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pas que ce soit un mot hasardé dans la chaleur de la composition, l'auteur de qui j'ai tiré ce passage, Sidonius Apollinaris, y revient encore dans un autre endroit; et après avoir cité de nouveau' la brièveté comme le trait distinctif de Salluste, il loue particulièrement dans Tacite une verve féconde et intarissable.

Je crois avoir trouvé une des raisons de cette différence si sensible dans la manière de ces deux grands écrivains. Lorsque Salluste écrivit son Histoire, il était mécontent du sénat, qui l'avait chassé de son corps. Le sentiment dominant de cette ame était une humeur chagrine: or l'humeur est sèche, elle est brusque. Ce qui dominait dans l'ame de Tacite, c'était cette haine vigoureuse que le vice inspire à la vertu indignée. Or le caractère de l'indignation est l'énergie; ses accents sont forts et passionnés.

Montagne dit en propres mots que la manière de Tacite tire à celle de Sénèque. Assurément il n'y a jamais eu de jugement littéraire plus erroné. Tout le monde sait que Sénèque, d'ailleurs plein de traits brillants, parmi lesquels il se rencontre des beautés fortes et vraies, a trop souvent le tort de découper son style par de petites phrases courtes, qui arrêtent le mouvement de sa pensée, qui détruisent toute liaison, toute harmonie. Tacite, au contraire, procède ordinairement par grandes masses; et les réflexions même, les maximes, les traits vifs, au lieu de les isoler et de les détacher, comme fait toujours Sénèque, ce qui ôte infiniment de leur poids et de leur force, il a l'art de les enchâsser dans le tissu d'une phrase toujours pleine, quoique serrée, et qui presque tou jours joint le nombre à l'énergie. Lors même qu'il est précis dans les détails, il est large dans l'ensemble.

Une chose qui surprendra beaucoup de lecteurs, et qui semble contrarier les idées reçues, c'est que cette forme de style, que j'affirme être souvent celle de Tacite, était, suivant les anciens, la plus propre au genre historique. Cicéron dit en termes exprès que les formes périodiques et nombreuses conviennent sur-tout au panégyrique et à l'histoire.

Je me flatte maintenant que cette discussion aura fort affaibli l'objection qu'on prétendait tirer de la diversité des styles: car de même que P'Histoire de Tacite offre souvent, comme je l'ai dit, la rondeur et le nombre qui se font remarquer dans le Dialogue,

Et te qui brevitate, Crispe, polles,

Et qui pro ingenio fluente nulli,
Corneli Tacite, es tacendus ori.

2 In historiâ, et in eo quod appellamus EPIDEIKTICON, placet omnia dici ISOCRATEO, Theopompeoque more, illâ circumscriptione, ambituque, etc. Orator., ch. 24.

le Dialogue, de son côté, offre quelquefois la précision, l'énergie, et toujours la verve et la chaleur qui caractérisent l'histoire.

Juste-Lipse n'hésite point à mettre ce petit ouvrage au niveau de tout ce que Cicéron et Quintilien ont écrit de mieux sur ce sujet. J'avoue que je suis de l'avis de Juste-Lipse; et ce qui rend cet écrit encore plus intéressant, c'est que l'auteur avait au plus dix-neuf à vingt ans lorsqu'il le composa.

CASIMIR AND BURNS.

-Animæ, quales neque candidiores

Terra tulit, neque queis me sit devinctior alter.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL.

HORAT.

By those, who wish to make any considerable proficiency in the composition of Latin lyrics, it is now pretty generally understood that an acquaintance with the most successful imitators of Horace is nearly as necessary as a knowledge of the Venusian bard himself. A similar rule will hold good with respect to the acquirement of any other species of Latin poetry; and those, who are most familiar with the elegiacs of Sannazarius, of Buchanan, of Milton, and of Bourne, will be found to make the fairest approach to that ease, simplicity and delicate management, which is almost peculiar to the pen of Ovid. It is on this principle that, for the benefit of such of the British youth as are ambitious to excel in the former of these departments, and more especially in the structure and formation of the Alcaic stanza, I should humbly recommend an immediate reprint of the Polish poet Casimir; whose effusions, both in point of sentiment and harmony of language, are, in general, equal, at least seldom inferior, to those displayed by his great prototype and pattern, Horace. I know not how to account for the omission of the name of this celebrated poet in that very able essay, written by Dr. Knox, On Latin Verse as an exercise at Schools.

