read, as Commelin feems to prefer, from the Palatine MS. o, Ti exern ewpa, for they could not help feeing clearly whatever the looked on. Bourdelot thinks this change at least unimportant, and not more perfpicuous than the passage in its former ftate. But, as Heliodorus was defcribing the changes in the countenance of Theagenes, and endeavouring to apologize for being so particular, it seems more likely, that he intended to defcribe the croffing of the pirates in their way to the ship, not as direct, but as diagonally, towards Theagenes; and this is more probable, as, before their descent from the mountain, Chariclea was hid from them. The Vatican MS. fupports this reading very strongly, fince in the margin are added the following words * αν. 8ς τις οφθαλμός ηναγκαζεν, which gives exactly the fame interpretation as we have done. The anonymous tranflator of 1752 has entirely mistaken the paffage, though he has fubftituted a reading with fome ingenuity. His eyes, weakened with pain and anguish, were till directed towards his beloved virgin; and, with no small uneofiness, he forced them to behold that melancholy object, only because it was fhe*.?

The defcription of the refidence of the Egyptian pirates is characteristic, and fuppofed to be hiftorically just.

They travelled about a quarter of a mile along the fhore; then, leaving the fea on their right hand, they turned towards the mountains, and with fome difficulty afcending them, they arrived at a kind of morals, that extended quite to the other fide of them. The nature of the place was as follows: The whole tract is called The Pafture by the Egyptians; in the midst of it there is a valley, which receives fome overflowings of the Nile, and forms a lake the depth of which in the centre is unta homable. On the fides it runs out into a kind of boggy, reedy ground; for, as the fhose is to the fea, fuch is ufually this fort of border to lakes.

Here the Egyptian pirates fixed their feat: one built a fort of hut upon a bit of ground that appeared above the water: another pent his life on board a veilel, which ferved him at once for tranfport and habitation. Here their wives wait upon them and produce their children, who at first are nourished with their mother's milk, and afterwards with fishes dried in the fun : when they begin to go, they tie a ring to their ancle, and fuffer them to run the length of the boat. Thus this inhabitant of the Palture is born upon the lake, nourished in this manner, and confiders this morals as his country; it affords him thelter and protection. Men of this defcription therefore are continually flocking thither; the water ferves them as a citadel, and the quantity of reeds as a fortification. They had cut oblique paths among these, with many windings, known to themselves alone, fo as they imagined themfelves fecure from any fudden

Nor fee he would, but only her to fee.' Poet. Tranf. 1637.

invafion:

invafion: fuch was the fituation of the lake and its inhabitants.'

In the first part of this defcription there feems to be a little inaccuracy. It feems as if the lake extended from the top of the mountain to the other fide. Our author probably meant to fay, with Heliodorus, that paffing with difficulty over the fummit of the mountain, they arrive at a lake extended over the valley bordering on the left hand fide of the mountain.' The rest of the tranflation is fufficiently accurate; perhaps it would have been proper to have added, that the fish are procured from the lake, as in the original; and, after the length of the boat, we perceive in the Greek a paffage to the following effect:ufing the fetter, as a new kind of guide.'

The following paffage is fingular: we may trace in this fuperftition our own legends refpecting the appearance of ghofts.

The gods, O Cnemon, when they appear to, or difappear from us, generally do it under a human fhape-feldom under that of any other animal; perhaps, in order that their appearance may have more the femblance of reality. They may not be manifeft to the prophane, but cannot be concealed from the fage. You may know them by their eyes; they look on you with a continued view, never winking with their eye-lids-ftill more by their motion, which is fliding without ftep, fwimming gently toward, and fmoothly cleaving the air: for which reafon the images of the Egyptian gods have their feet joined together, and in a manner united. Wherefore Homer, being an Egyptian, and inftructed in their facred doctrines, covertly infinuated this matter in his verfes, leaving it to be understood by the intelligent. He mentions Pallas in this manner:

- δεινὼ δέ οἱ οσσε φανθεν.

and Neptune in the lines quoted before--as if fwimming in his gait; for fo is the verfe to be conftrued-l amiótos, eafily fliding away; not, as fome erroneoufly think, pa syvwv, I easily knew him.'

