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much improving that approach to the Bedford estate.

Of the importance of the buildings on the Bedford and Foundling eftates to the country and the proprietors, fome judgment may be formed by the following eftimates, which are very nearly correct: The duties already paid to government for the articles confumed in the buildings, amount to 84,500l. The house and window duties per annum, 40,7001. The war tax on property, per annum, 14,800). The new river company gain by the in creafed fervice, per annum, 3,4501. The prefent value of the buildings erected is 1,328,000l. The annual value, 125,710l. And the prefent annual value of the ground-rents, 18,8391.

It is prefumed, that about one half the buildings are completed on the Bedford eftate, and two thirds on the Foundling cftate. If, therefore, thofe proportions be added to the fums already eftimated, fome idea may be formed of the reverfionary value to the proprietors; and if to these be added the duties and taxes on the other eftates before mentioned fouth of the new road, the permanent taxes to the ftate cannot be lefs (according to their prefent ratio) than, for houses and windows per annum, 100,000l.; for duties and cuftoms on the building articles, 200,0001.; for the war-tax on property per annum, 40,000l.; and in total of the capital thus to be created, not lefs than 8,500,000).; exclusive of all confideration of the advantages derived to the revenue, manufactures, and commerce, by the fitting up and, furnishing so vaft a neighbourhood. Z.

December 1806,

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazines,

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SIR,

N many of the London papers, and in fome of the provincial, a correipondent lately intimated, that feveral perfons had, a few days before his communication, fuffered from the bite of a mad dog, and mentions a fatal inftance. Tracing the progrefs of one of thefe rabid dogs afterwards into the country, Le enumerates the feveral animals, and even fome of the human fpecies, lately bitten in its flight from village to vil lage.

This writer very laudably cautions the public against carelefs indifference, by imprudently delaying to obviate danger till bydrophobia appears in fome of these animals. In all this, his admonitions

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To deftroy (as he advifes) every dog fufpected of being bitten, would indeed fully aufwer the purpose of fecurity; but equal fafety may be obtained, without the lofs of many of thefe valuable animals. Is it not unjust to involve the harmless and noxious in the fame ruin, when it is in our power to difcriminate?

may we not transfer the fame mode of reafoning, with propriety, to the unbitten, but fufpected, and the bitten dogs? In the prefent cafe nothing is more ob vious, nothing more eafy than this dif crimination. It confifts imply in tying them up the infected will foon be diftinguishable.

I would take the liberty to refer your readers to my Treatife on Hydrophobia, vol. i. p. 222-5, fecond edition, where fufficient facts are recorded to establifh the inference, and mark with fome precilion the interval between the bite and the commencement of the disease in the dog tribe. It will be found, from the examples there adduced, that thirty days is its longest period; though it often does not exceed the half. Let the calculation, therefore, begin from the time the rabids dog appeared in the place, and the length of the confinement will be apparent." To remove all uncertainty, however, the dog may be kept on the chain a week longer. This inconvenience cannot be thought great. Food and water must be daily fupplied; and the perfon employed to feed them thould always approach with caution, pufining the vićtuals towards them with fome fuitable inftrument, to avoid coming too near.

condemned dogs, which were leful to their matters for years afterwards; and have detected early difeafe in others, by which dreadful effects, doubtless, had the animals been at large, were prevented, asfeveral of your readers can testify.

By this advice I have faved feveral

I prefume it to be altogether unneceffary here to repeat, that in a very early stage of hydrophobia dogs are ca pable of communicating the difenfe. They will eat, drink, aufwer the call, fawn on their matters, and fuffer themfelves to be handled, as in perfect health, wheti they are moft dangerous compa nions. This arifes from the intervals between these fits, which characterize the complaint in the firft days of its attack. During the paroxylins, only, they

fly

By at the perfon or animal near them; when it fubfides, they become quiet and harmless. At this stage they are, how ever, easily roufed to anger.

Having thus curforily ftood advocate for the canine, it may be fuppofed that I include the feline race within the pale of my mercy.