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In support of the propriety of my suggestion, I will present your readers with the perusal of one of his Alcaic odes, which, from its extreme beauty as well as brevity, will be every way suitable to the pose required. To this I shall subjoin two very beautiful stanzas inserted in the collection of poems by the Scotch poet Burns, and known to have been written by him at a very early age. They bear a strong

The title page of an edition of this poet, printed in 1721, begins thus: Horatius Sarmaticus, sive Matth. Casimiri Sarbievii Lithuani S. T. Theologi et Poetarum omnium facilè Principis Lyricorum, &c. So great indeed is the repute in which this work has been held, that, although it has already gone through twenty editions, it is no easy matter to procure a copy even at an extraordinary price. V. L.-There is a Bipontine Edition of Casimir in octavo, which we suppose to be cheap, and by no means scarce. EDITOR.

resemblance in certain points to the Latin ode of Casimir, and well deserve being compared with it. In the sentimental part Burns has dilated to a more considerable length. Take away the presence of the lyre with the consequent address to it, and the close of the first stanza, together with the whole of the second and the beginning of the third, of Casimir, will very well accord with the first of Burns. Both the compositions are admirable; and to doubt to which the preference ought to be given is only to bestow praise upon both.

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CLASSICAL CRITICISM.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL.

I beg leave, through the medium of your publication, to submit to the approbation of the future Editors of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the following Criticism on a passage of that excellent and illustrious author, which I hope will be found as just as it is obvious.

Οὐ βλέπεις τὰ φυτάρια, τὰ στρουθάρια, τοὺς μύρμηκας, τὰς ἀράχνας, τὰς μελίσσας, τὸν καθ ̓ αὐτὰς συγκοσμούσας κόσμον. Lib. V. Sect. 1. As in a former part of this section the good Emperor addresses himself to man, that he might engage him to perform the various offices of life with willingness and alacrity; so he here endeavours to shew that indolence is unworthy of man, since even the birds and insects, as the sparrows, the ants, the spiders and the bees, are all employed in their different stations, and perform actively their several duties. This leads me to believe that there is a slight error here, which must be manifest to an attentive reader; for as the reference was made to animated nature, the shrubs could not possibly be included.

After these observations, the necessity of an alteration will, I doubt not, be acknowledged, and it will also appear not less striking when I produce the words of Graves's Translation, which is the last and best: Do not you see the very shrubs, the sparrows, the ants, the spiders, and the bees, all busied, and in their several stations co-operating to adorn the system of the universe?

I therefore think that before rà purápia the preposition xarà is not only to be understood, but for the sake of distinctness ought to have been expressed, as all the Translators have been deceived from the want of it. It is indeed surprising to me that not any of them should have hazarded a conjecture on the subject; for the whole context sufficiently demonstrates that the question is not concerning Shrubs and Trees as ornamenting this material world, but concerning living creatures exerting their active powers: of this a more apposite proof cannot well be given than in the sentences immediately preceding the one already quoted. πpòs To ἥδεσθαι οὖν γέγονας ; ὅλως δὲ οὐ πρὸς ποιεῖν, ἢ πρὸς ἐνέργειαν ; and translated by Graves: Were you born then only to please yourself; and not for action, and the exertion of your faculties:

Influenced by all these reasons, I propose to read the passage thus:

Οὐ βλέπεις [κατα] τὰ φυτάρια τὰ στρουθάρια, τοὺς μύρμηκας, τὰς ἀράχνας

and it may then be rendered: "Do not you perceive among the

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very shrubs the little birds, the ants, the spiders, and the bees all contribute to enliven and adorn the system of the universe?"

The following citations may be considered as authorities in support of the use of this preposition, in a similar sense to the one which I have chosen, though the word admits of great latitude of interpretation.

καὶ δὴ περὶ ἀνθρώπων τοὺς λόγους ποιούμενον, ἐπισκοπεῖν δεῖ καὶ τὰ ἐπίγεια, ὥσπερ ποθὲν ἄνωθεν, κατὰ ἀγέλας, στρατεύματα, γεώργια, γάμους, διαλύσεις, γενέσεις, θανάτουςτὸ πάμμιγες, καὶ τὸ ἐκ τῶν ἐναν

τίων συγκοσμούμενον·

Plato quoted by Antoninus. B. 7. Sect. 48. When we are discoursing of the nature of man, we should take a view of these terrestrial affairs, as from a lofty eminence, and observe among the various combinations of society (literally in the herding of mankind: see also Iliad B. 480) their armies, their agriculture, their marriages and separations, their births and burials, their feasting and their mourning, &c.

Ηΰτε μυιάων αδινάων ἔθνεα πολλὰ,

Αἴτε κατὰ σταθμὸν ποιμνήϊον ἠλάσκουσιν.
Iliad. B. 470.

As numerous clouds of flies swarm around the peasant's hovel.

κατὰ ῥωπήϊα πυκνά

κείμεθα.
Odyss. E. 473.

We lay among the thick bushes.

Στυγέω μάχας παροίνους

Πολυκώμους κατὰ δαῖτας.

Anacreon, Ode 42.

I detest quarrelling and fighting among the festivities of the ta

ble.

These are only a few instances which I have produced, as I am willing to leave the emendation to the candid judgment of your readers, who, if they approve it, will readily suggest many other illustrations.

20th Nov. 1813.

J. W.

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