The reafons for fuppofing Homer an Egyptian, and the idle tale of the mark of illegitimacy on his thigh, we shall omit. Winkelman, however, informs us that the feet united, in the Egyptian flatues, was not the characteristics of the reprefentations of deities alone. The paffage is rendered very accurately, and in one or two places very happily.

The following fuperftition, refpecting the Nile, confirms what Mr. Bruce has obferved to remain in its full force at the fountains, even at a very late period.

It happened that this was the feafon for celebrating the over flowing of the Nile; a very folemn festival among the Egyptians It falls out about the time of the fummer folftice, when the

Gg3

river

river first begins to fwell, and is obferved with great devotion throughout the country; for the Egyptians make a god of the -Nile, and one of the principal of their deities: they make him equal to Ou anus, or heaven: because they fay, that without clouds or rain he annually waters and fertilizes their fields. Thele are the lentiments of the common people. They, who are more refined fay, that this union of moist and dry, of the river with the earth, is the principal caufe and fupport of animal life. Yet further, they who have been initiated in the myfteries, call this earth Ifis; this river, Ofiris. They are, beyond meafure, rejoiced when the god makes his appearance upon the plains, and proportionally depreffed and afflicted when he keeps within his banks; which they attribute to the malign influence of the evil fpirit Typhon.

These men, skilled in divine and human knowledge, do not difclofe to the vulgar the hidden fignifications contained under thefe natural appearances, and veil them in fables; but are ready to reveal them in a proper place, and with due ceremonies, to those who are defirous and worthy of being initiated: fo far J may be permitted to fay with re pect, preferving a reverential filence, as to what further relates to these myftic rites*.

This paffage is not clofely tranflated, and in one place not, we fufpect, correctly-We mean, which they attribute to the malign influence of the evil spirit Typhon.' We think the whole fentence fhould be rendered in this way. The goddess (the earth) burns with the most eager defire for the arrival of the deity, mourns when he does not appear, and dreads a ftorm as fomething fatal.' Tugay is an hurricane, a whirlwind, or water-fpout. The other little variations, and the abridgements, are not of importance. The tranflation printed for Owen is duly epic in one refpe&t, femper ad eventum feftinat; and the latter parts are miferably curtailed and mutilated.

We have not given an analysis of a flory fo well known ; and indeed an intelligible analysis of adventures fo artificially arranged is a difficult task, for all the arguments of the older editors are perplexed and obfcure. To the Leyden edition of 1611 are added apothegms collected from the work: we must leave the bishop to contend with the fturdier moralifts refpecting the propriety of the following maxim: A lie is commendable, Kaλo, when it profits those who tell it, without injuring those who hear it.

It is a little odd to fee a Chriftian bifhop treat these Pagan ceremonies with so much refpect. Perhaps before his converfion (if indeed he were converted, and not born of Chriftian parents, which does not appear) he was himfelf permitted to partake of them. The initiated feem fomething like our free-mafons, who affect to difclofe a little of their fecret, and pretend to know more than they tell.'

FOREIGN

FOREIGN ARTICLE.

Demofthenis Oratio adverfus Leptinem cum Scholiis Veteribus & Commentario perpetuo. Accedit Ælii Ariftidis Declamatio ejuf dem Caufa, in Germania nunc primum Edita. Cura Friderici Aug. Wolfii. 8vo. Halis, Saxonum.

IT

T is with great pleasure that we furvey the improvement of our German neighbours in the elegance of their typography, and the goodness of their paper. In both refpects they have been long and proverbially deficient; but the work before is execute ed with great neatnefs, and, if we except a few peculiarities, with great elegance. This work is of importance in another view our editor, we find, purposes to publish a fet of cheap, neat, and correct editions of the Greek claffics; and the Oration of Demofthenes on Immun ties, now before us, is defigned as a fpecimen of his accuracy, the elegance of the form, and the attention bestowed. In each of those refpects this oration is almost unexceptionable. In this edition we have not only the old fcholia, but a perpetual commentary, a plan which he does not purpose to follow in the other authors, as it would increase the bulk and the price: he means to confine himself to a careful. ly corrected text, and a few neceffary notes. Diodorus Siculus is already in the prefs, and we mean to notice it as foon as it appears it will be publifhed in England by Mr. Elmiley.

