author, I would just observe, that it is a mistake of Bas. Faber, v. Lucifugus, to cite this manuscript, and then, which is yet worse, to say, that the manuscript reading is Lucifuga, and the vulgate Lucifugax, when it is just the contrary. MIN. FEL. c. 20. Quid illas aniles fabulas, de hominibus aves, et feras homines, et de hominibus arbores, atque flores. The observator is here again harping upon the old string, and because the passage is, as he thinks, ill worded, and not quite so clear as he would have it, he would strike out a part of it, and would read, Quid illas aniles fabulas, de hominibus aces, et feras, arbores, atque flores. Which is as much as to say, with the zany of the age, Viam aut inveniam, aut faciam. But Dr. Davies too makes a rout about it. The sense is, Quid morer illas aniles fabulas, scilicet, de hominibus aves factas, et homines factos feras, et de hominibus denique arbores factas atque flores. Feras homines, i. e. feras, quæ erant olim, et jam nunc in bestiarum formis, homines sunt. According to that in Ovid, And below, Mens antiqua tamen facta quoque mansit in ursa. Sape feris latuit visis; oblita quid esset, Ursaque conspectos in montibus horruit ursos : by which it appears that these beasts after their metamorphoses, were thought to continue the same persons, men and women still: the author therefore is not speaking, as Dr. Davies causelessly fears, of beasts changed into men, by which means, as he rightly observes, the transformation of men into beasts would be carelessly omitted; but he is actually speaking, on the contrary, pertinently, and seasonably, of men changed into beasts, and so all the common and ordinary mutations, which are said to befal men in the mythologic ages are really mentioned; feras homines is a locution of the same sort as diis hominibus, Alinuc. p. 101. which expression Cyprian likewise retains, p. 12. So numina lapides, Tertull. Apolog. c. 22. Jovem lapidem, Cic. Epist. Fam. 7. 12. and Apuleius de Deo Socratis; Sed illi debuerant adorare statim biforme numen, quia et canino et leonino capite commistos, et de capro, et de ariete cornutos, et à lumbis HIRCOS, et à cruribus SERPENTES, et à planta vel tergo ALITES DEOS receperunt. Tertull. eod. c. 16. And again, Quidam multo securiores totam vim hujus erroris VIRGINE CONTINENTIA depellunt, SENES PUERI, cap. 9. et Havercamp. in locum. Fabulaque manes, Hor. Od. 1. 4. 16. аviçшños cupog, Herodot. Clio, c. 32. where Gronovius the sou brings ἄνθρωπος εὔριπος, and ἄνθρωπος παμφόλυξ: Hostis turma, p. 192. of these observations, which it seems he could digest well enough: see also Is. Voss. ad Catullum, p. 21. In short, in these cases the substantives are either used adjectively, or it is an apposition, and the expression no other than those which are more commonly known, Admetus rex, Homo rex, Deus rex, and the like, or than those mentioned in the second letter, amnis Tiberinus, Nilus amnis, Indus flumen. As to the change of syntax or phrase in this sentence, I need not inform you, Sir, that it is common in the very best authors, I shall rather chuse to observe upon it, that here it is not, perhaps, without its peculiar beauty; the change of men into beasts is so easy a moral transition, and in the natural way, seemingly so much easier than either into birds or plants, that the author seems to have expressed himself accordingly, and as if there was almost no change at all, as if these fera were not so much de viris aut fœminis factæ, as feræ homines, feræ humanæ. Your most sincere friend, &c. LETTER VI. Sir, Two or three specimens of recantation shall make the subject of this, to which I shall add an instance or two, wherein I think he bears too hard upon others. Your most obedient, &c. MINUC. FEL. c. 21. Erigone suspensa de laqueo est, ut Virgo inter astra ignita sit. Methinks I would have ignita to be a more significant word than the observator would make it, and that astra ignita should mean the summer constellations. See Rigaltius; who, by the way, is that ONE person be intimates by SOME. But at last the observator himself says, p. 48. that he is doubtful whether it be a general epithet, or not. Astra ignita may perhaps mean the summer signs and constellations, of which Virgo is one. If there is any difference betwixt igneus and ignitus, so that igneus may be that which has heat in itself (as Virgil says igneus Sol, and Tertullian, ignea Zona, speaking of the flaming sword that guarded Paradise) and ignitus that which is heated by something else; if, I say, there be any such distinction as this to be made, then astra ignita must mean the summer signs, as thought to be heated by the sun; but as he has knocked his own observation on the head by an open retractation, I shall be at no further trouble about