Man under this disease, though attacked at intervals with fits of delirium, in which he may do mifchief to byttanders, if not reftrained, is no more to be confidered mad, or the object of terror, than any one under a fit of delirium in an highly inflammatory fever. The bite he may unconfeiously inflict will be attended with no more evil confequences, than if it had been given under a fit of common anger. The faliva copiously roaping from his mouth, threatening fuffocation, has been, and (I confidently believe) may be handled with as little danger as the faliva of thofe in perfect health.

It may perhaps be expected, after mentioning the unfounded doctrine relative to the communicability of the complaint by man to his fellow, and after encouraging the commiferating neighbour fearlessly to approach and atlitt in Imoothing, by fympathy and attentions, the last hours of agonized existence, that I fhould fubjoin fome hints on the prereation of a malady which no human fagacity has ever, in a fingle inftance, been able to cure.

Suppofe a bite to be juft inflicted by the accidental encounter of a rabid anirual, and no medical affittance within immediate reach, (or, at least, fuch at tendance for feveral hours, or even a day, not to be procured,) let not the fufferer be fo much overpowered by terror and apprehenfion as to prevent his taking immediate measures for his fafety. Let a rough coarse cloth be directly applied to wipe the wound, and clear it from the faliva adhering to the furface. To encourage the bleeding, however, will be ufelefs; but ablution at this time becomes a more certain fafeguard. This I would recommend to be pursued with perfeverance, firft with warm water, and afterwards with cold. It thould be poured over the part from a veffel held at forne distance, to take the advantage of gravitation. By thus impreffing with more force, its particles will fink deeper into the interftices of the fibres, with greater hopes of diffolving and washing away the faliva left in thefe receffes by

the creature's teeth. The ablution should be profecuted for an hour at least, without intermillion. Though this be a commendable prophylactic within every one's power immediately after an injury of this kind, yet total reliance muft not be implicitly placed in its efficacy. As foon as the affiftance of a furgeon can be procured, it will be incumbent on the wounded perfon to call for his aid. The deftruction of the bitten part will be neceffary.

Among the various means of accomplifhing this, the potential cautery is to be preferred. It is the quickest in action; and it is alfo the nature of this vegetable alkaline cauftic, prepared in the ufual way with lime, to liquify on the part, and fpread, farther indeed than is generally wanted in common cafes. This is one reafon why I recommend it. Another is, on account of this very li quifaction, which makes it penetrate deeper, and therefore more likely to arreft every particle of inferted poifon. In this property of melting and penerating almost instantaneously, though rendering it inconvenient in other cafes, lies its preference here. Slaugh after flaugh may be reinoved by retouching, till we are fatisfied that all is deftroyed, wherever the tufk had entered.

The lunar cauftic has been used, but found to fail, even in the hands of the late Mr. John Hunter. In communicating formerly with me on this fubject, he doubted, indeed, whether every part had, in the inftance then under review, been fufficiently cauterized. But he was an accurate, not a careless or timid operator; and I apprehend that it was to the nature of the cauftic to which the failure was folely attributable. It penetrates but little, forms a hard efchar, and is fometimes days before it falls off to leave a new furface for retouching. The knife has been likewife found to fail; and, perhaps, through the difficulty of deftroying by it every particle of fibre inoculated with the faliva,

Refpecting internal medicines at this time, I am filent, There is as yet no difeafe in the fyftem, and internal remedies cannot remove a non-entity. Hav ing faid this, I need go no farther to deprecate the long catalogue of noftrums with which the world has been inundated for centuries, as cures or preventives of hydrophobia. Your's, &c.

Ipfwich, January 23, 1807.

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R. HAMILTON,

For

For the Monthly Magazine. THE LYCEUM OF ANCIENT

LITERATURE.-No. II.

OF THE LIFE, AGE, AND COUNTRY OF

HOMER.

