120 Newspapers." Female."-Anagram on William IV. Tho' dire Despair and Slavery's lurid form Groans of an agonizing world arise; race; Hail! Britain, hail! ordain'd of Heaven SCRAPS FROM A NOTE-BOOK.-No.II. NEWSPAPERS have been pronounced, by a distinguished political character, the best possible public instructors." The correctness of this assertion, however, may well be doubted, when it is recollected that the capital of the best instructed (generally) country in Europe, Scotland, does not maintain a single daily journal,— while, on the contrary, the Metropolis of Ireland, the land unhappily so deeply sunk in ignorance and superstition, has to boast of several. We are told too, that the inhabitants of Iceland [Feb. yet I believe it does not support even By the Gentleman's Magazine for 1731, it appears the number of newspapers then printed in England was 40; in America 2: in England, by the same authority, the number has now increased to 100, and, according to the tables of M. Balbï, the periodical works of all descriptions now published in the United States only, exceed six hundred! The word "female" has become a vast 'favourite with the persons who write in newspapers, who generally use it as a noun. An affectation of delicacy seems to have produced this, although in reality the expression is extremely indelicate. The word is in fact an adjective, and the wise men of Gotham who use it in the now common method, might as well talk of a young, or a great, without the accompanying noun, as of " an interesting female,' without adding“ of the human species,” to let us know that they are not talking of an ape or a bonassus. The following anagram on the name "William the Fourth," is not a strictly legitimate one, inasmuch as some of the letters are made use of more than once. But the declaration they are the means of making, is so cheering, that I have thought it worthy of a place in my scraps: it is as follows: -"William the Fourth"-" I will reform the Law forthwith, without Hurt." The present system of naming the towns in our colonies and new settle ments, is a very bad one. Generally the pithy epithet "New" is tacked to the name of some well-known town in the mother-country, and the thing is done. Sometimes even this ceremony is not observed, but the aspiring young city in embryo, figures under the appellation of Liverpool, York, &c. withtion. This is a very miserable mode out the slightest addition or distincof proceeding, and likely to be productive of much confusion, especially to the future historian. Yet all this is are a remarkably well-informed people, easily obviated. The history and lite was in The writer of these verses debted to his friend the Rev. Wm. Digby, Prebendary of Worcester, for the five concluding lines. rature of Britain can certainly furnish a sufficient number of names for a century or two to come. It is true, the names of eminent statesmen and war 1831.] CLASSICAL LITERATURE.-Pliny's Natural History. riors have occasionally been used for this purpose; but why not press into the service those of celebrated authors and poets, and thus do honour to the peaceful spirit of the present age? Why, for instance, should we not have the county of Shakspeare, with perhaps Waverley for its capital, in honour of his living successor? Surely it would be better than calling a hilly district the county of Lincoln, and having for its chief town the city of London, consisting of a mud hut, on the bank of a ditch. Much improvement might also be effected by adopting the Saxon terminations stead, bury, ham, hurst, &c. instead of the disgustingly Frenchified one "ville," which the Americans are so unaccountably fond of using. How is it that we have no city in New Holland dedicated to the perpetuation of the glorious name of Nelson? It is to be hoped the authorities of Swan River will take care to remedy this. The Kentish watering-place, which is now almost universally known by the name of Broadstairs, ought really to be called Bradstow, which latter name, although so evidently superior in the eyes of every person of the slightest pretensions to taste, to its corrupted rival, is now only used by 121 the poor fishermen of the neighbourhood; while the coarse, vulgar "Broadstairs" is in universal use among the polished visitors of the place! We would advise them, in the words of Hamlet, to "reform it altogether!" I was very sorry to observe, on inspecting the map of the Netherlands recently published by the Society for the diffusion of Useful Knowledge, that they give the French names of the various towns, Bruxelles, Anvers, &c. instead of those by which the English have been accustomed to know them, Brussels, Antwerp, &c. This is ridiculous affectation, a quality from which we had hoped so learned a body as the Society would have been free. Why, in the name of wonder, should the French names be thus honoured, since the genuine Flemish ones, Brussel and Antwerpen, are so much nearer the English, and in fact have been disfigured merely to suit Gallic pronunciation? But why not give them their English appellations at once, in a series of English maps, published in England, by an English society, and for the use, we presume, of Englishmen ? It would be only one step farther in extravagance to publish a map of England with the names of places Italianized! CLASSICAL LITERATURE. 