it: the reading here is ignata; now it is true, the alteration into ignita is easy, and natural enough, but it is no less so, should you change it into innata, that is, immortalis, ingenita, in which sense I've observed it often in Tertullian, a writer our author is well versed in, and once in Prudentius; the epithet upon this supposition has still a greater energy, it makes a pure absurd contrast with laqueo suspensa est; and Octavius seems to intend it should, for he goes on, Castores alternis moriuntur, ut VIVANT: Esculapius ut in DEUM surgat, fulminatur: Hercules ut HOMINEM EXUAT, Oetais ignibus concrematur. Tis pity St. Cyprian, who has what is here cited, verbatim, determines not the reading for us by giving us the other also; the observator testifies that the stars were thought to be gods, and if you want an higher authority, see Cic. de Nat. Deor. 2. 16. Clem. Alex. p. 22. ed. Pott. Plato in Cratylo. The letter g has so great a share in the compounds of Nascor, that the copyist might easily put ignatus for innatus; but possibly the old way of writing this word was ingnatus; Dausquins shews that the Latins often dropt the n, so that then it will be ignatus, and the g I suppose to be afterwards softened into another n, so as then to be innatus; and the like changes we may imagine in connatus, and by the same steps, congnatus, cognatus, connatus. The old Romans had the gn frequently amongst them, as ignotus, ignarus, ignavus, and forty others, but particularly in the branches of this radix, gnatus, gnaturio, and its compounds, prognatus, cognatus, agnatus; the g moreover seems to be an essential part of the radix, at least anciently; for whereas the compounds of nosco are supposed to have it, as ignotus above, because the radix is originally Greek, viz. from ywwoxw, so nascor is probably from some tense of γεννάω or γείνομαι; and so I conceive that those words were anciently read ingnotus, ingnavus, ingnarus, &c. in is most certainly part of the composition of these words, as also of innatus. Dausquius produces an inscription wherein is read singno v. sum, p. 45. But be this how it will, ignata may as easily be for innata as ignita. Æn. IV. 500. Non tamen Anna novis prætexere funera sacris Concipit, aut graviora timet, quam morte Sichæi. Here the observer propria cædit vineta, and is at last almost induced by an authority in Ovid, to agree with Servius in construing concipit, imagine, perceive, with esse understood: but otherwise you may represent the place thus, Non tamen Anna novis prætexere funera sacris So that nec shall be nec enim, and concipit shall refer to Dido, whilst credit and timet relate to Anna, and are joined by the disjunctive aut : if you should object that the poet says of Dido, ver. 474. Ergo ubi concepit furias evicta dolore, I answer, that there the author is rehearsing the matter of fact, namely, how it was with Dido in her own breast, whereas here he is speaking of her artifice and dissimulation, and how she appeared to her sister: as to the broken construction, 'tis frequent in the very best writers. So Luke ix. 39. where rò xgals is to be referred to the child, and the rest to the unclean spirit. See Raphel. on the place. Upon the whole, take it which way you will, concipit is a very justifiable reading. Georg. III. 432. Postquam exusta palus, terræque ardore dehiscunt; Here we would have read exercitus æstu, by conjecture, as we pre tended; but lest we should be found out, we were forced to acknowledge after, that it was in a very good manuscript Ursinus made use of; the edition of Virgil I use, is that cum Notis Variorum, Lugd. Bat. 1680, and there Cerda says expressly, "Ne abeat inobservatum, in nonnullis legi exercitus, vividiore (ut apparet) sententia:" which note, I presume, is likewise to be found in De la Cerda's own edition. Cerdanus you see testifies that exercitus is in more manuscripts than one, and seems likewise to approve it; what affected sagacity here is all this while? yea, what pilfering of fame by robbing the annotators? But as the various lections of the Colotian manuscript are observed to be generally glosses, and Lincolniensis has brought the observator to retract this note, our author is at last very safe from this attack; as I hope he is too from that of Mr. Markland, on En. IV. 450. fatis exterrita Dido. Who would willingly, though with just as much reason, and expressly against Servius's authority, correct it, fatis exercita Dido.. Exterritus in this sense is so much Virgilian, that nothing can be more; but this spawn of criticism, when they once get a favourite word by the end, are for thrusting it in every where, oftentimes in the author's wrong, and to the exclusion of a peculiar characteristical reading; these corrupters of antiquity are a