VERY hiftorical account of Homer

every biographer, in the abfence of regular hiftory, has not failed to exhibit an hypothens of his own. In the poems which are indifputably Homer's, he has no where fpoken directly of himself; nor was there in his time any hiftorian (at

E must be fhort, as it can only be an leaft, we know of none,) to record his

ufelefs repetition of uncertain facts, and unfounded conjectures. There is no writer who has fo much engaged the attention of pofterity, and of whofe real hiftory we are lefs informed. An admirer of this great poet would fay, that he refembles the Deity, who is known to us only by his works. We know not where he was born, or (with any degree of precision) at what time he lived. If we confider him in the light in which he is tranfmitted to us by ancient writers, we must be contented to pafs from one abfurdity to an other; and, in the multiplied and contradictory accounts, fubftitute fabulous affertion for rational narration. It may fatisfy the fceptical reader to be informed by Suidas, that no lefs than ninety cities claimed the honour of having given him birth. In Euftathius, we read that he was born in Egypt, and that he was nurfed by a prieftefs of Ifis, from whom he imbibed honey inftead of milk. In Heliodorus, that he was the fon of Mercury. Others afcribe to him a direct and lineal defcent from Apollo. But these were the extravagant theories of men, who, unable to exprefs how much they admired the poet, have exceeded all bounds of probability in their accounts of him. The mind, apparently dazzled by fuch excellence, lofes the common idea of the man in the imaginary fplendour of perfection; and unwilling that he fhould ever be mentioned in a language beneath its conception, gives us fable for hiftory, The poetical genealogy, which may be feen in Suidas, proves that the advocates for Greece even furpaffed the others in exaggerated fiction, in proportion as the refinement of the Greeks was fuperior to that of the Egyptians. Gods, goddeffes, mufes, kings, and heroes, are linked in this wonderful defcent. Every writer who has pretended to give us an account of Homer, however he may differ from others in his narrative, is equally ftudious in afcribing to him a celeftial origin, and the most marvellous adventures. Eu ftathius, Heliodorus, Hermias, Diodorus Siculus, Suidas, Plutarch, and Elian, offered to the mind only confufed and contradictory compilations of the most abfurd allegories. His Life feems to have been invented, rather than written; and

name and the events of his life. Hero◄ dotus alone (who, by his own account, lived about 400 years after Homer) bas tranfmitted to us fomething like a probable narrative: but probable only in this, that, divefted of thofe fabulous defcriptions and incidents which abound in other writers, it is a fimple narrative of circumftances, which might have compofed the life of any other man as well as of Homer. It refis upon as meagre a foundation, and is as little fupported by authority, as any of the reft. It is mi nute and trifling, deftitute of colouring, imagination, and invention; confifting only of details which might have formed the life of any obfcure grammarian, it no where betrays the importance of the subject, nor the admiration due to fuch a poet; and offers nothing correfponding with the idea we entertain of Homer. If therefore, in common with so many others, we take from Herodotus all that we mean to fay hiftorically of Homer, it is not that we believe his account to be entitled to much greater credit than that of any other ancient, but because it has been more generally followed, and is in truth the only one deferving of ferious obfer vation.

Homer, according to him, was born at Smyrna, about 106 years after the fiege of Troy, and 622 before the expedition of Xerxes into Greece. His father is not mentioned; but his mother Critheis proving with child in confequence of an illicit connection, he was fent to Smyrna, a colony from Cuma. Sometime after her removal, accompanying a proceffion of women to a fettival celebrated near the river Meles, fhe was unexpectedly delivered of Homer, to whom the gave the name of Meleligenes, from the place of his birth. In procefs of time, under the tuition and inspection of Phemius, who had married his mother, he advanced with fuch rapidity in all the arts and improvements of his age, and betrayed fuch extraordinary intelligence, as to become the common wonder, not only of his countrymen, but of all the ftrangers who reforted to Smyrna, nttracted by its profperous trade. Homer appears to have poffeffed a great defire of informning himself of the manners and

customs

pared again for Athens; but landing at Ios, he was taken ill, died, and was bu ried on the fea-fhore,*

