been spared. This figure is so critically situated between extreme delicacy and sickly affectation, that it should be intrusted to none but a most accomplished poet: and even in such hands it can hardly fail to disgust on repetition. Witness Euripides, who has often made even oxymoron irresistibly pleasing, and yet has not escaped the keen and just ridicule of Aristophanes. The mock-Euripidean chorus, Kana, 1931, &c. Brunck, thus begins: ὦ Νυκτὸς κελαινοφαής ὄρονα, τίνα μοι δύστανον ὄνειρον See also Acharn. 395, &c.; and Thesm. 275. And we must be allowed to think that Aristophanes was a man of some taste, and knew something of Greek, although he could laugh at an oxymoron. V. 18. ὡς ἀνάρχω Ἔτρεσ ̓ ἐξ ἀρχᾶς Χάος, ὡς τέθαπε Προσβλέπων λαμπρὸν θάλος. Τη the first place, it should have been ἐτεθήποι, Bot τέθηκε. Secondly, Χάος προσβλέπων is something very like a solecism. We shall not insult our readers by supposing the author to have been ignorant that χάος, χάους, is a neuter noun; he doubtless thought that the personification excused the anomaly. Yet we find Aristophanes personifying this very word in the neuter gender; Αν. 698. οὗτος δὲ (ὁ Ἔρως sc.) Χάει πτερόεντι μιγείς νυχίῳ, κατὰ Ταρταρον ἔυρυν, ἐνεότε τενσεν γένος ἡμέτερον. V. 49, ὡρανῶ τ' ἄγαλμα νέον, πτυχαίσιν Εσχάταις φρουρός περ ἐὼν, πρόσωθεν Λαμπάδ' αιωρεί, i. e. the Georgium Sidus. First, the word ἄγαλμα had just occurred in a similar sense, v. 40. Secondly, if the planet is stationed πτυχαῖς ἐσχάταις, it bably lifts its torch πρόσωθεν. pro V. 53. πυρὸς πλεκτῶ πλοκάμως. Πλοκαμος is derived from πλέκω, and means a curl. These wrods, therefore, sound in Greek as a curl of curled fire would sound in English. But the stanza is so beautiful for its terseness and skilful versification that we cannot but quote it. Τίν (ὦ 'Αλιε scil.) πυρὸς πλεκτῶ πλοκάμως Κομάτας ἐκτινάσσων, ἀχλύος ἐξ ἀπείρω ἐσχάρας τεᾶς θεράπων ἐλαύνει νόστιμον ἅρμα. • Coneta potest in Solem incidere. Sic etiam steilæ fixæ, quæ paulatim expirant in lucem et vapores, cometis in ipsas 'incidentibus refici possunt, et Rovo alimento accens pro stellis novis haberi." NEWTON. Princip. Matheus. Tom. III. Lib. ii. Prop. 43. Prob. 42. CRIT. REV. Vol. 7. January, 1806. D We have two questions nevertheless to ask: 1. Was there any occasion for both riv and reas? 2. Is intiváσowy used by any good author for τινάσσων? V. 68. διπλέον αὐγών. The feminine of διπλόοs is commonly dión, man. We have ransacked our memory, and turned over our indexes in vain for an example of the feminine form doos. In Euripides, Herc. Fur. 666. Musgr. we meet with aλov BioTáv. But this solitary instance is of little service in removing our doubts; the true reading may, possibly, be βίοτον. 1 διπλέος, oι διπλόον, can be found joined to a feminine noun, where the metre will not admit dizañ or di#añv, and where no reasonably easy mode of correction can be pointed out, then indeed our doubts will end. V. 70. (See the lines quoted at the end of the article.) should, we think, have been omitted. The rest of the stanza is so very like some verses in the late Mr. Tweddell's ode, Juvenum Curas, that we cannot in conscience think the coincidence accidental: Πῶς σὰ φίλτρα ΜΥΡΙΑ, μυρίοισιν ἱμέρω βέλεσσι δαμεις, ΦΡΑΣΑΙΜ' ΑΝ ; Tweddell, Prolusiones Juveniles, p. 66. It is true, that both poets have taken the concluding thought from Pindar; Ol. II. 178; ἐπεὶ ψάμμος ἀριθμῶν περιπέφευγεν. but there are other points of resemblance between the two stanzas. V. 79. (quoted at the end of this article). Xpóvos. We do not see why Time should be made the destroyer of the Sun; as if that parent of light' was to be extinguished by gradual decay. It would have been more correct, and certainly not less poetical, to say, that he will vanish as suddenly as he appeared at the command of the Creator. V.90. χθὼν βιόδωρος. Μάτης ὀλβιόδωρος Αία occurs v. 38. — The earth is said ἐκσκεδάζειν ἄνθεα προπάροιθε κόλπων, i. e. to scatter flowers abroad from before her bosom, i, e. to shoot them into the air. oxidat means to scatter abroad, dissipare. If she had been said ἐπισκεδάζειν ἄνθεα κόλποις, to throw or scatter them about on her bosom, the expression might possibly have been defensible. V.101. ἡνίδ ̓ ἐμψύχων ἀνάριθμον ἔθνος Γᾶ λοχεύει, &c. These verses are an evident, though, as we think, inadequate, translation of Milton, P. L. VII. 449, &c. In the original, we L, see the newly-created lion rising from the earth, pawing to get free his hinder parts; springing as broke from bonds; in the imitation, he is taking a walk in a forest, as if he had been ready created for the poet to describe ; βιβα κατ ̓ ἄλσος ἔραμον. V.115. Τιν γελάσσασ ̓ ἱμερόεν ποθατὰ Δῶρα προτείνει ̔Α Φύσις. Good ! a voluptuous smile on the face of Nature ! At this rate, we do not despair of seeing in a reasonable time, Master Charon and Miss Tisiphone interchanging amorous glances and melting sighs. But so it was ; ἱμερόεν made a very pretty choriambus, and was found in Sappho's ode, in juxta-position with γελάν. Our readers may now begin to be weary of our criticism, which we shall therefore conclude with the promised extract. Οὐδὲ μὲν, λαμπρός πες ἐὼν, διοικεῖς "Αλιε, σκαπτον μόνος· οὐργάτης γὰρ ἀστερόεντα, 60 65 70 75 + Sol, ut Herschelio videtur, jeventutis certiora dat indicia, quam magna stellarum pars. Vid. Philos. Trans. 1796. p. 185. Sirius violaceo subrubet colore. Vid. ARAT. Phen. 1. 314. Pleraque in constellatione Lyrâ sidera e duabus stellis videntur composita, ART. V.-Speeches of John Philpot Curran, Esq. Sto. Ss. pp. 400. Dubiin. 