14th Feb. MR. URBAN, I HAVE not seen for a long time a more elegant and pleasing addition to the list of higher school-books than Mr. William Turner's Extracts from Pliny. Excerpta ex Caii Plinii Secundi Historia Naturali, in usum Scholarum. Notas [in English] adjecit Gulielmus Turner, in nová institutione Novocastrensi Prælector. Londini, 1829; with a very sensible Preface, full of intelligence and literature. It is to be wished, however, that Mr. Turner had given us a more satisfactory Index: for only the other day, with these lines of the Medea before me,-vv. 516-7. Ω Ζεῦ, τί δὴ χρυσοῦ μὲν, ὃς κίβδηλος ᾖ, Τεκμήρι ̓ ἀνθρώποισινώπασας σαφῆ,κ.τ.λ. 1 was perplexed to find whether the test or touchstone of gold, here alluded to, had been noticed by Pliny or not. GENT. MAG. February, 1881. After all, here is the passage, L. xxxiii. c. 43, p. 163 :-Auri argentique mentionem comitatur lapis, quem coticulam appellant, quondam non solitus inveniri, nisi in flumine Tmolo, ut auctor est Theophrastus: nunc vero passim: quem alii Heraclium, alii His cotiLydium vocant. culis, periti, cum e venâ ut limâ rapuerint experimentum, protinus dicunt, quantum auri sit in eâ, quantum argenti vel æris, scripulari differentiâ, mirabili ratione, non fallente. The whole work of Pliny, speaking of it in an historical point of view, is invaluable it, exhibits for the age in which he lived, the encyclopædia of the arts and sciences then known; and without the aid of Pliny, we should have been quite in the dark, on a thousand occasions, as to matters of great curiosity in the correct knowledge or superstitious belief of the ancients. Of the peculiar style of Pliny, and 122 CLASSICAL LITERATURE.-Signification of Kápnλos. of the difficulty with which, after old Κάμηλος. Κάμιλος. Q.V. MR. URBAN, Feb. 12. THE texts Matthew, xix. 24, Mark x. 25, Luke xviii. 25, have occasioned some difficulty to commentators, in consequence of the apparent incongruity and want of resemblance between the two objects compared together. Εὐκοπώτερόν ἐστι κάμηλον διὰ τρυπήματος ῥαφίδος διελθεῖν, ἢ πλούσιον εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ Θεοῦ εἰσελθεῖν. "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." The comparison here introduced appears, at first, so strange and unnatural, that it has been doubted whether the original text is not corrupt; or, if uncorrupt, whether the sense given to it in our translation is not incorrect. The substitution of one letter, it is contended, both in the original and our version, would make the sense consistent and the similitude apt. Connexion between a camel and the eye of a needle there appears to be none; while there is some analogy between the passing a thread and a rope through the eye of a needle. It has, therefore, been imagined, 1. Either that we should read káμAos, which signifies, as we are told, a thick rope or cable: or, 2. That, if káundos be allowed the genuine reading, it is here to signify a cable. To the first it is answered, that only two codices in Mill and Wetstein, in loc. read κáμλos: consequently against these two appears the authority of all other MSS. The second opinion has been held by many commentators, ancient as well as modern. Theophylact thus comments on Matth. xix. 24: Tivès de κάμηλον, οὐ τὸ ζῶόν φασιν, ἀλλὰ τὸ παχὺ σχοινίον, ᾧ χρῶνται οἱ ναῦται πρὸς τὸ ῥίπτειν τὰς ἀγκύρας. Edit. 1631, p. 113. On the parallel passage in Mark x. 25, he says, Káμndov de vóel, † avrò [Feb. τὸ ζῶον, ἢ σχοῖνόν τινα παχεῖαν, ἡ τὰ μéуLOTA TWν Tho xpôvτai-p. 246. On Luke xviii. 25—είτε τὸ ζῶον αὐτὸ νοήσεις, εἴτε σχοινόν τινα ναυτικὴν raɣeîav-p. 481. A passage also is adduced from Origen by Alberti, Gloss. Gr. N. T. p, 205; and by Wetstein, on Matth. xix. from the Codex Coislinianus 24—Κάμηλον οἱ μὲν τὸ σχοινίον τῆς μηχανῆς, οἱ δὲ τὸ ζῶον. τὸ ἃ δὲ τοῦ β ́ βεβαιότερον κατ' αἴσθησιν, κατὰ δὲ νοῦν νόει. Bochart asserts that the Syriac and Arabic versions understand and trans late this text as relating to a cable,* and he adduces, to confirm this sense, a passage from the Koran, ch. 7, Al Aras, which he thus translates,“Quoniam qui mandata nostra inficiantur, et in ea se efferunt, non aperientur ipsis portæ cœlorum, neque in Paradisum ingredientur, donec ingrediatur rudens in foramen acus;" and he accuses the old translation, made under the patronage of Peter of Cluny, and that by Du Ryer, of having falsely rendered the original by a camel" instead of a cable." Wetstein, however, in vv. ll. on Matth. xix. 