Such is the account we have of Ho mer, as fuppofed to have been tranfinit ted to us by Herodotus. But this is attributing to him a ftrange anachronism, of which he could fcarcely have been guilty by placing Homer 622 years be fore the expedition of Xerxes; whereas he himself, who was alive at the time of that expedition, tells us, in his hiftory, that Homer lived only 400 years before him. This fingular inconfiftency has been noticed by modern writers; but has not ferved to convince them of the impoffibi lity of ever afcertaining the age in which he lived, nor prevented them from advan cing the moft fingular paradoxes in fupport of their opinions. In general, they feem to take their rife from an error common to both ancient and modern critics, of afcribing to Homer a much ear lier period thau that in which he really exifted. What has chiefly led them into a belief of this high antiquity of the post, has been the fimple, rough, and often favage manners of his heroes; and a groundlefs fuppofition, that he has defcribed the customs prevalent in his own age. It has been fuggefted, that the first interefting ftories he had heard when a

euftoms of different nations: this be judged would be of confiderable ufe in the defign be had already formed, of making poetry the great buiinets of his life, But a defiuxion in his eyes, which afterwards occationed total blindnefs, compelled him to remain for fome time in Ithaca, where he is faid to have collected thofe tones of Ulyffes, which became the ground-work of the Odyffey. He then returned to Sinyrna; where, falling to poverty and neglect, he relieved his neceffities by begging, and reciting his verfes. At Cuma, in confequence of fome fuccefs in this employment, he was encouraged to addrefs the government for a maintenance; but was anfwered, that if they made it a custom of taking all the Oung, or blind strollers, under their protection, their city would in a little time be filled with fuch ufelefs creatures. To this circunftance the unfortunate bard owed his name. Irritated at his difappointment, he departed for Phocæa; and on leaving Cuma, prayed the Gods that there might never arife among his countrymen a poet to celebrate fo ungrateful a people. At Phocæa he applied more intenfely to poetry, and obtained the protection of Theftorides, who promafed him fubfiftence upon condition that be fhould be permitted to tranfcribe his poems. But in protecting the poet, he had no other view than to obtain from him as many of his pieces as he could; and when he had collected a fufficient number, he departed for Chios, and there opened a fchool, where he recited the verses of Homer as his own, and obtained infinitely greater emolument and fame than the original author himfelf, Homer was fometime after informed of the ftratagem, and refolved to fail himfelf for Chios to detect the impofture. But he remained fometime at Boliffus, where be compofed fome of his lighter pieces, particularly the Batrachomyomachia. At Chios he met with unufual fuccefs; and after defeating the iniquitous project of Theftorides, he himself maintained a flourishing fchool. Having now attained fome degree of eafe in his Should it however be inquired, how the circumstances, he married, and continu- report of Homer being blind became fo unied at Chios for fome years. It was then veríal, if he was not fo in reality, Proclus that he is fuppofed to have written his elfewhere informs us that, conformably to the greater poems; and his fame, no longer times in which Homer lived, he was faid to tragical mode of writing adopted in thofe confined to Ionia, quickly fpread into be blind becaufe he withdrew him felf from Greece. Having complimented the city fenfible objects, and folely-directed his atof Athens in fome of his verfes, he retention to fuch as are intellectual and divine. ceived an invitation to vifit it, which he For, according to this philofopher, the poems accepted; and paffed a winter at Samos, of Homer are replete with the highest in sa his way thither. In the fpring he pre- tellectual knowledge.

It is obferved, however, by the philo fopher Proclus, in his Life of Homer, that thofe who affert the poet to have been blind, appear to be themselves injured in their intellectual part; for Homer faw more than any mortal that ever exifted. He adds, that it feems Homer died when he was an eld man; fince the knowledge of things, which he poffeffed in fo tranfcendant a degree, evinces alfo to thofe who fancy Homer to have been the longevity of its poffeffor. In opposition poor, Proclus obferves that he must have been very rich; and that this is evident from the long journeys which he undertook both by land and fea, which are attended with great expence, and efpecially at those times, when fea-voyages were dangerous, and the intercourfe of mankind with each other was by no means eafy.

