, as related by a writer in the New Monthly Magazine, for Feb. 1824, p. 143, article on Constantinople. We are sorry for the destruction of the sacred fish there mentioned, as it might be interesting to know what degree of vivacity these mute prophets would exhibit on the recovery of the city by its ancient possessors, should so desirable an event take place. "At the storming of the city by Mahmoud, the wall near which this church stood was considered impregnable. One of the Greek priests was frying some fish, secure in his situation. On a messenger entering with the news, that the Turks were forcing their way in, I would as soon believe,' exclaimed the priest, that these fish would leap out of the pan, and swim about the room.' Strange to say, the thing actually happened; and these sacred fish (a breed belonging to the church above mentioned) were preserved till lately inviolable, but they too have fallen, with their masters, before the sacrilegious Turks."

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3. In Clas. Journ. xliv. p. 367, was published a Fragment of a Greek Ritual, (a Litany in honor of the Virgin,) communicated by a correspondent from a Ms. belonging to a late scholar. We extract part of his description of it. "The system, on which it has been framed, evidently for the purpose of being chanted, is obvious on examination. A sentence, which we may imagine to have been a recitative, introduces a hymn consisting of 13 lines, that is, 6 couplets, and a single line, which is invariably the same, and which was probably sung in full chorus. The lines in each couplet are of equal length, measured by the number of syllables. The number in the first couplet is 10; in the second, 16, &c. This holds throughout the whole Fragment, with only one exception in the third couplet of the first part, in which ɛds, or the termination 105 in oupάvios, is to be considered as a monosyllable. The hymu is succeeded by another sentence, &c."

There is also another correspondence worth noticing in the above composition, and which has escaped your correspondent; viz. that of accent. Each line consists of two parts, and in each part there are a certain number of accented syllables (in the first part one or more, besides the Xaipe, in the second two or more), each of which answers to another accented syllable in the same place of the corresponding line. Were the words of which the

first line consists uniformly of the same length with those in the second, and formed in a similar manner, this coincidence would not be remarkable; and this is indeed the case in a great number of instances, as,

Χαῖρε, ἄ-φουρα βλαστάνουσα | εὐφορίαν οἰκτιρμῶν·
Χαῖρε, τράπεζα βαστάζουσα | εὐθηνίαν ἱλασμῶν.

Χαῖρε, φιλοσόφους

ἀσόφους δεικνύ-ουσα·

Χαῖρε, τεχνολόγους | ἀλό- γους ἐλέγχουσα.

But in many other couplets this is not the case, where nevertheless the place of the accents in both the lines is uniformly the same. We ought to premise, that an accent belonging to an article, pronoun, or other unimportant word, is considered as none at all.

Χαῖρε, θάλασσα ποντί-σασα | Φαραω | τὸν νοητόν·
Χαῖρε, πέτρα ἡ ποτί-σασα τοὺς διψῶν | τὰς τὴν ζωήν.

Χαῖρε, ἀμνοῦ] | καὶ ποιμένος μήτηρ

Χαῖρε, αὐλὴ | λογικῶν | προβάτων.

Χαῖρε, πύρινε στῦλε

ὁδηγῶν | τοὺς ἐν σκότει Χαῖρε, σκέπη τοῦ κόσμου | πλατυτέρα νεφέλης.

From the above account it would appear that the contraction of which your correspondent speaks, takes place neither in ἐπουράνιος nor Θεός, but rather in δι' ἧς; after all, however, there appears to be some irregularity. Perhaps ßporous should be substituted for Toùs in the second line.

Χαῖρε, κλίμαξ ἐπουρά-νιος, | δι' ἧς ] κατέβη ὁ Θεός·

Χαῖρε, γέφυρα μετά-γουσα | βροτοὺς | ἐκ γῆς | πρὸς οὐρανόν. We have only noticed one exception to the above rules:

Χαῖρε, ἡ γῆ ἡ τῆς ἐπαγγελίας

Χαῖρε, ἐξ ἧς | | ῥέει μέλι καὶ γάλα.

Observations like the above, though of no value in themselves, may frequently be made useful in application to other subjects.