24, adduces this very passage of the Koran to illustrate the expression of "a camel passing through the eye of a needle," and Sale, Koran, vol. 1, p. 192, thus translates it: "Verily they who shall charge our signs with falsehood, and shall proudly reject them, the gates of heaven shall not be opened unto them, neither shall they enter into paradise, until a camel pass through the eye of a needle;” judiciously observing, at the same time, that "this expression was probably taken from these words of our Saviour in the Gospel, though it be proverbial in the east ;" without saying a syllable of the passage being capable of another translation. The modern commentators, who contend for the interpretation, cable, support themselves on the authority of the Scholiast on Aristophanes, Suidas, and Phavorinus. But to me it appears that the very authority on which they rely is against them. The Scholiast on * Hiero. p. i. lib. ii. c. 5. It is strange that in the Latin translation, annexed to each of these versions in Walton's Polyglott, should be rendered camel, whilst Castell, in his Lexicon, under the Syriac and Arabic words which signify cable, refers to Matth. xix. 24, as an instance of their occurrence. 1831.] "Micatio Digitorum" described by Petronius. Vesp. 1030 [not 1130, as cited by Wetstein is express: κάμιλος δὲ τὸ παχὺ σχοινίον διὰ τοῦ ι. Suidas also, under the word κάμηλος, says-κάμιλος δὲ, τὸ παχὺ σχοινίον. Vol. 2, p. 236, Kuster. Phavorinus in voc. káμndos, certainly says, káμŋλos, kai тò Tax σχοινίον ἐν ᾧ δεσμεύουσι τὰς ἀγκύρας οἱ vaura, but confirms his definition only by this passage of the Gospel; and, which is most extraordinary, he almost immediately after quotes the above passage from the Scholiast on Aristophanes, p. 984. Basil, 1538. So that it appears that his sole authority for Kaunλos signifying a rope was this text of Scripture, interpreted after his own preconceived opinion. I am perfectly satisfied as to the correctness of the translation given in our authorised version. But I should be very glad to see adduced, by any of the learned correspondents of Sylvanus Urban, passages from the ancient classics, if any such passages there be, in which káunλos or κáμλos are decidedly used in the sense of a cable or rope. Yours, &c. T. E. AN article in the last number of your Magazine takes notice of a game played amongst boys in England, similar to the Micatio Digitorum mentioned in the Greek and Roman writers, and common also in Italy under the name of Morra. Your correspondent's account of this game (which I have often myself played) is not quite correct, nor can the derivation he proposes of the terms used in playing it be acquiesced in. The mode in which I have always seen it played is as follows: One boy stoops down, as at leap-frog, and for greater relief to himself, generally rests his head and arms against a desk if in the school-room, or against a wall if playing in the open air. Another boy then jumps on his back, and holding up whatever number of fingers he pleases, (suppose seven), cries out " Buck, Buck, how many fingers do I hold up?" If the former guesses wrong (suppose three) he rejoins “Three you say, and seven 123 there are; Buck, Buck, how many fingers do I hold up?" at the same time altering the number of digits displayed. This continues till the "Buck" guesses right, when the "rider" says "Three you say, and three there are; Buck, Buck, rise up;" when the two boys change places, and the game recommences.-I have troubled you with this detail, for the sake of illustrating a very curious passage in Petronius Arbiter, which neither your correspondent, nor Adams, nor even Mr. Barker, seem to have recollected. It occurs in the 75th chapter of the Satyricon, p. 332 of Burman's edition; where, at the feast of Trimalchio, after the introduction of the house-dog Scylax, and the consequent demolition of the plates and glasses on the table, the writer proceeds: "Trimalchio, ne videretur jactura motus, bosiavit puerum [Croesum], ac jussit supra dorsum ascendere suum. Non moratus ille, vectus equo, manuque pleno scapulas ejus subinde verberavit, inter quam risum proclamavit: Bucca, Bucca, quot sunt hic?" The note of Scheffer on the above passage runs thus: "I think a kind of game is alluded to, common at the present day amongst boys. One of them closes his eyes, and the rest strike him on the shoulders with the palms of their hands, and holding up a finger or thumb, ask him to guess which it is.” There can be little doubt that the English game of Buck is legitimately derived from that mentioned by Petronius, and that the term itself is a corruption of Bucca. With regard to the derivation of the latter, whether we regard it in the sense used by Juvenal, Sat. xI., or with others read Bucco, i. e. stultus, as used by Plautus and Apuleius, or lastly, suppose it borrowed from the Celtic buch, or Teutonic bock, is of little moment. I cannot conclude, however, without noticing, that in the Literary Gazette for Sept. 1822, some doubts were thrown on the genuineness of the Satyricon, from the introduction of this and other terms, which are supposed to refer to as late a period as the se The English translation printed in 1714 (4th ed.) reads thus, p. 90:-"Trimalchio, not to seem concerned at the loss, kissed the boy, and commanded him to get on his back; nor was it long ere he was a cock-horse, and slapping his master's shoulders, and laughing, cried out, Fool, fool, and how many of them have we here?'" It is evident the translator did not understand the allusion. 