boy

boy were of the exploits at Troy, and that he had finifhed both his poems about half a century after the town was taken. But the manners which he defcribes cannot be adduced as a proof of the age in which he lived; for by the rules of his art as an epic poet, it would have been abfurd if, writing of an ancient event, he had not adapted the characters of his perfouages to the times in which he laid the plan of his poems. Virgil, who wrote fo long after him, gives the fame fimple manners to his heroes. All tragic poets, in ancient and in modern times, have endeavoured to fuit the manners and fentinents of their characters to the country and the era in which they are fuppofed to have lived. Why then thould we fuppofe that Homer might not do the fame? and that, though living himself in a polifhed age, he had the good fenfe not to afcribe to the rough warriors of Ilium the refined manners of his own contemporaries. It was easier for him to give to his herpes the lefs polifhed cat of an age long before his own, than to have anticipated, in idea, a ftate of refinement in language, in metre, and in the arts, which Greece could not have attained till a confiderable time after, There are fuch internal evidences in his poems of refinement, as ftand in direct contradiction to the roughnefs of his characters. The invocation of the Mufes in the fecond book, demonstrates that he lived long after the fiege of Troy; and this would feen almost incontrovertibly corroborated by an expreffion which he ufes, and which has been noticed by Velleius Paterculus, "that mankind was but half fo ftrong in his age, as in that of which he wrote." This expreffion, grounded on the fuppofed gradual degeneracy of our nature, difcovers the long interval between the poet and his fubject. The various articles of elegance and luxury defcribed in the Odyffey, betray a much later age than is ufually affigned him; and infer that he must have lived in more civilized times than can be confiftent with the fimplicity which he attributes to his herocs. The appearances of luxury and elegance in the Æneid, are nothing compared to thofe in Homer; and although the Greek orders of architecture might not then be invented, yet the ideas of magnificence confpicuous in his palaces might have been borrowed from the practice of much later periods than thofe he defcribes, from times more polished in arts, as well as more civilized in manners.

This conclufion will appear the more reasonable, when we confider the language of Homer, which, with the excep tion of a few words, is equal to the Greck of the prefent times. The formation of the language into Tenfes, Cafes, and Numbers, was already perfect and completed. This evidently proves that the Greeks had, long before his time, arrived at a confiderable, ftate of improvement. It was impoffible that the language should attain fuch excellence, as to require little amendment or addition, unless those who spoke it had alfo acquired equal excel lence in the arts of focial life and of civil government. It is the real perception of things, which gives birth to their respec tive ideas in the mind, and these again to outward expreffions, by words combined into fignificant fentences. That the use of a language to exprefs all the improve, ments of civilization, fhould precede the actual birth and progrefs of civilization itself, is a paradox that no man can urge who has not adopted fome hypothefis, inconfilient with the real truth, Homer, certainly wrote in the dialect which prevailed in Afia, down to the most improved times of the Grecian colonies there. And we cannot fuppofe that the language of thofe Ionic fettlers, fhould become any way fixed and pure, till long after the fettlement of the colonifts themselves, But without entering any further into this difpute, it is enough to fay, that we muit ftill have recourfe to the Arundelian marble, which affords the best computation of thofe early ages;-and this by placing Homer when Diogenetus ruled in Athens, makes him flourish a little before the Olympiads were established; about three hundred years after the taking of Troy, and one thousand before the chrif tian era.

The question refpecting the Country of Homer, is one of ftill greater difficulty. The internal evidence of the Poems may, and, as we have feen, occasionally do, ferve to contradict thofe affertions, which affign him a period inconfiftent with the ele gance of his language, and the refinement of his ideas. But the number of places which have difputed the honour of having given him birth, renders it impoflible at this diftunce of time, fatisfactorily to af certain the precife place, To mention all the cities and provinces which fe verally fet up a claims, to collect all the ridiculous affertions and documents which have been advanced as proofs from each, would require the minute curiosity and patient elaboration of his ancient com

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