Then to come, in fpite of forrow, And at my window bid good-morrow.] Bishop Newton takes occafion, from this paffage, to admit, with Dryden, that "rhyme was not Milton's talent." "Several things," he obferves, " are faid by Milton, which would not have been faid, but for the fake of the rhyme;" and he particularly refers to the "in fpite of forrow," in this place; which he intimates to be what we used to call at school a botch, a mere expletive, foifted in pro carminis ufu. You and I, (who have a higher opinion of Milton's talent for rhyme) should not, I believe, eafily accede to this accufation against him.-I had once fuppofed it intended firongly to characterise the enlivening effect of the lark's matin fong, fo as to difpel at once any forrows of the preceding night; and poffibly with a recollection of the pfalmift's, "Sorrow may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning." Pfalm xxx. 5.-But I think you will agree with me, that we muft, in this inftance, look only to Sylvefter's Du Bartas: where the poet is describing the hap pinefs of him who leads a country life; The chearful birds, chirping him fweet good morrow, While the cock, &c. Stoutly ftruts his dames before.] Ev'n as a peacock To woo his mistress, ftrutting ftately by her, &c. &c. • Meadows trim with daifies pied,] Trim is no unfrequent epithet for meadows in Sylvefter: the flowers that paint the fields fo trim. The eternal verdure, and the trim profpect Of plenteous paftures, Pied, for variegated, is alfo Sylveftrian.-Moft readers, I fu fpect, have applied pied to the daifies themselves; and I confefs that I attributed Milton's "pied daifies" to Shakspeare's daifies pied and violets blue, in the fong, at the end of As You Like It. But we may as well understand his meadows to have been variegated with daisies; as are those in Sylvefter's Du Bartas: In May the meads are not fo pied with flowers. Where, in his defcription of Eden, we have the fame idea; With thousand dies he motleys all the meads. Pied is there alfo applied to flowers themselves; each bed and border Is, like pied pofies, diverfe dies and order. their fav'ry dinner-→ · Of herbs and other country meffes, Sylvefter defcribes the fruits of the garden of Eden, yielding More wholefome food than all the meffes, the jocund rebecks found,] • The rebeck, as Mr. Warton has noticed in the second edition of his Milton, is mentioned by Sylvefter as an inftrument with strings of catgut; But wiery cymbals, rebecks' finews twin'd, To many a youth, and many a maid, Dancing, &c.] • I think I have seen it fomewhere observed, that this line much expreffes the bounding of a dance. I will beg you to compare thei festive dance of Solomon's courtiers, masked as heathen deities, i the revels celebrating his nuptials; Here many a Phoebus, and here many a mufe,- Here wood-nymphs, flood-nymphs, many a fairy fawn, I fhall conclude the prefent fpeculation (which I hope you will not think totally unfounded,) by endeavouring to fhew you from the beauty and fublimity of many paflages in Sylvefter's Tranflation of Du Bartas's Weeks, that it is, in fact, a work very likely to have engreffed no fmall fhare of Milton's attention, and, in many places, no common degree of his young poetic admiration. Here I fhall lay before you paffages broken, as well as connected; compound epithets of effect; elevated, or apparently highly original phrafes;-in fhort, whatever I felt, or fancied, was likely, in any fhape, to have ftruck either the ear, or the imagination, of the young poetical reader,” P. 120. The extracts from Da Bartas are very copious, extending from p. 121 to p. 214 inclufive. That Milton had attentively read the works of Du Bartas Mr. Dunfter has fatisfactorily proved. That Du Bartas's weeks and days are the prima ftamina of Paradise Loft is not, in our opinion, rendered probable. But it is nevertheless certain that Mr. Dunfter has opened a field which future com-7 CRIT. REV. VOL. XXX. December, 1800. - 2 II mentators on Milton will do well to examine with minute attention*, and we have to return him our thanks for the entertainment and instruction we have derived from the perufal of his work, which is compofed in the genuine fpirit of criticism. Latin Profody made éafy, or Rules and Authorities for the Quantity of final Syllables in general, and of the Increments of Nouns and Verbs, interfperfed with occafional Obfervations and Conjectures on the Pronunciation of the ancient Greeks and Romans; to which are added Directions for fcanning and compofing different Kinds of Verfe, followed by Analytic Remarks on the harmonious Structure of the Hexameter, together with Synoptic Tables of Quantity for every Declenfion and Conjugation. By J. Carey. 8vo. 5s. Boards. Robinfons. THE fubject of profody we deem of effential importance to every student who is detirous of reading the claffics of antiquity with genuine relith, and of cultivating this branch of learning with critical difcernment. In the generality of our private fchools, in very many of our public, and almost univerfally, we believe, through the northern part of our island, this branch of elementary difcipline is moft lamentably neglected, to the fcandal and difgrace of the mafters who prefide over these feminaries, and who may be juftly regarded as fraudulent empirics in their art, and robbers of the public weal; for we turn with difguft from a boy of cager appetite for learning, who receives no more delight from the poetry of Virgil in its native arrangement, than from the fame poetry difmembered and mangled in the marginal order of a vulgar edition, and this through the fupineness or ignorance of his inftructor. We find no difficulty, therefore, in pronouncing an accurate. and comprehentive knowledge of profodaic rules abfolutely neceffary to every votary of the Greek and Roman muses. The general defect of the treatifes on this fubject, which have fallen under our infpection, is a technical