1805. IN common with the lovers of literature and science, we have often lamented that our countrymen on the other side of the channel afford us so few occasions of deriving instruction from the learning, or entertainment from the ingenuity, of which it is acknowledged that they possess so large a share. We are indeed somewhat at a loss to discover to what circumstance in particular is to be attributed the rare emergence of works of any considerable merit from the press of Ireland; and we are equally diffident in forming our expectations that any immediate aid to its removal will be attendant on the union of empire which has recently been accomplished. It may with justice be urged that ignorance cand barbarism still prevail over a great part of our western island; nor can it be denied that many of those parts where the darkness has been dispelled, are hitherto but feebly and partially illuminated by the uncertain lights struck out of commercial enterprize. In the metropolis, however, the seat of vice-royalty, the residence alike of the busy and the idle, the learned and the gay, science might be expected to yield her unexhausted fruits, and wit to pour forth her abundant treasures Notwithstanding the number of those who at this day possess the means or enlightening the world, and eminent as their talents and learning are confessedlyesteemed, yet with the indolence or despair of men who are conscious of the distance which separates them from the great theatre of public applause, they seem to have abadoned their exertions along with the hope of enlarging the cucle of their fame. Individuals may possibly be apprehensive that their single voices may be lost ere they reach the place to which they are most anxiously directed; and diffidence thus fortified by pride effectually discourages even the attempt, If therefore the more intimate connection which now subsists between us and the sister kingdom have any ben ficial effects in promoting the common interests of learning, they must unquestionably be sought in the new proted on which the English press will be called upon to exteed to the less favoured offspring of Irish literature. The work under review merits a place in the first rank of those productions which have given form and local habitation' Ao the sublime efforts of extemporaneous reason and eloquence It has brought to a nearer view hose splendid talents which, however sullied by imperfections, have shone with undiminished lustre, during a considerable period of the present times. We are deeply indebted to the compiler and to the corrector of the speeches which are published in this volume, for affording so rich and valuable an acquisition to the treasures of forensic eloquence, and for enabling Englishmen and posterity to form an adequate conception of the energy, the brilliancy, and the scope of Mr. Curran's oratory. We are persuaded that our readers will be more gratified by our presenting to them specimens of the dif ferent kinds of eloquence which this valuable compilation furnishes, than by detaining their curiosity with minute and laboured descriptions: we shall therefore proceed to transcribe such parts as our limits will permit us to insert. The first speech was delivered before the lord lieutenant and privy council of Ireland, on a question respecting the right of election of lord mayor of the city of Dublin, between Aldermen Howison and James (1790): Mr. Curran thus opens his defence of the claims of Mr. Howison and the popular party by which he was supported. My Lords, I have the honour to appear before you as counsel for the commons of the corporation of the metropolis of Ireland, and also for Mr. Alderman Howison, who hath petitioned for your appro bation of him as a fit person to serve as lord mayor, in virtue of his election by the commons to that high office, and in that capacity I address you on the most important subject that you have ever been called upon to discuss. Highly interesting and momentous indeed, my Lords, must every question be, that even remotely and eventually may affect the well-being of societies or the freedom or the repose of nations; but that question, the result of which by an immediate and direct necessity must decide either fatally or fortunately the life or the death of that well-being, of that freedom and that repose, is surely the most important subject on which human wisdom can be employed, if any subject on this side the grave can be entitled to that appellation. You cannot therefore, my Lords, be surprized to see this place crowded by such numbers of our fellow-citizens. Heretofore they were attracted hither by a strong sense of the value of their rights and of the injustice of the attack upon them; they felt all the magnitude of the contest; but they were not disturbed by any fear for the event; they relied securely on the justice of their cause and the integrity of those who were to decide upon it. But the public mind is now filled with a fear of danger, the more painful and alarming because hitherto unforeseen: the public are now taught to fear that their cause may be of doubtful nierits and disastrous issue; that rights which they considered as defined by the wisdom and cor firmed by the authority of written law, may now turn out to be no more than ideal claims without either precision or security'; that acts of parliament themselves are no more than embryos of legilation, or at best but infants whose first labours must be not to teach but to learn, and which even after thirty years of pupiitage, say |