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A note adds, "The Imperial Balancer seems to have placed both [our pudding and our praise] in one scale, and to have counterpoised them with some other commodity, which has made our offerings kick the beam.”

Porson used afterwards to repeat, very frequently, the following lines, which are universally supposed to have been his own composition :

Poetis nos latamur tribus,

Pye, Petro Pindar, Parvo Pybus:
Si ulteriùs ire pergis,

Adde his Sir James Bland Burgess.

Which may be thus imitated:

Three bards to praise them fain would bribe us,
Pye, Peter Pindar, Charles Small Pybus:
Three only? Lo, a fourth that urges

His claim for praise, Sir James Bland Burgess.

The nursery lines, which Porson uttered when he opened Pybus's book, have been thus attempted in Greek, we know not by whom :

Τετρώβολόν τι μέλπω,
Κριθῶν τε πλήρη σάκκον,
Καὶ κοττύλους δὶς δώδεκ
Οπτοὺς στέγειν σιτευτῷ
Στέγους δ' ἀναπτυχθέντος
*Ορνιθες ἐξεφώνενν,
Ο δὴ δοκεῖ τι λαμπρὸν,
Εἰ προσφέροιτ ̓ ἄνακτι.*

In 1799 and 1800 Porson received from Gail, the French translator and editor of Xenophon, the two following letters, with presents of some of his works.

* Barker's Literary Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 189.

"SIR,

"GAIL to the illustrious Mr. PORSON.

"M. Vellimenot the younger, a banker of Paris, ought, at his last trip to London, to have sent you, from me, my "Treatise on Hunting, translated from the Greek of Xenophon.' In the apprehension that he may not have caused it to reach you safely, I address to you a second copy of it on vellum. paper, accompanied with my Greek Roots' and my 'Poetic Anthology.' Would you have the goodness, if I may venture to ask, to announce these three works, or to get them announced, in one of the most respectable of your journals? May I request you especially, also, to cast your eye on two historical dissertations, which I think curious, and particularly on that relating to Hipparchus, Anacreon, &c. (p. 39 of my Anthology), the true sense of which the critics who have preceded me appear not to have caught? I would also have you look at that on Epicharmus (p. 23 of the Anthology), and on my observations on M. Sturz's Lexicon Xenophonteum in the preface to the Anthology.

"I shall be flattered by having your opinion on these three articles; the rest would not recompense you for the trouble of perusal.

"Will you pardon me if I request you to read also my critical observations on Xenophon's object in his Symposium?

"I send you a leaf of the Décade Philosophique, year X., third quarter, in which these observations have been inserted.

"I am working constantly at Xenophon. The six manuscripts of the Hellenica have occupied much time, and required incredible patience; but I have found valuable various readings, which have made me excellent amends. In another month I shall put forth a humble specimen of it, which will be inserted in my magazine by M. Millier.

"May my researches be thought useful! May Mr. Porson say, when he reads them, that the author has not wholly wasted his time!

"GAIL, Professor of the Greek language in the College of France.

"SIR,

"GAIL to the illustrious Mr. PORSON.

"One of your countrymen, the amiable and learned Dr. Jones, is now at my house. He is willing to take charge of some works which I had last year the honour of sending you through the agency of Eisch the bookseller, but which probably never reached you.

"These books are, 1. My 'Greek Poetical Anthology.' The rest of the Greek course is not worth offering you. 2. My Theocritus in duodecimo; I do not offer you the fine edition in quarto, because I am not the proprietor of it. It has been printed at the expense of a banker of this country. 3. My Cynegetics. 4. A Letter to M. Schneider. 5. An extract from La Décade Philosophique.

"If I were not afraid, Sir, of trespassing on your time, I would ask you to favour me with your opinion, first, on the extract from La Décade, p. 281, which you will find in the parcel; an extract entitled Short Analysis of the Banquet of Xenophon;' secondly, on my dissertation relating to Anacreon, Hipparchus, &c., p. 39 of my Poetical Anthology;' thirdly, on my exposition regarding Epicharmus, p. 43 of the same work.

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"This is a great deal to ask of you, Sir; it is perhaps to be extremely troublesome. But I presume upon your indulgence, and set a very high value on your opinion. In these two dissertations, I think a Socratic irony is apparent, and, if I am right, I have made an historical discovery. But I ought to distrust my own way of looking on these matters, as it differs from that of the greatest critics and historians both of our own and of other countries.

"To read and examine these three short pieces will not require more than an hour. I ask this of you, and entreat it as a favour. Do not reply till you have read them, and till you are able to send me your opinion.

"I beg the illustrious Mr. Porson to accept the tribute of my sincere and profound respect.

"GAIL, Professor of Greek Literature in

the College of France."

[No date.]

CHAP. XIX.

HIS

PORSON COLLATES A MANUSCRIPT FOR THE GRENVILLE HOMER. ASSIDUITY. LETTERS FROM VILLOISON REQUESTING A COPY OF THE HOMER, AND ACKNOWLEDGING THE RECEIPT OF IT. - PUBLICATION OF THE MEDEA. - PORSON'S OPINIONS ON GREEK

-

ACCENTUATION.

WAKEFIELD'S HOSTILITY TO ACCENTS. BRUNCK'S AND ELMSLEY'S
PORSON'S LONG NOTE ON VERSES 139,

NOTIONS RESPECTING THEM.

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WHILE Porson was engaged about Euripides, the splendid edition of Homer, known as the "Grenville Homer,” was being printed at the Clarendon Press, as Kidd says, "for the three noble brothers;" and those who had the superintendence of it, being desirous that there should be appended to it a collation of the Harleian manuscript of the Odyssey (which had been previously collated, but very negligently, by Thomas Bentley), made application for that purpose to Porson, who readily undertook the work, and devoted himself to it with more than ordinary diligence. He was then living in Essex Court in the Temple, where he would, on many occasions, shut himself up for two or three days together; but, while he was employed on the Harleian manuscript, he was almost wholly inaccessible even to his most intimate friends. "One morning," says Mr. Maltby, "I went to call upon him there; and, having inquired at his barber's close by if Mr. Porson

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was at home, was answered, 'Yes; but he has seen no one for two days.' I, however, proceeded to his chamber, and knocked at the door more than once. He would not open it, and I came downstairs. As I was re-crossing the court, Porson, who had perceived that I was the visitor, opened the window, and stopped me." His remuneration for the collation was fifty pounds, and a large-paper copy. "I thought the payment too small," observes Maltby, "but Burney considered it as sufficient." This collation has been reprinted in the "Classical Journal." A few critical remarks are scattered through it. The passage regarding the final we have already extracted. He concludes, after making some final corrections, with this paragraph :

"Thus I have at last, I hope, left no important error in this collation; that there are no omissions, I will not assert. If any one, however, shall take upon himself to supply my deficiencies, and to correct, at the same time, such mistakes as I have committed, let him be assured that he will do what is acceptable to the republic of letters as well as to myself. Whether he do it tenderly or harshly, will have no effect on me, if he but do it accurately; but it may possibly have a good effect on himself, if he be anxious to show that he undertook the task rather from a desire to be of service to letters than to depress a rival."

The appearance of the Grenville Homer occasioned Porson to receive the following application from Villoison:

"SIR,

"I beg you to have the goodness to excuse the forwardness of a foreigner who has not the happiness of being known to you, but who has the highest admiration for your rare and * Rogers's Table Talk, "Porsoniana," p. 311.

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