inelegance and a jejune infipidity, which weary and dishearten the ftudent, who requires a mixture of pleafant inftruction to qualify the uninterefting tedioufnefs of long and recondite precepts; and we are happy in feeling ourselves able to recommend, very heartily and very confcientiously, Mr. Carey's publication, as learned, and intelligible at the fame time to every fcholar; as minute, but not frivolous; as comprehenfive, but not comparatively *Warton and Todd have quoted Sylvefter's tranflation of Du Bartas, het they do not feem to have heen much acquainted with it. burdenfome; as adapted to the capacity and information of the boy, and yet conveying fome leffons of inftruction, to which the ripeft proficients in the Latin language may profitably liften. From a publication of this kind, fo mixed and multifarious in its nature, it is not poffible to give fuch quotations as shall furnish an adequate reprefentation of the whole: we fhall produce, however, a few cafual paffages, by which our readers will be enabled to form a tolerably adequate opinion of Mr. Carey's abilities in this province, and the rectitude of our judgement in fo liberal a commendation of his work." 'In fome parts of these sheets I may be thought to have unprofitably wafted much time and paper on objects of very trifling importance-in beftowing, for inftance, two pages on the queftion whether fumat was intended for the prefent or the paft tenfe in Eneid ii, 3-and extending to ftill greater length the inquiry whether Virgil ever wrote " Obftupui, fteter Untque coma." If, on thefe and fome other occafions, the reader think me unneceffarily diffuse, my apology is this--When an obfcure individual like me dares to diffent from a generally received opinion, or from the opinion of fome man of established reputation-however un-important the point on which he happens to differ-he lays himself open to all the severity of cenfure if he venture to exprefs his diffent un-accompanied by the allegation of his reasons. Hence it becomes his du'y to state them in a full and explicit manner: and the public have a right to expect that mark of deference on his part. As to the long-contefted queftion of the fubjunctive -RIMUS and -RITIS, I am lefs apprehenfive of being condemned for the pains I have taken in my endeavour to bring it to a final decision, whether my opinion be adopted or not.-But fome of my readers— who happen not to recollect the fcrupulous attention paid by Cicero to poetic feet and measures, the serious earneftnefs with which he difcuffes them in his didactic compofitions, and the fond predilection he entertained for the concluding ditrochee which was fo grateful to Roman ears-may be tempted to fmile when I declare my firm perfuafion that he could not have pronounced the -RI- of the preterperfect otherwife than long at the close of the following fentences"Quanti me femper feceritis," Orat. for Milo, fect. 36, and "Quamquam, quid facturi fueritis, non dubitem, quum videam quid feceritis," for Ligarius, fect. 8. • However, when thofe readers confider the general burst of applause excited by the harmonicus cadence alone of the final ditrochee in "Patris dictum fapiens temeritas filii comprobăvit," as we learn from Cicero, in his Orator, fect. 214-when they reflect, that, in his laboured harangue for Milo, I find, on a hasty glance over the pages, at least a hundred and feventeen periods or members of periods concluding with the ditrochée, but not a fingle period which terminates with a pron of one long and three short fyllables-and when they take into the account the strong emphasis. laid on feceritis in at leaft the fecond of the above quotations- they may perhaps allow that my perfuafion is not groundless, particularly when fup, ported by the authority of Probus, quoted in page 54.' P. iv. A vowel is long by pofition, when it immediately precedes two confonants, or one double confonant (X or 2), or the letter I (or J followed by a vowel in the fame word, as Terra, Arāxes, Gāza, Major, Troja, Ajax. Sub juga jam Seres, jam bārbarus iffet Arāxes. Sicelides Mufæ, paullo majora canamus. Sacra fuosque tibi commendat Trōja penates. (Lucan. (Virgil. (Virgil. The reafon why the J makes the preceding vowel long, is that it is itself a vowel, not a confonant, and unites with the preceding vowel to compofe a diphthong, thus, Mai-or, Troi-a, A-ax, in the fame manner as Maia, Maius, Caius, Baiæ, Aiunt.' P. 9. In our opinion all words, in which the J is fo fituated, would be pronounced to great advantage, as abundantly more melodious, after the Greek enunciation, maiora and Troia, in preference to majora and Troja. But Greek vocatives in A, from nominatives in TES (changed to TA in fome branches of the Doric dialect), are fhort, as Polydectă, Oreftă, Æetă, Thyeftă, &c. (See Maittaire, and Clarke, on the nominative 'Inлота for 'Inπorns, Iliad A, 175.)' P.6L., This change of TES into TA, or more properly this fingular use of the terminative TA in the nominative instead of TES, is not affignable to the Doric dialect, but rather to the Eolian. Where the Greek n is changed into a by the Dorians, its quantity is preferved under the alteration, and continues long, whilft the final a in intoтa, μETIEтa, and others of this defcription, is invariably fhort. The anapæftic verfe confifts of four feet, which, in the pure anapæftic, are all anapæfts, as ....Pharětræ--quě grāvēs | dātē fæ-|-vă fěrō.... (Seneca. But the pure anapaftic rarely occurs we frequently fee the dactyl and fpondee admitted; and fometimes the anapæftic verfe does not contain a single anapæft. Gěnŭs, ō půĕrīnātī❘ per iter. (Seneca. -(Seneca. (Seneca. According to Alvarez's rule, the second or fourth foot never is a dactyl. If indeed we take for our criterion the anapoftics in Seneca's tragedies, the obfervation is true: but, if we look to the Greek tragedians, we find that they did not thus limit the admiffion of the dactyl, as appears from Æfchylus |