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The enumeration of crimes and punishments is concluded in the spirit, and almost in the words, of Homer:

Non, mihi si linguæ centum sint, oraque centum,
Ferrea vox, omnes scelerum comprendere formas,
Omnia pœnarum percurrere nomina possim.

Æn. lib. vi.

In the enumeration of the topics, which constituted the song of Iopas, Virgil has followed his master, Homer, especially adopting, as far as his inferior language would admit, the ἥλιος ἀκάμας, without repose and yet without weariness, both which ideas are involved in the Greek epithet:

Hic canit errantem lunam, solisque labores;
Unde hominum genus, et pecudes; unde imber, et ignes;
Arcturum, pluviasque Hyadas, geminosque Triones;
Quid tantum Oceano properent se tingere soles
Hiberni, vel quæ tardis mora noctibus obstet.

Orion seems to be derived anò To give, from disturbing and troubling. This is the character attributed to that constellation by common consent of all the ancient poets, astrologers, and historians : a most formidable star, leading rain, hail, and storm in its train. Thus Virgil, Æneid, lib. i. : —

Huc cursus fuit:

Quum, subito adsurgens fluctu, nimbosus Orion
In vada cæca tulit, penitusque procacibus austris,
Perque undas, superante salo, perque invia saxa
Dispulit: huc pauci vestris adnavimus oris.

We have a spirited description of Styx, that river of which the gods themselves stood in awe :

Æneas, miratus enim, motusque tumultu,

Dic, ait, o virgo! quid vult concursus ad amnem?
Quidve petunt animæ ? vel quo discrimine ripas
Hæ linquunt, illæ remis vada livida verrunt?
Olli sic breviter fata est longæva sacerdos :
Anchisa generate, deum certissima proles,
Cocyti stagna alta vides, Stygiamque paludem,
Dî cujus jurare timent, et fallere, numen.

Æn. lib. vi.

The length of this article warns me to stop; though the topics of laudatory criticism afforded by the subject are inexhaustible. It will be perceived, that neither in this, nor in my other collections of miscellaneous passages, has my choice fallen on the most conspicuous parts of the respective authors. My object in making such selections has rather been, to lead my younger readers to look at others besides what may be called the Elegant Extract passages of the classics, not only with a critical eye, but in reference to those deductions and practical applications, which almost every sentence of an eminent author, whether ancient or modern, may furnish to acute, inquisitive, and reflecting minds.

QUAINT OPINIONS, EXPRESSIONS, AND MANNERS OF THE ANCIENTS.

ANIMA certe, quia spiritus est, in sicco habitare non potest.-S. Augustin.

Pliny says of the bear, "Nec alteri animalium in maleficio stultitia solertior."- Lib. viii. This is indeed a quaint and paradoxical attribute of Bruin's character. Not that the paradox involved in the antithesis, solertior stultitia, will not admit of an explanation analogous to that of vis inertiæ, and many similar combinations; but we are at a loss what to do with in maleficio. Folly may be busy, and bustling in left-handed attempts to do good, in impotent or accidentally successful efforts to do evil: but a consistent and well followed up plot of mischief, and nothing else could deserve the epithet of solers, must be an effort of strength, and not an ebullition of weakness. Harduin's reading of astutia for stultitia, proposed conjecturally without a shadow of authority, takes away the point and epigram of the sentence, and leaves the bare statement of a fact, probably in all the truth of natural history.

The Flibbertigibbet of Shakspeare and the Great Unknown is in close alliance with those familiar spirits or hobgoblins, conceived by the ancients to amuse themselves by wrestling with men merely to put them into a fright. Puck is

the most delightful of all hobgoblins; and Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his picture painted for the Shakspeare Gallery, proved how truly Shakspearian both his mind and pencil were. Pliny, in the preface to his Natural History, represents Plancus as humourously alluding to these ghostly opinions of the people: "Nec Plancus illepide, cum diceretur Asinius Pollio orationes in eum parare, quæ ab ipso aut liberis post mortem Planci ederentur, ne respondere posset: Cum mortuis non nisi larvas luctari."

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It is a practice among the vulgar, in modern times, to call down a blessing on the sneezer. We learn from Cicero, that the same absurdity prevailed among the ancients:-"Quæ si suscipiamus, pedis offensio nobis, et abruptio corrigiæ, et sternutamenta erunt observanda." But the modern benediction is only a remnant of a more extensive and ridiculous superstition. Not only was sneezing considered as a presage of impending events, but the prosperous or adverse characters of those events was calculated by the direction in which the prophetic convulsion took place, whether to the right or to the left.

The dying speech and confession of the swan was among the most strange fancies of popular belief. It was, however, well adapted to poetical embellishment and illustration. The swans of the river Mæander were supposed to be most zealous in undertaking their own funerals. Ovid makes Dido begin her pathetic remonstrance to Eneas with an appeal to this authentic fact:

Sic, ubi fata vocant, udis abjectus in herbis,

Ad vada Mæandri concinit albus olor.

Epist. vii.

There has been much dispute whether Horace, in his satires, means Tiresias to sneer at Ulysses, and covertly to express his private opinion of his own art, which is the most obvious sense, and lets down the pretence of prophecy to the level of the most ordinary capacity; or whether in the words,

O Laertiade, quidquid dicam, aut erit, aut non:
Divinare etenim magnus mihi donat Apollo,

Satir. lib. ii. sat. 5.

we are to adopt a construction, which shall make the passage a serious assertion of prophetic truth. The rules of interpretation will fairly admit the meaning to be, considering the sentence as elliptical, that whatever he says shall be, will come to pass; and whatever he says shall not be, will not take place. The probability is that Horace intended the sense to be equivocal in disguising the real meaning of the supposed diviner, he clearly, but safely, indicates his own opinion, that their pretended skill was mere imposition, and humourously makes the prophet assert his professional character, in terms as ambiguous as those in which his policy was in the habit of couching his oracular answers.

:

Herodotus represents the evil consequences to the Euboeans, of having rejected the advice of an oracle, delivered in unusually intelligible terms, involving little more than the plain dictates of Βάκιδι γὰρ ὧδε ἔχει περὶ τούτων

common sense:

ὁ χρησμός·

Φράζει βαρβαρόφωνον ὅταν ζυγὸν εἰς ἅλα βάλλη
Βύβλινον, Εὐβοΐης ἀπέχειν πολυμηκάδας αἶγας.

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