4. Claudian, Carm. i. 18—22.

Nec quisquam procerum tentet, licet ́ære vetusto
Floreat, et claro cingatur Roma senatu,
Se jactare parem; sed, prima sede relicta
Aucheniis, de jure licet certare secundo.

A correspondent in No. xlviii. p. 366, produces Hor. Lib. i. Od. xxvii. 15, as parallel to the above construction :

quæ te cunque domat Venus

Non erubescendis adurit

Ignibus; ingenuoque semper

Amore peccas.

The following from Virgil, Æn. vi. 282, comes nearer to the passage of Claudian, the abrupt change of the subject or nominative case being in both instances the same:

In medio ramos annosaque brachia pandit

Ulmus opaca, ingens, quam sedem Somnia vulgo

Vana tenere ferunt, foliisque sub omnibus hærent.

We are here supposing floreat and cingatur to refer to two different subjects, which appears to be the most probable con

struction.

5. Observations on the ACCIDENCE AND SYNTAX of ZUMPT'S LATIN GRAMMAR, lately translated by the Rev. J. KENRICK.

P. 5, I. Except.-Duria (Dŭrius in Silius Italicus-" Duriusque Tagusque"-) is made masculine by the poets, contrary to the practice of the prose writers, which is the more remarkable: "roseis formosus Duria ripis," Claudian.

P. 6, last exception. In a similar way the names of ships, though derived from masculine objects, are feminine, from navis; as Centaurus, &c.

P. 31, 1. 6. Didûs, we believe, never occurs in poetry.

Ib. l. 21. Zopoxλñv is not Greek.

Ib. 1. 30. For Thety (an old error) read Tethy.

P. 38, note 1." senati;" chiefly used in state forms.

P. 41, l. 13. In a hymn of St, Ambrose's we have meli as the genitive of melos.

P. 47, penult. For the names of sciences in ce, derived from the Greek, as grammatice, musice, &c. we have also other forms in the neuter plural, grammatica, musica, &c. See Cicero passim.

P. 48, 1. 6. Epulum we believe is chiefly, if not exclusively, used in a religious sense.

Ib. 1. 7. "Balneum, balnea [plur.] rarely balnea." This is surely a mistake.

P. 58, art. 4. Ovid sometimes substitutes e for i in the ablatives of trisyllable adjectives in is; as, fatale, cœleste.

P. 63, Sect. xxviii. 1, note. Does the author mean to say that divitia is in common use as the neuter plural of dives?

P. 93. (of the imaginary participle ens.) The Eolians had the forms, Tos. Matthiæ Gramm. §. 212. ad fin.

P. 112. The form ere for erunt in the third person plural of the preterite active is rather poetical than prosaic; which accounts for its comparative frequency in Tacitus and such other of the later prose authors as affect poetical modes of writing. See Quintilian i. 5.

P. 166. Pigitum est, puditum est occur in very few authors. P. 167. "Čurritur, &c. (impers.) they, or men run." The French on court might have been added here, as expressing the force of the impersonal better than any form in our language.

P. 185, note 1. "Ac never stands before vowels." It were to be wished that modern writers of Latin would observe this rule.

P. 198. "Poets, according to the necessity of the verse, place the prepositive conjunctions also after one or more words, and make ve and que enclitic to other words (provided they are verbs) than those to which they properly belong." The words in Italics are too sweeping.

Moribus hic meliorque fama
Contendat.

Hor. Carm. iii. 1. v. 12.

Flebili sponsæ juvenemye raptum

Plorat.

iv. 2. v. 21.

Instances of this licence occur chiefly in Horace and Ovid. In the latter the enclitic is generally, we believe uniformly, attached to a verb.

Et sæpe extimui, ne vir meus illa videret,
Non satis occultis erubuique notis.

Helena Par. 83.

in nostras quoniam nova puppis arenas Venerat, audaces attuleratque viros.

'Medea Jasoni, 13.

This latter licence is particularly convenient in elegiac verse,

Prosody.

P. 382, art. 5. "Dadaleus has the e common." It would be more correct to say that the quantity of the e in Dadaleus varies according to its meaning and derivation. Dadaleus from AaiSaλsos (relating to Dædalus) is long:

Jam Dædaleo ocior Icaro

Δαι

Hor. Carm. ii. ult. v. 13.

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