would be that critic's who should rank Valckenaer and Dawes in the same class with Barnes and Pauw (vid. Apology, p. 5.). If Mr. H. believes that every license, which the later epigrammatists take, may be allowed in a modern poet, he will find it difficult to commit any errors in quantity, as there is scarcely a violation of metre which may not be defended by the example of one or other of these poetasters*. When an imitator of the ancients unites in his own compositions all the different dialects and metres, which the Greek language admitted through the space

* A young poet the other day shewed me some Latin Asclepiads, one of which concluded with the word frater. I objected to it as being a false quantity; but he soon convinced me, that "my pedantic ipse dixit must give place to poetical authority," by producing the following epigram of Palladas (Anthol. H. St. i. 42. p. 63.= Brunck, ii. p. 413.), in which a just taste, refined wit, and a scrupulous regard to the exactness and graces of versification, are equally conspicuous.

*Ην ὁ φίλος τὶ λάβῃ, ΔΟΜΙΝΕ ΦΡΑΤΕΡ, εὐθὺς ἔγραψεν. *Ην δ' αὖ μή τι λάβῃ, τὸ ΦΡΑΤΕΡ εἶπε μόνον. Ωνια γὰρ καὶ ταῦτα τὰ ῥήματα· αὐτὰρ ἔγωγε

Οὐκ ἐθέλω ΔΟΜΙΝΕ· οὐ γὰρ ἔχω ΔΟΜΕΝΑΙ.

[Conf. Mureti Opera, III. 27.]

of a thousand years, it is not easy to decide what system of prosody or style he may have formed for his own use. What would Mr. H. think of a foreigner, who, by way of writing English monostrophics, should studiously collect and mingle the phraseology, diction, and prosody of Chaucer, Shakspeare, Milton, and Pope, et tum mirifice speraret se esse locutum? In my judgement, therefore, Dawes's observation has not been materially hurt by what Mr. H. has advanced.-Dawes does not say that there is no example to be found of the license that Mr. H. defends, but that whoever takes such a license is ignorant of quantity; as ignorant, I may add, as he would be, who should make iragas (New Monostr. p. 20.) an anapæst, yʊzwv (p. 30.) or ψυχος

uxos (p. 36.) an iambus, or ɛi σv (p. 38.) a spondee. Part of Mr. H's civility to Dawes has been already quoted. The paragraph concludes with saying, that "he is positive, hasty and wrong in more passages than in one." Without entering on a long defence of Dawes, I shall venture to urge one plea in his favour. He wrote in his youth some

Greek

Greek verses, full of mistake in syntax and dialect, though faultless, I believe, in point of metre. But afterwards, becoming sensible of his error, he quitted what he esteemed so idle and unprofitable a study, and chose rather to read good Greek than to write bad. An example of candour and prudence well worthy to be imitated!

THE

THE LEARNED PIG.

THIS gentleman professing himself to be extremely learned, will have no objection to find his merits set forth in a Greek quotation : Πρηὺς ὁδ ̓ εἰσιδέειν καὶ μείλιχος, οὐδέ τι χοίροις *Αλλοισι προσέοικε νόος δέ οἱ ἠΰτε φωτὸς Αἴσιμος ἀμφιθέει, μούνης δ ̓ ἐπιδεύεται αὐδῆς * which, no manner of doubt, he will immediately translate for the amusement of the dilettanti who visit him.

The well-earned admiration this pig meets with from a sensible and discerning public,

*As it is possible that the pig's Greek may want rubbing up, owing to his having kept so much company with ladies, the chien sçavant has kindly communicated a translation. This, though not very elegant, and probably made from the Latin, as it does honour to the ingenuous beast, and shews that he is above any sentiment of envy on this occasion, I shall insert.

A gentle pig this same, a pig of parts,

And learn'd as F.R.S. or graduate in arts;

His ancestors, 'tis true, could only squeak,

But this has been at school-and in a month will speak.

puts

puts me in mind of a pleasant story told by Lucian, at the beginning of the first Prometheus*. One of the Ptolemies was, it seems, very desirous of gratifying the Egyptians with the sight of something new for this he introduced into the public games purpose he was exhibiting a black camel from Bactria splendidly caparisoned, and a man half black and half white; but far from giving the monsters the applause they deserved, the Egyptians, who, as our sneering author says, were a people, who did not like things because they were new and uncommon, but rather delighted in fitness and propriety, were frightened at the camel and fairly hissed the man. The consequence of this uncourteous reception was, that the camel (who was a camel of spirit, and very worthy to wear a bridle from the stable of Cambyses, as we are told she did) died of grief. The man's fate was, if possible, harder; for he was given to an opera singer, who had sung well at a great supper, at which Theocritus and the members of the tragic and comic Pleiades were present. * [T. I. 4.]

NOTE