pretty ancient fraternity, for we find Photius making a like complaint of Paulus Mysus in regard to an oration of Lysias the orator, Cod. 262. Παῦλος δέ γε, ὁ ἐκ Μυσίας, τόν τε περὶ τοῦ σηκοῦ λόγον, οὐδὲν τῶν εἰρημένων συνιεὶς, τῆς τε γνησιότητος, τῶν λυσιακῶν ἐκβάλλει λόγων, καὶ πολλοὺς καὶ καλοὺς ἄλλους εἰς νόθους ἀποῤῥιψάμενος, πολλῆς καὶ μεγάλης τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ὠφελείας ἀπεστέρησεν, οὐχ εὑρισκομένων ἔτι τῶν ὑπὸ διαβολὴν πεσόντων· ἅπαξ γὰρ ἀποκριθέντες, παρεωςάθησαν, ἐπικρατεστέρας τῆς διαβολῆς, ὥσπερ καὶ ἐπ' ἄλλων πολλῶν, ἢ τῆς ἀληθείας, γεγενημένης. But to return; if exterritus is to stand in the Georgic, I'll venture to say, it ought in the Eneid too; but to this very attempt of Mr. Markland's on the Eneid, I sincerely believe, is owing that of our observator on the Georgic; he stole it, or, to say the least, servilely copied it from this: to that idle and weak conatus of Lincolniensis, the observator's correspondent, on this passage of the Georgic, p. 64. of the observations, I need say nothing; the observator, in his turn, has demolished it; Sane et Acca Larentia et Flora meretrices propudiosa. Neither Arnobius nor Augustine say, that Flora was a deified harlot. It is probable, that our author and Lactantius, who assert it, are mistaken. All this is Mons. Bayle; as is also all Dr. Davies's annotation: I can't pretend here to take into examination every thing that Vossius and Bayle have said upon this subject, but shall content myself with making an observation or two in favour of the fathers. The charge at first glimpse seems to fall heavy upon our author, who, as writing before Lactantius, appears to be the father of this story; and much more because Tertullian, twice mentioning Acca Larentia under the character of a harlot, and he prior to Minucius, and sometimes exscribed by him, says not a word of Flora: but still here are but three against three, (for, as Tertullian is to be joined to Arnobius and Augustine, so is Cyprian to Minucius and Lactantius) three negatives against three affirmatives, or rather, three that don't properly deny the thing, but happen to be silent, and not to insist upon it. Now 'tis plain, that Lactantius has not herein blindly followed Minucius, for he relates the whole story with all the several steps of it, and consequently must have it from some other author: Minucius therefore invented not the story; nor yet Lactantius, for Minucius, it seems, just hinted at it before him; so that it is not these two authors that are mistaken, but some third writer, if any, whom they used in common: this fact therefore is far from giving just occasion to that severe reflexion Vossius makes upon it; Orig. Idol. 1. 12. p. 49. Of the two, the weight lies upon Lactantius; but there is no reason to lay the burthen even upon him, unless 'tis reasonable to suppose him one of the worst of men, and one of the most barefaced liars; the current of the story, as glossed over by the poet, he acknowledges, lies against him, but he may challenge all to gainsay him in point of the legacy, this is a matter of fact which must be true, he could never have the impudence to assert a falsehood of this kind; and it is most true, both Ovid and the scholiast of Juvenal, and Vossius, in spite of himself, confess this: again, the nature of the Floralia does but too plainly bespeak their origin, which as instituted more over by a harlot, as says the scholiast, to whom should they be instituted but to Venus, or one like unto her? Nay, Ovid expressly says, that Flora was the goddess of courtezans, thereby methinks intimating no less than that she was herself one of that tribe; and Augustine's words imply no less, Cujus ludi scenici tam effusiore et licentiore turpitudine celebrantur, ut quivis intelligat, quale dæmonium sit, quod placari aliter non potest." "Tis pretty plain, that the scholiast alludes to the very same story Lactantius tells; by agreeing with him in the rise of the Floralia, he fairly insinuates what he durst not speak out; they that hold the one, must hold the other. 66 In short, I cannot think that either our author, or Lactantius forged this story and then farther, that as Lactantius follows not Minucius, nor Minucius Tertullian, whom yet in other cases he is apt to follow, 'tis to me most evident, that they had it from some third writer, who was no Christian; and this I am the more persuaded of, because of the scholiast of Juvenal: now if this Pagan writer could by any means be found out, it would quite clear up this point; what if it should be Verrius Flaccus? Lactantius has that moment cited Verrius, and on the like occasion; nay, if we are to receive Vossius's emendation, on this very same occasion, viz. in speaking of Flora as a barlot; Verrius |