From various caufes Demosthenes has been too much neglected by claffical students, though we have the teftimony of all an tiquity that he was held in the highest eftimation. The force of his eloquence, the vehemence of his oratory, the laterum contentio, as it has been emphatically called, have been celebrated with the warmest encomiums, and the fragment of an old claffical author, preferved and tranflated by Mr. Cumberland in his Obferver, has drawn his picture in the most lively colours, at the moment of the most active exertions of his eloquence. The beauty of his language, the nice arrangement of his words, and the melody of his periods, we could eafil believe, from the fole confideration that he guided a popular aflembly, whofe tafte was refined by the pureit models, and the delicacy of whofe organs was very easily affected; if we had not the molt pofitive teftimony that he excelled in each refpect in the opinion of th fe who could best judge. The neglect therefore of later ages must be attributed to the difficulty of following his reafoning on the abftrufe politics of that period, and the little interest which the lefs important fubjects will excite. The Philippics, as more particularly connected with the history of his country, are the most popular of Demofthenes' orations, though this to Leptines has been highly esteemed by the best judges, and is called by Dionyfius χεριέςτατος ἁπάντων τῶν λογῶν καὶ reapiúrages. It is faid to have been fpoken when Demofthenes was only twenty-five years of age, in the fecond year of the 106th Olympiad. It was tranflated into Latin by Nannius: M. Wolff has very properly given no tranflation. As one of G g4

his

his objects is to give ufeful editions for fchools, we are happy to fee boys deprived of this refuge for indolence, this most fatal impediment to a proper knowledge of the Greek language.

M. Wolff, who is profeffor of eloquence and of the humaniores litera in the univerfity of Hall, in the king of Pruffia's dominions, introduces his work by a letter to Reizius, profef for at Leipfic. He had been employed, he fays, four years in reading the Greek orators, and particularly Demofthenes, chiefly to collect what related to the republic of Athens, its condi tion, its laws, its juridical decifions, its revenues and civil inflitutes, for the ufe of his cla's, and we trust, ultimately, for that of the world. From a predilection for fome of the more interefting orations, arofe the plan of publifhing them more correctly, and this leads him to a fhort account of the more im portant editions, in which he feems to treat our countryman Taylor with too little complaifance, though he difapproves of the harsh and unjustifiable feverity of Reike. M. Wolff next explains the plan which he intends to purfue in the future edi. tions, and which we have already fhortly mentioned. The authors defigned to follow Diodorus, are Hefiod, Ifocrates, Ar rian, Lucian, Apollonius, Dyfcolus, and fome books of Ga en, particularly thole de Ufu Partium.' Thofe authors pubhifhed in the fame way by others, particularly Herodotus by Reizius, and Thucidides, which appeared about five years fince at Vienna, he purposes to omit. The reason of publishing this oration in a different manner was to give a specimen of all the new types, and the oration to Leptines was preferred because it requires lefs knowledge of the political state of Greece, and is in that more quiet placid ftyle of eloquence, which is more ea fily understood, and more generally agreeable. Indeed, as the editor obferves, this oration has much intrinsic merit; for when, fays he, I investigated the fenfe of every word, I was fo much affected with that fubtelty, recommended by the Demofthenes of Rome, that admirable torce of fentences and words, that politeness and art with which the author unfolds and weakens the arguments of his adverfary, while he fpares the man, that I fcarcely remember having received greater pleasure from any profe compofition.' From this predilection the particular regard of our author feems to have arifen, and the number of the notes is apologized for from the little attention which has been paid to this part of Demofthenes' labours by other editors.

The declamation of Ælius Ariftides is added, a Sophift of the lower empire, who often aimed at bending the bow of Ulyf fes with Ulyffes himself. Our editor fpeaks of the work with little refpect, and has not added a word in explanation. He has corrected the text only, in a few places, from the Venice edition. Other critics have treated Ariflides lefs harflily, and we think more properly.

The Prolegomena, which extend to 122 pages, follow the Epifle; and M. Wolff, in this preface, explains the inode of