124 The Biography of Classical Scholars. venth or eighth century, but in that case how would the writer dispose of the passages in Terentianus Maurus, Macrobius, Jerome, Fulgentius, Servius, Priscian, and others, who all quote Petronius, and who all lived considerably anterior to the period assigned by the above hypothesis? Yours, &c. Mr. URBAN, BUCCA. Colchester, Jan. 16. THE suggestions of your Correspondent Mr. Mainwaring (vol. c. ii. p. 391), respecting a compilation from the Latin poetry of English writers, as well as in regard to a general History of modern Latin Poetry, appear very reasonable and well timed, and will, I should hope, have their due effect in the proper quarter; both works being doubtless desiderata in the literature of our country. To the names your Correspondent mentions, of Milton, Cowley, Gray, &c. as those from whom selections ought chiefly to be made, we should not forget to add, I think, those in particular of Addison, Sir W. Jones, Bourne, Tweddell, and several others. "Addison grew first eminent," says Johnson, "by his Latin compositions, which are indeed entitled to particular praise. He has not confined himself to the imitation of any ancient author, but has formed his style from the general language, such as a diligent perusal of the productions of different ages happened to supply." As many of Addison's best Latin poems are, however, neither lyrical nor elegiac, to which I observe Mr. M. would wish the selections to be confined, his name may be in so far objected to. The merits of the others I have mentioned are so well known and appreciated, that I need offer no comment upon them. But one suggestion often brings forth another of a kindred nature; and it is principally for the sake of introducing this latter, that I now write. It strikes me that I have somewhere heard or read (though I cannot call to mind when or where,)* that a work was about to be written, comprehending the lives of the most eminent classical scholars and critics that have flourished in this country There were some remarks on this subject in the review of Dr. Bentley's Life, in our July Mag. p. 28. [Feb. and on the continent. This state of uncertainty, I apprehend, needs no other apology for my venturing to suggest such a work. I would submit, like your Correspondent Mr. W. in regard to the Latin selections, that the lives in question should, in the first instance, be confined to Englishmen; and afterwards, provided it were called for, another volume or so might be added, embracing the conti nental critics. In the first part, of course, we should expect to find the lives of such men as Bentley, Porson, Burney, Gaisford, Parr, Elmsley, &c. &c.-and in the latter such "magnanimi heroës" (to use Dr. Burney's phrase), as Valcknäer, Hemsterhuis, Heyne, Casaubon, the Scaligers, Muretus, Rhunken, &c. ;-whose names, inasmuch as they have been long "joined in fame," are consequently entitled to a "union" in the same well-arranged and adequately written biographical "monument." The plan to be adopted should be, I think, somewhat similar to that of Dr. Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," or Melchior Adam's "Lives of the German Divines," and "Illustrious Men." The author should be a scholar of considerable talent, of first-rate classical acquirements, taste, and judgment, in order to give an accurate analytical view of each writer's works and criticisms, and to discriminate with correctness and tact his particular style, taste, learning, and bias, especially where these happen to be marked by any peculiar or prominent features. It might, perhaps, on a first view, be thought advisable that such a work as I contemplate, ought, particularly if foreign scholars are introduced, to be written in the Latin language;—but considering the present advanced state of learning and society, and that the cultivation of our tongue has of late become more fashionable on the continent, I should by all means prefer its being composed in English. As your Correspondent Mr. M. has mentioned a name that would doubtless fulfil his wish very ably-I mean Archdeacon Wrangham-may I not also venture to suggest one that I apprehend could do the same to mine with equal ability-your learned Correspondent Mr. Barker of Thetford? |